My Civic modding thread (2000 Civic Dx Coupe)
 

Hey Gang, thought I'd post what I'm doing to my car in case it can benefit anyone else looking to boost FE. I'm not going to be OCD about it, but will post pics and describe what I've done. I've copied what others have already done, and if I come up with something new it's probably just different materials that I just happened to have on hand.

Since I've already done most of the mods that I intend to do on this car I'll list them now.

Tires 45 psi:
Easy enough, bit harsher ride but improvements in FE right off the hop

Kill switch:
Little harder to accomplish but major improvements in FE. I bought this car just for this mod when my old Contour died.

Synthetic oil:
Changed back due to engine noise (high mileage engine)

On Board Charging System:
Installed a Genius 7A Charger

Battery Blanket:
I live where it gets REALLY cold in the winter. This keeps my battery performing at it's best by warming it 20C above ambient. Disconnected when the snow melts.

1000 Watt Circulating Tank Heater:
As an assist to my block heater, this warms the coolant and in turn the engine block.

2 Timers:
One to turn on my block heaters, one to turn on the cabin heater mounted in the back of the car. This way they are only on for a few hours before I start the car and that's it. I did it this way so I only need one cord to plug in the car. It's a bit more complicated on board to make it simple day to day.

Grille block upper and lower:
Major difference in warm up time in the winter. I hear it boosts FE too. Most people around here use them to help the engine warm the cabin faster. Used Coroplast backed with small wood blocks to achieve a flush fit on lower. Looks like car has teeth when removed ha ha. Upper just screwed on. Plan on replacing screws with stainless as they've all rusted.

House receptical installed in grille to plug in car (Use at own risk!) (Toaster modification):
Needed a nice flush mount way to plug in the car. My extension cord has a male plug on each end, so here's the dangerous part: I always plug in the car first, then into the house and unplug the house end first before the car. If I don't then I'm holding exposed live wires in my hand, so please just don't do this. ;)

Voltmeter to monitor battery:
Important on long commute in severe weather like I am prone to do every day. Got a cheap plug into cig lighter unit from Canadian Tire.

Trunk located deep cycle AGM battery. Stock battery delete:
Old car batt died due to EOC abuse. Replaced with a battery meant for a real charge and discharge cycle. Ran 1Gua welding wire from stock positive wire through firewall on passenger side below battery tray through plastic rocker cover and behind interior plastic, then over fender into trunk. Found a place behind spare tire the battery basically is wedged into. Made a plywood trunk deck with a cutout for the battery that serves as a mount as stock mount ended up snapping. Picked up a heavy guage negative cable that's attached to frame bolt in trunk.

Front air dam from vinyl siding:
Just finished installing last night. Garden edging really hard to find right now (Who gardens in September says Home Improvement big box stores? Dummies.) so I used vinyl siding I had on hand. Had to paint black so we'll see how the colour holds up.

Side skirts from Vinyl gutter like CaliforniaCivic's:
Just like the title. Used small screws to hold it on and painted black. See his mods for more info.


To do:
Wheel skirts (just like a Cadillac ha ha)
Fuse for remote batt

Ok, that's it for now will post pics shortly.

Can't wait to see pics! Glad to see another civic getting some loooove

Subscribed. I put my deep cycle batt in the stock position, ran wires through firewall to 25 amp charger partially under and behind the driver seat. The plug for the charger rest on the floor by my left foot, always pluged into a Kill-a-Watt. I plug into the killawatt by opening the door and running the extension cord, a somewhat heavy one, in front of the driver mirror. I close the door. It mildly crimps the cord, and has flattened it over time a little. But my charging is completely sealed against weather and engine heat.

Nice list.

Good isolation/grommet where the positive battery wire goes through the firewall?? :)

Absolutely, it goes through a large stock grommet location where some other large wires go through. I just had to cut a slit in the rubber to make room. I made it just large enough that it required about as much force as I could generate to push through. Nice and weather tight. Stock battery tray back in place now so will make something nice for the positive wire connection on top of that. Right now It's just through bolted to the stock battery post connection and enclosed in a plastic box for safety.

Grille Block
 

Here's how I fashioned the grille block using coroplast and some vinyl I had kicking around. The vinyl strips were capping to cover screw positions on a window unit.

Tiny wooden blocks were a bit of a pain to cut, but easy to install.

Painted ordinary screws to match, but after a few years they've rusted badly so will replace with stainless. If you don't live where salt is on the road to melt ice this might not be necessary.

Used a piece of wire with a 90 degree bend to secure a sliding vent cover so I could set it at any degree of open/closed. Just pull wire up, slide, then push wire back into corrugations.

In the final product you can see I could have used another coat of paint. I'll save that for Mk II to be in production later this year.

Notes: Plate interferes with the opening a bit. Might relocate plate. Coroplast takes hits from road grit in the summer, but perforates in the depths of winter through the first layer. Over time this is becoming an issue. Still after 2 years it looks not too bad.

