Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecky
I was just reading recently about the shop in Florida, LHT, which does Honda K20 swaps into Insights. Even with a very short transmission (probably 3000-3500rpm at 65mph as opposed to ~2100rpm) in the much larger 2 liter engine, they're claiming to see as much as 48mpg on the highway by tuning in lean burn with the Insight body, running as lean as 19:1 AFR.
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Even 48 mpg sounds nice to me right now since this current tank is down to about 36-37 mpg since most of my driving is short 5 mile trips on a cold engine, despite hypermiling. But then again, beating the highway EPA rating on a cold engine isn't THAT bad I guess on a stock Civic..
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecky
I don't have kids so I don't feel the need for back seats. If friends want to go out to movies with me, they can drive their own damn cars. I'm not paying the other 364 days of the year for them to ride around with me once in a blue moon.  |
Good point, but you can't really store much cargo in an Insight either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecky
Not really. Paddle shifters don't let you run outside of the RPM range the transmission computer would allow, and CVTs normally maintain the lowest RPM possible anyway. Paddle shifters are really only there to rev the engine up unnecessarily.
My issue with automatics isn't as much the gearing, as it is the durability/reliability and the drivetrian losses. Someone has in their signature various transmission efficiencies, and I believe it was written that a manual is about 98% efficient, whereas a CVT is ~88 and a traditional auto is ~86. On top of that, you don't see any automatic transmissions with half a million miles on them; most cars I see in junkyards (that haven't been claimed by rust) are there because their automatic transmission failed long before anything else did.
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If a CVT normally maintains the lowest RPMs possible, how are they less efficient than manuals? I always thought manuals were more efficient than automatics just because one could "force" them to upshift sooner.