I drive my TPI 350 Vette 110 miles a day every day, so I have pretty solid mpg numbers on it:
With the headlights retracted, top on, and windows up, I get a no-BS 26 mpg on the highway with a combined city/highway of 24.
Aerodynamics make a noticable difference: Even running with the headlights in the "up" position will drop the 26 down to 25, and running with the top off will drop highway mileage down to 24. Running the car in the "clean" configuration, best mpg with the overdrive transmission occurs at 70 mph turning 1700 rpm. Running an A/F monitor shows cruise mixture to be dead on at 14.7:1 when best mileage is achieved.
It's possible to get a carbureted small block to run similar numbers, but you do need to play with the IFR sizing and low speed air bleeds in order to get the cruise mixture optimized for mileage: Primary jetting has little effect on cruise mixture, since most fuel at cruise is metered through the transition circuit, which is controlled by the IFR sizing and not the main metering jets. If you try to jet a carb down enough to lean out the cruise mixture to optimum, you tend to get severe stumbles and poor WOT performance. For this reason, few carbs are really mpg optimized for their specific application, making it appear that TPI is the only way to squeeze the mileage out of these cars. With a bit of work and a good A/F monitor, you can get very good cruise mileage numbers from a carbureted small block.
Lars