2002 Honda Civic Coupe LX 5spd Build Thread
 

Hey all,

I’m parting ways with my beloved Accord, and have decided that my winter beater civic will become my new daily driver. So far, I’m still in the process of selling the Accord, but this will be my progress thread for the civic.

The car was purchased last fall from a family friend for 3k CAD (2.2k USD) and it’s only got 151k km (93.8k mi) on it. The suspension was fully replaced by Honda, and the timing belt was done about 50k km ago.

This car will be seeing a lot of stop and go city driving, so don’t hold me to the same standards as mpg_numbers_guy, TaylorL or Vman455 :D

Thanks for reading,
Christian

First item on the list was to replace my air filter, unbeknownst to me it was practically brand new, nice. I'll be saving my FRAM air filter and using it in the future instead.

https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1666576988

Next item on the list is installing my new-to-me Scangauge II that I purchased from a guy on Kijiji in Montreal.. once it arrives.

After that, I'll be lubricating this squeaky slave cylinder, and of course inflating my tires 5 or so psi above recommended :cool:

Subscribed! I'm always up for a Civic build.

Thanks Ecky,
I've gone through your JDM MX-5 thread, I must say, that's a very cool car. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable on Miata's, but I didn't have a clue that the MX-5 in Japan came with a 1.5L Skyactiv motor vs our 2.0L motor in North America.

Pretty cool, especially considering the smallest motor you could find in the NA was an even bigger 1.6L!

How would I subscribe I'm pondering going with an automatic and selling my 2014 spark . A Honda has been something I've been considering and would enjoy following this build .

Go to Thread Tools. There you can subscribe.

Well, it’s been a month, so it’s time to post my 2nd update. Since my last post, I have sold my accord and insured my civic and have been daily driving it for the last 9 days. It’s boring, and slow, but CHEAP!

I recently acquired a Scangauge II from a guy out in Montreal and had it shipped to me, total price was $133 ($99.64USD). Unfortunately, the OBDII port on my car is finicky, and when I go over little bumps it can occasionally lose power, which drives me mental. So for now, no scangauge.

As of just two hours ago I bought a new set of lightweight wheels and tires off of Facebook Marketplace for $250 ($187.29USD). They are 4x100 R81 Imola (Mini Cooper) wheels, which may sound boring, but they’re 11.9lbs each. The rubber that was included on the wheels is 175/65/R15 Goodyear Assurance All Seasons, and although they aren’t low rolling resistance, they're in great shape, and they’ll do the job in the crappy Vancouver rain.

Probably won’t have too much to say in the coming months, I’ll add my fuel-ups as I go. Don’t expect much right now for gas mileage, most of my driving is in the city, and I’ve got my heavy winter tires and steelies on in preparation for the snow.

https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1670210964
https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1670211003https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1670211077https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1670211121

Well, the snow is here. I've updated my fuel log and recently had pretty crappy gas mileage. My most recent fuel up was 21.87mpg(US) or 10.74l/100km. This is partially due to me being caught in a 5-hour traffic standstill in the snow.

I'm due to fill up soon and I'm sure my fuel economy will be better, but for now, my average is 23.9mpg(US) or 9.8l/100km.

Attached is a pic of my car this morning. Won't have too much to say in the coming months. I will definitely be posting an update with pics once the weather improves and I can put my new wheels on the car, hopefully, that is when my fuel logs start improving.

https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1671710468

Nice find! These 7th gen Civics can get surprisingly good MPG. I have an 05 sedan with the 1.7 VTEC and base D17A1 5 speed and I regularly get 45-47 MPG on my daily commute with a best tank of 49.2 MPG. That's with some mods (mostly performance mods actually), but nothing extreme.

I also have a K24A2 swapped sleeper 04 sedan, but at the moment it's currently getting only about 40-42 MPG because it's not nearly finished yet.

If I may make a few suggestions for simple and cheap ways to improve your MPG, you may want to get a block heater, block the upper grill for the winter, adjust the valve lash, and change the spark plugs and upstream o2 sensor if they are original. You'll likely see some decent gains with that stuff.

