Rarity- Accord V6 6MT Hypermile/Build Thread

[gizzardgulpe]

.29? Do you have a coupe? Sedans are .30 (hybrid is .29) and coupes are .29

Yeah, I have the coupe. Red, and hail damaged to hell.

I think if you want to P&G, you should try "rev matching" it. For example with the torque converter unlocked in 5th gear on the freeway at 60mph, the engine is at 2500rpm. So before shifting from neutral to D, I give the gas a jab to bring it to 2500rpm ish, and it is very very smooth.

I gave this a try and you are absolutely correct. Smooth as a low-viscosity synthetic oil not entirely unlike butter.

It does make me think though. I did a little engine data log on my wife's Grand Prix that I haven't tried with the Honda yet, but I noticed when I coast in gear in the GP, fuel consumption skyrockets, but coast time is reduced. When shifting into neutral, fuel consumption goes up but not nearly as high as it did in gear; however, coasting time increases significantly enough that the fuel savings is offset significantly. Maybe it's going into some kind of lean burn when coasting in Drive?

So I wonder if in some circumstances if it is better to coast in gear, maybe to try to avoid braking before a light that you suspect will turn green if you slow down just a little bit. Then again, the difference might be insignificant in the long term.

[Daschicken]

As of lately I have been working on addressing all the maintenance issues with my car. I got a thorough inspection done at my workplace and came up with the following issues:

Worn rear tires (already knew)-Replaced
Rekt compliance bushings in the front lower control arms-Replaced
Bad rear dampers -Replaced
Worn rear brake pads -Replaced
Alignment out of spec -Adjusted
Miscellaneous oil leaks -Pending


First up, I did the brakes. Considering my driving style, and the fact that they are in the rear, I will never need to replace these again. My car used to wallow and bounce slightly under hard cornering, new rear shocks fixed that (front shocks are less than 5000 miles old), and may have helped reduce some of the ridiculous negative camber I have.

The compliance bushings were a PITA, but could have been alot easier if I knew what I was doing. Thanks to me not looking up how to use my ball joint remover tool, I bent the ball joint's threads, creating a big fun adventure of its own. That costed me about $90. I smartened up for the next side and didn't incur any extra costs. With the new bushings in place, the car feels tighter and wallows even less.

Time to deal with the expensive stuff I had been putting off, tires and an alignment. Since I work at Goodyear, I got some Goodyear Fuel Maxes, put them in the front and rotated my still-fresh Yokohamas to the back so I can wear in the new tires faster. To protect my investment, and help reduce rolling resistance, I got it aligned as well. Some prior research on Ecomodder suggested very slight toe in for the front and rear wheels of FWD cars. In all, less than $300. Perks of the job . My initial drive showed that the steering wheel was still centered and the car thankfully still tracks straight. I may have felt a slight improvement in coasting, which will improve even more after the new tires wear in.

My next upcoming ecomod plan for Rarity is a rear undertray, which should offer a decent improvement from what I hear about rear undertrays.

[Daschicken]

Regarding the rear undertray, I jacked up the car, looked and thought for a while, and ended up doing nothing. There is not much left to cover thanks to the rear diffuser, and the dual exhausts. Also, I want to leave an escape route for air trapped above the undertray, I need to make some panels to block air from getting in there.

Speaking of undertray, I am planning some flow management under there. I'll be putting on dual layer side skirts like bajoos's, and I will direct air away from the exhaust channel, which may even promote evacuation of engine bay air, enhancing cooling.


I made some (planning) progress on my proposed power steering delete. While drooling over pictures of the J25, I saw that it had two accessory belts, one was dedicated only to power steering, the other was for AC and alternator. That alone doesn't help me, since my car only has one belt for everything, but I did see that the tensioner setup was the same on the J25. Previously, I had worried that the tensioner setup would not be compatible to bypassing the power steering, now I see that it is possible. I only have to convince my parents...

Here is the J25

And J30


Lastly, a base plate is in the works. It should be really easy to make, so I might make it before anything else. The only things concerning me are the 3rd brake light visibility with the top panel in place, and how easy it will be to remove without damage if I use 3M double sided sticky tape.



Now for the bad news.

