lil_civic

howdy, am pretty new to this forum (this is my first post here)

jest wondering what mpg y'all get and what advice (apart from easy off the right foot) you can give.

i've got a UK (or possibly french, sais made in japan on shell, made in france in other bits) 1.5 16v single cam 1994 LSi 3 door hatch

it's got 118,000 miles, uses a little oil, but not alot, never uses water and starts first go of the button. The only modification (engine wise) is a mugen cone filter

my tragedy with it is this - to a full tank of petrol (£37 of shell optimax @ 85.9p / litre) i only get 200 miles about town. On thursday i drove to manchester and back, a round trip of 520 miles and it cost £60 in fuel. - the whole trip was done @ between 80 and 105 mph, bust mostly the 80 figure coz of traffic and bad rain that night.

someone has told me it could be to do with something called a lambda sensor (?!?!?), another mentioned my air filter as the culpret.

any advice welcome, coz it's costing too much, i know a couple of ppl with VTi's, and they get much better mpg than me, and push jest as hard with the shoe.

Boostage

you need to get a tune up and have the fuel system serviced, basically that invovles cleaning the injectors out, like with seafoam. but also some performance modifications like intake and full exhaust should help while cruising around and weight reduction or anything you can do to make the engine more effecient. so here is a breakdown:

clean the injectors
spark plug
wires
rotor and cap
replace the stock intake and exhaust with better flowing aftermarket ones
weight reduction
use high quality gas

lil_civic

i have used fuel system cleaner additiveto do the cleaning, might hit anothershot on it, the spark plugs were changed for bosch super 4's about 2,000 miles ago, and the intake is a mugen aftermarket cone filter.

rotor, cap and leads - i'll do these tomorrow, forgot all about them at last service (oops)

the petrol i use (or gas if you like) is shell optimax, basically the best available in the UK, highest RON etc

the exhaust system, do you mean full system, just cat back, or just manifold ? due to high fuel bills, money has recently become an issue for me. - fuel is very expensive in scotland

Boostage

what additive did u use and how did you apply it? I think u have bad injectors. or your o2 sensor is messed up.

ccivic

Lamda sensor = O2 Senor. It's your Oxygen sensor, which tells your injectors how much fuel to spray.

B16aDasher

lol swap a cx tranny!!!

_Cyclone_

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by lil_civic &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">(£37 of shell optimax @ 85.9p / litre)</TD></TR></TABLE>

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by lil_civic &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">fuel is very expensive in scotland</TD></TR></TABLE>

I knew fuel was expensive in the UK, (and most of Europe) but wow... £37 is a $70 US tank of fuel.

I understand why you're not happy. I think if you take your car in for a fuel system flush and engine decarbon, it would help too. When I did this to my old Saturn with 350,000 on the clock, it improved the fuel economy tremendously. I also did plugs and wires... no cap and rotor though (DIS), but those should be replaced as well. Good luck!

lil_civic

ok, so i just found out that my next door neighbour is a mechanic at the honda dealership 200 yards away from my house.

i spoke to him, and he also recons that it's the o2 sensor.

he's picking me up a sensor, dizzy cap, rotor arm and leads @ much discounted rates (yay)

the additive i used was slick 50, and was put in the fuel tank when empty, filled her up and then ran till empty again.

there is a multi pack of this stuff available, which has fuel & oil additive, so i'll get that as well.

i'll let you's know what happens.

lil_civic

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Boostage &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">and weight reduction </TD></TR></TABLE>

i have in my car 2 sets of BM Boschman 5 1/4" components with crossovers, 1 set of JBL 6"x9" speakers, a 10" sony Xplod sub, in a vibe 7th gen bandpass box, a thousand watt amp, an alpine AI-net setup with head unit, disc changer, indash tv, headrest monitors, digital divider, AV interface, isplay processor, DVD player & good heavy cabling.

As you can imagine, this IS a pretty heavy install, but it was mostly all in there before the fuel system prbs started. the only other weight added to the car has been a strut brace (VERY light one).

to counter the extra weight of the sound system, i have lost 42lbs since buying the car.

without ditching the ICE (coz i LOVE it) or back seats etc (i have kids, so need them) - what can be done to drop the weight

snoochtodanooch

you british bastards and your nice high RON fuels. We are stuck with the cheesey stuff at the pump over here in the USofA

lil_civic

we still don't get as good as Japan.

as i am led to believe, purely because of fuel, in the US my car is 90bhp, in the UK 105bhp, and in japan 112bhp.

now on a car thats only 980kilo's stock weight (mine is a bit more with the ICE), thats a hugh difference

lil_civic

tomorow i'll be picking up dizzy cap, rotor arm, ignition leads, oil filter, fresh oil, fuel filter and an O2 sensor from my neighbour. (if he remembers - fingers crossed)

i have two questions (my neighbour sais he'll help me, but i wanna know now - coz i'm impatient)

where does the fuel filter go?
where does the O2 sensor go?

the fuel filter i'm 99% sure i'll figure out (even a chimp can follow fuel lines to the tank), it's the O2 sensor i really don't have clue with.

snoochtodanooch

fuel filter is most likely right on the firewall behind the intake manifold. Looks like a little can with a banjo fitting going to it.

