Quote:
Originally Posted by California98Civic
I am new to posting on this forum, after lurking some weeks. I drive a 1998 Civic DX Coupe and have for years monitored by milage measuring without a guage, tank to tank. I agree completely that the hypermiling techniques for city driving require reasonably light traffic to work well. I began modifying the car recently, creating a simple WAI, taking 100lbs out in stuff, spare tire, and rear seats, and over-inflating the tires by 4psi (to 48psi). Those mods, combined with seriously devoted hypermiling, yielded 44-46 MPG combined hwy/city on my commute, which I drove before and after the "test" using the exact same route, the same techniques, same time of day in basically the same weather (though, again, I have no mileage guage). I think you can get more out of your DX than you might currently think. Though, I guess, it would take driving like grandpa (like me!).
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How did you make your WAI? I read that someone on here just removed the air tube from the lid of the filter box (or that's what it sounded like, at least), but I couldn't get mine to come out and I don't want to break it in case it doesn't help.
Unfortunately, most of my city driving is done in an area with steep hills and/or a stop sign every couple hundred yards. For the areas with close stop signs I usually accelerate to about 15MPH fairly quickly and then engine on coast to the sign. Killing the engine wouldn't be worth the hassle, as there is rarely anyone to wait for at the sign so I only have to be stopped long enough for it to legally be considered a stop. The hills are too steep to coast down in neutral without breaking speed records, so I get DFCO most of the way down (confirmed by turning the key to off and there being no difference), offset by 2nd gear climbs to the top. Any tips for driving up steep hills with 20-25MPH speed limits? It seems like no matter what I do, I'm lucky to get 20MPG instant.
There isn't really any weight reduction I could do. I have nowhere to put my tools besides in my car, but they only weigh about 30lbs. The back seat is usually being used by passengers, removing it would just lower my people moving efficiency. I have the radiator fan disabled (the thermostat that controls it needs replaced), so that probably helps a bit vs having it shorted to be on all the time. The only time the coolant temp rises above 203F is prolonged extremely slow driving like looking for a place to park in an extremely crowded parking lot.
I pretty much just try to make up for my less than ideal city driving conditions when I drive on the freeway, in most conditions I can easily exceed 40MPG instant on my Ultragauge. My goal is to keep my fuel costs under $.10 a mile, so as gas prices rise I may have to start adding some areo mods.