Daily Driver.. LA318 vs 360 Magnum

AJ/FormS said
Listen fellas; I keep telling you that the world is lying to you, and that the government is not your friend, and.........
Have you not noticed that the cars of today, after 75 long years of evolution since the 265 came out (1955), are still only doing relatively the same fuel economy, size for size? Oh they have worked so hard on complicating thechit outta them, and brainwashing the masses that their wonderful next-gen whatever will do wonderful things for us; which they never do.
>I tell you what; the 273 is a 4.47liter engine. Install a 4bbl and headers on it, but Combo it up like your favorite modern tricked out direct-injected VVT, whatever; with the same 8-speed auto, and 200/220psi cylinder pressure, and stick it in your lightweight 65 Barracuda, and see what happens.
Every modern car you climb into, is a rolling tax collector, from the the first mile to the last mile; it is not actually designed for fuel-economy; rather, it is designed to generate revenue for someone way up the food chain, to spend on stupidchit to brainwash you with.
But I digress,lol._________________

When the factory installed 2.45s into the super low-pressure early-80s 318FAs, they were on to something. My Dad had one and kept a log-book. It rarely got less than 25mpgC/20 USg. My Dad had 6 sisters and 6 brothers, scattered across the Prairies, and he loved to go visit them in his retirement years. He had that car long enough to install two timing chains. I did the second for him, and put a dual-row in it.
But the factory could have done so much more.
In 2010 when Dad died, I inherited that 1984 FA.

First part, emissions. There's no way in heck you're going to get less than 10x the emissions of a modern car out of a mildly hopped-up 273 designed in 1964 especially when the tune is optimized for fuel economy (or power). And if you think throwing cats on it will fix it it might help but then you have to tune your cruising mixture to be 14.7:1 and there goes a few MPG, can't lean it out or you'll "wear out" the cats. I agree regarding the modern transmissions though that's where most of the MPG comes from. Less frictional losses and way more gears to keep the engine at the optimal RPM for the situation. I don't buy into emissions being a conspiracy either I learned a lot about it in my Internal Combustion Engines classes in engineering school, it's very real and the effects are quite bad for the environment. Heck we have ozone problems on the Front Range in summer time due to the high temps and sun and part of it is due to pollution from cars; sometimes it's bad enough there are days when people are told not to go outside unless it's absolutely necessary. Doesn't mean I'm about to throw cats on my Duster it's just something to think about.

Regarding the 2.45 gears, maybe they're acceptable at sea level but the 1988 5th Avenue I had came with 2.21 gears; acceleration was sooo bad it was literally the slowest car on the road and just trying to merge onto the freeway was scary. After switching to 3.07 gears in an 8 1/4" I got out of a Jeep Cherokee the acceleration vastly improved and my AVERAGE gas mileage stayed the same. I'm sure highway mileage went down and city mileage went up which was OK because I didn't only use it for long highway trips. I also averaged around 20 MPG btw.