White Lightning - 2004 Civic HX

[Donahue]

I've decided to start a new thread to document all the details of this car and my journey to learn to be a hypermiler. Thanks for all the suggestions in this thread for helping me decide on a name for this car.

A little background on the car:
2004 Civic HX
Purchased with 137k miles
1.7L SOHC VTEC-E with lean burn
5 speed manual
AC, cruise, power doors, and power steering
Stock HX 14" wheels

A little background on my daily commute:
About 17 miles each way, with the first 3 and last 3 miles being most surface roads with 35mph limits. An 11 mile middle stretch is straight three lane freeway at 65mph (I-5). There are other routes available to me, but I have not explored them from a hypermiling perspective yet.

A little background on me:
I'm currently 31, married with 4 young kids (the oldest is 5). I'm a mechanical engineer and I design large scale food processing equipment. I also handle IT support for my company. My automotive background comes more from off-road trucks than from anything street driven.

My first real goal is to hit 50 mpg for my daily commute. My first tank (really just 1/2 a tank) was as 37 with no O2 sensor and therefore open loop the whole time. I'm about halfway through my next full tank and I am hoping to get 40+ for my baseline. I've experimented with some techniques, mostly EOC, but I haven't done anything in earnest yet. I also need to get tire real soon and will probably go straight to about 50 psi when I get them.

Currently, I've got no instrumentation, but it looks like I am leaning towards using torque on some kind of android device.

My plans:
New tires at 50 psi
Torque for monitoring
Killswitch for EOC

Potential mods:
Grill block
Front lip and side skirts
Full belly pan
Electric power steering

I can't go too crazy with this thing even if I wanted too, my wife has been pretty unsupportive of my ideas calling them just my latest fad I'm into. Only time will tell if she's right.

Anyways, onto the car. Here she is the day I brought her home:




And just for fun, here was my last project:

[Donahue]

When I picked up the car, it had a CEL on for the primary O2 sensor. I've replaced it with the proper sensor and the light turned off. With no sensor I'm pretty sure I was running and open loop and was not able to get into lean burn. For informational putposes, my car uses a 4 wire wide band AFR sensor in place of an O2 sensor. Most of the info about HX models indicate they use a 5 wire sensor. I can only assume that since most HX models are 6th gens, and mine is a 7th, that has something to do with it. The correct sensor for me was a Denso 234-9005.


This weekend I also got a jump start on all the maintenance this car needs. My buddy just installed a two post lift in his shop and so I took it down there to work on it. Man does that make a difference. This was also the first time my 5 year old son has "helped" me work on a car.

I changed the timing belt, and water pump, as well as all the gaskets and seals I the valve cover. I also checked the valve lash while I was in there, along with new coolant. I also switched to Mobil 1 AFE 0w-20w. This will be m first experience with synthetic oils. I'm hoping to bump the change interval up to 10k. If I see any mileage improvements, the more the better, but that's not my primary reason for wanting to try it.

I also noticed while the car was in the lift that one of my tires is a lot worse than I thought and it will force me to get the replacements now instead of waiting a few months.

[Donahue]

Anyone know the best circuit to kill with a kill switch?

[MetroMPG]

Subscribed.

Are those stock Honda wheels? Haven't seen that style before on an HX... or on any Honda, to be honest.

I'll let some VX/HX owners chime in on the best kill switch option. It'll make a noticeable difference in your results.

Fun that you got the little guy involved. Can't go wrong teaching someone how to fix & maintain stuff!

[Donahue]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Subscribed.

Are those stock Honda wheels? Haven't seen that style before on an HX... or on any Honda, to be honest.

I'll let some VX/HX owners chime in on the best kill switch option. It'll make a noticeable difference in your results.

Fun that you got the little guy involved. Can't go wrong teaching someone how to fix & maintain stuff!

They are 7th gen HX wheels, and they are stock. From what ive read, they are supposed to be a little heavier than the 6th gen wheels, but still light. They do look like they have less open area compared to 6th gen wheels.

as for the kill switch, its probably not so much an HX or VX thing, as it is a 7th gen or later civic thing. This thing has no distributor, and 4 coils. I'd rather find some single source that I can use instead of trying to get 4 different circuits in parallel. Does anyone know if injectors run off a common 12V or ground?

[Donahue]

also, this morning on the way to work i noticed that the AC kicks in automatically when defrost is on. Does anyone have any ideas how to change this? I'd rather be able to manually turn it on or off while still putting warm air on the windshield.

[iveyjh]

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ons-22602.html

[Donahue]

Originally Posted by iveyjh

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ons-22602.html

wow, thats exactly what i needed.

[Vman455]

Post #35 from that thread is the relevant one.

For the oil change interval, Honda recommends an OCI of 10,000 miles, so you should be doing this anyway, and filter change every 20,000 miles.

If you want to get 50mpg, do this. Lifetime economy of 50.8mpg over two years on an EX. The HX should be even easier.

[Donahue]

about the only things i could get away with is to the frontal area stuff. i'd keep the mirrors though, for two reasons. first, my wife would throw a fit because she drives it sometimes too. second, my last car had one mirror missing from an accident, and i never bothered replacing it for years. i hated the lack of visibility on that side. i always use my mirrors to check my blindspot, i never turn my head. i also have been told that i am not allowed to lower it because it is already too low to comfortably get into (her words).