Newbie here from the great white north
 

Hello everyone,

My name is chris and i found this site while doing some online research on reverse trikes, When i initially found this place i was actually looking for info on the Norton Shrike vehicle and found it mentioned in a thread on here. After doing some looking around i got reading some of the interesting project builds on here such as Coyote X's Metro XFI convertable rebuild. I gotta say that is one very wicked build! I never would have considered something like a full tube chassis metro before. The main vehicle i would be trying some of the ideas found on here on is my '94 Acura Integra RS. It helps a lot that it is already a fairly areodynamic car to begin with but there is plenty of room for improvement. And funny enough a lot of the tricks that can be done to the Integra also help it performance wise as well so its a win/win situation :thumbup: I hope to learn a lot from being on here and hope to be able to provide what ever help i can as well.

Like this?

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ncy-12602.html

Would love to see where they managed to get over 600 lbs reduced from that car but anyways, I can see doing pretty much all the areo mods they have listed on there to my integra. Though i might consider the idea of fabricating a fiberglass lip spoiler on the rear hatch in place of the stock RS spoiler. I may need to go looking for a spare hatch to play around with that idea! One thing im def going to look into is doing a grille block on my car as well. One major advantage of the 98+ front end besides the flush fitting headlights is the fact that the nose piece is all one piece as compared to the 2 piece parts on the 94-97 model. Either way...thanks for the link and i will def have to look at the article closer to see how much of the info i can actually make use of.

Welcome Darkrider, I have the same car you do, 94 Integra, but in LS form with broken ABS...so the same car.

I'm still pretty new here too, but I've done two things that made a very big difference to my car. First, I jacked the tire pressure to 44psi, and that seemed to add about 1 mpg, then I also built a cardboard grill block prototype that works perfectly, keeps the engine in the temp range it should be, and stopped the parachute effect of that wide open mouth and gave me another 1.5 mpg. I've also adjusted my driving style so all in all, I'm getting about 33.5 mpg combined with my teggy.

Thanks! and Thanks for the Info!! Do you happen to have any pics of your grille block prototype? Im going to see if i can find some LRR type tires in a suitable size for the tegs before i start jacking the pressure up on the tires. One thing that the RS has is the fact it has a lot less heavy parts on it such as ABS and the passenger airbag already being deleted from the factory. If im not mistaken its roughly about 100 lbs lighter then your LS due to this.

I do, click on my car called "Tree Catcher" below my name and it'll take you there. And do the tire pressure thing, it's free and makes a big difference.

I've been considering getting a Civic VX and swapping the non-abs brakes, manual steering, engine, transmission, wiring harness and CPU into the Teggy, and then do the exact opposite, put all the crap from the Teggy into the VX then resell the VX to some rice rocket lover at a profit, and take the high MPG lean burn engine, but still have a cool looking car with power windows n stuff.

Those are def some good ideas, I like the grille block that you did on your teg. I suspect I will require a slightly larger opening due to my teg being an automatic. One of the things I had planned on doing to it is swapping out the B18 for a lower mileage B20 from a crv and adding a hondata S300 tuning set up to it. With the hondata I could tune the tegs computer to have similar programming to the Lean burn civic vx you mentioned. The extra displacement will make it easier for the engine to move the heavier integra. Well in theory anyway.

All things being equal, bigger engines burn more fuel, and the Teg's 1.8 has no trouble moving the car as it is, mine anyway never strains. I can usually accelerate up hills in 5th gear, or at least maintain speed on steep hills in 5th. To make a larger engine save fuel, you have to spin it at a lower RPM, which means you could have better luck sticking with the stock engine, and doing something about the transmission to make your gears taller, rather than putting in a larger engine. A M/T swap would be cheaper, easier and more effective in your case.

If you drive your car modestly and aren't doing a lot of hill driving or towing, the small opening should be fine, the AT isn't going to generate a ton of heat unless its working, aka the torque converter is never locked up.

Hmmm that makes a lot of sense. The current engine it the car is at just over 202000 miles (325000 kms) and uses about 1 quart of oil for every 625 miles (1000 kms). If I could reduce the oil consumption somehow I would def have no problem with staying with that engine. I have seriously considered doing a 5 speed swap in the past and was leaning more towards running a Teg Gsr or type R transmission. But now that I'm looking more towards higher fuel mileage I should consider the LS transmission instead. I'm sure I could consider doing a mild overhaul and possably do an over bore on the stock motor while its out for the manual swap. It is not my daily driver so I can have it down to do modifications to it.

It might be cheaper to find a JDM replacement engine for your car, not sure what they go for in Canada, but here in the US, they're pretty cheap.

Here's an example, wrong year (Its OBDII), but right motor, you could still use it, you would just have to canibalize all your sensors n' stuff from the old motor. $850 US 45k miles.

JDM INTEGRA B18B LS ENGINE B18 MOTOR OBD2 B20B GSR B16A - eBay (item 150554522129 end time Feb-05-11 12:11:10 PST)

welcome to em darkrider

That isnt a bad price, The one engine supplier that i checked here in canada has the B20B for $650. So im not sure which way to go there. Bringing up coyote X again for a second he used LRR tires that would fit our integras as well if you have 14" wheels. The 175/70R14 tires he used are only .3 mm taller then the 195/60R14s that are equipped on the Integras.

Thank you!

I found that engine without trying very hard, I'm sure you could find more, but that one is JDM and really low mileage.

I'm actually going to get some aftermarket lightweight and cool looking 16" wheels for my car, with the CF hood and rear hatch it'll look silly with stock hubcaps. I still want the car to look like an Integra, so it won't be getting any boattails or stuff like that, but weight reduction, engine swap, bellypan, lower suspension, air dam... stuff you can't really see...that' I'm down for.

I might...MIGHT put clear lexan caps over my aftermarket wheels for aerodynamic purposes, but it'll depend on what they look like, and the mileage difference I observe.

An Integra is essentially a civic with a bigger motor, so getting the weight to within a couple hundred pounds of a civic should be doable. Couple that with similar aero to a VX hatch, and the VX lean burn engine, and I see no reason why I can't pull 50+ mpg with the Teggy.

Very attainable goals with these cars since like you said they are basically civics with larger engines. I think the tegs especially the 98+ and JDM versions have a bit of an edge areo wise compared the Civic hatch backs. One thing im not sure about is if our integras use Electronic VSS units or mechanical. If they were electronic it would be simple to recalibrate them for a slightly larger tire like the LRR tires that Coyote X is running on his metro, Well i guess a mechanical can be reset up as well with gear swaps.

What i might do instead of changing to a 98+ front end is make some lexan covers for the stock nose to make the healdight openings flush with the nose piece. Just a random thought though.

I've had the same thought, but I can't come up with an idea to execute that cleanly. I had thought of making some clear lexan "plugs" that would fill the holes and make the front end flush, but I have no idea how I would do that. Maybe Vacuum forming over styrofoam dummy plugs?

hmmm now that you mention that i dont really have any ideas as to how to execute it...it might be easier in the long run just to convert to the newer front end since it achieves the same thing.

Sure, if you could find a way to do it for free. I doubt the gain would be measurable in the real world.

Well theres a couple other reasons for going with the newer front end besides the FE. the front end on my '94 is coming apart at the gap between the two halves of it, and its got some tears in it near the lights due to the car being in a mild accident before i bought it.

Hey Darkrider, I just started a thread in Ecomodder Central to track the progress I make on my Integra project, could be of interest to you;

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ect-16033.html

Thanks for the link i just found my way back to the site. Kinda got side tracked a bit with having to find replacement parts for my Integra.some kids busted out a window and blasted the interior with fire extinguisher.