New from Minnesota

[jrscteg]

Hi my name is Jake, I live near st paul mn. I currently drive a 95 honda civic cx I've been averaging 40-44mpgs when its nice out. I purchased the car about a year ago after selling my beloved jeep cherokee (love these things, just couldn't afford to drive it 70-80 miles round trip everyday)

Currently the car is stock as I've been content with the mileage, tires are at 45psi. just recently I decided to adjust my driving habits from 75-80 to 60-65. My commute is all freeway a 70mph zone so its hard to not piss people off haha.

My planned mods are
Removing side mirrors and intalling convex mirrors inside
Block heater
Alternater on off switch with a battery tender/ maintainer
Wiper delete but ill keep them in the car for the sh*tty days
Lowering the car
I'm currently in the process of making a bumper similar to tomO's original design.
Maybe some kind of wing that acts as a partial kammback

My goal is to well get better mileage without any extremely ugly mods. Haha

[Ryland]

I tried lowering my Civic VX a few years back... I didn't find it to help with the mileage at all but it did make the car ride rougher and wore out the rest of the suspension costing me $100's in repairs, you might look in to getting flat rubber belting from a farm store and making a front air dam that hangs lower instead of lowering the whole car.
If you get 14" rims off a Civic HX, early Civic Hybrid or Honda Insight, then you can run the stock, low rolling resistance Honda Insight tires, the Civic Hybrid is the most common of those cars so it's rims are the cheapest and easiest to get.
Some of the CX's came with dealer options like mud flaps, those hurt your mileage too.
Factory block heater screws in to a plug near the dip stick, they are cheap from the dealer but getting that plug out can be a pain.

[cbaber]

Originally Posted by Ryland

I tried lowering my Civic VX a few years back... I didn't find it to help with the mileage at all but it did make the car ride rougher and wore out the rest of the suspension costing me $100's in repairs

What kind of suspension did you put on? There are many ways to lower the car, some correct and some will ruin the ride and your suspension. If you are going to lower the car more than 1 inch you need upgraded shocks along with your coilovers or lowering springs. I would suggest lowering the car using lowering springs. Get some nice aftermarket shocks as well and you will be happy with the ride. Lowering springs in general have softer spring rates than coilover setups and can typically lower the car around 2 inches.

If you simply throw some ebay coilovers with stock shocks you will have a horrible ride and it will blow the shocks eventually. Do it right to avoid the damage Ryland is talking about. But im not sure its worth it for the MPG gains (if any). The cost of nice springs and shocks plus the alignment is going to be at least $400-500. But you get better handling and a way better look. The downside is a rougher ride due to increased spring rates and a hole in your wallet.

[jrscteg]

I have a set of tokico blue shocks with a set of lowering springs laying around from an old honda build I had. I am deffinately not new to lowered hondas. I guess this is one of those things that will help make it look better.

[Ryland]

I was using Edelbrock adjustable coil overs lowered an inch, I had plans to try to find a sucker to buy them after I pulled them and put all new Honda shocks and springs on but found that one of the shocks was leaking and needs to be sent in for a warranty replacement before I would sell them, the ride was harsh enough and it caused enough wear that I didn't feel right subjecting someone else to them so they are sitting in my pile of used parts.