Hello all. I'd like to introduce myself to the forum. I'm here to learn, plain and simple.
I drive a 1989 Civic LX with 145k miles on it. Before you tell me that I'm inthe wrong forum, or on the wrong website, I already realize this.
A bit of background:
I used to drive a Sentra. I bought it brand new in 2000 and mileage was always a big deal to me. I have no idea why. Maybe it's because I'm cheap... or maybe it's just because I actually care about being efficient. That car was rear ended by a jeep while on a road trip.
Being the stupid twenty-something I am, I decided to "live a little" and get a 2000 Jeep Wranger. I loved it... except it had a 6 cylinder, 4.0 liter engine that got around 15.0 mpg. I remember being so happy the day it got 20mpg when I drove from Southern California to Las Vegas.
Now that I work at home, I had no reason to have a car payment and high insurance. So I sold it for a minimal loss and picked up a 1989 Civic LX for two reasons: Fuel economy and lower insurance.
Besides, chicks dig classic cars, right? Okay, it's not classic, but it's a car.
I was getting 38 mpg in the city and I was shocked at my 45 mpg on the way from Salt Lake City to Southern California. I made a wise choice... I couldn't have been happier.
Until my radiator hose blew outside of vegas on teh trip back, causing my engine to overheat and my headgasket to blow. $800 and 3 days later I was on my way back home. My car only got 33mpg after this. I'm thinking the timing was screwed up when they put the cylinder block back on or the head was warped due to the high heat.
Back to my point.
I love fuel efficient vehicles, but I just can't afford an insight or a civic hybrid. In lieu of buying a new car with higher insurance and payments, I've decided to modify my 1989 LX to get much better mileage. My planned modifications are as such:
1. I'm first going to switch to MPFI. My car runs on DPFI now and DPFI is nothing more than a glorified carb system. I have the parts ready to install, but I'm going to finish painting it first.
2. The next major modification will be to swap the cylinder head from the Civic VX (the d15z1 head) onto my Civic LX (d15b2) block. As I'm sure you know the Civic VX had about 55mpg due to it being a vtec-e engine. The insights also use a vtec-e engine, just a smaller one.
3. I want to make custom rear wheel well covers like the insight has. If anything this will help with a little drag that the car experiences at higher speeds.
4. On the same token, I'm thinking of cutting out the bottom half of the rear bumper and replacing it with a metal mesh so that the bumper doesn't restrict airflow.
5. Oh, I want to put a HF (The CRX HF) transmission into the car. It will make accelerating take longer, but will definately help my mileage in the long run. My understanding is that the HF transmission and the VX transmission had the same gear ratios. I'll go with the HF transmission and iwill not have to swap out my axles when I do it.
there are a few other modifications I want to do, such as a K&N air filter or a K&N CAI, but I'm starting to get mixed reviews about if this is a wise idea. I've read a little about a Warm Air Intake on this forum. Which is better for mileage?
I don't have too many places to turn to, as all of the honda message boards are full of people who want to make their car more powerful and less fuel efficient. It's difficult to have a conversation about fuel efficiency with these people when every time I ask a question I'm answered with, "yeah, forget the efficiency, why don't you just drop in a bigger engine?"
So I come here for answers from people who have similar goals as myself.
So, this is my introduction. If you can think of anything that can help me achieve my goal for this car (50mpg+ in city driving) please let me know. I'll be lurking around the forums here trying to get ideas for making my old civic more like your newer civics.
Oh, and I'll soon start a blog listing my modifications and will be using statistical analysis to determine if in fact each marginal modification returns statistically significant benefits in fuel economy.
I drive a 1989 Civic LX with 145k miles on it. Before you tell me that I'm inthe wrong forum, or on the wrong website, I already realize this.
A bit of background:
I used to drive a Sentra. I bought it brand new in 2000 and mileage was always a big deal to me. I have no idea why. Maybe it's because I'm cheap... or maybe it's just because I actually care about being efficient. That car was rear ended by a jeep while on a road trip.
Being the stupid twenty-something I am, I decided to "live a little" and get a 2000 Jeep Wranger. I loved it... except it had a 6 cylinder, 4.0 liter engine that got around 15.0 mpg. I remember being so happy the day it got 20mpg when I drove from Southern California to Las Vegas.
Now that I work at home, I had no reason to have a car payment and high insurance. So I sold it for a minimal loss and picked up a 1989 Civic LX for two reasons: Fuel economy and lower insurance.
Besides, chicks dig classic cars, right? Okay, it's not classic, but it's a car.
I was getting 38 mpg in the city and I was shocked at my 45 mpg on the way from Salt Lake City to Southern California. I made a wise choice... I couldn't have been happier.
Until my radiator hose blew outside of vegas on teh trip back, causing my engine to overheat and my headgasket to blow. $800 and 3 days later I was on my way back home. My car only got 33mpg after this. I'm thinking the timing was screwed up when they put the cylinder block back on or the head was warped due to the high heat.
Back to my point.
I love fuel efficient vehicles, but I just can't afford an insight or a civic hybrid. In lieu of buying a new car with higher insurance and payments, I've decided to modify my 1989 LX to get much better mileage. My planned modifications are as such:
1. I'm first going to switch to MPFI. My car runs on DPFI now and DPFI is nothing more than a glorified carb system. I have the parts ready to install, but I'm going to finish painting it first.
2. The next major modification will be to swap the cylinder head from the Civic VX (the d15z1 head) onto my Civic LX (d15b2) block. As I'm sure you know the Civic VX had about 55mpg due to it being a vtec-e engine. The insights also use a vtec-e engine, just a smaller one.
3. I want to make custom rear wheel well covers like the insight has. If anything this will help with a little drag that the car experiences at higher speeds.
4. On the same token, I'm thinking of cutting out the bottom half of the rear bumper and replacing it with a metal mesh so that the bumper doesn't restrict airflow.
5. Oh, I want to put a HF (The CRX HF) transmission into the car. It will make accelerating take longer, but will definately help my mileage in the long run. My understanding is that the HF transmission and the VX transmission had the same gear ratios. I'll go with the HF transmission and iwill not have to swap out my axles when I do it.
there are a few other modifications I want to do, such as a K&N air filter or a K&N CAI, but I'm starting to get mixed reviews about if this is a wise idea. I've read a little about a Warm Air Intake on this forum. Which is better for mileage?
I don't have too many places to turn to, as all of the honda message boards are full of people who want to make their car more powerful and less fuel efficient. It's difficult to have a conversation about fuel efficiency with these people when every time I ask a question I'm answered with, "yeah, forget the efficiency, why don't you just drop in a bigger engine?"
So I come here for answers from people who have similar goals as myself.
So, this is my introduction. If you can think of anything that can help me achieve my goal for this car (50mpg+ in city driving) please let me know. I'll be lurking around the forums here trying to get ideas for making my old civic more like your newer civics.
Oh, and I'll soon start a blog listing my modifications and will be using statistical analysis to determine if in fact each marginal modification returns statistically significant benefits in fuel economy.