04 Honda Accord
 

I've posted before and bought my scangauge a while back, but I couldn't really calibrate it due to car troubles. I have now come to own an 04 4 cylinder honda accord automatic. I didn't have too much say in the actual car and I can't complain about getting a car. I was wondering if there's anything about the car I should know about, like specific mods, quirks, and the like.

The only real plan I have at the moment is to purchase a part that I can hook up to the radio to have an ipod compatible radio. So taking apart the dash is about my only hardship. I did remove the two front wheels to clean them, it's getting taken to the shop tomorrow for some final adjustments before I actually start driving it. Seems to drive okay, and my dad is a big car guy and he seemed to think it was running good. He changed the oil while I cleaned the wheels.

I also can't seem to find the plug for the scangauge, granted I spent like 30 seconds looking for it, I found it odd that it wasn't in plain sight.

Hopefully this car will last, and won't burden me like the saab.

I had a 2005 V6 6-speed Honda Accord coupe, and loved every last minute of it. When I considered taking apart the dash and installing some new audio equipment, I found out that on the 03-05 Accords, it's really just a pain in the butt. Everything's kind of in one piece as far as the radio goes, so good luck!

As far as the shape of the car, it's brilliant for aero mods. It's a really good initial shape that could easily become an Ecomodder masterpiece! IMHO

I had ideas for the car while I had it, but I sold it and now I just walk and bike everywhere. :)

Yeah I've watched a couple of videos but it doesn't look too hard because I'm not going to change the radio. The adaptor should easily plug into the underside of the radio, then I just have to drill a hole in one of the little pockets and voila.

I'm just kind of excited to see how it does on my daily commute, it's a long drive mostly country road involving a 55 mph speed limit. The only problem is that it's a well traveled road and you never know who you're going to get stuck behind. I've been looking at alternative routes but there just doesn't to be much choice.

It's too bad the 6-speed is only for the V6. A 6-speed on the vtec I4 would have been gas mileage heaven.

http://i47.tinypic.com/2zsz0qw.jpg

A friend suggested I take off the mudflaps so that's an easy first deletion, I just did the first fillup today, things are looking good so far.

I fell in love with that body style and loved every minute of owning mine.
Mudflaps got to go. Good move.
Get rid of front license plate! :)
The car is already a lovely aerodynamic shape. I think it should do well with a front to rear underbody!

Unfortunately state law requires two plates, probably wouldn't get pulled over for it but it can easily be added on to other offenses. I'm clean so far, and I'm keeping it that way.

I wish we could get British license plates =P

I've been driving it as is for a little bit before I start changing anything and I'm really liking the car. I think that 5th gear really makes a difference in my commutes, I go to school 5 times a week the drive is about 50 miles there and back. I try to go 55 but a lot of people will get on you for going 55 mph. So I've been compromising I try not to go above 60 and at 60 mph I'm barely at 2000 rpm. It's easily making a difference in the high speed part of my commute.

I haven't got around to taking off the mudflaps yet, but I think even before that I might go with bumping up the tire pressure. I'm not too keen on body mods, I think at most I'd do a full/partial grillblock and I've been looking into underbody paneling as my friend has done so on his car. That's in the future though. The grillblock might be more likely as winter is coming.

Good deal man. I sure noticed that running around 2000 rpm reallllllly improved my gas mileage. If you do an underbody, make sure you curve the back of it upwards and try to make it flush with the rear bumper. A completely flat underbody won't do you much good.

What's great is that I am friends with another user and he took me to where he tested his car for some mph vs mpg runs. We did a little impromptu testing and recorded the data put it into a simple graph on excel. I can post it when he emails it to me. I think the best part of the trip for me was when we returned to his house I was able to squeeze 40 mpg out of car only by adjusting the nut behind the wheel. Definitely looking forward to when I can start adding mods and other applications to my car.

Heck yeah man! Driving like you want to save money makes a huge difference!
On my parent's BMW 328i, it has a range indicator based on average mpg. When I do my best driving, I've increased the range by over 50 miles! :)

I'm always told to talk about the reliability of my data, but the list goes on and on. You know the deal, was the road actually smooth? You take temp., wind speeds, landscape, and all that jazz into consideration. On top of recording measures. The scangauge has only been calibrated on one tank so far so it could still be overestimating or underestimating. This was sort of an impromptu test to get me sort of used to some of the methods involved in doing tests for fuel economies.

A little scary doing the 80 mph run (during late night out in the corn of Illinois) especially considering my friend had to have complete trust in me as he watched the scangauge and was taking down times and other data for me. I did get to use cruise control for once (ha). An actual reason for me to even use cruise control. The stretch of road was approx. .8 miles and we would do runs down and back the stretch so the total distance was about 1.6. I have some other data he took down. I need to give props to my friend as he's the mathematician, there's no way I would've known which formulas to use plus there's no way I would've done this on my own too. Also need to give thanks where thanks is due because he also got me into hypermiling and I'm a fan of saving money when I'm putting myself through college.