You can also convert the power steering to the electric system from the Civic Hybrid or EP3 Si or just delete the power steering to free up a few HP, get a little more MPG, and free up a lot of space under the hood. Converting to EPS was fairly easy and cheap for me, but I don't find these cars that hard to steer without power steering either.

Funny, I need to modify--fix--my 2002 Civic coupe.

It has a quarter million miles and a blown head gasket.

I need to finally get my Accord back on the road, figure out my ATF leak, and then figure out the 2002 Civic.

However, life, uh, finds a way.

What year was your Accord?

Thanks for the tips EcoCivic,
Is your daily commute mainly highway? 45-47mpg seems unachievable for me. Right now, my average fuel economy sits around 26mpg, but that's almost all short 5-10 minute city drives with a cold engine, which isn't exactly ideal parameters for good gas mileage. A block heater would definitely make sense for me, but I don't want to have to fight for driveway space every time I get home, so it's not on my list for now.

That's really cool that you converted your power steering to an electric system, my pump has actually been whining the last few weeks. I was going to flush the system, but if that doesn't fix it I may just do a delete and eventually an electric power steering swap. Do you have a build thread you can link me?

I'm not sure if the spark plugs are old or not, I haven't taken a look actually, I'll keep that in mind once the weather warms up. If you have any other tips or advice let me know! I'm really hoping to get it up to 30mpg, hopefully once I put these new wheels and tires on it'll give me a push in the right direction.

Well, it sounds like yours needs some work, but I'm glad to hear it lasted so long before the head gasket blew. I've heard the main issues on these cars are the head gaskets and automatic transmissions, luckily I don't need to worry about the transmission!

My Accord was a 2008 V6 Coupe with a 6 speed manual, it was fully loaded (EX-L w/ Navigation), and was a great car. If it weren't for the paint's dramatic wear over the last year I would have kept it for a long time.

As you say, driving conditions are key.

I'm sure it's already on your radar, but for short trips, improving warmup is going to be the lowest hanging fruit. Block heater, grille block, engine blanket, etc. , along with reductions in parasitic loses, such as thinner fluids, higher tire pressure, etc.

Power steering is also a pretty big parasitic loss, but I'd be reluctant to lose it without electric replacement.

Ultimately though, you're not going to be able to compare with others who have more friendly driving cycles.

My daily commute is currently 25 miles each way on country highways with 40-55 MPH speed limits and only a couple stops each way, so pretty good conditions for MPG. It's not bad on the interstate though, I just took my 05 on a ~450 mile round trip from Memphis to Nashville to pick up a 6 speed transmission for my 04 and I averaged 45.4 MPG (indicated and verified) on the way there at about 60-65 MPH and on the way back I averaged 47.9 MPG (indicated but not verified) averaging about 55 MPH. That's with no drafting or other extreme techniques, just being smooth on the throttle, coasting down the slight hills as much as possible, and driving in a way that brake usage isn't required. I don't get very good MPG on short trips either, 26 MPG seems about right. But other than preheating the engine, there's not much you can do about that other than not idling to warm up and not using the heater until the engine is warm since heater usage delays the warmup. Could you possibly use a long extension cord to power a block heater?

Deleting the power steering isn't a bad option. At least in my opinion, these cars aren't that hard to steer without power steering as long as the strut mounts, tie rod ends, etc aren't sticking like mine were and I'm not a big guy. If my only options were the stock system or manual steering, I'd pick manual steering every day. I don't have a complete build thread, but have a couple threads on converting to EPS if that's something you are considering. And of course if you have any questions you are always welcome to ask.
https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...n-37317-2.html

https://www.civicforums.com/forums/2...onversion.html

Thanks for the info, I’ve been looking into the electric power steering conversion, and it seems like a lot of work, and pretty minimal ROI for me. With my short stop & start drives I should be less worried about parasitic losses, and more worried about reducing vehicle weight and achieving ideal operating temperatures faster.

I think you and Ecky both might be right, maybe next winter I’ll have to install a block heater.

