Poor Fuel Consumption K series?

[Rob Board]

Just read a thread about a 1.4K series and perceived poor MPG. Chris W replys saying "when driven hard my 140 bhp K returns a little over 40MPG" I say BL**DY HELL???? How do you do it. My 8 month old 140 BHP K does only 29-30 when driven hard, or cruising at 90mph on the m-way (100 mile round trip to work each day), 95% m-way, or 25-27 mpg when driven really hard down the twisty bits. Is my MPG too low, seems acceptable to me but if it's not the norm I'd like to know why. My engine IS burning too much oil which is due to be sorted over the winter by Caterham when its off the road, which may account for it??? Possible low compression etc, but your thoughts about the mpg would be greatly received. I,ve already prepared myself for the barage frm the X-Flow boys about "30 mpg, sounds like a taxi to me etc etc 😬 😬"

Thanks in advance Rob

[Rob Walker]

Rob,

 

25-27 when driven hard you`ll be lucky, your obviously not driving that hard. On track you can expect less than 10 mpg.

[Allen Payne]

Sounds similar to mine, about 32mpg on mixed driving, possibly slightly higher on motorways.

 

Remember the poor aero dynamics of the car at higher motorway speeds will lower the mpg.

 

Regards

Allen

[Steve-B]

with our SV/VHPD we get about 30 on a light push road trip. heavy pushing puts it down to

22-25 and track days, well 7-10 is good 😳

 

Steve

210Bhp Sinister Version-VHPD here

[Jason Plato]

mine does around 22 mpg on the road and less than 8 mpg on track 😬

 

Come on boys , stop moaning - you should install a 130PD VW engine

 

dave

[Peter Carmichael]

You might find people are using the Caterham odometer to indicate distance. A 10% error in the odometer will cause 10% optimism in the MPG. I know my 1.6SS used to return 39-40mpg when cruising in the 85-95 bracket according to the Cateeham odometer.

[Chris W]

There was a thread a couple of weeks ago, just after Stoneleigh, where I commented that I was amazed to be getting 40.5mpg after driving over 200 miles round trip to Stoneleigh and back. Although it was all road use, I wasn't sparing the horses and was pushing my foot through the floor wherever possible on country roads. I judged consumption by "litres to fill" not by the fuel gauge.

 

The comments that came back at the time seemed to indicate that 40mpg was not unusual for a 140hp 1.8K with the metal plenum. Even if the odometer is 10% out (either way presumably) that still means my actual consumption was somewhere between 36 - 44 mpg. However, the comments that are coming back now seem to imply that 40mpg is bloody marvellous if not impossible.

 

If you'll excuse my altering a French adage "la plus la meme chose, la plus ca change!"

 

yours c *confused*nfused

 

Chris

 

1.8K SV 140hp see it here