Project "Save the Flea!" Winter beater: 2007 Civic 1.8L, 5-speed

[MetroMPG]

"From the pics" is a good disclaimer.

In real life it looks like a home-made coroplast spoiler duct taped to the @$$ end of a Honda Civic.

Probably half an hour to make and 20 mins to tape on. Oh, plus another half hour for the first cardboard version.

[jedi_sol]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

It's immediately obvious that airflow is changed, because the rear surface of the car gets dusty very quickly now.

I just need this to last the winter. If I wanted a permanent spoiler, I'd get one off a Hybrid, or shape it from rigid foam insulation.

What are the implications? Better attached flow on the rear surface?

[MetroMPG]

My guess is there's simply less flow "wrapping" downward over the trailing edge of the decklid. (Which means both less drag & probably less lift.)

The old flow pattern blew the dust that landed or kept it away in the first place.

[MetroMPG]

F.S.P. alert:

Been doing a fair number of cold start short sub/urban trips the last 3 or 4 days. And near freezing weather has arrived. Definitely not best-case conditions for good MPG.

And I'm definitely not getting good MPG -- struggling to see low 40's mpg return trip averages, even with plenty of engine-off. (Enough engine off that I'm thinking I need to start trickle charging the battery.)

The Civic sure is a nice car to drive, but the Blackflea would be getting ~50% better MPG without breaking a sweat!

[PaleMelanesian]

My Fit seems to have a more aggressive warmup program than the old Civic did. It hits full temp faster, but the early trip mpg is terrible. All the more reason to EOC from the start.

[MetroMPG]

Agreed - just need to keep the battery happy & healthy.

[MetroMPG]

Received this message from another Civic 1.8 owner...

I have a hatch civic 1.8 (european model) with R18A2 engine, since you are from Canada I guess your is a R18A1 or some as mine?

I'm honestly not sure. How can I tell?

Mine has a 6 manual speed gearbox, but yours has 5 manual right?

Correct.

I think you have the same eco cam system that saves fuel in low load conditions from 1500-3500 rpms (i-vtec engaged)...
This eco zone is more easy to maintain over high speeds (50-70mph) since it's easier to maintain steady low load...
But I rarely do highways, in fact my average speed (SGII and onboard computer) is 33 km/h = 20.5 mph...
So I don't know if I should try achieve eco-cam every time I can, or should focus on steady gentle driving...
Since this engine doesn't have substancial pumping loses, (in eco mode the drive by wire opens wide the intake buterfly throttle) should I acelarate faster (99% load) to achieve eco-cam cruise speed, or acelarate more slowly (83% load)?

I'll admit I'm not familiar with the eco mode of this engine, though mine also supposedly has it.

If it's true that pumping losses are dramatically reduced, then there should be less benefit to using high load/low RPM acceleration techniques compared to a typical gasoline engine.

Also when cruising at low speeds, If I have the eco cam engaged (low consumption) shoeld be better than to do a short P&G?

We'd need to see a BSFC map (brake specific fuel consumption) for this engine to be able to say for sure, but it's likely that at variabe low speeds P&G would still win (it does even in Honda's lean-burn cars), and at cruising speeds, it may be better to just drive with load on the eco cam.

Don't know if you know, but it is possible to connect a wire with a led that lights on whenever you are on eco cam.

I'm not sure, but that would be excellent. It may also be possible to program the SG2 to display when the eco-cam is active, but I'm not sure that info is communicated to the OBD-II port.

More info... time to do some reading...

Technical Overview of Honda's new R18 i-VTEC Implementation

Now the R18A engine can truly be seen as a 'dual mode' engine with clear-cut normal driving and 'economy driving' modes.

[Daox]

Don't know if you know, but it is possible to connect a wire with a led that lights on whenever you are on eco cam.

There should be a vtec solenoid that actuates the 'eco' cam profile. Putting a light on that solenoid should allow you to detect the switch over I'd imagine.

Do you have a block heater? Have you been using it?

[MetroMPG]

That's a good idea. Find the eco cam solenoid and monitor it.

No block heater on this car.

[MetroMPG]

Here's a discussion on CMPG about the eco-cam/Atkinson operation of this engine.

Not much new in it, and it also suggests monitoring the actuator/solenoid or finding the

Civic i-vtec detection using SG2 - CleanMPG Forums

But there's no indication that this was ever done.

It also suggests that one way to monitor this via the ScanGauge would be to watch MAP values. MAP would increase as the eco-cam mode comes online and the drive-by-wire throttle is opened by the computer.