The O2 sensor is located somewhere on the exhaust most likely right on the header.

AutoXer

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by lil_civic &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">the additive i used was slick 50, and was put in the fuel tank when empty, filled her up and then ran till empty again.

.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Sorry to say it, but that stuff is expensive snake oil. I don't know what products you can get, but if you can, run either a can of Chevron Techron or Seafoam through your tank. If you can, get two cans of seafoam, and then use 1/3 of the second can in the vac line to your intake, and the rest of it in the crankcase (do a search for instructions and pics). This will give you a full cleaning. It gave my EX with 100K on the clock another 10mpg, even with a bad 02 sensor.

lil_civic

ok, so so far i've changed the oil, oil filter spark plugs, rotor, cap, O2 sensor.

i've still to change the fuel filter, and don't have ignition leads yet. (holding out for blue ones, to match with the detailing i've done.

the O2 sensor i fitted was not a Honda one, as honda wanted £209 + VAT = £245 (about $460)

i bought a universal fit one, with the same wiring (single wire) and it bolted straight into place, with no gaps / problems. the only difference between this and the one which came out was the lack of plug, i had to join the wire. the internals / externals of the sensor itself looked IDENTICAL. It was made by LUCAS - a good make over here, and cost £30.55

remembering that i got 200 miles to a full tank before, last night i did 130 miles, and am sitting WELL above the half way mark, however the engine management light come on every so often.

i'm about to go out to the garage to change the fuel filter and get the fault code, i'll report back on this.

Deemeetree

It could be a number of things.

On a stock D15B7 (Civic DX model here in U.S.A.) I only get between 22-25 MPG without pushing it or revving past 4,000 RPM. Where I'm supposed to be AT LEAST at 30 MPG-35 MPG. I've got 137,000 miles BTW.

I've come to the conclusion that either my O2 sensor and/or my catalytic converter are shot. My catalytic converter does rattle, or at least I think it does. Usually the rattling comes by 3,400 RPM to 4,500 RPM. Most threads I've read states that once the "honeycomb" part on the inside of the catalytic converter falls to pieces, your gas mileage will considerably drop due the catalytic converter being shot and causing it to be clogged.

I'm thinking 137,000 miles should be enough time for a catalytic converter to live. I'll be replacing it with a straight pipe/test pipe soon. I'll let you know if the gas mileage should go up again.

lil_civic

my converter is in good nick. unfortunatly as my car is a 1994, it is required by law to have one unless it is an import with an engine not available over here or has had a swap from and older car. cars from early 1993 or before don't need one. (bah humbug)

i have tried to check the codes, but the engine light does not flash. i'm gonna drive it till the light comes on and try again, just in case it doesn't know about the fault till the light come on. it's pretty random so it could take a while to get a result.

also i can't find my socket wrench ANYWHERE. i was working on my mates car the other day, so i'll pay him a visit incase i left it in his car. bang goes doing the fuel filter till i find it (yeah, i know i should have more than one, but i'm bad for loosing tools)

lil_civic

Okay, so i'm a silly boy.

when i was joining the wire for the O2 sensor, i disconnected the plug at the end of the wire so i wouldn't damage anything. and i FORGOT TO PLUG IT BACK IN.

the car now runs PERFECTLY - amazing smooth. the management light does not come on, unsurprisingly.

still cany find ma ratchet to do the fuel filter

snoochtodanooch

so she's running well now, how about gas mileage?

Teggys1ClnDA

i only get 180-200 miles to a tank depending on how i'm driving. i don't think theres anything wrong with my car.

lil_civic

well, i have to run to empty to alloy the fuel treatment run it's full magic, but i'm sitting just below the 1/4 tank mark and its at 194 miles, at this point it used to be in the red (we'll in), but this refill was done before the work was done. (5 miles before dizzy cap & rotor, 40 miles before oil change & O2 sensor, and 130miles till i spotted the plug disconnected on the O2 sensor). This basically means that on the last 64 miles i've broght the needle from the red to 1/4. i've done a rough guess, and think a full tank would be broght from 200 miles to 300, easy.

and i still have to change the fuel filter (where is my ratchet, i wonder) and the HT leads. also considering one last fuel treatment, but with a different additive jest to be sure.

after that i'm doing the timing belt (nothing to do with this problem, but at the milleage i bought it at - 106,000 i think it could be overdue) and then going for a general tune up at the Honda dealership, 200 yards away from my house (how handy is that)