A good friend of mine in SoCal used to run a business where he souped up cars for racing. Once I hung out with him and he showed me how he could plug in a laptop to a serial port connected to the engine and it drastically helped the performance of the engine. I was shocked.

I am wondering if something like this is possible to help increase fuel efficiency of a stock car. In my case it's a 89 LX Sedan. I'm guessing the stock onboard computer isn't equipt for something like this, but I could be wrong. Is this something that is feasable?

I think it would be cool to have a pocket PC connected to the engine helping increase my mpg.

Then again, I could be out in left field on this one, so please let me know either way.

 

There was this blonde haired guy from california that had a maad tiite green eclipse that he streetraced for respect, he had a laptop in his car to. He used it for his nos fogger system, and it warned him about danger to his manafold. You should get one for your car too, it should give you a big power gain and look really cool

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PURPLETERROR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">There was this blonde haired guy from california that had a maad tiite green eclipse that he streetraced for respect, he had a laptop in his car to. He used it for his nos fogger system, and it warned him about danger to his manafold. You should get one for your car too, it should give you a big power gain and look really cool </TD></TR></TABLE>

Man... Why mock this guy with immature F&F references?


Sounds like this guy just wants to know if he can maximize his fuel efficiency rather than power, like most of us on here, with better tuning. Anyway, Honda made ur car (89 LX) for a certain level of fuel efficency. Keep the ol girl well maintained and she should provide a level of reliability and fuel economy that many new cars can't acomplish.

Here is a lil list of things fuel efficieny/tune up related if your looking to extend the mileage of a tank of gas.

properly inflated tires
good O2 sensor
good plugs
plug wires
cap
rotor
Seafoam (engine additve praised by many including my brother (search for it))
clean catalytic converter
good valve adjustment
good fuel filter
cleaned injectors
a light gas pedal foot.

 

I appreciate the mature answer. As I've mentioned before, I'm not planning on swapping engines or increasing the power of my car at all. I just want a very reliable, fuel efficient car. So far this Honda has done it for me (although I noticed a drastic decline after the redneck in Vegas replaced my head gasket... from 38 mpg to 33 mpg. More testing needed).

I'm actually planning on starting a website showing different ways to conserve energy. One of the key aspects of the website will be fuel efficient cars. Right now I'm trying to get to know my honda and fix it up a bit to show that fuel efficient cars can look nice and be light on the pocket book. So basically I'm trying to find any way possible to increase gas mileage within reason. Any further suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks again.

 

I keep telling people to hang on to those HF motors they pull out of their CRXs. There are people that may want to swap"down" to an HF motor to get better MPG. I know guys getting close to 50 MPG with CRX HFs.

 

i agree. if you were into it, the hf motor would be perfect. it has mpfi for better fuel control, 8 valves, a good, fuel saving camshaft, and a really long geared tranny.

if you want to save gas for cheaper, though, maybe you could get a civic std (d15b1) camshaft and computer. those things are the same engine as yours, but have a few changes like that to be more fuel efficient.

 

Very good advice. I'm actually going to get either a Honda CRX HF or a Civic VX when this car is in good shape. One will be for road trips and one will be for around the town.

I am interested in switching the camshaft and computer if it will help with my mpg. Any idea how much more it might help?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SiMateoAko &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I am interested in switching the camshaft and computer if it will help with my mpg. Any idea how much more it might help?</TD></TR></TABLE>
Its really hard to say I mean you dont really have many sites stating what kind of increase in fuel economy you would get with those different parts being put on, it would be more like a trial and error thing.

Side note there are some things out there that "claim" they will give you better gas mileage I.E.......Tornado (little thing you stick into your intake tube to "swirl" the air?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PURPLETERROR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">There was this blonde haired guy from california that had a maad tiite green eclipse that he streetraced for respect, he had a laptop in his car to. He used it for his nos fogger system, and it warned him about danger to his manafold. You should get one for your car too, it should give you a big power gain and look really cool </TD></TR></TABLE>
Its people like this that gives H-T a bad name. Plus must be compensating for something if he has nothing better to do then post irrelevant stuff.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Vinceg99 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Its people like this that gives H-T a bad name. Plus must be compensating for something if he has nothing better to do then post irrelevant stuff.</TD></TR></TABLE>

It was a joke, get over it.

And to the original poster, I really didnt think you were serious. Your car is already pretty fuel efficient from the factory. A full tune up, new oem oxygen sensor, and airfilter will help alot with fuel economy. You could also invest in a plx wideband o2 to get a better idea of whats going on in the engine, and purchase an safc if you wanted to lean it out within reason to conserve fuel.

 

I would agree with the people that said to drop an HF motor in. Very reliable and very fuel efficient. And I commend you on looking towards energy efficiency. Ever heard of the CAT car? Anyways you could hook up a laptop and re-program the entire fuel map to lean it out as much as possible. It wouldn't cost too much if you took a DIY approach to it. You may want to check out http://www.pgmfi.org/ to learn about that kind of stuff. And since we are on H-T (I take precaution around here) before anyone tries to come at me talking about cost and other things associate with DIY mapping, just stop. I've done it plenty.

 

ACtually, everyone I've talked to has suggested NOT to drop in the HF engine... the car is just a bit too heavy. A few people have suggested switching the fifth gear to the fifth gear from the HF. This would make sense.

Thanks for the link. I'll take a look at it and see what I can come up with. Hopefully in a year or so I'll be able to find myself a CRX HF with the original engine still in it. That will be fun.

 

Hi. I'm really wondering the same thing as simateoako (Mateo is a cool name, by the way). I've been poking around looking to find out what you people call the stock HF motor so I could find some sort of fuel efficieny comparison between that and the d15b sohc vtec. The d15b is the 3-stage, correct? I was wondering if the d15b would get better gas mileage if you drove it mostly when it was running on 12v...I dunno, I'm just not converting from being a VW diesel junkie to CRX lover. Hopefully I can buy an HF pretty soon. So, if that made sense, thanks.

Benjo