Honda Del Sol 50MPG goal
 

Hey econo friends my name is Carlos I have been modifying cars for 8 years but mostly trying to make more horse power not to worried about MPG my CR-X only got 20-25 MPG I have played with MPG in the past and only got 40mpg in my 97 civic coupe with a integra LS 1.8L motor I recently got a job that is 35 miles away and finally tested my Honda Del Sol first week I got 34MPG second week Im at 38MPG with wiper delete and reduced my speed 5MPH I do have full functional A/C and not getting rid of it


Future mods I bought a civic Vx transmission and grill block off and my friend has a body shop and will be deleting Auxiliary lights and rolling my fenders like the Honda insight

Pictures coming after five post :D

Welcome! We love Honda's here! Your prior CRX was an SI??? Pretty bad for a CRX
unless you were always standing on it!

My best w my '87 is 62.9 mpg so far.

I'm sure, w some patience, and work; you CAN reach that 50mpg w your current ride.

It was an Si fully built integra GSR motor 13:1 compression and here is my Civic Wagon with same setup
http://i742.photobucket.com/albums/x...3-05122138.jpg
My wagons motor
http://i742.photobucket.com/albums/x...3-03145629.jpg
Here is my CR-X with winter tires and wheels
http://i742.photobucket.com/albums/x...3-21154428.jpg
And last my Honda Del Sol
http://i742.photobucket.com/albums/x...3-25181218.jpg

wagonef8 -

Welcome to EM! This fellow sold a Del Sol with a Honda VX drivetrain back in May 2008 :

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...1-vx-4000.html

Don't know what happened to him, but your thread reminded me of his achievement.

CarloSW2

50mpg is more than doable. In 2006, krousdb aeromodded a Del Sol and averaged 58mpg from it. If you search back through Cleanmpg and Gassavers, you can find some of his old threads about modifying his Del Sol. Below is his thread about installing the underpanel on his Del Sol:

Del Sol Aero Mod - CleanMPG Forums

Just a thought, what cams do you have in your engine? Do you have adjustable sprockets?

My idea would be to put the stock USDM cams back into the motor and adjust the VTEC kick in point so that it would come on later, then get a J&S Safegaurd knock controller to mind the store when it comes to detonation. Good thing that Hondas are pretty good when it comes to cylinder head design.

I had thought about doing a Honda like this, but with a D series VTEC. All the VX mileage goodies but a lot of compression, pump gas or E85, and a custom ground cam. The low speed lobe would make more bottom end torque than stock so that it can be short shifted around, while the high speed lobe would be about the same as stock but with a little more lift. I asked the cam grinder if he could do something like that, he said "Sure".

Initially, I wanted a more Jeckyl and Hyde grind that would be do what I described above with an 8500 rpm high speed lobe, but he said the transition might be schizophrenic. Now that I think about it, I wouldn't mind that. As long as the engine is above 3500 rpms it shouldn't matter.

But all that got thrown out the window as of yesterday.......... a neighbor just offered me a FREE Toyota 2TC mini hemi 1.6L 4 cylinder out of an early Corolla. Life just got interesting!:thumbup:

Good luck!

Do you have FE instrumentation?

The good thing about Honda's is they are versatile you can achieve 11:1 and 12.5:1 compression with a combination of stock parts

50 MPG from a del sol should be within reach. I remember when I had my 93 Del Sol S I could hit 38-40 MPG at a speed of 70 MPH if I didn't do too much city driving. Welcome to the forum.

Going to try really hard to get as close to 50MPG before swapping transmission got grill block off and mirror delete planed for this weekend

Do you still have the built motor in her?

Built motor is in my Civic Wagon Del sol has non Vtec D16 from a 99 civic Dx

Thanks for clearing that up. That kinda changes things a bit. Since you have the non VTEC motor, you could put an adjustable sprocket on the stock cam and play around with the phasing so that it boosts the bottom end torque, or if you give my guy a call he can grind a cam that will do exactly what you want. When you look at some of the threads that deal with the Geo Metro XFi cam swap ( just pop "Xfi cam swap" into the search engine on this site ) and see what effect it has when just done alone, it's worth doing the same thing to any motor.

If we are really honest, most of the time we don't max out our cars to warrant the kind of powerbands that are usually made into our gasoline engines. We usually operate idle to 4000 rpms most of the time. That's why getting a cam made that will put the torque way low, like a diesel, will force you to drive low in the range similiar to what a trucker does. Doing the cam swap even before you do the trans swap will boost the economy especially if you combine it with some good tuning ( Hondata anyone? ) Then when you do the transmission swap, the engine will be more closely matched to the new transmission ratios.

Here's the info for the cam grinder I like, HOME

The more details you give him, the better. If you can get cylinder head flow data for your engine ( either get it online or get a used head and get the numbers from .050"-.500" valve lift ), give it to him.

What you want amounts to a high torque truck style cam.

Put maximum torque around 2500 rpms and let the hp fall where it may. With the taller gears in the VX trans, even if you revved it out to 4500 rpms, you'll be doing well over 100 plus miles and hour.

Really don't want to get in to cam grinding first some Aero mods and hope to be in the mid 40MPG then a Tranny swap and last I might put the Turbo kit from my crx for torque for tuning I have a NEPTUNE ECU might play with fuel ratio and lean it out a little

What does he charge for cam grinds and how does he calculate where it'll move the torque curve? Can he calculate how much of an advance or retard is useful too?

Depends on the motor, whether or not you want a fresh core or regrind. His company has proprietary software that does the detail work. Been around a long, long time doing work for literally everyone from the OEMs to Formula 1.

Give Mike a call and tell him what you want to do.

Here we go again ready to start playing with my Insight I will be adding Mugen Zero lift kit and drop springs and lighter wheels

http://i742.photobucket.com/albums/x...38347201-1.jpg
Mugen zero lift kit
http://i742.photobucket.com/albums/x...t-frontale.jpg
And just order springs and camber kit
http://i742.photobucket.com/albums/x...8-15-51-03.png