just getting farmiliar with this car. looking for some of your knowlege on the accuracy of the fuel gauge readings throughout the range -full to empty-. does 1/4 of a tank read 1/4 ect... i expect its pretty consistant being a "square tank".
AND
what kind of M.P.G. do many of you experiance on daily non freeway mixed driving (heavy footed) . this is a stock 1.7 fuel inj. with pertronic ign.

Mine is about 20ish, but my engine is old......................

i run about 340F in calm wind going 75

I consider the fuel gauge a reference. What I pay attention to is the light that comes on when the fuel is low. When it starts illuminating in corners it's time to start paying attention. When it's on all the time it's time to head straight to the gas station.

Also, there are tricks to filling the gas tank up all the way. Most fuel nozzles will shut off well before our tanks are full. Remember, we don't have a fuel tank filler neck.

The pump's auto cut-off stops when my tank is 3/4 full. To get up to 4/4, I have the fuel nozzle just barely inside of the filler (do not run the pump wide open when doing this or you will splash fuel everywhere). I'm not normally concerned about this though as I don't have the chance to take too many long drives. For around town, not having a full tank all the time just means hauling around less weight

1/4 tank on MY car = about 1/2 gallon at most. I never filled my tank all the way (I only drove the car ~ 200 miles before the engine/trans swap started) so I don't know about that end of the gauge.

with a full tank mine never goes higher than a little past 3/4.

but at least the low fuel light works!

I've found mine to be pretty accurate. At least I think it is.
I estimate around 21 mpg with my foot in it most of the time. More when driving lightly.

Im with McMark, I only trust the light.

The rest is cute, but meaningless to me.

Rich

I use the 2/4 reading on my guage as my "get gas now" signal. One reason is that I don't trust the low fuel light. I also like to keep the fuel tank full to avoid condensation.

For reading accuracy, I think the fuel sender and fuel gauge work well together. I tested my fuel sender outside of the tank and basically full tank reads 4/4, 3 quarters reads 3/4, half tank 2/4, and 1 quarter reads 1/4.

This is where the linearity ends since the shape of the gas tank is not a pure rectangular volume. Because of the footwell, the bottom 1/2 of the tank holds a lot less volume than the top 1/2. Thus the gauge basically reads the height of the fuel in the tank, not the number of gallons left.

Because of the shape of the tank, 2/4 on the gauge is probably equivalent to about 1/4 to 1/3 of a full tank.

Spoke

Put a full gas can in the front trunk. drive it till it runs out of gas. look at gas gauge. don't let it get there again!

II havent ever in five years of almost constant driving been without gas....

when the light comes on, I believe there is around 2.5 Gallons of gas in the tank.

When the light comes on when I turn, I fill up.....

As long as the needle is moving when i corner, i'm good. When It gets lower than that the fuel pump starts making not good noises....

BJH