Ok.. when taking apart my 305 last saturday, I noticed a few things. Besides the fact that the car has been GUZZLING gas lately, I noticed a few mechanical mishaps; The carb was not tightened very well, the intake-manny was not tightened very well, the exhaust manifolds were loose, the spark plugs were BARELY hangining in the engine, the distributor is TOTALLY shot and is arching like CRAZY in 2 places, and the O2 sensor is shot so the car is running at full-rich.
See, the reason I ask such a dumb question is because the car still HAULS ***. I could not tell anything was wrong with the car! AND.. there is no exhaust after the already-shot catalytic convertor.
So.. the question; did all this stuff wrong w/ the 305 kill the performance or make it suck more gas?
Thanx all,
Matt

 

I have not had the car on the road in 4+ years, and I am in the midst of rebuilding it now. I am asking wether or not all this stuff wrong with the car killed the performance or gas mileage, as I could not tell as it has been so long.

 

well it sure couldn't help it.

how much...hard to tell, things could have been just tight enough that it didn't start causing a problem.

and hauls *** is a relative term

 

Yeah, agreed- it couldn't have helped. Mileage will definitely be way off if the O2 is shot. However, at WOT vacuum leaks and a full-rich carb won't actually hurt very much. The arcing ignition will ALWAYS cost you power/mileage whether cruising easy or hammering on it.

 

Ya, I figured the arcing distributor and the full-rich carb would kill me more than anything; but I also figured that not having the manifolds tight would also be killing me. Why would the extra air-leaks aquired from all over the place not hurt anything? Or the plugs being not tight at all hurt anything?