Rarity's hydraulic clutch is dying. At high rpms (6000), the clutch loses pressure and 3/4 of the clutch's travel turns into freeplay, the last 1/4 is rock solid and the clutch doesn't pull in enough to get into gear. It usually take about 15 seconds for the pressure to return at low rpm, until then I can't shift. Last time I drove it, the clutch engagement point changed from it's usual 3/4 up to about 1/2 up. My dad's honda did the same thing when the clutch master cylinder was dying.

This is a known issue on my accord forum, what's worse is that there is no known fix. People have replaced their clutches and still had this problem! I'm 99% sure this is a hydraulic issue, so I said **** it, buy everything. New clutch master cylinder, slave cylinder, and all new hoses on the way. If this doesn't fix it, I don't know what i'm going to do. I was on my way to the dragstrip for the first time when this issue showed itself, thanks to that, I didn't get to drag race my car. I was PISSED. This problem ruins all enjoyment from driving this car, I can't drive it hard, and even at lower rpms there are still some symptoms.

[Daschicken]

THE ATLANTA GAS CRISIS IS REAL! As I drove to school today, I passed by a gas station that had a full on costco-style line of people waiting to fill up. As I was driving by another station I had a close call with someone who was very indecisive about whether they wanted to enter the gas station or stay on the road. They were going about 5 mph, I was going 30. I have a little less than half a tank, so i'm good for another 200 miles and I don't HAVE TO drive anywhere, so I think i'll survive.


Just a small mod today, I cleaned up two grounding points in the engine bay, shined up the battery terminals, and charged up that pile o' lead.


So I had read that lead is actually a silver color, instead of the usual gray that battery terminals are. That is actually a light coat of corrosion that dulls it. Here is some dead battery I pulled out to experiment on. The terminal on the left was shined up with sandpaper. My car's battery showed similar results.


Honda, in their cheapness didn't bother to remove the paint from the grounding points for the negative terminal or the engine ground, so I fixed their mistake.


For the cables that attached to each of these grounds, I gave them the same treatment.
Before:

After:


I finished the job by applying some dielectric grease over the ground points and the newly bare metal, as well as over the top of the battery terminals (not between terminal and cable) to prevent future corrosion.

On the driving side of things, I have been returning low 40s or very high 30s lately, avoiding short trips, and taking cars that are already warmed up. As of lately, I have started taking the bus to the other campus, because there are more people in space than there are parking spots over there. I usually got to the parking garage with 36 mpg, and ended up with 29 by the time I found a spot.

Tank average is currently at 36.4, which will be a new record if I can keep it there, assuming it is accurate.

[serialk11r]

Wait, what the heck, you still have the power steering pump and your mpg is that high? Looks like the J25 belt is a direct fit, I would go for it and loop the lines, you should definitely notice an increase in mpg.

I've turned the steering wheel on some parked German beasts at the dealer recently, such as a MB S65 AMG, a BMW M4 convertible, etc. and honestly manual steering is not that bad. Loop the lines and it should not be that hard to turn the wheel on your Honda.

[Daschicken]

Originally Posted by serialk11r

Wait, what the heck, you still have the power steering pump and your mpg is that high?

Yes, I still have my power steering pump, and yes my mpg is that high .

Originally Posted by serialk11r

Looks like the J25 belt is a direct fit, I would go for it and loop the lines, you should definitely notice an increase in mpg.

The fact that the J25 has two different pulleys probably means that each belt is thinner, so I doubt it would fit. And then there is the other problem: I can't find ANY information on the J25, since it was only sold in Japan for a few years, and it was the lower spec engine. I just looked up Honda J25 accessory belt and came up with nothing relevant.

Originally Posted by serialk11r

I've turned the steering wheel on some parked German beasts at the dealer recently, such as a MB S65 AMG, a BMW M4 convertible, etc. and honestly manual steering is not that bad. Loop the lines and it should not be that hard to turn the wheel on your Honda.

I have had the 'pleasure' of driving my brother's miata with the ac/power steering belt removed. It was REALLY HARD to turn, but definitely did not have lines looped. It also had no more than 38 PSI in the tires, so that doesn't help. I may have to just go figure out how long of a belt I need to bypass P/S, loop the lines and see if I can tolerate it. If I can, assuming my parents allow it as well..., I will rip out the pump and put some really short lines on the rack. Weight reduction, bro.

