Yet another poor MPG Civic VX thread..

[foamham]

maybe your pushing the gas pedal too far for the lean burn to stay activated?going to have to coast in gear for the coast down fuel cutoff too? if you dont have a mpguino it might be hard to tell when the engine is in lean burn and the fuel flow is reduced like really hard trust me i was getting really bad milage. until i got. a mpguino

[pletby]

Your commute is 4 miles in city driving? I'm thinking your engine isn't getting up to temp until you're about to park. I could be wrong but I'm also thinking you're not going to get good mileage unless you take steps to warm that engine before you leave, and keep cooling air restricted during your warm up. Are you using a block heater and grille block?

I've lived on both sides of the commute coin. 6.8 km to work in Winnipeg at -30 and the needle barely moved off C. Nasty nasty economy. I've hit below 15 mpg in a Contour V6. Block heater helped. I should have installed a grille block too. Now it's 75km and temperature isn't as big of an issue, but I've repaired my block heater and am installing a grille block this afternoon. Before these two mods I'm getting over 30mpg on (75km) commute only tanks. Our weather is alot like yours right now, unnaturally warm for Winnipeg. Where'd the cold go? I'm not complaining...

[foamham]

^^ what he said if you really have a 4 mile commute thats not going to warm up the engine either! lol gas milage isnt much if an issue there a moped will get you high milage in 4 miles 36mpg is not horrible city the mpguino would help you alot to know if you were in leanburn its very sensitive to throttle angle its not lile they get 50mpg all the time if ideal coditions are there then no problem but if your sitting at stoplight or have stopsigns 36mpg is pretty acceptable

[foamham]

if you were getting 36mpg all highway with light throttle at 55 mph there would be a problem but you need to keep the throttle angle light to the point your not kicking out of lean burn really its a specially learned technique unless you master that you might never even get above 40 even highway

[turbothrush]

Yep, the vx will simply not get awesome mileage during short trips and cooler air temps. My average mileage gets killed during my short trip , winter driving vs. my long trip summer driving. Just take a look at my fuel log and you will see.
My car is a bone stock Vx with MPGuino, Autospeed Leanburn Monitor and Gps for speed/distance.

[Arragonis]

Block up the front completely - upper and lower grills - and it will warm up very quickly.

[SiVX]

Man! I've read everywhere abt part stores and previous owners using the PZFR5F-11. I just checked my 2 week old VX ad what do you know? Had the 5s and not the 4s... Welp off to the store I go. What are the side effects of using the 5s? Bad FE? Incomplete combustion leading to carbon build up in the cat, exhaust and egr? The inside of my tailpipe is pretty black, the reason I ask.

[1carnut]

I've had mine for a couple of months and just checked last night. Sure enough 5f. I ran out and got the 4f's at lunch from O O O O'Reileys and can't wait to put them in to see if they make a difference.

[Pawtuckett]

Yeah, check this page out:

NGK Spark Plugs USA

Your plugs were "colder" than they are supposed to be. Good catch!

[SiVX]

Originally Posted by 1carnut

I've had mine for a couple of months and just checked last night. Sure enough 5f. I ran out and got the 4f's at lunch from O O O O'Reileys and can't wait to put them in to see if they make a difference.

For both of us, I hope it gives a large FE boost.