Northern CA noob with Integra LS
 

Hey everyone!

I've been lurknig around this site for a week or so, getting ideas and learning some new things. I had no idea there was so much to be gained from simple mods and driving adjustments until I stumbled on this site thanks to Google.

I drive about 110 miles per day to and from work, 5 days a week. I start at 3200' of elevation and go down to about sea level-ish, then back up again. My car gets between 30-31 mpg as it is now, during the commute, bone stock. I don't want to get rid of the car for something else because I've known this car since it was new. My mom bought it brand spanking new in 1993 and gave it to me last year when she bought a new car.

Other than the damage from the tree that fell on it in late November, it's a really really clean car, garage kept all it's life and it's got a lot of life left in her. Since I work in a body shop and paint cars for a living, I can fix it myself...just as soon as the insurance pays up.

I haven't done anything yet, but I think I'll get started before my next fill-up, which should be Wednesday next week. I'll pump up the tires and take some dead weight out of it, like the rear seats, the spare tire (I have AAA, who needs a spare?), rear wiper and motor, rear spoiler...etc. The damage hasen't effected the FE at all, but I want it fixed for pure cosmetic reasons...I may paint my whole car while I'm at it, as it is a bit faded. Even though it lived in a garage, it is a single stage red that's about 18 years old.

Anyway, if anyone has some Integra specific advice, that would be very useful. I've already hovered around the forums so if I have any questions regarding weight and aero, or anything else, I'll post them in the proper forum.

Welcome. What speed are you driving? The best advice you'll ever get for hypermiling is slow down. My SE-R got 26 mpg on long drives at 72 mph, 33-34 mpg at 62 mph, and 38 mpg at 55 mph.

I set the cruise at 64, and corrected that means I'm really going about 60, which is 5 over the limit. I've already come down 5 mph, and I'm still getting used to going that slow. I'll try knocking down another 5 maybe, but getting to work already takes an hour and 10 minutes as it is...on average.

Yes, I fully understand the pressures of commuting, but you live in gorgeous country, and can't have much traffic congestion. Going slower only costs you 5 or 10 minutes each way, so give it a try for a tank. I used to take 6.5 hours to drive so SoCal to my mom's. Now I go so slow, it takes me 8 hours, but I don't have to stop midway to fill the gas tank, and I enjoy watching the scenery and gaming whatever car I'm driving to get the best mpg.

Well, to be honest, I do take my sweet time from my home to the farm land, as the scenery is nice, but believe it or not, it's rather congested and you often can't go very fast anyway. Even though theres a lot of elevation change, speed limit changes, curves and traffic, I think I get my best mileage here because I do go pretty slow. It's the boring, flat farm land that comprises about 65 of the 110 miles that gets me.

I used to make my commute in about 55 minutes, driving like a complete arse. I'd go 120mph on some of the back farm roads where there's no cops, then kick the cruise on at 68mph (which is really more like 64, and the CHP don't stop me), then when I hit the twisties, I'd carve them up as fast as possible, bouncing the rev limiter and squealing the tires around all the corners, passing cars in no passing zones, etc. So...I've made a drastic improvement already in my driving style. :P

I go even slower in the summer on the days I take my Harley to work, and I get over 50 mpg on that.

Baby steps.

:thumbup::thumbup: Yes, you've turned the corner, and probably upped your fuel economy by 5-10 mph in the process. I'm a reformed leadfoot myself. I used to get 26 mpg in my Sentra SE-R Spec V. Then I took up hypermiling, and averaged 38 mpg for the last 20,000 miles in it before I gave it to my daughter.

Welcome!

I am not sure if we have your car in our wiki but the average results will be close. So head over to our mod list and pick your project :)

Car MPG Efficiency Modifications Main - EcoModder

Dunno what it is about trees here in NorCal... they seem to go after the Honda / Acura models... had a tree attack my Civic VX last year.

Welcome to the site!

I swear its a tree conspiracy. I don't know what they have against my car but whatever it is, they don't like it. I had the car parked at the bottom of my steep driveway and a tree fell from the left side, over the top of my car, but got stuck in trees on the other side of the driveway, so it never hit the car.

You can see the pavement where the car WAS parked and the tree I was dealing with;

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a2...yfrost/088.jpg

It was just leaning directly over it. So I move the car into the road to clear the already falling tree, and while I'm doing that, a different tree altogether snapped at the top (I'm guessing about a 25' section of a roughly 60-70' tree) and landed right on the hood, smashing both fenders and the hood beyond repair;

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a2...yfrost/091.jpghttp://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a2...yfrost/090.jpg

I watched it happen and the whole car bounced, I'm just glad it missed the roof and it's still driveable. As for the fate of the trees, due to the storm and the apparent weakness of so many tall skinny unmaintained trees, I'm going to be cutting down about 20 of them on my property to prevent this kind of thin from happening again. I guess the previous property owners didn't own a chainsaw. I'd rather have a handfull of healthy, strong thick trees than a crap load of skinny, undergrown wimpy trees all crowding each other out...and then taking the overcrowding problem out on my car.