NoD had a good writeup on neutralizing power steering. I removed my power steering because I needed to replace my alternator and it was in the way. I was looking into doing it properly when my dad passed away and I never looked into it again.

Good point. If you want to see what gains you can get, it's easy enough to take the power steering pump belt off and see how much efficiency you gain. For what it's worth, Honda claimed a 2% fuel efficiency improvement on the 7th gen Civic Si (EP3) just from the EPS system.

There isn't that much room for simple and cost effective weight reduction on these cars IMO, stuff like the interior pieces are pretty light. Taking out the spare tire and jack will save you about 25-30 pounds. Removing the AC saves about 35-40 pounds, I'd be happy to weigh the system for an exact weight. Keeping only as much fuel as you need will save quite a bit too, liquids are heavy. Light weight alloy wheels can easily save 5-10+ pounds of rotational mass each, the stock 15 inch steel wheels weigh about 23 pounds each.

On the topic of warmup, getting the oil warmed up quickly will likely show decent gains for short trips too. Honda used an oil cooler/warmer oil filter housing on just about all their ultra high efficiency engines for a reason. These are easy to retrofit onto your engine if you want it. I went way overkill and got a 30 plate oil to coolant heat exchanger to heat/cool my oil and it works amazingly well, the oil temp comes up much faster and sits within a few degrees of the coolant temp regardless of load or weather. With effective oil temp control, much thinner oils can safely be used too since it won't get too hot and thin out. Then you can get the best of both worlds with a lower average operational viscosity and a higher minimum viscosity, which is a win for efficiency and wear protection.

Hey guys, it's been a few weeks, so figured it was time for update #4.
The weather is improving here, and I've finally had the chance to go over the car and do some maintenance items and improvements that I had been procrastinating.

As far as fuel economy goes, even though I am still using my steel rims on winter tires, my average lifetime gas mileage has jumped from 23.9mpg (9.8l/100km) to 26.96mpg (8.7L/100km). This is great news for me as nothing has changed other than the weather. I really look forward to installing those new wheels and tires for (hopefully) an even bigger improvement.

The first things on my to-do list were to replace my cabin air filter and install some platinum plugs from NGK. I didn't get any service history on either item when I purchased the car, so I figured it was time to swap them out. The cabin air filter was pretty dirty, but the spark plugs appeared to be in okay shape. One thing that stood out to me, was the discolouration on the plugs. 3 of my plugs had a greenish hue, but one was very purple. Could this mean that one of my cylinders is getting too hot? I would appreciate any input.

Next on the list, I had a transmission fluid flush performed and found out that my steering rack was leaking. Although this is bad news, it appears to be a slow leak, so hopefully, I can get away with just topping up the power steering for now.

That just about wraps up my update, there are a few minor side notes though. I finally "fixed" my OBDII gauge so that it isn't losing power anymore, so I can now use my Scangauge! I'm hoping the "fix" will hold up over time. I also removed the OEM rubber lip/dam that goes under the front bumper of the car, as it was half torn off from an incident with a tall curb in a parking lot...

https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1674884720
https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1674884626https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1674884689https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1674884755

Even if your power steering leak is small, I recommend at least figuring out from where it is leaking and where the fluid is landing.

A power steering leak ruined the rack and pinion and alternator belt in my Prelude, and apparently the alternator died when the belt snapped.
An oil leak in the Accord ruined the distributor, starter, spark plugs, wires, and caused misfires.
An oil leak in this Camry ruined a hose and a seal.
Unless a leak is on the bottom and will only ruin the ground it will probably cause other components to fail.

Did the spark plugs come those pretty colors? I have seen metal like that, but I haven't seen discoloration like that in any spark plug chart:
https://i.imgur.com/3qTc9Cf.png
https://i.imgur.com/7ftoZPy.jpg
https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1674887772
https://i.imgur.com/0sEP9hV.png

Nice, glad to hear you are making progress!