Was toying with how to do a slider to accomodate for the wide temp variations we get here. This is much simpler than what I was envisioning.

Upper Grille block
 

I made this after a failed attempt at using window film. When the weather cooled that stuff just shattered.

I didn't have enough coroplast to make the whole thing so made in two halves. Elections in town this month so I'll make another. :D ha ha!

This one I screwed directly into the plastic of the upper grille. Will use stainless here too. No perforations after 2 years. I think that's just because it's higher up and less prone to road grit spray on the highway.

Lately i have been wondering about putting the license plate on a slider. The US style plates are nearly the same height as the lower grill opening on these sixth gen civics.

Air Dam
 

Here I used vinyl siding I had on hand to fashion an air dam that's 2 1/2" lower than the bumper. Painted black. I have no idea how long it'll last, but it seems pretty strong with the curves. I've reefed on it and it's held fast. The bumper deflects more than the siding.

I put this on last night and can't wait to see how it affects FE.

In the last picture you can see the side skirts I installed last night too.

You'll notice damage on passenger front quarter panel from a fellow who tried to turn left through my car. Body shop in a few weeks so I'll pull off the skirts and air dam before I give it to them.

Bummer about the left-turner!

I just stuck a similar sized air dam on my '07 Civic.

I didn't test it as an individual mod (tested it as part of a package deal :D), though a similar sized one on a Mirage I tested this summer was good for roughly +2% MPG improvement @ 90 km/h / 55 mph. Different cars. YMMV.

Well the weather sure turned to fall in a hurry here. It'll be hard to judge the effects of my mods for now, though I'm sure they're helping. We went from nice room temperature days to high of plus 5 with a crazy north wind. I turned on the furnace for first time this fall.

Side skirts made contact with their first offensive speed bump last night. They seem to have flexed out of the way just fine. Funny thing is I went over that bump at an angle the first time and never made contact, but on the way out of the lot I took it head on and wow the noise. Thought I wrecked them.

Skirts will come off tomorrow after work as well as front air dam in preparation for Wednesday's autobody visit. I'll be driving a rental under auto loss of use insurance for hopefully less than a week. Maybe I can tape stuff to it while I have it!:eek::thumbup::rolleyes:;)

I find that taking speedbumps on an angle changes the car's travel on the suspension so as to prevent scraping of my side skirts. If i have to go headon, radically reducing the speed accomplishes the same thing. The fact that you cleared the speedbump once indicates you have enough clearance. You just need to prevent bottoming-out, so to speak.

You could also identify where the scraping is happening by looking at them, and trim just in that area.

Maybe they'll give you something interesting. Mitsu was selling Mirage CVT's to rental fleets in Canada this year.

Ended up with a Chevy Cruz auto. Ack, I suppose it's not that bad. It's pretty spiffy compared to my 14 year old car. Think I'll enjoy driving like a 95%er for a week or so, then try to hypermile it. :)

What was the repair estimate for your Civic? I'm a bit surprised insurance is fixing a car that age.

It's a marginal repair meaning that they'll have the autobody place tear it apart and look for further damage. If found they'll write it off. :eek:

That's not cool.

Turns out they'll fix it! That saves me the time of finding another civic and modding the snot out of it. Now I'll go ahead and manufacture version 2 of the grille block upper and lower. I'm brainstorming for ideas on materials as coro does look just like plastic cardboard...:eek: maybe I can find a flexible strip of something to cap the edges? That'd look nicer.:thumbup:

Air dam looks pretty sturdy. Is that a modular shelving rail that it is mounted to? How'd you attach to the bumper cover?
I assume yours will have to be more stout than most since it will plow snow periodically.

Since you already plug it in for the battery warmer and charger, do you plan to add a block/coolant heater?

It's mounted to a vinyl siding trim piece called sill trim or undersill. That trim piece is screwed to the bumper in about 6 places. I'm considering removing the air dam later in winter as ruts develop in the back lane. It's pretty easy by then to bottom out the car belly unless you straddle the icy ruts. Being icy you can slide back into them in unguarded moments.

Sorry, I grew up here and everyone has a block heater here. People parking on the street not plugged in during our cold winters often need a boost. I should have realized that people from all climates would be on ecomodder. We get periods of time in the winter where the day time high can be -30C or -22F and sometimes -40C or -40F. Then comes the windchill...:eek: −20.2C or−4.4F is our winter average. Summers rock.:thumbup:

Now driving autobody shop's toyota corolla courtesy car. Hope to get my civic back soon. I can't attach any cool stuff to these cars that are not mine! I will be hooking up the Ultra gauge to this one though. :)

Might as well play the game. How old is the Corolla? New one with the CVT?

Even in cold climates, not all cars come with them and you didn't explicitly mention it, so I mistakenly assumed you didn't have one. I've lived an area that would consider Winnipeg both South and warm. -60°F is no fun... and a big part of why I moved south :P

An oil pan heater may not be a bad idea either at those temps, especially since you've switched back to dino squeezin's.

