90 Civic Dx motor vs. Si motor for daily driving vs. 96 CX

[sevenspeed]

Originally Posted by PaleMelanesian

My 96 DX is the same as the CX except it has a trunk. The gearing is annoying on the highway, but fine anything below 55 mph. My commute only has a short section of 55, the rest is lower, so it's fine for me.

Mine's nearly stock except for an obsessed driver.

How is it annoying on the highway? From the specs I was looking at best cruising gears are 92-95 cx/vx, then 88-91 Crx Hf, then 96 Cx. The 96 Cx shows .702 fith and 3.722 final vs. .771 and 4.25 for my Si which runs fine on the highway just not as efficient, I don't go over 75 but was running late one time and following an autocross miata that was begging for a ticket at 90-110mph which was dumb on my part.
Looks like 02 and up geared more for acceleration too. Don't remember the numbers.

[sevenspeed]

What do they use to get ice of the roads in Canada? Here it's a dirt/salt mix.

[PaleMelanesian]

Originally Posted by sevenspeed

How is it annoying on the highway? From the specs I was looking at best cruising gears are 92-95 cx/vx, then 88-91 Crx Hf, then 96 Cx. The 96 Cx shows .702 fith and 3.722 final vs. .771 and 4.25 for my Si which runs fine on the highway just not as efficient, I don't go over 75 but was running late one time and following an autocross miata that was begging for a ticket at 90-110mph which was dumb on my part.
Looks like 02 and up geared more for acceleration too. Don't remember the numbers.

Hf is not interchangeable, being cable-driven rather than hydraulic. The VX/CX is the best. 96+ HX is also good. Then comes my DX.

It's true the 6th gen CX/DX has better gearing than the others, but it's still not great. 3000 rpm at 70 is simply crazy. The VX gets put it at 2200 at 70. If that's not enough power (exceedingly rare instances), you can downshift for more revs. If you're already in top gear, you can't upshift for lower revs. You pay extra gas for each extra rpm, every mile you drive.

Showdown: testing RPM vs. MPG at a fixed speed - MetroMPG.com

[sevenspeed]

Thanks, the HX didn't come as a hatchback though did it? I knew you could put a hydraulic in a cable shift car with an aftermarket kit, didn't know if you could go the other way around.
I don't know what I'm gonna do, I want to stick with Honda because they are super picky about quality (work for an air conditioning supplier,) are reliable, and mine gets good mileage. I also like the hatchbacks. But I wanted a newer car so I wouldn't have as much upkeep on it. I don't really like the style of the Honda Fit. The Mazda2 looks nice but doubt I can afford brand new. I like my RX-7 which I guess you could say gets very good mpg of gas since e85 is only 20% gas so 15mpg of E85 is actually alot more then 15mpg of gas Haven't driven it in a couple years though.
I do appreciate all the help.