Sorry I've searched and searched but have only found the opposite of my question.

I bought a 2000 Honda Civic EX D16-Y8 from Craigslist 4 months ago for $750, it has 209k on the clock (200k when bought) and I frequently drive across my state for work, I've noticed that even though I drive pretty fast on the freeway my RPMs are pretty low.

At 80MPH my tach is right at 3000, at 85 (my normal highway speed) it's at about 3200. The car will go 60MPH in second gear just like my Ford Crown Victoria, it's 61MPH at 6500 rpm but still crazy for it to 60 I think.

The car car still gets excellent gas mileage, just drove 265 miles and did the odo/Gallon math and got 33.8mpg.

So I'm curious, did someone replace the transmission or am I just not used to 4 bangers? I've attached a photo of my cluster. The speed and RPM have been confirmed with a scan tool.

Thanks everyone, this forum is amazing.

 

That seems about right for the EX geared manual transmission. I'm right around 3000 RPM at I think 110 KM/hr which I think is right around 80 MPH which is on the 92-95 Coupe Si motor and trans.

My old DX motor and trans I was a bit lower at about 2500-2700 I think when doing the same speeds.

I think you are fine.

 

It's only the B16 (Si) gearbox that turns 3500rpm @ ~70mph

 

I wanted to correct my original statement. This thread caused me to watch going home yesterday on the free way and I was just barely under 3000 (2900-2950?) rpm when doing 110 KPH. Which turns out to be 70 MPH.

Doing 80 I would be over 3000 RPM on a D series SI coupe transmission.

But it's also known that the stock Honda Tach tends to be inaccurate. By how much varies from car to car.

 

OP, what tire size is on your car? How can we correlate RPM to Speed and tell you if you have a stock transmission if we don't know your tire size?

Assuming you've the OEM 185/65R14 tires:
92-95 Civic CX/VX: 3430 RPM @ 105 MPH
96-00 Civic EX: 4485 RPM @ 105 MPH
96-00 Civic DX: 4282 RPM @ 105 MPH
96-00 Civic HX: 3928 RPM @ 105 MPH

The Zeal calculator doesn't have a 96-00 CX transmission auto population but I seem to remember the 6th Gen CX having an ever-so-slightly shorter gear compared to the 5th Gen CX transmission resulting in slightly higher RPM at highway speed. (I was looking at ECO modding for a while and have both transmissions available for use).

 

The gauge cluster doesn't take tire size into account, so it's inconsequential. You could put monster truck tires on the thing and the speedo & tacho would still read exactly the same. Actual speed, and indicated speed are two completely different things.

Now if we are talking about speed measured via a radar-gun, gps or a chase-car, that would be a totally different story.