Fuel economy monitoring system for engines of vehicles

Claim 1

A fuel economy monitoring system for engines, particularly of vehicles, to monitor intake manifold vacuum of a vehicle engine being subjected to speed and load changes to obtain the most economical fuel consumption rate in keeping with the operator or driver''s operating objectives, comprising, in respect to a vehicle: a. housing to contain many of the components and to be secured to the vehicle structure at any location; b. an enclosed relative pressure or vacuum diaphragm subassembly secured to or within the housing having a movement indicator rod projecting into the housing for translating movement therein and having a receiving structure to receive a vacuum hose coming from an intake manifold of an engine; c. a light filter sub-assembly within the housing secured to the diaphragm movement indicator rod of the diaphragm sub-assembly, for direct movement therewith and having multiple colored filter sections such as green, amber and red respectively, adjacent one another and in line, green indicating higher vacuum and excellent fuel economy, amber indicating lower vacuum and somewhat reasonable fuel economy, and red indicating little or no vacuum and poor fuel economy, and the transitional blended colors indicating the changeovers in status; d. a light sub-assembly attached to the housing and positioned to shine light through a portion at a time of the light filter sub-assembly; e. a light pickup sub-assembly to scan the lighted portion of the light filter sub-assembly, attached to the housing, having a fibre optic bundle sub-assembly extending from within and beyond the housing to convey the image of the scanned lighted portion of the light pickup sub-assembly to a remote location, as the extending end of the fibre optic bundle is secured to the vehicle within the peripheral field of vision of the vehicle operator, and f. a calibration sub-assembly, comprising in turn: a. an adjustment screw with an anti-rotation member mounted for translation through the end of the housing; b. an adjustment nut threaded on the adjustment screw externally of the housing to regulate the translation movement of the adjustment screw; and c. a coiled tension spring secured inside the housing between the end of the adjustment screw and the end of the diaphragm movement indicator rod, this calibration sub-assembly being utilized to match both a vehicle''s engine general operating characteristics and in addition the driver''s personal desires of engine fuel economy versus overall vehicle performance.