[91CivicHatch]

Hello all,
I have been looking at your site for a few weeks now and love some of the great ideas for hypermiling. I've always been a gas miser, usually because I accelerate slow and go the speed limit. I got my 1991 Civic Hatchback Standard 4 speed manual 1.5 liter about 1-1/2 years ago and have seen as high as 42mpg for a tank, but average around 40mpg or recently lower. According to the 2008 ratings of 30 combined, I guess I'm doing pretty good. I would just like to see how far I can push it.

It looks like there are lots of civics on here, but I don't know if my particular one is on here. Luckily it's the same year as SVOboy, just a different model. I have a few questions I have been pondering lately and would like any feedback ya'll (note the southern accent) have.

1. I am wondering how close the CRX is to mine. Since we can't use a scanguage, I'm driving blind. I also wonder since I have a 4 speed, what is the most fuel efficient constant speed? My speedometer has a small 55 making me think this indicates the best speed, but with only 4 gears I wondered if the best speed was slower (45? or even something like 30 in 4th gear?). I am asking this to anyone with an mpguino or supermid that can figure this out. This would at least let me know they best speed to go. I have a feeling that going 60 or 55 on the highway isn't great for my FE as the RPM's would be high. By the way, my car doesn't come with a tach either, so I just used the gear ratios and online calculators to figure out rpm's.

2. Are you typically accelerating slowly (like 1/3 throttle) and shifting before 2,000 (I don't have a tachometer, but I think that would correlate to shifting at 10, 20, and 30 mph for me). For pulse and gliding, do you use a faster or higher rpm? I saw a post of SVOboy's that says its not good to p&g over 35 mph, so is it best for me to just pick a speed and hold the throttle? Then maybe just try to coast whenever it makes sense? I don't feel comfortable shutting off the engine yet (have had problems starting), but neutral coasting seems ok to me.

3. By doing this 2,000 rpm "short-shifting" is there anything bad it could do to my car? I started to hear some knocking the other day (I am about to check if the manual transmission fluid is low, just changed my oil filter and filled up oil). At the moment it seems if I go back to the owner's manual recommended shift points of 15, 25, & 40, the sound tends to go away. I also noticed for all the other 91 civic's it showed in the manual, they gave a "cruise" acceleration around 10, 20, 30 (this equates to 2,000rpm's)....but for mine they only gave the "normal" shift points, so it just makes me wonder if my car is lugging or just not good at lower than 2500rpm shifts?

3. Last question I promise, I was wondering if calculating my mileage by filling up could vary depending on different gas stations and how their pumps stop when full. Do you top off the gas until it runs out?

I appreciate any comments.

Brian