Quote:
Originally Posted by Blue Angel
There's some great info here and I can't wait to see the results of your on-going testing.
|
Cool. I got the rails I need for the bellypan, taking jedi_sol's suggestion in post #16. And I have some left over wood baseboard trim I'll use to supplement. And I recently installed these Raybestos H6001 brake drag reduction clips. I like 'em, but I don't know how much of a benefit they really are. A certain brake drag sound during EOC is gone, though:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blue Angel
My Cruze is a sedan body style as well, so your results with the box section are particularly interesting. It weighs about 1000 lbs more than your lightened Civic, so the only way it even stands a remote chance of keeping up with your car would be on the highway... around town your car must be pretty efficient!
|
If I am willing to very radically hypermile, I easily cross 70mpg on the city streets. But the taller gearing of the '93 CX/VX transmission, in truth, is not as ideal for city P&G as the shorter first three gears of the '98 DX trans were. I suspected as much, but I really wanted the capacity to cruise on the freeway more. Occasionally, it has seemed attractive to me to experiment with swapping individual shorter gears into my DX trans, as I play with the extra VX final drive I plan to try and swap into it. But I have a big learning curve ahead for just the FD swap, so ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blue Angel
Interesting that your 5-speed VX transmission gives you 2.4% taller OD gearing than my 6-speed Eco. Your 0.702 5th and 3.250 final give you 2.2815 vs. my 0.61 6th and 3.83 final at 2.3363. The Cruze has a very short 1st gear though, kina necessary given the small 1.4L engine and relatively high curb weight.
|
Totally interesting. I did not know the Cruze Eco gearing was THAT tall. And they sqeeze 138 hp outta that 1.4L. I was already interested in the little car, now I'll have to obsess over it a little this evening.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blue Angel
Funny that Honda learned the high gear ratio trick so long ago, and their current fleet of Civics has such short gearing...
|
I know, right? So disappointing. But I think part of the explanation is the US market's drivers, who expect "power." To some degree, they gear the manuals short in order to sell to people with the fantasy of a street racer in their heads. Another part of the explanation might be that they have been increasing the tire/wheel sizes steadily on the civic. In 1993 the VX/CX came with 165/65-13s (or something close to that) and the new Civic comes with 195/65-15s, which makes the effective gearing quite a bit taller. And the HF does not come in a manual (another bummer). It's standard, conventional automatic has some fairly tall gearing though (0.525 fifth and 4.44 FD).
james