Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecky
EPA figures I found say 34 vs 39mpg EX vs HX, and most of that is going to be in the transmission. Lean burn helps a bit but I don't think it's the holy grail some others make it out to be. Now, that's an average fuel economy mind you, and the highway test has mixed driving, so I'm going to guess at 15-20% increased economy during steady-state driving.
The off-the-line power isn't too substantially different, but pick the gearbox that's right for you. Don't let me tell you what to go with.
Final drives:
EX: ~4.41
DX/LX: ~4.11
HX: ~3.84
Hybrid: ~3.60
For what it's worth the HX actually has a shorter first gear (10%) which offsets half the difference of the taller final drive.
https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...ios-26279.html
^ Looking at the ratios here, a pretty good frankentransmission might be a DX/LX transmission with the HX final drive - you get a shorter 1st/2nd/3rd/4th and keep the tall tall tall 5th. Either that, or put the 1st/2nd/3rd from a DX/LX into the HX box.
I know it's not remotely apples-to-apples but in my Insight I'm still on the original clutch at ~250k miles and it still feels like a healthy clutch to me. It has an even taller 3.23 final drive, and power is "fine" in 1st gear even without the hybrid system enabled (accelerating with only the 66HP 3-cylinder). It's only the very tall 2nd gear that I take issue with; I'd prefer a shorter 2nd gear when lacking the torque from the hybrid system.
They produce good power at high RPM and run smooth as butter, but ultimately it won't be good for the lifespan of the engine. You'll probably still get 250k out of it, sure, but at that point I'd bet it will be drinking a lot of oil. Get the RPMs down and you'll keep your cylinder walls and piston rings much longer. |
Thank you for all the great information! My plan was to get the EX 5 speed and swap to the DX/LX 1st gear for even better off the line power, as well as swap to the HX 5th gear for less noise and more MPG on the highway.
Also, it's not just in the numbers for me. I personally don't think I'd like the way the car feels when it is cruising at a high RPM for a sustained period of time because it would sound noisy and to me it would feel like it is working harder than it needs to. I also imagine that when cruising at 4000 RPM at 80, releasing the throttle in gear would feel like hitting the brakes.
As for engine longevity, unnecessarily high cruising RPM probably wouldn't be great. Even though the load on the bottom end would be lower, a lot of parts that are unaffected by load would be moving a lot more than necessary, which would have to cause more wear. Parts like the water pump, tensioner pulley bearings, camshaft, rocker arms, valve stems and guides, timing belt, and maybe piston rings would wear out more quickly without a doubt.
However, I am not as concerned with engine wear as I am with performance and how the car feels driving. My thought is I needed to replace the engine after 200K hard miles because of a water pump failure. I was really upset and disappointed because I did EVERYTHING I could to take care of it to the absolute best of my ability and make it last as long as possible, and everything I did ended up being for nothing because the water pump failed, despite being an OEM part that I installed 20K miles ago.
So nothing I did ended up mattering anyways. It's possible that I could install the HX trans to try to get the engine to last as long as possible and then something stupid happens and I could lose this engine too for some stupid reason anyways.