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

[Daox]

Looks pretty good to me.

[War_Wagon]

Ya I dig the upper grill block, looks sharp!

[MetroMPG]

Checked for the presence of a factory block heater... nada. Sadface.

Also mocked up a cardboard rear decklid spoiler/lip, a la Civic hybrid:



I'll replicate it in coro and tape it on. Pics to come.

The weather's supposed to be nice this weekend, so I'm hoping to get the "B" portion of my A-B comparison done.

[mechman600]

I feel for ya on the block heater front. Just did my '98. Awful. On the Hondas you have to drain the coolant (maybe a good time for coolant replacement anyway?) and install the heater in the block coolant drain (which is an awfully tight, nearly impossible plug to remove without out gouging yourself in some way). Hopefully yours is easier to access than mine was.
At least the Toyotas (like my wife's Matrix) have a nice hole in the engine block to install the heater into without having to drain the coolant.

[MetroMPG]

Sounds fun!

But since I'm only planning to keep this car for the winter, I'm just going to take a pass on the block heater. Most of my winter trips will be longish ones, so the efficiency benefit would be relatively small anyway.

Does that sound like rationalizing? I hate skinned knuckles.

[user removed]

Get a heater that is mounted to the oil pan?

regards
mech

[mechman600]

Good idea. Those are easy. And cheap. And transferable to your next vehicle.

[user removed]

Put one in line on the bottom radiator hose and it will thermosiphon and get things warm, or you could do both.

regards
mech

[MetroMPG]

So, I finished up slapping mods on the Civic this weekend and ran a second set of bi-directional average speed runs from 70 through 100 km/h (44 - 62 mph).

I'm super pleased with the results. I might say chuffed, even!

>>> 15% average improvement over the A set of runs. <<<

Take this with an appropriately sized grain of salt. I'm not planning to remove/reinstall this set of mods for a proper A-B-A test under the same day/conditions.

The absolute MPG figures just seem too good to believe: with all the mods in place, the ScanGauge reported 64 mpg (US) at 80 km/h (50 mph). Unmodified, it showed 55.9 mpg at that speed. I'll just have to wait for a fill up to calibrate it and see how close to (or far from) reality it is.

Though I would think the relative/percent change should hold, regardless of whether the gauge is calibrated or not.

UPDATE: calibration against multiple fill-ups showed those numbers were optimistic by ~10%

That 15% average improvement represents the sum effect of 15 mods:

• Increased tire pressure
• Daytime running lights switch (DRL's off)
• 6.5% taller gearing (taller tires)
• Reduced tire/fender gap (taller tires and slightly greater wheel offset)
• 100% smooth wheel covers
• Civic hybrid style decklid spoiler (CAD ... cardboard... version)
• Civic hybrid style rear wheel spats
• Full upper grille block
• Partial lower grille block
• Licence plate relocation (better aero than the stock bracket)
• Passenger side mirror delete
• Driver side mirror folded (highway), with convex mirror mounted on trailing edge
• 1 wiper delete
• Vertical spoilers on the rear bumper corners
• Big @$$ air dam (which scrapes now & again)

Tomorrow I'll make a nice graph and post some more pics of the mods I've done since the last photo shoot.

Teaser! (Hybrid style rear spoiler, C.A.D... cardboard aided design version. You can also kinda see the vertical spoilers on the bumper corners.)

[Xist]

Can we hope to see a cardboard tail like you made for your Insight?