Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecky
I'm K swapping my Insight, and have put together what is possibly the tallest K series transmission ever assembled. I'll let the high level of torque take care of off-the-line acceleration and will be turning ~2200rpm (possibly less) at 70mph, hopefully allowing me to keep my 60+ mpg. Highway economy is really all about gearing and aerodynamics.
EDIT:
I'm actually less than certain about the 4.4 final drive in the EX. That's what California98Civic's Honda transmission guide says, but Honda says it can be either/or:
https://owners.honda.com/vehicles/information/2003/Civic-Coupe/specs#mid^EM2123PW |
In a way having tall gearing sounds nice. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t really like cruising at a high RPM for a long time because it sounds noisy and it feels stressful on the engine, even though I know it’s fine. If I regularly took long road trips I would probably get sick of the EX transmission’s short 5th gear pretty quickly. The idea of cruising at 4000 RPM all day doesn’t sound appealing to me.
But I also like to push it hard sometimes, so I think the best option for my needs may be to get the EX trans and swap to the HX 5th gear, and possibly the DX/LX 1st gear for more off the line power.
Call me crazy, but I am starting to think about the possibility of installing a CVT from a Civic Ferio 1.7. It would probably be the most fuel efficient, and also possibly the fastest since it could hold the RPM high for maximum acceleration at full throttle and there would be no shifting.
But one major problem with a CVT is I am not sure how well it would handle the extra power that this engine is making. From my understanding CVT’s are problematic enough as is, and I’m sure pushing more power through it than it was made for wouldn’t help.