Hello...Dreams of 70mpg

[dchd1130]

Hi all, this is a great site. Ive spent many hours reading over threads here. So heres my plan... Ive got a 91 CRX HF. It has some rust on the doors and some on the rear quarter panels. So I am going to try to find some doors from an 88-89 at the junk yard (lighter weight). Replace the seats with light weight racing seats. Rear wheel skirts. Smooth wheel covers for the front. Change the antenna. Lower it. Skid plate. The budget for this project is $4k. All labor will be done in house, so no expense there. Now Im curious to here your thoughts on what to do with the motor. Would there be a better swap for a project like this? Or is this a good base engine to work with? If I stick with this one, I will probably go for high compression piston, light weight pulleys, and light weight fly wheel. Let me know if there are any mods Im missing here that I should consider. Thanks for any help, and when the project gets under way I will start a thread for the build.

[RobertSmalls]

70mpg, eh? Sounds cool. You should be able to do quite a bit on a budget of $4000.

Have you seen Chang Ho Kim's >100mpg competition CRX?

If it were me, I'd see what I could do with the stock motor in place. Assuming it hasn't been hotted up, it's a good performer. You can also look up Ben Jones' IRX project, a partially-completed quest to install a Honda Insight hybrid drivetrain in a CRX. It runs and drives, but has no interior.

Ben, are you ever coming back to the country to finish it?

[MetroMPG]

Welcome to the forum, dchd -

The big question is: 70 MPG in what type of driving?

EG. Chang's 100+ MPG numbers came from hard-core, medium-speed (~30-50 mph) pulse & glide driving, primarily.

I'd say that striving for 70 MPG on the highway at anything close to "normal" cruising speeds (60 mph minimum) will require something like the VX lean burn motor (which was Ben's - SVOboy is his username - previous project with his CRX). Or the Insight drivetrain, as mentioned.

(I don't think Ben has any plans to come back and finish that :-P)

He was getting decent numbers on the highway from the VX drivetrain version of his CRX without trying too hard. (And without many aero mods.)