Hey all, if this post is in the wrong section, feel free to move it (just let me know where you put it please). So with gas prices outragous Im trying to hypermile Stinky, (1995 civic lx 5sp 421k miles) Ive added a vacuum guage and try to keep it above 15 as I drive, Ive cut a hole in the rear left bumper to let the air out of the parachute on the rear left side, and bumped the tire pressure to 40psi. Im driving like a grandma now, so far on the highway it hit 49.2mpg. Aside from what Ive already done, does anyone have any other ideas to eek more mpg out of this car? It has a fresh tunup (maybe 5000miles) and fresh oil (less than 1000 miles). At idle the vacuum guage is reading 22 so the engine is solid. I know a lot of good mpg is driving style, but im looking for cheap affordable mods that would help
Any ideas would be appreciated
Thanks

 

If you can find a CX or VX transmission with longer gears, you can keep your cruising RPM lower.

 

too much work, but that is a great idea.
So far, 49 highway and 43 city. not too bad

 

Narrow and low rolling resistance tires? Are you using the stock 13s or 14s?

 

14 inch tires. Fairly new with good tread so I don’t want to replace them. I’m running them at 40psi. I’m wondering if 45 is too high

 

45 psi might make the ride a little uncomfortable, but nothing to crazy. I've run 45 psi in the rear for autocross and went months without lowering them after the event, might be ok.

Too bad the old local autocross forum got taken down, one of the members there had a huge thread on his experiences hypermilling including having local challenges.

 

im thinking build the tire pressure up to 45 in increments, 40-42-45 and see what happens, preferrabley not blowing out a tire. tonight I blocked off the ac condencer ( it doesnt work anyway so why not) Ill see what the engine temps do in the morning

 

If the AC doesn't work, have you also tried taking the belt off to minimize any parasitic loses?

 

Took the belt off a while ago. So far with the ac condenser blocked the engine temp didn’t rise. Looking under the hood, where does the air go once it passes thru the radiator? That’s a big parachute also

 

Because of the hood I believe the majority goes under the car. There will be a barrier cushion of air that pushes the flowing air under the engine and under the car.

 

what about putting a rocker switch on one of the fuel injectors? Turn off an injector while on the highway? A Redneck Cylinder DeActivation if you will

 

 

I like it, I showed the wife these pictures, one glance and she said "NO" and walked off. SOOO next idea please

 

ok, so just a follow up, at 60mph its getting 52 mpg and around town its getting 35mpg. not bad for an old piece of Sh!8 1995 civic with 425k miles. the biggest improvement in mpg came from putting a vacuum gauge on the dash hooked into the intake manifold. I do my darndest to keep it about 15 inches of hg.

 

omg... no... this will cause your engine to wear because it will create big differences in cylinder temps. the factory GM version of this design was a failure.

 

you're doing all that you can to improve MPG in this car. 50mpg is fantastic. There's a site devoted to this topic , www.cleanmpg.com I'm "featherfoot" in the forums. Haven't been there in a while though.

The problem with driving for mpg is that all the other morons on the road expect us to drive as do they; speeding to stops... never coasting...always passing et... they drive like they're peddling a bicycle; GAS - BRAKE... GAS - BRAKE. They don't get it. Every time you apply the brakes you turn all that expensive gasoline energy into heat on your brake pads and wear on your tires.

I noticed that my 95 del sol is geared differently than my 93. In my 93, I was humming at 3Krpm at 60mph but this 95 is geared for lower revs which I like a lot.

 

what a disgrace that some guy can build a 75mpg car IN HIS GARAGE but the auto makers can't build one in their billion-dollar, high-tech factories.

 

And they never will, I willing to sacrifice ac heated seats quadraphonic stereo, to obtain the milage im getting. With all the new dodads on the cars they will never get the milage that they are actually capable of

 

EVs get the equivalently rated MPGe. 250 miles or so for a 65kw battery which is the equivalent of about 2 gallons of gas.

I get 3.5mi/kwh right now in the winter time (winter does affect EVs with the heater and also keeping the battery at “optimum” temp) so about 230mi for the equivalent of 2 gallons of gas. It is still cheaper for me to have an EV, than it was to keep spending the money on the gas that I was.

Newer hybrids can get some really great mileage out of them if you apply some hypermiling techniques. But you’re not going to add too much with trying to modify the car, because the cD is already pretty low and slippery. I consistently pulled 60mpg out of my Prius and that was commuting over a couple of grades and not slowing down traffic too much, with CC set to 63mph.

As with most cars…keeping your foot off the skinny pedal is usually what helps the most. Be it an EV, a hybrid, or even a truck hauling a load, less skinny pedal= less gas used.

 

The driver mod is always the best one, regardless of the discipline.

 

man, some real big nerds in here lol. I thought i was the r/personalfinance guy driving a dented up yaris with almost 200k on the clock

 

listen guy.

You might be onto something.

 

You can remove that AC system altogether.

use tape to tape off the front end for aerodynamics.

that little engine will likely not overheat.

possibly a super light flywheel?

 

Years ago I was on a forum called GasSavers.org and there were lots of hypermiling nerds on there with me. From my own experience, driver mods were the best results - not punching the throttle or brakes, accelerating slowly, trying to time traffic lights so you don't have to come to a complete stop, and finally, switching the engine off and coasting as much as possible. With an HF transmission in an EF Sedan and DPFI engine, I was able to get back-to-back 50+ mpg tanks. I did find that switching the ignition on and off killed the ignition switch prematurely. I think I ended up replacing the switch twice within just a few years.

 

Not sure if this has been mentioned but the hydraulic power steering pump causes a parasitic draw and can be eliminated by looping the lines on your rack or by installing a manual rack and pinion. I disconnected the pump on my dx Civic at one point and there was a noticeable gain in power so I imagine it would make a pretty good difference in mpg. Also, the splash shield under the front of the car may affect wind drag. Not a subject I've dealt with much because I always felt good getting my 30+ mpg hw while the "hurr durr muh 3500 cummins" guys in my family are getting 18 hw and spending loads of money on parts, like $1000+ on their fuel pumps. Glad to see you're getting these high numbers though!

P.S. forgot to mention raising the back of the hood with washers. Some people do this to decrease engine bay temps but maybe it would lessen wind drag as well?