Ren: My '92 Civic

[dirtydave]

I was thinking craigslist would be a cheap way to rent a car.

[Sven7]

Credit cards aside, both my cars are on storage insurance right now and I don't feel like asking if I'm covered in other cars, though I probably am.

I wouldn't feel comfortable renting someone's car off CL. Yikes.

Anyway. While I try to get someone to jump in and tackle my cowl water leak for a dollar, I'm trying to scheme up a way to get more fresh air into the car.

My truck has a fresh air foot vent that ducts directly from the cowl down around the side and onto my left foot. It's the best thing that carmakers ever abandoned. I want to do something similar, since the Civic HVAC fan sucks, for some reason it never wants to stay on the 100% cool setting, and sometimes a whif of exhaust gets mixed in (more of a nuisance than safety hazard).

I want to make it low drag, so NACA ducts are being heavily considered and high pressure zones targeted. Options:

1. NACA duct from the front of the door, halfway down, with a hole through the door and a vent hole where the speaker used to be. I could make a small interior cover or door to keep cold air out. This is a turbulent, low pressure (?) area, so overall flow volume is a wild card.

2. NACA duct(s) in the center trailing edge of the hood (like a Ferrari F40!). Dryer vent tubing down, through the firewall and into the footwell. High pressure area! But a lot of ducting, possibly leading to pressure losses. Probably hard to plumb. Hard to keep water out.

3. Roof vent. Cheap. Direct. High drag, noisy, doesn't point at feet, possibly high maintenance for a car that sits outside.

Any other ideas? I'd like to put nice, fresh air at my feet with as little drag and fuss as possible.

[Ecky]

I assume you'd make these ducts accessible, so you can cover them in the winter?

In my in-laws' old Civic, once summer rolled in I'd open the hood and manually move the heater valve, as the lever in the dash didn't close it right away. Once moved, it seemed to stay there pretty well.

[Sven7]

Yep. My truck has a small door that you can adjust just by pushing it around with your foot. I don't expect something so well thought-out, but it should be able to be closed in the winter, and keep water out.

I appreciate the heater tip. I'll have to try that sometime!

[Sven7]

yum

[adam728]

Originally Posted by Sven7

Credit cards aside, both my cars are on storage insurance right now and I don't feel like asking if I'm covered in other cars, though I probably am.

I wouldn't feel comfortable renting someone's car off CL. Yikes.

I wasn't meaning to rent a car from CL. No way! But when we rent from National, Enterprise, etc I am covered by my CC and auto insurance.

[Sven7]

Ok. Yeah, I'm probably covered. But i own a car still so it's moot.

I took my new 185/60/14 Yokohama iceGUARD ic52c ("LRR") tires on 14x6 VW "teardrop" wheels to Cleveland last week to hit up Ray's Indoor Mountain Bike Park with some coworkers. Luckily they had snow so I could try the tires out.

They were loud at first but as they broke in (500 miles recommended, 400 covered) they quieted down quite a bit. On road handling is very sensitive to suspension loading and weight transfers- it loads up very quickly then bites. I suspect this will even out as they wear down. Until then, I am driving smoothly.

In the snow, they are awesome. I drove through a wet snow pile and stopped in a couple inches of white stuff in a dirt parking lot and had absolutely no trouble driving straight out (image below). Acceleration is great. Braking is, too! Lane changes across snow mounds are a little more squirrelly than my oversize Blizzaks from last year, but totally doable. Over all I am very happy with them and so far recommend them.

Time for pictures.


(I'm amazed there is an angle you can stand where the car looks like it's still a single color)

[adam728]

How was Rays? Had to work in Cleveland a few times this summer, once it put me there on a Sunday Rays was open. I was so excited, the. greatly disappointed. Rays looked great, but everything was closed for work/maintenance except the jump room. Not much good for a washed up, out of shaoe guy on an XC bike. Hoping to get another run at it between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

[Sven7]

They made a lot of changes since last year, so you probably caught them in the transitional period. There's a lot of cool new stuff now! This year I found myself doing the harder end of the intermediate section to the easier "expert" section, as opposed to topping out in the mid-to-hard intermediate stuff last year. It's amazing what winter commuting and summer single track (not to mention wide rims) will do for your skills!

But yes, they are fully open now so I would recommend taking a trip down there if you can.

[Sven7]

I took it to a friend of a friend's place to look at the water leak. Turns out there are two problems:

1. A rust hole right below the windshield big enough to fit an egg roll through. Was covered with bondo, so the windshield guy didn't see it

2. No flapper over the HVAC intake

So he slapped some fiberglass over the hole with questionable results and I need to find a flapper at the junk yard.

Once again, I'm thinking this car may not be worth putting money into. I don't want to have to get this windshield taken out to get the rust fixed, but I don't want to have to deal with a wet interior anymore either.

I need to get out of this apartment and into a house with a garage. Then I can buy either a VX or HF, restore it and have something worthy of my money and time. Found a clean running HF for $3k in Colorado, so they're not expensive. What's an engine rebuild run for VTEC-e? Does anyone know whether a bicycle will fit in the back of a CRX?

PS- Drove to Petosky for Thanksgiving week and had no issues. Car works great. I need to tabulate my recent MPG and post up.