Are you sure the power steering rack itself is leaking? I never saw one of these racks leak, but the steel return pipe coming from the rack rusted out on both my 7th gens, so I'd try to pinpoint exactly where it's leaking from before condemning the entire rack. But if the rack ends up having to be replaced anyways, that would be a great time to upgrade to EPS.

From what I can see on the pictures, those spark plugs look fine to me. I have no explanation for the purple look one of the spark plugs has, maybe it came from a different batch or something. If there was a problem with something like a clogged fuel injector causing an excessively lean air/fuel ratio, I'd expect to see that on the ground strap and electrode area rather than on the outside.

Thanks Xist,

I should have clarified in my post, the leak is coming from the steering rack rubber boot. It appears that nothing should be damaged by the leak, but I appreciate the heads-up. I didn't really consider how much damage the fluid itself could cause.

I searched for "green and purple metal" and found this reddit post asking what this treatment is called:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DiU0kE1WAAAPq1X.jpg
People argued whether it was anodization of titanium nitride, but someone said it was "Neo chrome" and I found these:
https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1674888586

The description just says it is polished: Silverware Set,20-Piece Stainless Steel Flatware Set,Tableware Set,Dinnerware Set Service for 4 (Rainbow Multicolor）

Someone commented "You can do this by heating metal and putting poppyseed oil on it."
Hmmm... heat and oil...

A friend used to say that Murphy's Law should be renamed in my honor.

Thanks?

So, if it can go wrong for me, it will, and if it can damage something else, it will.

I think you're on the right track with heat, but I'm not sure if oil would be the culprit, the plugs were dry and had no fouling. Maybe I'm biased because I really don't want to believe that my engine has any issues with rings, pistons, cylinders, etc.

I'm assuming the shell is made of steel, and I found a diagram of different colours that can be achieved through different temperatures when heat-treating steel.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...cksmithing.JPG

I'm not positive, I just know all the fluid is pooling in the rubber boot on the steering rack. The EPS conversion definitely sounds more tempting now haha, but may prove to be a major headache, as this is my only car right now, and I'm positive the conversion would not go smoothly for me.

Yea the plug colours are very strange, I'm assuming they're all part of the same batch as they all have the same model numbers, but I have no way to be certain

I need to do some digging around and figure out what my best course of action is to get this power steering fixed/replaced for as little as possible. Deleting the system sounds nice and cheap, but considering this car is used mainly for city driving, it may be a major PITA when parking and maneuvering at low speeds.

Subscribed! I haven't been as active on Ecomodder as of late but it's always good to see another Civic build.

On my Insight, doing engine off coasting around town meant the difference between 50 mpg and 75 mpg in city traffic. Now my Prius C does that automatically and still gets 75 mpg!

The Insight had EPS though so I didn't lose steering with engine off. Coasting is huge, and even coasting in neutral in my old Civic and minimizing brake usage when I could helped a lot.

What tire pressure are you running? If most of your driving is around town, increased tire pressure will help more than aeromods.

Running a 80% grille block in the winter helped warm up a ton although I did have to dial it back to around 50% in the summer. Like others have said, most of your low MPG is due to idling around town and the warm up process.

Nice score on the lightweight wheels!

Wow, that's a huge increase, I am tempted to do some EOC, but I have a lot of hills and traffic on my short trips. I'm worried about the loss of brake assist more than the loss of power steering, but I will keep this in mind when on empty side streets. Recently, I have been doing much more coasting in neutral, which I believe has helped in my improved fuel economy. It's hard to confirm though, as the road conditions and outside temperature have improved so much.

I'm only doing 35psi, as my winter tires are recommended for 30psi, but once the weather improves and I can put my new lightweight wheels and tires on, I'll definitely be running higher pressure.

I have recently acquired 4 medium-sized coroplast signs, so the next item on my list will be making a grille block. I'm thinking I'll start with a full upper grille block and eventually a ~30% lower grille block. I need to find some vinyl wrap though, because the signs are bright yellow...

I would always run ~44-48psi in my winter tires - they seemed to cut through the snow better.

