hi fellas.
i may end up going to melbourne in the mini, but i cant at the way my fuel seems to dissappear.

i fill my car up and if i drive it above 60kph/or more than half throttle my fuel goes within like 2 hours of driving.. its insane. i drive 100kph for 20 seconds and my fuel guage goes from full to half.. (on a flat surface)

what stuff normally perishes and causes a fuel leak?
could it be my engine is running stupidly rich?
are there any other reasons for my fuel to go insanely quick if i dont drive as soft as a teddy bear?

thx for all ur future help

Are you sure it's really thirsty, and not the fuel gauge acting funny?

The faster I go, the lower mine reads. Then I stop at the lights or whatever and watch it climb back up to normal!
I've changed the sender, gauge, voltage stabilizer, checked the float, makes no freakin' difference...

If I stick the car on stands in the garage, I can run it up to 100 or 110KMH no probs, gauge is still reading right, steady as a rock.

Gotta be static electricity... I've given up worrying about it now...

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

Just a stoopid question, but does you fuel guage read properly?

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lol it wasn't such a stoopid question, the Doc got the same question in first!

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Ummmmmm, 2 hours probably isnt too bad, if you only have the 5.5 gallon tank on one side. That would equate to about 200 k's or so of driving on the highway.

As Doc says, it might be your fuel gauge. I know mine is out of wack. If I fill it up it goes way past the full mark, but when it gets to empty it only takes about 20l of fuel to fill it to the neck

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"He's always been a dickhead, He always is a dickhead, He will always be a dickhead. So stop complaining when he acts like one."

A blocked air filter can cause poor economy and can be very easily overlooked. When was the last time you changed the filter?

It sounds like he has the same symptoms as mine, whatever the cause is. I can fill it, do a drag for 1/4M with full reading at start and it'll show about 1/2 full when I get there. Slow right down and it comes back up... to full!

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

you see boys and girls,
its all part of our great law of physics.
Inertia.
as you drive and accelerate, the fuel is pushed to the back of the tank, and the sender must be reading the lowering level of fuel

850pvan, does it stay at a lower level? or does it come back up when you stop, like Dr Mini?

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Inconspicuously Conspicuous
Appreciation without Depreciation
forever chasing clearer skies...

Not when ya at a constant speed

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Yeah man, I dig physics, but after I finish accelerating, at a steady 110KMH it reads 1/4 full! As I slow down and stop it comes back up.....

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

hmmm, yes i shouldve known, as an engineering student they hammer that crap down your throat

im stumped. could it be the extra movement of electrons zooming around the car during high speeds/high ignition that funnies up the guage
ugh we'll never know

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Inconspicuously Conspicuous
Appreciation without Depreciation
forever chasing clearer skies...

Hmmm- it did it when I had points, did it with Pertronix and GT40, still does it with Pulsar dizzy and coil... oh faaark it..!

er.. if I fit the Bridgestone SF226s instead of Falkens or Yokos, it is okay.... but then it doesn't handle as well!

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

hmm....i realise that too with my 1.3i mini

despite it being 1.3 - i actually think it consume more or equal fuel to my 1.8 astra!

correct me if im wrong but
one reason i can normally think of is that the mini doesnt realli "roll" like other cars....

for eg, my astra will roll realli quickly down a slope but my mini just doesnt realli roll n more than often i find myself steppin on the accelerator while goin downhill......

bottomline i think it takes alot for the mini to get goin...

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98 brg rover

This is one way to find out exactly how much your car swallows fuel.
Back in the early eighties I had a hg Holden panelvan with a bung fuel guage so i did the following test to see how far I could go on a tank.
First i filled a 20 litre jerry can and put it in the car.
Then i drove arount town for a week and a bit until it just started to run out of fuel.
I then put the jerrycan of fuel into the car, worked out how many km i had done then went to the servo to fill her up. Now i had a good idea of how far the car would go around town on a full tank.
A couple of weeks later i drove from rocky to Brisbane and did the same test but this time i took extra fuel just incase. Did my maths again and the fuel economy was better.
About 2 weeks later i changed the fuel sender.

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76 1275 Leyland S

850pvan and I'm sure the good Dr (and all the rest for that matter) may be able to knock this theory on the head straight away but could it not be related to the charge being generated by the alternator? You say when going 'fast' you get a funny reading. Could it be that at high revs your alternator is producing more charge that could be playing with the guage?

Maybe a test like - Get you car in the situation where the fuel guage is playing up (fast, 100-110 pkh) then engage the clutch, let the revs drop off and see what your gauge does? You should be able to isolate whether it is 'charge' related or static electricity, generated by the movement of the car, as somebody suggested.