Oh. My. Goodness. I LOVE these HX rims!
Had to put quarter-inch spacers in to clear the brake calipers, but tires are still further inset than my original ones.
BUT, they're working wonders on my MPG! I mounted new coroplast smooth wheel covers that look amazing compared to my previous ones. MPG has gone up by about 3.5 MPG @ 40 MPH. Wheel covers previously tested at +~1 MPG @ 40 MPH, so I can say with fair certainty that this wheel+tire swap has gained me 2.5 MPG @ 40 MPH in city driving.
The most noticeable benefit isn't the improved acceleration, but that I can keep a lower % load and still maintain the same speed.
Old wheels/tires:
- Stock 7th gen Civic Sedan 15" alloys (18lbs each)
- 195/60R15 all-season tires (16.5lbs each)
- Tire pressure @ 44 PSI.
New wheels/tires:
- 6th gen Civic 14" HX alloys (11.5lbs each)
- 185/70R14 all-season tires (16lbs each)
- Tire pressure @ 52 PSI.
Even driving home from the dealership with their default 35-36 PSI in the tires I could notice an improvement.
I'll try to get pics posted tomorrow! I work and then I have a long drive to New York over the night where I'm hoping to break over 50 MPG (my highway trip to Virginia was 49.1 MPG).
Going to try my 4th attempt at wheel skirts tomorrow, this time out of coroplast instead of cardboard, and they should hopefully work since my tires are narrower.
Also, tonight I made a new MPG record! Absolutely zero traffic permitted me to do extreme hypermiling the entire way! Accelerating to 40 MPH, foot lightly on the gas for 80 MPG instant readout down to 30 MPH, at 29 MPH shift into neutral until 19 MPH, then accelerate briskly to 40 MPH and repeat. Netted me
68.5 MPG indicated, which with the 2%-5% optimistic readout that Torque gives, is still between 65 & 67.2 MPG.
If only I could have perfect driving conditions all the time. On the way to work there was more traffic that required me to drive the speed limit half the time, and I still got around 58 MPG indicated (55.1-56.9 MPG actual).
I'm lovin' it.
