New CR-V AWD mods

[freebeard]

Depends on the LEDs. My experience is they make good daylight driving city lights, but they don't have the same reach down the highway at night.

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Depends on the LEDs. My experience is they make good daylight driving city lights, but they don't have the same reach down the highway at night.

Yea I have experience with this. The ones that work well are the ones that have one thin strip of diodes in a straight line so the beam pattern is almost as focused as a halogen bulb filament. If the beam isn't focused, then it's hard to see further out at night.

It seems like mass production of headlights has really taken off and the prices are low now. I'm going to take a chance and order a set for 8 bucks.

The only thing making me uneasy is that there isn't much space between the headlight socket on the passenger side and the washer bottle, so I will have to get one of the lower powered ones. That said, a 55W halogen bulb isn't exactly very bright so if the beam pattern works out it'll be fine. The other consideration is that the lights are exposed to high under hood temperatures, so a big heatsink sitting in hot air might not do much for cooling the lights, while a small heatsink inside the headlight housing has a mildly better chance.

EDIT: Ended up splurging and spending a whopping 15 on these: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256802141642681.html

The seller has pictures showing the thing drawing 1.2A (thus I can expect approximately similar light output as the stock halogens), and the heatsink looks much better designed than some of the cheaper ones with the cut in the side of the flat piece holding the LEDs and the numerous fins on the round part.

That's 2.5 gallons of gasoline money which will take about 50 hours to save, which should pass pretty quickly. I'll have the 65W high beams for de-icing if needed.

[freebeard]

Since cardboard is pretty soft, the top and bottom will need some stiffening, maybe just some extra cardboard with the corrugation going the appropriate direction.

Maybe cut out a big oval and reinforce it with a sheet of clear plastic?

[serialk11r]

I filled 15% of the tank with E85 when I got to Sacramento and got 39.5mpg indicated by the computer going to the Bay Area. A little short of 40, but with normal gasoline it would've been over 40. I did lose a bit of fuel with the adaptive cruise control erratically braking when the car ahead changed speed, and I was generally going at least 62-65mph if traffic allowed.

I noticed that it's pretty reluctant to DFCO, so doing a lot of shifting to neutral helped save ~0.03 gallons per hour. This easily bumps "city" driving from ~30 up to ~40 mpg.

Will check the tire pressure and try to get around to making the cardboard tail.

EDIT: Tires already at 40psi when the door sticker says 33F/30R so I guess I'm not going to get much more rolling resistance reduction. Installed a small solar panel to keep the battery topped up so the engine start/stop works all the time.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Depends on the LEDs. My experience is they make good daylight driving city lights, but they don't have the same reach down the highway at night.

My experiences with LEDs have been more positive than negative.

[serialk11r]

I am still shocked by how fuel efficient this car is. I got 41mpg (on added ethanol) going to Sacramento from San Francisco despite several bouts of traffic where I screwed up and had to brake a lot of times. I was doing a solid 65mph when the road opened up, and as before it would get around 39mpg doing so. Cruising at 95% of peak efficiency shows how much some other cars leave on the table.

Finding some thicker cardboard for the tail is proving a little challenging. I bought some solar panels on Amazon which had a box that was a nice size but it was pretty beaten up.

[serialk11r]

Well okay, I found a giant TV box in the dumpster and spent about 2 hours cutting it up to fit the back of the car.

I just went to go try and fit it, and...I realized there is no way to strap it onto the car by myself, because the box is huge and I can't really hold it up while trying to secure the straps. Worse, I was counting on buckling the strap inside the car, which was never going to work.

I tossed that box tail into the trash I'm staring at the back of the car trying to figure out another way to make a box cavity of significant length.

[Logic]

Originally Posted by serialk11r

The diff fluid is something I'm just thinking about because an unpowered diff at highway speed is mainly going to be losing energy churning the oil.

As a rule of thumb; 4WDrives uncouple the wheels from the side shafts when 4WD is not in use.

ie: Both side shafts, the diff and the driveshaft are all standing still until you engage 4WD.

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by Logic

As a rule of thumb; 4WDrives uncouple the wheels from the side shafts when 4WD is not in use.

ie: Both side shafts, the diff and the driveshaft are all standing still until you engage 4WD.

The Honda has a display mode where it shoes how much power goes to each wheel, and it seems to suggest the rear is getting power most of the time. It's advertised as "AWD".

Given that, I guess it's pretty important to keep up with diff fluid maintenance with OEM fluid.

[serialk11r]

Got the LEDs in the mail today and did some testing. The beam pattern is pretty tight, it's still a little bit less focused than the halogen but it's very close, unlike some of the bulbs that aren't meant to replace halogens (have very wide emitters that create very diffuse light). I think the biggest issue is that the 6000K color temp means it is just not perceived as bright by the human eye compared to the yellower light of a halogen. I wish more LEDs would come with 5000K phosphor instead of 6000K because the warmer light is easier to see.

Still, back to back testing, I feel like I can see basically just as far with the LEDs, but the real test will be a dark mountain road which will determine if I need to buy a different set.

The quality of these units is pretty good. I was a little worried the heatsink wasn't in good contact but the round heatsink part got just as hot as the aluminum piece that the diode is mounted to. TBH the heatsink got very hot rather quickly, so these bulbs may not last all that long before getting dimmer from the phosphor breaking down, but we'll see.