Car enthusiast with a conscience from Norway
 

Hi there. I've loved cars as long as I can remember, and I do love powerful fast cars too, but I'm kinda pragmatic and a cheapskate, so I've mostly had old cars, some even pure bangers. Still I do like efficiency, and I do care about both the ecological and economical benefits from ecomodding, unless they hurt the look or performance of the car too much (upside, I do like aerodynamic cars ;)) I'm also a hobby artist and designer. Until now I've owned around 30 cars, most of which have been Fords, most of those were Ford Sierras, and most of those hatchback coupes . And as a general rule I've tried to keep most cars on the 'good' side of 25MPG. And as good as 33mpg (highway)on the best one (lowered 86 2.0 IS with full XR4i kit , 28mpg on average)
As my family kept expanding I needed a bigger more modern car in the end, so I went and bought a 2003 Honda CR-V because it was the only car with a rear seat that could seat three adults (or two large baby-seats and an adult) and get me up to my house in the winters. And it has a tiny footprint for it's interior size (putting the gas tank under the floor, and spare on the outside of the rear-door has it's benefits :)) Still, as practical as it is, it gets me roughly 20-25 mpg regularly, and as bad as 18 sometimes in the winter with a skibox on the roof. So, hoping to learn some tricks from you, and hoping to be of some assistance when it comes to general knowledge on working on cars, aerodynamics and design...

One thing I could suggest you to get would be a grill block, which would lead to quicker warm-ups in Norwegian winter, altough I'd consider a retractible one.

Thanks, yeas that has been one idea, and I think the upper grille does little for cooling anyway, but it looks like the air intake for the engine is in the upper half somewhere. I'll try to find time to make a dedicated thread on the Honda later :)