You don't entirely lose power brakes when EOC, there's a check valve going to the brake booster. You typically get 6-8 solid hard stops before the vacuum assist starts to fade, and it's gradual, so you can feel it and bump start the engine.

Thanks Ecky, that's good to know, I assumed that I would only get like 1-2 good brakes before I lost power, but I definitely will have to try it out. I'd love to install a killswitch for EOC, but lack the willingness to mess with any wiring in the car.

I've thought about trying 40psi with these tires, but I'm going to wait until I put my lightweight tires on sometime in the next month.

NoD converted his power rack to manual.
I needed to remove my power steering pump when I replaced my alternator and I never put it back.
I looked into properly converting it--I believe that you loop some lines--when my dad passed away and I had far too much else going on.

Members made vacuum reservoirs.
A big container...to hold vacuum! :)

Only EOC on roads you're familiar with, do it in neutral first and make sure you can coast the distance with few or no applications of the brake before doing EOC on it, just to be safe. On highway EOC doesn't make that much of a difference, but it makes a huge difference around town and idling in heavy traffic.

What winter tires are you using, out of curiosity? Most of the ones I've seen are rated for 44 or 51 PSI. I won't speak of the tire pressures I've run or still run. :rolleyes:

Use a Scangauge or Torque app to monitor actual coolant temps when you start blocking off the grille, don't rely solely on the dummy gauge in the gauge cluster.

You can wire an LED under your cowl to light up when your fan turns on. You might see improved fuel economy with 100% fan utilization, but what would your car do when it gets warmer than that?

Thanks, will do. My commute to school is less than 2km (1.25mi), and almost all stop and go on a steep hill. So it really makes it difficult to find much room for coasting especially with the engine off. Lately, however, I've been taking side streets which allow me to p&g a tiny bit, but still difficult due to all the stop signs every block.

BFGOODRICH Winter Slalom P185/60/R15. I just double-checked and the max pressure is 44psi. For some reason I had it in my notes that I couldn't fill over 35.

I will, I have a SGII and just built a 60% grille block prototype. I'm going to be posting some pics within the next hour or so.

This is much sooner than I anticipated considering update #4 was 3 days ago, but here's an update as I had some free time today.

As mentioned in previous updates, I've been planning on doing a full upper grille block, and a partial lower grille block, but had yet to buy any coroplast. Luckily, about 2 weeks ago I saw some free coroplast signs on Facebook marketplace and obviously I had to grab them. They're bright yellow, but they were free... pros and cons I guess.

Today started off on a crummy note, I woke up to a nail in my tire AND it was snowing. When I brought my car it in to get the tire plugged, the sidewall was bulging, so it had to be replaced. The tire shop wanted $228 ($171 USD) for a new tire, which was laughable considering I spent $200 ($150 USD) on my 4 winter tires and rims. Luckily there was a cheap shop nearby, and I got a $70 ($52.59 USD) used tire.

On the bright side, I was free today, and the cold/snow this morning reminded me that my fuel economy would inevitably start decreasing. So, I decided to take measurements and build a prototype for my partial lower grille block outside in the cold like a crazy person. All went well, and I had a good cardboard prototype, so I decided to just go ahead and build my coroplast version, which went well. I haven't put it on the car yet, as it is currently drying because I had to paint it black, but I will fit it soon.

Specs: 17in x 4in - Partial block of exactly 60.714% of the lower grille.

Attached are some images of the rough prototype grille block. Will post photos of the painted coroplast version once it is dry and I've fitted it.
(Full disclosure: the final version is 1in longer than the prototype pictured, this was done to add a third mounting/zip tie spot.)

https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1675237743https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1675237780

For reference, this is the grille block I ran in Florida during summer:

http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/...psfukawmkt.jpg

I likely could run a full lower grille block, but don't want to deal with the hassle of removing it if I'm doing long drives in the summer. I will keep an eye on the water temperature and adjust accordingly though.

Your pipe insulation lower block looks great, I was planning on doing the same since it allows for easy removability, but I prefer the flush look of coroplast.

Your taste in cars is great, I have been in the market for a clean miata for years, and I really like insights, and you've owned both!

