L31MaxExpress
I'm Awesome
I was recently unpacking some boxes that came from my mothers house when we moved her to the new house she bought. I found the mini spiral notebook my dad kept track of fuel ups with on the old 1983 G20 van in the late 90s and the last year of entries was after I got my license in 2001 and started driving the old tank. Some of the log is in my moms hand writting because she drove it daily for several years after the 97 was around, before she got a new 2001 Sentra to run around in when I started driving. The sending unit was a dud in the thing so the mileage book was a reference of how much gas the thing had in it to keep from running out. It had a 33 gallon tank but we were careful not to run out. I know the years because of the dates and the change to my handwriting. A Q-jet fed small block backed to a 700r4 was not half bad on fuel even in a brick of a G20 van. The log goes from ~110K miles to 165K miles over a ~4 year period. I happen to also know the last long road trip my parents took us on in the 1983 was to a family reunion in eastern TN in the Summer of 1998 before we got the 1997 Express in Fall of 1998. That was right after they had raised the speed limit back up to 70 mph after old double nickle days. We filled up in Tennesee and my dad cannonballed that old G20 back home to Fort Worth, TX in 1 day (06/13/1998) something like 800 miles. Just thought it was cool to see real world fuel economy numbers on a higher mileage SBC with a Q-Jet. Over 17 mpg with the old A6 cranking out cold ac, there are stock 5.3L trucks that struggle to do that. Almost every entry was over 13 mpg even in daily short trips around town and that includes my 16 year old right foot. I am an EFI convert all the way now, but to this day I would not be scared of daily driving a Q-Jet fed SBC in a vehicle that came with one. This was a solid mix of stuff too, sometimes towing a utility trailer or boat.
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