She's still dirty, inside and out. I thought that washing and detailing it would just jinx the Daytona and after all that work I'd be taking her right back to the shop. It felt that way for a while, it really did. I'd get her out of the shop, dirty and dusty, I'd clean her up, something would go wrong, and she'd be back at the shop again all to repeat the ugly cycle.
Anyway, just a quick update ... I'll clean her up this weekend.
Fuel economy!
Last Monday I filled the Daytona Shelby up full, so she had 16 gallons in her tank. I then drove her from Columbia to Hattiesburg and back, Monday through Thursday. Most of the time I did it with the windows down and the T-tops off, cruise set at 55mph. On Thursday, storms threatened and I had to pull over about a mile outside of the Marion county line to throw the T-tops on. I ran the AC all the way into Hattiesburg and then again from Hattiesburg back home to Columbia that afternoon. Each trip to work and back was 75 miles so the first week I ran up 300 miles in four days, used the AC the last day, then on Friday, Saturday and Sunday I drove the Daytona Shelby around Columbia in stop and go traffic. On Monday (yesterday), I started the day with ... 5/8ths of a tank of gas still left showing on the fuel gage. The needle was 1/8th of a tick mark above half full.
I don't trust the fuel gage completely, I'm still learning the nuances of this Daytona and her personality and she does have a personality. She lied to me about how much gas she still had right after I first got her, telling me that I had an eighth of a tank of gas left and flaming out on me when I only had less than a mile to go to refuel her.
Once bitten, twice shy.
I figured that 5/8ths of a tank of gas was good enough to go to Hattiesburg and get back home, again, at least one more time so I took the chance. At the end of the day, I was down to 3/8ths of a tank of gas and she was still going strong.
Tuesday morning I pulled into my favorite non-ethanol fuel station with just over a quarter of a tank of gas showing in the Daytona. Since the tripometer and odometer no longer work (gears and repair coming soon!), I decided to do some fuzzy mathematics. Knowing that the Daytona held 16 gallons and that I'd filled it up last Monday, I figured that if the fuel gage was close to accurate that with a little over a quarter of a tank of gas I should have about four gallons left, more or less.
I filled the Daytona Shelby up with 93 premium non-ethanol.
It took 10.8 gallons to fill her up and when the pump clicks off you don't try to put more in, not unless you want to see high octane gush out the filler neck. When she says she's not thirsty anymore, this girl isn't thirsty anymore.
So ... say that I used 11 gallons of gas in 8 days commuting back and forth to work and running around doing errands over the weekend. Take 5 days of commuting, at 75 miles a day (375 miles) plus say about 10 miles worth of running around over the weekend and that's 385 miles covered on 10.8 gallons of gas. Doing basic math that gives me ... 35.6 miles per gallon and I might can bring that up a bit with some basic tricks.
As far as gas mileage goes, that's twice what my '99 Lincoln Towncar was getting before I sold it so I'm happy with the fuel economy that the Daytona is giving back to me since now I'm using half the fuel each month to commute back and forth to work. For comparison, my '86 TA gets a little over 24mpg at 55mph driving the same style and my '04 Honda CBR600RR gets about 42 miles per gallon.
35.6 miles per gallon.
Not bad for a fuel injected, turbocharged, intercooled four banger Dodge muscle car that can run up to 135 plus miles an hour on the top end.
Yeah, if I can keep the Daytona out of the shop now, if all the gremlins have been cast out, then I think I got a pretty good daily driver and I plan on driving it until the wheels fall off.
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