HXor

Its called hypermiling. It seemed far fetched to me but I have backed it up with a 100 even on my return trip home last night and have a string of low-mid 80's. The pic is just a money shot of my personal best. It is achievable and repeatable.

The commute is 9.6 miles. Normal paved road just off I35S in Mn with a 45% city/55% improved road split. If you read my above post with the mph figures - 48-52mph, Light throttle loading and achieving dfco(digital fuel cut-off , it's programmed into the ecm at the factory - base map? ). That pic was snapped after driving to work and after parking. Due to the limited battery capacity of the Civic I have not been using engine off (FAS - forced auto stop) to acheive these numbers. This is using the oem dfco only - BrucePick is really hammering the lean burn characteristics because his commute allows him the distances to make lean burn work - mine does not.
Pumafeet10 has been really working his #'s and is in the upper range for top tank mpg. ...I'm wanting to be there too.

0w20 engine oil, Honda MTL tranny oil, fresh tune up, Max sidewall psi +++ in the tires, reading the road and watching the ScanGauge are the major mods. The car has a cheap cai and a 2.5" Magnaflow catback that I'm sure are counterproductive to economy, but why replace what works?

p nut

Wow, that's crazy. I've got an HX, too, but my commute is 40 miles one way and I try to keep it at 65-70MPH. I'm in the 50's, which I thought was pretty good. Until now. :D

HXor

My self props have veered this thread a bit off topic- it was unintended. My apologies. The point of my replies... you don't need to spend a lot of money on modifications to net a large increase in fuel economy. Drive smart and keep up on maintainence.

p nut 50's are indeed pretty good! Like all things, where each person draws the line as to what is acceptable- is a personal choice. Just consider my record as inspiration. I bet if you try you can get even better than 50's.

Jimster480

yes you can. Just get a D16Y5 head. Get a Chipped ECU and set vtec engagement to like 2500 or 3000. And you have VTEC-E.

FearTheH

iTrader: (5)

im F'in lost...lmao. I need to get around 100 mpg on my em1 lol... im only getting about 280-300 miles to a tank compared to my old 400-430 miles on a tank...wtf

Jimster480

you cant get 100mpg on a b16. Sorry.

Have you tried replacing your fuel filter, plugs, wires, etc? Also running injector cleaner can help.

brucepick

HXor, I gotta hand it to ya - getting 80-111 mpg is super.

You say 0-20 oil?? Mine burns oil and I've been feeding it 5-30. Burns a quart in 1000 miles or so. Scary.

Did Honda change anything about the engines when they started recommending thinner oil on newer cars?? Or is it really OK to use the thinner stuff??

I hear it's common for Civics to burn oil but I'm still a Honda nooooob.

HXor

Another 110.1 over 8.6 miles this evening... I'm wondering if something is ... nah! but TY!

I'm using 0w20... 5w30 is recommended or 10w30 under hot/severe conditions. Honda had recommended the 0w20 for a year or three but have superceded *back* to 5w30. I'm not using any oil , but I have read , heard and saw that it is common due to the bore/liners. Use what you're comfortable with- if using oil maybe a 10w30 synth would be a better choice?

dE.fUsEd

Add air filter, fuel filter, and make sure you do the cap and rotor with the plugs and wires..

ESmooth

Ive struggled to get over 40MPG tank average in my stock 98 EX but high 30s is pretty normal for me. I do a lot of pulse and glide, and decel fuel cut off coming up to stoplights. Not willing to go the extra mile and do engine off coasting since it just seems like too much wear and tear to be starting/bump starting the car all the time.

A basic tune up has to be 1st along with increasing tire pressure. Ive been running about 50PSI for the last year with no ill effects and no weird tire wear. The scan gause is also so valuable to see if what youre doing is making any difference at all.

Im really tempted to get a tranny from a VTEC-E car for the longer ratios and lower RPMs at speed. A buddy of mine I work with gets high 40s without trying with one of those.

HXor

How long would the payback take in fuel savings be?

