On Fri, 21 Feb 2003, Ian X wrote:

> ya I was thinking the old v-8 juice ad myself, it'd be
> pretty cool, but as it is, the vangon doesn't exactly
> sip gas. It seems a lightly loaded larger engine would
> get nearly the same mpg as a highly stressed small
> engine.

Maybe, maybe not.  There's the matter of throttling loses in gas engines
-- at small throttle openings, high RPMs, and light loads, the engine ends
up having to draw air through a relatively small opening.  This creates a
partial vacuum in the manifold that takes energy to overcome.  Not
applicable to diesels, of course.

             _ _
  __ _ _   _| | |  | David M. Brodbeck (N8SRE)              Ypsilanti, MI
 / _` | | | | | |  +-----------------------------------------------------
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 \__, |\__,_|_|_| "...we're not getting the creeps who knocked the
 |___/             buildings down.  We're getting the creeps whose
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