I stand corrected. Wow that's cold.:eek:

Oh it's a nifty early 2000 Corolla. Most of the controls remind me of my Honda.

Yay! I have My Civic back! All fixed up with a new alignment along with tie rod ends replaced. :thumbup:

I didn't have much time left to work on the car today but did re install my grille covers and wired up the electrical too for plugging in.

Good to hear. Happy with the repairs?

Very happy yes. :thumbup:

Toaster Mod (don't do this)
 

I'm very tired from a killer long day at work. So instead of pulling out the tools and working on the car I'm going to post my 'toaster mod' and call it a night. Last night I got the car back and ran out of daylight putting power to the car again and installing the grille covers.

Legal Statement: Don't do this. It's dangerous and will electrocute you, set fire to your car, garage and house. Then and only then will your breakers pop. Don't do dumb stuff you see on the interweb! Ha ha

Now that that's out of the way...

It's called the 'toaster mod' because my lovely Wife pointed out that now she could plug her toaster into the car as she saw me plug a power tool into the car and cut/grind/burn something on the car. :thumbup:

I hated having to plug the car in through a dangly cord flapping in the wind or tucked into the bottom of the bumper so far down I would irritate/injure my tender back. I was also broke at the time so I couldn't justify buying a marinco inlet and genius hadn't come onto the market with their inlet, both wonderful flush mount solutions to providing power to your ride.(Do a google search and you'll find the truck guys love the marinco mod) So I raided my house electrical parts bin and slapped together a receptical with a cord running into the car with a 3 way Y harness to power my car battery charger, block heater and battery blanket.

Since the receptacle box was grey it melted into my grille block rather well. I cut one fin out of my plastic grille and the box fit perfectly. The tabs on the back were a bear to shove through but they anchor the box very securely. I added a few screws to really make it solid. After 1 year the screws have corroded a bit, but inside the box is pristine. No water has gotten in.

I have an extension cord with two male ends. The car end must be plugged in first, then the house end. Removal is the reverse: house end unplugged first and car last. Otherwise you have live power exposed! Danger! I will be converting to the Marinco or Genius inlet shortly and make this safe.

To plug in your toaster, plug in your car and notice there's still a place on the car to plug in your toaster! Homemade bread is best! (I imagine a toaster has a horrible draw and will blow your breakers after it burns down your garage)(Use GFI dammit!)

Wheel covers
 

Installed wheel covers today based on MetroMPG's (http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...7-a-30111.html).

I used a round piece of cardboard from a pizza box as a template to cut out the parts I needed from some waxed cardboard I had around. I thought that it was funny that a pizza disc was the perfect size. Makes sense though as I've read of some of you guys using pizza pans as wheel covers.

Put 100km of highway driving on them today already, look good.

I plan on using a more durable material that I can paint later.

Pics to follow soon.

Wheel Covers
 

Ok, finally getting to posting the pics of the wheel cover business. Took me a few hours including tire change.

All my current mods are installed now after getting the car back from the autobody shop.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...8&d=1414975137

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...9&d=1414975137

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...0&d=1414975137

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1414975137

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...2&d=1414975137

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...3&d=1414975137

Those don't look too bad, have you noticed a difference in FE so far?

Nice! Stainless screws?

Excellent to see someone doing this on an alloy wheel. Seems like a decent solution for the drill-o-phobics. :)

EDIT: the only difference in my approach was I made the discs large enough that they just touch the tire itself (helps keep them centered, I figure).

Genius level on the wheel covers is very high. thank you for sharing!!

It's pretty small, and I won't be doing any testing. Can't afford to give it the time it'd deserve. I figure I'll stand on the shoulders of the ecomodding giants that've gone before me and just do the mods they've seen results from and let them do the testing them take the credit. My plan is to have several aeromods stack their cumulative effects.

That said it wasn't as hard to hit 50mpg both to and from work today with temps near freezing and a stiff cross wind on the highway.

Good eye on the stainless screws! I now have a source I can order whatever fastener I need pretty much in stainless. That's a big hurdle in the land of salt and snow=rust.


I think in the final version I'll extend to the tire so the wheel is not visible. I'm thinking of painting the same colour as the car. Now if only the paint for a 14 year old vehicle was still for sale...

Coroplast obtained!
 

Today I finally got home from work in time to catch the local sign store open and so picked up a 4x8 sheet of black coroplast.

First project was to replace the upper grille block that was starting to look horrific after 2 years of road grit and paint chips. Since it's now black and I'm not painting there will be no paint chips this time.

Pics to follow when I have time, could be a few days.

paint
 

My local parts store also supplies paint. I can order specific colours and they'll mix it up in a spray can. It's pricey thought: ~$25.

But I bet you could also order colour match (spray) from Crappy Tire for half that or less if they don't have it in stock.

Slick work with the cardboard. I do like the festive tone of the pink coro mounting buttons, too bad they're covered :D

Would spray paint even stick to waxed cardboard? Or is this just a prototype for your follow-on effort in coroplast?

Nice grille block, very clean.