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Originally Posted by 19bonestock88
You said your IMA could be fixed just by fixing ground straps? Hell yeah!
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That and replacing the 12V battery, but I'm hoping so! Got my fingers crossed there
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Originally Posted by Ecky
Mating the GM engine and Honda transmission together would be... difficult.  |
Quit killing my enthusiasm!
Quote:
Originally Posted by 19bonestock88
The guy said there was a pretty big step between 1st and 2nd gear...
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecky
There is. And the difference between 2nd and 3rd is also huge. 3-4-5 are pretty close together.
There are quite a few areas where I live where I just can't climb a hill in 3rd gear, but 2nd would be revving at 4-5000rpm because the drop in RPM is close to 50% between the two. More linear gearing would be ideal, but the car is still very drivable with the weird gear spacing Honda chose.
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There is, but I haven't had a problem with it. There seems to be plenty of power in 2nd gear - I've shifted from 1st to 2nd where 2nd starts off at 1000 RPMs and have been fine, even on an incline. I haven't driven on any super steep hills yet with the Insight, but I know some hills are steep enough where higher RPMs are necessary regardless of gearing, but such hills aren't common enough to necessitate an entire transmission change. The stock Honda gearing seems to be optimized to accelerate acceptably while using as little fuel as possible. By 2nd gear I'm basically guaranteed 25 MPG no matter how hard I accelerate, which is 2-3 times as efficient as the Civic ever was, and even better in higher gears.
We have a few steep-ish hills, but not THAT steep...I generally have the gas pedal depressed enough in 5th not to lose more than 5-10 MPH. "Worst" that's happened is I've gone from 51 MPH to 37 MPH with it floored, getting 50 MPG. Usually hills are 50-70 MPG. I've downshifted to 4th once while climbing a hill. Losing speed and gaining it on the flat or downhill is much more efficient than downshifting (4th gear floored is only 35 MPG I think?). I'm sure our hills are different though; I haven't been to Vermont but I know areas of New York can get pretty hilly.
I just need to get my cruising MPG up. Right now the stars have to align to get above 85 MPG cruising speed for more than a mile if it's flat.