Well I've made my first small steps.

I upped the tire pressure to 44psi (max sidewall) and rode around like that all week and got my best gas mileage ever of 31.84 mpg, upping my average by about 1 mpg.

It's been pretty dang cold where I live and my car has been taking a VERY long time to get up to full temp as per the temp guage. Probably something to do with driving through icebox conditions. So I decided to make a grill block prototype. I got some double walled corrugated cardboard off of a box that a toyota hood came in and tinkered around with razor blades and scisors utill I came up with this two piece set up. Once I had the shape, I painted both sides of it with Werth High Build Underseal, which is what we sometimes use for underbody corrosion protection after a repair. Then I held it all up with bent welding rod.

I'm hoping the Underseal will seal off the cardboard (as well as make it not look like cardboard) and get me through a couple tanks of gas so I can measure the results. Already it works in that it gets the car up to temp more quickly, and it dosen't flirt with going higher than normal opperating temp. I could probably close the hole off even more.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a2...GrillBlock.jpg

I think the Honda Civic block heater should fit your engine as well, if that is the case it's a $30 heater that threads in to the block on the passenger side of the exhaust manifold.
When it comes time to replace your tires you might think about replacing the rims too, two options that would take your stock tire size are the Honda Civic HX rims and the first generation Honda Insight rims, both are around 11 pounds.
Because the car came from family, do you know how it was maintained? the transmision fluid should be changed every other year along with other regular tune ups.
Also, you might check, but at least Honda has a life time warranty on exhausts for original owners, not sure if Acura does the same thing.

Yeah, I have all the maintainance reciepts from day 1. But I think the best thing I can do is sell the car and buy a 1st gen Insight...which has been my plan for about 5 days. In another 5 days, I may be talking about flying a helicopter to work or something.

:D That's about how my plans go too...

Grill block looks good. That seemed to help with my FE on the VX. Now I need to do the same with my Jetta TDI.

I've taken the step of actually SHOPPING for a used Insight...it's only a matter of time now...

Best of luck in your search. There's only 2 1st GEN Honda Insight for sale in my region.

It would be my top choice if I was in the market for a "new" car.

My "region" is the whole lower 48 states. I'll fly to New Jersey if I have to to find a great deal on the right car.

Wewt! Another broken record. 33.29mpg. I'll have to run a few more tanks, but it looks like the grill block worked quite well.

Neighbors of mine are putting their Insight up for sale on Craigslist. They were taking photos of it today. Check the SF Bay classifieds if you're interested. I don't have any details other than it's silver, and driven regularly. IDK if it's MT or AT, what mileage, etc. It has Hov stickers & appears to be in good condition.

Thanks for the tip, I'll go look for it.


...Looked, so far all I see are automatics. DAMN! Hard to find car, even harder to find in manual.

I walked over and looked at my neighbors' Insight I. It's a manual. Here's a link to the ad. $8500 seems pricey to me, but I haven't checked Edmunds or KBB.

Someone in my area is asking $20 000 for a 2006 Insight. It has only 20 000 miles...but still. :eek:

From what I saw, $12 000 would be the maximum it could fetch. Then again, it all depends if the market (demand) is willing to pay that price.

KBB private party price for my neighbors' MT 2000 Insight with 95k miles is only ~$5650. 1G Insights have a cult following, but I'm not into cults ;).

Thank you so much for the info. I may just look into that car, if your neighbor is flexible on price. 8.5k is rather high. I'd figure more like 6k for that car.

Ya, I'd agree that ~6K is more reasonable... when I was looking, I found 2 or 3 in that range.

BTW - try out SearchTempest - The EASY way to search Craigslist... it's a nice Craigs List aggregator.

Good luck in your search... I went with a VW TDI instead.

OK, so I've given up the Insight search, I can't get a decent interest rate for a car that old, and I hate loans anyway so the Integra stays...for now.

The front grill block seems to work very, very well, I broke a record and passed a milestone on the same fillup. I got over 400 miles on one tank, and I achieved 34.28 mpg. And I still haven't fixed the damage yet!

At this rate, I may just keep the car and tinker with it. If I could get over 40mpg, I might be happy.

Smart move. I'd never get a loan for any car. Unlikely you'd make up the difference in fuel economy anyway.

Heck, the FE you're currently getting is probably better than 90% of U.S. cars anyway!!

I got it up to 36mpg on the last fillup, though I don't think I quite got the tank full, so it's probably more like 35ish, still a new record. I've started coasing down some of the really long hills I have, now I have to make the jump to shutting the car off while I do it. There's a single section I can coast down for about 3 miles without needing any accelerator at all. I kind of wish I had a MIMA hybrid there because I could be charging batteries instead of using breaks. Hmm....maybe I'll make my car a hybrid, throw some electric motors on the back wheels...some batteries...make it part time AWD at the same time for those snowy days....:P