Thread: civic owners
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Old 07-13-2011, 05:54 PM   #15 (permalink)
California98Civic
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Coastal Southern California
Posts: 6,299

Black and Green - '98 Honda Civic DX Coupe
Team Honda
90 day: 66.42 mpg (US)

Black and Red - '00 Nashbar Custom built eBike
90 day: 3671.43 mpg (US)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by brucepick View Post
I don't know how you guys keep getting 60-70 mpg. I've been working hard to keep it in the upper 40's.

My commute is about 55 mi. each way, mostly highway, mostly no significant traffic. I drive mostly between about 60-65 mph. 55-60 on highway upgrades and sometimes 70ish on a downgrade.

What kind of driving are you guys doing? Are you driving at my kind of speed and distances?
I'm slower than you, and I'm not on the freeway as much. I stick to local roads, where I can rack-up big FE numbers through P&G with the engine off. On the freeway, straight out without hypermiling and at about 50-60 MPH (holding a consistent 16.5 or 16.9 throttle) I get only about 49-52mpg. On the surface roads is where the big gains are. Lately I use a technique on the freeway I call "GLEN" meaning "Glide, Load, engine-on, Neutral." I accelerate at 70-80% load from 50 or 55 to 60 or 65mph (always a 10mph arc) then coast back down to the starting speed in neutral. I get modestly higher freeway MPG this way, maybe as high as near-60 but I don't think so, and I have not reliably quantified it.

Bottom line: I avoid freeways and take my 11 mile commute a little more slowly through EOC. I don't however drive all that slowly on average... just a little slower than traffic.
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See my car's mod & maintenance thread and my electric bicycle's thread for ongoing projects. I will rebuild Black and Green over decades as parts die, until it becomes a different car of roughly the same shape and color. My minimum fuel economy goal is 55 mpg while averaging posted speed limits. I generally top 60 mpg. See also my Honda manual transmission specs thread.



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