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Anyone else hypermiled a hot rod?

Friend of mine invited me on a trip to bring his new Roush 427R Mustang from Seattle to Anchorage. Redeemed some airline miles and Jim and Roy’s adventure was on.

Our main concern was fuel economy, something you don’t normally consider with a “big boy toy” like this. EPA estimate is 15/20, Automobile magazine averaged 12 mpg from their test vehicle and Autoweek got 12.9. Our trip in May is a time of year when not all the gas stations along the Alaska Highway are open so a 16.5 gallon gas tank could be a problem.

Took off with fingers crossed that the car could at least do it’s highway estimate. Stopped to fill up just before the Canadian border and surprise, we got 25 mpg. That took a big load off our minds.

We experienced just about all kinds of weather, including snow. That day started out clear, and slowly deteriorated. Turned to overcast, sprinkles, rain, slush then snow, and finally started sticking to the road. It was worrisome from the passenger seat as I could feel the tires break traction while climbing a grade. Roy was trying to maintain momentum but finally lost to gravity and snow. Next thing I know he is unbuckling his seat belt and as he bails out says “You give it a try!”. Oh great, he’s turning his new toy over to me in the worst road conditions. I was able to modulate the clutch and throttle to get the car moving (remember, if your traction tires spin, you’ve lost it) and on through the rest of the snow, about 40 miles worth.

On the last day our conservative cruising was interspersed with some hot rod fun. Roy decided to run her up to triple digits on a rare (for Alaska) straight smooth piece of road. My GPS recorded 143 mph. The car felt like it was pressed down against the road. Roy told be he didn’t even have the throttle all the way down. After a lunch break Roy turned the car over to me for the twistiest section of highway. Years ago I road raced a B Production Shelby Mustang and this car would eat it up. After swooping through one corner with a 30 mph warning sign Roy exclaimed ‘Sweet’. He was monitoring the GPS and told me I had gone through there at 65 mph. Amazing, I still hadn’t reached the limits of the car, the tires were not even beginning to slide.

Upon reaching Anchorage we filled it up for the last time and that tank was 23.8 mpg, even after all the fooling around. The results for the trip were; worst tank 19.8 mpg; best tank 25.9 mpg; overall average 22.6 mpg. So for the whole trip we beat the EPA highway by 13%, and the combined by 29%. Not bad for a car with a supercharged 427 hp, 391 ft/lbs beast under the hood. Those magazine boys must drive around with their foot in it all the time.

Told Roy that since I drive a Honda Insight, if he had any pangs of guilt about his Roush he could by carbon offsets from me. :D

I would have loved to been on that trip with you guys.
Thanks for the story.

Great story!

Must be extremely difficult to hypermile a car like that!

You would be amazed what some of these Hot Rods will get when kept to sane speeds.
I had a 65 GTO convertible with a 389 Tri-Power, 4 speed and 3.90 rear gears.
I took that car on a 600 mile round trip in the early eighties and got 19 mpg at 55 mph with the top down the whole way. Probably would have broke 20-21 had I driven it with the top up. Don't ask about the sunburn. :rolleyes:

I've run across a few guys that have dropped Ford 5.0's into their Volvo 740/760's and they are getting high teens in the city and about 24-25 mpg on the highway. Basically you lose about 1-2 mpg going from a turbo four to the 5.0. The gearing is what is making the big difference. 2500 rpms at 65 mph in the turbo four and about 1600-1700 with the 5.0.

I've run across a few guys that have dropped Ford 5.0's into their Volvo 740/760's and they are getting high teens in the city and about 24-25 mpg on the highway. Basically you lose about 1-2 mpg going from a turbo four to the 5.0. The gearing is what is making the big difference. 2500 rpms at 65 mph in the turbo four and about 1600-1700 with the 5.0.

At one point someone was working on an adapter to bolt that Ford tranny up to the Volvo block. The usual reason was that the TurboBricks guys kept breaking OD units on the M46 or weak 5th gears on the M47 due to too much boost, but the FE benefit sure would have been nice. I don't think I ever broke 30 even with the N/A engine and the manual+OD trans.

Yep the T5 will bolt up to a red block with a modified bell housing. Stop over at Turbobricks and ask. There was a few that were modifying them and selling the bell housing. Of course you could always call Ross Converse at Converse Engineering
and see what he is playing with. I know he has been dropping diesels into a few cars.

I was looking at doing a 5.0 conversion with a T6 transmission. Money wise it would be a good conversion in a I6 960 if you needed a new motor. Remanufactured redblock is a lot cheaper to replace than convert to a 5.0.
If we had 1.3L to 1.5L diesels available over here I could think about more than a few cars I'd send up to Ross for a transplant.

Sounds like a great trip. I'm jealous!

The story reminds me of a similar trip Car & Driver did years ago. Trans-Alaska Highway in a Corvette. They also ran into snow. That's about as much as I remember.