[JETZcorp]

So, about a week ago, I decided to sell my pride and essentially hire my roommate to fix my broken '88 CRX. The thing had been trying to make due with 15.5 valves, and although it was always hopelessly slow, and was also burning through ignition coils like corn chips. With one of the cylinders doing nothing other than spewing raw gasoline out the back, I was impressed that it got ~32mpg. My plan had been to rebuild it as an HF, or perhaps even the mythical CRX VX, but reality intervened.

My roommate lost his regular job lately, and therefore my share of the rent spiked, and driving the Dakota 25mi each way each day was slowly depleting my account. Saving for a fancy build project doesn't happen when funds are depleting, so I had to get the thing on the road, and soon. So, the emergency build project was initiated, and with a used cylinder head (the old one had other issues besides the dead valve), some gaskets, and fluids, we put the thing together for less than $200 in parts. This saved the costs of intake, fuel system, computer, etc of an HF build.

The first test run, from Vancouver WA to Wishram WA and back, returned 41mpg. Pretty good, but when my roommate returned 43mpg in his '95 Saturn SC2 (he came along for rescue in case the Honda developed an issue (it didn't)), I thought the CRX had to do better. Saturns get good mileage, but this is a CRX! This means war!

I discovered slightly later that three of my tires were in the low-30s for pressure, but one of the others was chillin' at 18psi. I inflated all of them to ~45psi (max sidewall) for the next tank. I took one more road trip, this time just to the middle of nowhere and back. That took me to just under 200mi, and the remaining 230mi were handled by commuting to and from work. That's probably an 80-90% highway run. I filled it up today during my lunch break, and was impressed to have used less than 9 gallons. I knew just by mental math that I had done better than last time. I wasn't ready for the degree to which that was the case. 48.0mpg. Not bad considering the EPA says my three-cylinder mileage was par for the course.

Wow! If that's what's done with a DX, what must an HF be like? Or an Insight? I'm determined to get 50mpg out of this thing; that'll be a nice milestone, and I'm pretty sure it'll be easy to do.

EDIT:
Another interesting aspect to this story, is what the Dakota has been up to. Aside from a tire that was long-overdue for replacement, it's been stone-reliable as I've been using it for commuting back and forth. The moment the CRX's motor fired, the Dakota's front brakes went metal-on-metal from pad wear, it dumped about a gallon of coolant on the driveway, and it gained an appetite for oil. This is the kind of thing that makes you think the Dakota has a soul, you know? It's like it was saying "See? I've been holding myself together because I knew you were relying on me to get to work, and I knew that you couldn't afford to be late even once" (draw bridge on my commute, I've been late too much).

It's okay Dakota, I'll get you some good ceramic brake pads as a present. They should hold until I can get the $800 together for the Viper brake conversion!