[north]

Took my lemans out today for a long run through upstate New York. It was my first long drive sice doing the engine swap last month.

The car had its born with 350 2bbl (with AC, T400 and 2.56 safe-t-track with factory duals. It still ran nice but I had in mind for many years to transplant a 350 HO into it. Never found the right one so instead I used a 69 YS GTO engine, gave it a quality stock rebuild with a compression cut to 9.5 and a mild 066 equivilant cam. I make it visually correct as a 350 HO with painted valve covers and the unique 350 HO air cleaner which was basically the single large snorkel unit like a 68 GTO but with a black lid.

Really nice set-up with the gearing; smooth, quiet but effortless torque for passing and hills compared to the 350-2V. What was amazing today was my mileage. With the original engine I always ran 14mpg (US gallons) around town and 15.5-16 on country cruises.

Today I averaged 20mpg, 175 miles and I was reading a hair under 3/4 (which is actually halfway of usable fuel) when I fueled. I double checked all my numbers and it's right. I'm curious to see what my around town mileage will be like.

Amazing to have a 25% improvement despite adding 50 cubes. I guess it shows that a fresh engine helps and that a Q-jet driven gently is much more efficient than a 2bbl.

My GTO's on the same run average about 16mpg and 13-14 around town which I guess is related to gearing and cams (my GTO's are ram air cars with 068 cams.

What kind of mileage do you guys get?