Zilcho

u gotta pay to play..... lol best way to do is a way where u have to have ultimate patience, and it takes a stick shift car...... just moderately go on the throttle til ur 5-10 mph above the speed limit then u let go of the throttle still in gear til ur 5-10 below the speed limit, in that time u go in a fuel cut mode. make sure u stay in gear to stay in the fuel cut mode cuz if u put ur car in neutral or clutch in, ur motor will idle which will take up fuel. when ur in gear ur motor runs by using the momentum of the car not needing to to make power. so when going down a hill, dont think going to neutral and letting it coast saves gas, staying in gear with ur feet off the gas will use no gas. and also with a stick shift car u can rev match. which lets u go down a gear when u get close to idle so u wont be in the gas guzzling idle mode and stay in gear still until ur in the lowest gear possible. also when u stay in gear and rev match to slow down, u dont need to brake which also takes up gas, if u dont believe me at a stop rapidly pump ur brakes in neutral and watch ur rpms go up. braking causes vacuum which takes up engine power which again wastes gas. also braking takes away that heat energy of making ur car move to stop. which is a waste of energy when u can take up no energy to stop. also shifting too early can be a waste of gas instead of saving gas, cuz if u shift too early, it causes more load on ur car due to the gear ratio, this will make ur car drink in more just to make the car run and accelerate under that load. so shift early, but not too early, like 1500-1800 is way too early no matter how desperate u are. 2500-2750 is usually a good time, maybe 3000 if u need to (like 3rd to 4th usually). and if u have anymore questions on conservative driving habits just hit me up.

ESmooth

I suppose it dpepnds on a lot of factors, where the tranny comes from, whether or not it needs a rebuild etc. As my daily driver/beater, I expect to have this thing for years and years. Its got 220K miles and runs great and I dont doubt I can get another 220K out of it. I can fix just about anything that breaks and motors are dime a dozen. I figure it would be worth it for me to do it, although it may not make sense for others.

F150guy86

Like others have said, driving habits make a huge difference. I installed a $40 vac gauge to help me see what was going on at different rpms and how much "foot" I was using. I also pumped up my tires and did a tune up. All this combined boosted my mpg's by about 4-5. I am on average getting 38mpg in my '97 EX coupe with about 90% highway driving.

rkcarguy

Driving habits and your commute/route have a huge impact. I have a Honda Orthia B20B swap with LS trans in my EG sedan and see 30-33 mpg average. The motor has so much torque that it easily pulls 5th gear ~2000rpm. This is mixed city stop and go with about 1/2 open 50mph county roads with few stops. I'd imagine I'm upwards of 40mpg at cruise. The cool thing is there is more to be had. I have wide high performance tires, have never aligned the car since I dropped it, and I'm not running my tires max pressure.
FYI the coupes and sedans have a better shape and deliver slightly better mpg than the hatchbacks, due to the lack of the chopped off *** found on the hatch.
Search for the Aerocivic if you want to see extreme mpg.

HXor

that would be Basjoos - check out the ecomodder site.

tw1tch

I dunno about that. The hatchbacks weigh less than the coupes and sedans, so I still believe a hatch with the same setup as a coupe will get higher mpg.

ESmooth

Depends on where you drive. In low speed stop and go situation, aero is not as important but it has a much more dramatic effect at speed. Theres talk of measurable improvement in highway mileage from removing the passenger mirrors, windshield wipers, radio antennas and undertrays, all of which would little to no impact at low speeds.

Weight is really only an issue when starting off from a complete stop or accelerating from lower speeds. At higher speeds its impact is much less.

pumafeet10

hatchbacks have better air separation then sedans and coupes, creating a lower cd

p nut

How so?

Jimster480

where did you get this information?

ESmooth

I would also have to disagree, you want the air to be able to meet as cleanly as possible in the rear. Everything in nature and engineering that is designed for optimal aero/fluiddyamics or is at the whim of phsyics has a tapered end, for example, fish, airplanes, raindrops, F1 cars and birds. If a big square back was a better design, we'd see a lot of flat-assed birds and fish.

Former User

I think these ideas are dead on. I have heard that nearly all future changes to improve gas mileage of cars will focus on modifications in aerodynamics rather than weight as the former has a greater impact on gas mileage reduction for most modern cars.

Former User

I think what we have here is an aeronautical engineer with a sense humor.

pumafeet10

If you look at the back of a hatchback and coupe/sedan behind the rear window trunk area there is always an area of turbulence.

If you look at the back of cars like the new insight or prius the back kind of cuts off .

The area at the base of the rear window on the coupe and sedan is somewhat of a trap for air it follows the profile of the a bit and creates drag, not a lot by any means but from google searching the coupe and sedan is .1 higher cd compared to the hatch.

Its not much and really nothing to compare or even to worry about until you do something like a boat tail like Basjoos.