04 Civic Si - New member from Minnesota

[EP3]

Yeah I have the same engine and car. I am keeping my RPMs low trying to shift less than 2.5 k...3k is proably just fine. I say my throttle is no more than 30% open under most conditions... 50 mpg (city driving so far) no movement of gauge yet....

[arnphawk]

Originally Posted by greenwar

I have been reading about hypermiling and found this website/forum.

I already read through many of the posts and read about some of the extreme aeromods you guys did to your cars. Kudos to you for achieving such high mpg with simple, cost affective mods.

I daily drive a 04 Civic Si 5spd hatchback with a 2.0L K20A3 motor. I like the car because its fuel efficient yet sporty. I recently learned that Vtec in K20A3 works more like a Vtech-E than a regular Vtec. It apparently runs on 3 valves per cylinder upto 2200Rpm and then switches to 4valves per cylinder. After finding that out, I figured I will drive efficiently and see if I can make a game of getting some extra mileage out of my car. In typical pedal to the metal driving I was getting 25-26mpg.

Today I had some time so I decided to try hypermiling. I inflated the tires to 38 psi (makes the car very bumpy due to its stiff springs), filled up the tank and went for a A-B-A trip of 74.1 miles. Trip included city driving (I tried shifting below 2200), stop and go traffic on the intercity for about half a mile, and then 55-60mph driving on the interstate. I would say total of 50/50 city/hwy drive. I came back and filled up the tank until if won't take any more fuel. It took 1.823 gallons to do 74.1 miles. That comes to 40.64 miles per gallon. I found this astonishing! My assumption is that the Vtech-E is the reason for such great gas mileage without any mods at all.

My car is in need of tires and I am thinking about picking up some LRR Michelins to help with the FE. Seems like Michelin Energy MX4 is the way to go.

I will continue to hypermile and see if I can manage to maintain the same FE.

Just for kicks here is a picture of the car.



GreenWar - towards a greener tomorrow.

i like that car......very sharp. our other car is the 2006 honda accord. the lady of the house gets about 32 in her commute.

[RiseAbove]

Welcome to our world... I see a grille block mod in your future once you get hooked.

[RacerX]

Glad you found us! Welcome!

[greenwar]

Thanks for all the warm welcomes. I have been here for some time now.

I did try the grill block, both upper and lower. Car was getting pretty hot even at night with the AC off. So I took the upper one off. That seemed to have fix the heating issue. Now it stays around 185-190F on a moderately warm day.

Happy eco-driving!

[dichotomous]

are you saying you completely blocked off the bottom grill and had no heating issues at all? That encourages me to make an aero from bumper without any openings

[dichotomous]

Originally Posted by k-series

Your car doesn't have "Vtec-E" it's regular i-Vtec but only on the intake cams, not the exhaust cams like the RSX-S (k20a2 motor).

It makes it more fuel efficient and a pig on the road because of it. (I had an '02)

I highly suggest lowering the car on the stock shocks with progressive springs. It's a modest drop and won't effect the OEM shocks much at all.

Welcome to the site from another new member.


Steve

he (and I) have "2 lobe" vtec, its NOT regular vtec. it is only on the intake side, but instead of operating both intake valves the same, one is run on the regular cam and one is run on an almost circular tiny cam, barely even opening that valve, untill 2200rpm where the rocker arms are locked and both valves run off the regular cam. its very similar to the lean burn engines. the k20a2 (or z1 or z3) runs ful standard vtec on both intake and exhaust valves. the k20a3 in the ep3 runs as a 12valve engine below 2200rpm