New guy here with a VX.

[bluesteel93]

So a couple weeks ago I was reading an article on either motor trend or car and driver's website about some of the most fuel efficient vehicles. I was quite surprised to see an old Honda CRX HF on the list which they claimed could get over 50 mpg.

I quickly began researching and stumbled upon this site as well as others. While searching craigslist and found a 91 CRX HF with a VX motor swap for sale. I convinced my wife to let me go look at it, but unfortunately somebody beat me to the car and put a deposit down with the owner to hold it for a couple days.

I was bummed at first but started searching craigslist again and found a 94 Civic VX (CA version) locally. I went to look at it and ended up buying it for $2400. Included were a set of VX wheels and some 14" steelies which the car is sitting on right now. The car has almost 245,000 miles on it, but is honestly in great shape for a car with that many miles. Even though its not the CRX I was interested in at first, I'm happy with the car and excited to see what kind of mileage i can squeeze out of it.

Plans for the VX as of now are to get an MPGuino, convert to 49-state lean burn, some minor aero mods, and use the VX wheels with some eco tires.

Glad to be a part of this site!

[Baltothewolf]

Welcome! The VX with lean burn has potential for more mpg than the CRX HF so don't trip on not getting a HF.

There is a step by step guide here on the forums on how to convert your car to a 49 state car with lean burn, don't worry about smog it will still pass.

Get the VX rims back on, those steel rims are definitely hurting your MPG. I'm not sure what the best tires are for the 13" VX rims but I'm sure a search would turn up good results.

As for mpg, just casual driving with no Hypermiling, or ecomods people seem to get in the 48-55 range.

[elhigh]

I don't know about the steelies hurting mileage. They're almost certainly heavier, but weight is only an issue if you do a lot of stop and go. Cruising, they're just flywheels.

The nice upside of steelies is that if you want to add some smoothie wheel discs, it's as easy as a quick stop by anyplace that sells wheel covers. I got some smoothies on my truck for about $80, and they look fantastic. Can't do that with alloys.

CAVEAT: can't do it with all steelies, either. There has to be enough room there to get the grabber thingies of the covers on. Some factory steel wheels don't have that.

[MetroMPG]

Welcome, bluesteel93!

Congrats on the VX find.

Every time one of you guys gets one, I get wistful for one... but they're long gone from around here (rust belt). Lean burn suits my typical driving patterns perfectly (mostly secondary highway cruising at moderate speeds).

The closest I ever got to a VX (not counting my 2k Insight of course) was buying a set of wheels for my old Accord...



Sadly I couldn't swap the wheels over to the Firefly (lug pattern). Photoshop was the closest I got, because my machinist friend said there wasn't enough meat in them to make a second set of holes.

[bluesteel93]

Thanks for the welcome guys! I think I might paint the VX wheels black and slap them back on. The tires on the VX wheels still have a little bit of tread left so I might as well use it up.

On to more important issues, sounds like I have some bearing noise coming from the tranny that I didnt notice when I first bought the car. So the car is sitting at my brothers place until we get some time to pull the tranny and go through it. I just had ACL surgery so I cant really go anywhere or work on anything for a few weeks.

In other news I found someone on craigslist who had a couple federal lean burn ECU's for sale so I picked both of them up for pretty cheap. Now I just need the LAF sensor and time to go to the junk yard to get the connectors to make the harness.

I'll try to post some pics of VX if I can figure it out....

[bluesteel93]

Nevermind, looks like I need to post a few more times before I can post pictures.

[Mustang Dave]

Welcome aboard, fellow Mustang owner.

[bluesteel93]

Originally Posted by Mustang Dave

Welcome aboard, fellow Mustang owner.

Thanks! That's also another reason I bought this car. Of course I wanted the good gas mileage (my SVO was averaging 18-22), but I also didn't want to keep putting miles on the SVO Mustang seeing how it only has 90,000 on it now and that was going up pretty quick with it being my daily.

[bluesteel93]

Now that I can post pics, here you go...

The 94 VX:







And here's a pic of my old daily driver, the SVO:

[hondaguy72]

Nice white vx! More than likely you'll need to replace the transmission input shaft bearing. It's a common failure due to insufficient transmission lubrication. The Trans oil 5w30 should be changed at 15K intervals. The job is big, but doable if you have moderate mechanical skills