[serialk11r]

Tire pressure doesn't have that much to do with it since the contact patch is usually the whole width of the tire I think, it's more the wheel offset + steering arm geometry, the rack ratio, the caster, but by far the biggest factor is the looped lines.

If you don't loop the lines, you are essentially adding negative power steering assist, because you are pushing fluid through the pump bypass.

My MR2 is really light so I can turn the wheel even with R compound tires and power steering off, but it's somewhat difficult. I already have EHPS so I'm not in a hurry to get rid of the power steering, but I will probably toss it out someday for weight savings.

[Daschicken]

478.7 miles, 12.559 gallons, 38.12 mpg!

Almost all highway driving this tank enabled me to get 38.1 mpg! Woot! That 40 mpg tank goal doesn't seem as ridiculous now. My Scangauge was 4% pessimistic this time.

I found some more ground points and gave the usual treatment. One was a fuel injector/ignition coil ground, so i'm hoping for some improvement there. I sanded the alternator ground, and experienced why I hate electricity while trying to tighten the nut. (hint: sparks) Last one was a ground tucked down by the power steering reservoir, yet another painted ground point . It could be for the headlights, ABS motor, or the windshield washer motor, I really don't know.

I'm going to see if I can remember to measure the belt length for a P/S delete, so I can get started on the delete.

[Daschicken]

I just discovered that the J25 is not actually direct injected, yay! That brings back the possibility of using the J25 head, but I would still need to sort out headers and the emissions system. I also found out the compression ratio of the J25, 10.5:1. Thats .5 higher than my current engine .

I tried to measure the accessory belt length sans s̶a̶r̶i̶f̶ P/S pulley, couldn't get the actual belt length, but i figure it is about 28 inches shorter than stock. That puts the new belt length at 56 inches. I peeked down at the P/S rack and got intimidated by the hard line connections on it. Then after reading a forum post about P/S swaps, I realized that those are NPT lines. It should be easy to find the right adapter for them.

Something like this:


No aeromod progress recently, if I do end up making something over the weekend it will probably be some wheel strakes.

Tank avg is at 29.6, pretty bad, but there is still hope to save it. I taught two people to drive stick this tank (that's eight in total), and had a record worst commute: 28.6. Lots of traffic, which made the radiator fan run alot. If I keep from doing more short trips and teaching more n00bs, I may squeak above my lifetime avg of 32.8.

I made a good bit of progress on kill switch planning. I have scoured my service manual for wiring diagrams and any information about the injection system. Here is the best chart I can come up with:

Edit: Woops, wrong one. Don't have the picture on this computer.

And by progress, I mean I still have NO IDEA WTF i'm doing...

I went to the wiki page on kill switches and want to just try out the suggestions step by step, but the first thing to try, the camshaft position sensor is in the middle of the engine's V. That and it is in very close proximity to the power steering pump's pulley, which would make trying to unplug it on a running engine very dangerous.

I don't have a distributor, so that is out of the question, and according to the diagram I found, there doesn't seem to be ONE injector ground. I really don't want to have to cut into six injector wires.

[Daschicken]

Just bypassed my power steering! Belt only for now, until I can get back home and drain the fluid out, maybe even buy fittings so I can install a very short line to recirculate the rack. After that, I can take the pump, reservoir, and old lines out for some proper weight reduction, bro! The belt length I used is 57.8 inches, it was a Duralast 578K6. Stock V6 belt length is 84 inches.

The steering is pretty tough right now, barely tolerable. It is actually lighter than my bro's miata's steering with just the belt removed.

As far as differences noticed, I think the engine revs faster now, and acceleration seems easier, but that could be placebo. I got 35 mpg on a city driving trip, but I don't have a baseline, that will wait until my highway commute.

Other than that, I have found a few more ground points, and I have been trying to get up to speed by accelerating in lower gears more than I did before. Now that the P/S isn't spinning anymore I should be able to reach the cam position sensor safely. One step closer to a kill switch!