-I haven't had any luck with EOC for my driving style despite trying it several times. About the best it *might* have done for me over letting the engine idle while coasting was increase my tank average from 47 MPG to 48 MPG, but due to variances in weather, that 1 MPG gain isn't even directly attributable to EOC. For me, the possible tiny gain isn't worth the hassle, safety risks, extra wear on the engine and entire drivetrain from constant bump starting, etc, but YMMV.

I'd personally bock the grill as much as I can get away with plus a decent safety margin in the winter and not block it at all in the summer if you are using AC regardless of engine temps. I would think the decreased AC efficiency and longer compressor cycles from the condenser not cooling as efficiently has a good chance of negating any aerodynamic benefits and will cause unnecessary stress on the AC system. But if you won't be using AC, this part isn't a concern.

You don't want the fans running excessively from the grill block either, this will cut into your savings since the engine to fan motor efficiency will be ridiculously low due to the ~50% alternator efficiency and ~75% efficiency of the fan motors. Both fans together draw around 16 amps, which is ~224 watts. When factoring in alternator efficiency, running the fans is about an extra 2/3 HP of load on the engine.

The fans on these cars are no fun to change either, so I wouldn't take the extra wear on the fan motors too lightly.

Thanks for the heads up, 47-48mpg would be amazing for me, but since I'm almost exclusively short city drives, I feel that EOC would be a great method to squeeze extra efficiency out of my civic. I really want to wire a killswitch to the injectors, because I would love to have my SGII stay on while the car is off, and I hate fiddling with the key and having my radio shut off.

My civic sits right around 193-197 degrees Fahrenheit when warmed up and driving around. I will definitely need to figure out at which temperature my fans turn on, in order to ensure my fuel economy & fan efficiency don't counteract. Hopefully, I won't need to worry too much, as our weather isn't great most of the year, and I rarely run A/C.

This is a great idea, I saw mention of this in another thread, and it definitely would be helpful to be able to watch my fans so precisely. Who knows if I end up doing it though, as mentioned, I hate messing with wires.

A killswitch would be a good idea if you plan on killing the engine regularly, it's much easier and safer than messing with the key and would save substantial wear on the ignition switch in the long run. But first, I would do some testing to see if killing the engine rather than letting it idle is significantly beneficial for your driving style. For what it's worth, when I tried EOC, I saw a slight drop in my average MPG if I killed the engine when it was still cold, presumably because doing so significantly delayed warmup. By a narrow margin, I seemed to get the best results with EOC by killing the engine only after the coolant was fully warm, but we're talking about +/- about 1-2 MPG, so easily within testing variance.

193-197 degrees coolant temp is about 10 degrees hotter than I see with an OEM thermostat, but still perfectly fine. Perhaps someone installed a hotter thermostat. The OEM fan switch is supposed to activate at 93 degrees C (~199 degrees F) according to the service manual, but since the fan switch is on the thermostat housing and sees cooled return coolant while the temp sensor sees hot supply coolant, that seems to translate to the fans activating at about 204 degrees F indicated coolant temp on my car. So as long as you aren't seeing 200+ degrees, the fans shouldn't be on.

I sincerely appreciate all this info! That's great to hear that the fan doesn't turn on until ~200+ degrees, I don't think I've even seen the car go past 200 more than a handful of times due to how short my trips are.

I believe an EOC kill switch would definitely be an improvement for me, as my average coasting speed in neutral is at max 30-40kph (19-25mph). Neutral coasting typically results in an indicated 5-8L/100km (47-29mpg) on my SGII. My engine usually doesn't even get fully warmed up on my short trips, so I don't think it will negatively impact that aspect of my efficiency.

IF I end up doing a kill switch, I also worry about the degradation of the wires/electronics over time, potentially causing issues starting or issues with the immobilizer.

It's frustrating because there is only so much efficiency I can squeeze out of this car while doing such short inefficient trips. It would be nice to get 7.8L/100km (30mpg) in the city, hopefully, I can achieve that once the weather improves.