I have an EG1 '93 del Sol that has a swapped b16a2 out of a '00 or 01 civic. My issue is that it seems like the engine works harder than need be compared to every other 5 speed. Most of the time I'm in 4th gear, and 5th gear on the highway I'm still pulling 3.5 or 4 revs going around 60, while it seems that every other car uses 2 or 3000 Rpms on highway. Is this normal or should I have something changed/fixed?

 

What transmission do you have?

 

Transmission final drive. 3.5k - 4k @ 60mph very likely GSR or B16 4.40 final drive. This combined with low profile 14, 15 tire, sound right.

My car do 60mph in 5th gear between 3.5k - 4k with GSR 4.40 and 225/50/15.

 

A manual 5 spd, 1.6L on a B16A2. I'm wondering if the swap has made a difference at all. The Ecu has been tuned N/a, no turbo) to what I have no idea. That also might make a difference. I just don't want to have to drive it hard when I don't want or need to. I can understand racing and auto-x but daily driving, it seems too high

 

Again!!! This is all about your final drive. Not tune, N/A or Turbo.

If you have a GSR or b16 4.40 that is how it works.

You ha two options put an LS transmission or put an LS five gear in yours.

Check your tranny code for s80/y80/y21 But for s80/y80 if not is stamped LSD the better way to know is counting the ring gear.

 

Put the LS 5th gear in it, you will get the pickup of the first 4 gears (most street races don't even get into 4th gear), and then you get the mpg of a long 5th gear.

My 95 civic EX has the b000 transmission, so I get about 3200 revs at 70 mph on the interstate, and with the 3 inch exhaust/coffee can muffler it's so annoyingly loud

 

Like people have already said, it has nothing to do with your tune, or how your motor is aspirated, or how you're driving it. It's all in the gearing. Assuming you have close to stock tire size (185/60R14), 3500 RPM @ 65MPH is about what you should be doing. Honda stock tachs are notoriously incorrect, so we'll just say that's right.

Like people have already told you, you have two options. Either replace your SI transmission with a different one, or regear your current transmission. For your tires (once again, assuming they're close to the stock size), different transmission options would be as follows:

GSR transmission: 3300 RPM @ 65MPH
LS transmission: 2900 RPM @ 65MPH
LS 5th in SI: 3000 RPM @ 65MPH
LS 5th and FD in SI: 2900 RPM @ 65MPH

An LS transmission will lower your highway cruising RPM, but will also kill the pep of the motor through the rest of the gears. The B16A2 has **** for torque (no seriously, you probably have more torque in your sphincter when you take a ****), so long gears absolutely kill any kind of acceleration the motor has. Just don't do it. If you want the LS cruising RPM, swap out the 5th gearset and call it a day. Swapping the LS 5th and FD would get you the same as LS highway cruise, but that's a whole lot of work for 100 RPM.

Remember kids: Horsepower is how fast you can go, torque is how fast you can get there.

 

Torque is how much work your engine can do, and horsepower is how fast work gets done.

 

Eh, yeah, kind of, assuming people don't misconstrue the verbage. MFactory actually has a great article about torque multiplication. Yes, the article is written to sell hardware, so take it with a grain of salt, but they aren't using any "fake math".

 

At 60mph, with a normal S4C trans, you're going to run 3.2K or so RPM. Indicated speed is dependent on tire size and speedo error.

Everyone worries about this way too much. It's a 1.6L 111 lb/tq @ like 95,000 RPM engine. It's supposed to have short gearing. It has like a 77mm stroke. You will never see ill effects from leaving it alone.

The effects of a LS 5th gear is shitty RPM drop, more throttle to accelerate, or the need to downshift and hunt for gears. It's the dumbest mod you can do. You will most likely lose MPG by gearing a B16 up.

You're not hurting the car. These engines run fine for 300k miles with the stock gearing and still get 30+mpg on the highway.

 

Okay, most of what this guy said was correct, but putting in a longer 5th gear actually will improve your mpg. And with these torqueless engines, you need to drop a gear anyway to pass safely on the interstate, so using 5th gear was out of the question anyway. Just use your brain. I know that these honda engines were engineered around higher revs, but that doesn't mean that higher revs are better than lower revs in terms of constant throttle/constant speed, as in an interstate situation. I would expect from a 1000 rpm drop, you could easily see 3 mpg more for highway mileage. It's not gonna affect city mileage either way.

 

^no. You will not see a significant MPG hike on the highway. But...you will see this situation during around town driving:

-40mph cruise. Shift into 5th or stay in 4th? Shift into 5th. 5th is all bogged down. Back to 4th the moment you hit a small incline. Ok now back to 5th. Or 4th? 5th? Wait...4th?

Plus you'll see a MPG drop around town because of the increased throttle position you'll need in 5th gear. The engine will always be WAY bogged in 5th under 70mph. 4th will be really far away from 5th in terms of ratio.

Ask around for people who have done the 5th gear from an LS. **** sucks.

 

BTW, EPA MPG estimates for a LS are lower than that of a Si

 

The simple answer is that it's normal and you shouldn't worry about it. As stated before it has nothing to do with your engine or ecu it's all about your tranny. Now as far as swapping to an ls tranny or not Crazyhouse and b serious are both right in different ways. The short of it is longer gears do give the possibility of achieving a little better mpg given the right conditions and driving habits. However the biggest factor's in your mpg as well as the life of your engine is your driving habits as well as doing the basic maintenance to keep your car in a good Running condition.