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Ok, first off, I parked the Dakota and picked up an '03 Civic EX auto recently. What is the best way to hypermile the sucker? In particular, Does the fact that it's either a VTEC or VTEC-e engine affect anything? IE, if its a VTEC-e, do I get better FE if I keep it below the crossover rpms (whatever number that is)?

I'm NICE-On coasting a lot and FASing below 35mph (owner's manual has a 35mph/50mi limitation on flat towing).

Excellent choice! Too bad it isn't a manual... but you can certainly do a lot with that car!

Wayne has a lot of experience FASing his Accord and IIRC that car also has a 35mph limitation. He doesn't worry about that too much because the distance isn't that great so you probably shouldn't need to worry about it either. He has very close to 100K mi on that car and has probably FAS'd a bit over 1/3 of them without issue. ;)

Have a look at using high speed P&G with NICE-ON for the glide portion. That will most likely net you some improvement if the speeds are not excessively high. Keep the SG showing the trip mpg when you do that and concentrate on making sure every glide ends up with a higher final number than what you started with on the pulse before it so that your trend is consistently upward.

As for VTEC, everything I've heard says to stay out of it but Ben is the expert on that subject. He should be able to tell you what RPM to stay away from but I think it is somewhere around 3.5K ? That should be well out of the normal realm of FE driving so it wouldn't be a concern except perhaps at highway speeds.

I'm excited to hear your progress! How do you like driving it so far?

Hi WH:

___The only thing I can add is thank you, than you thank you! Your upgrade from the Dakota is a huge improvement for all of us :)

___Good Luck

___Wayne

According to this wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_civic#Seventh_generation_.282001-2005.29), your D17A2 is vtec-e.

I can't answer about where the vtec crossover point is, though. Mine doesn't have that. With the automatic, you probably just want to moderate the accelerator pedal to get the most you can without a gear kickdown. You should never need to approach the vtec crossover point in normal driving.

compliments of what everyone else has said, my car does say a mph limitation on rear wheel lift towing which means the car is facing back during tow. so i think im good to FAS!!..with my auto that is.

OK, I did some further research. The EX engine is apparently a D17A2 which is apparently a VTEC engine not a VTEC-e according to Honda. Which makes me wonder why I hear way more grunt ~2800rpm than just before. OTOH, I don't need to keep the rpms insanely low to avoid the crossover.

Also, the 50 psi seems to give much longer glides especially in the 30-40mph range. I wish it was a stick, but it was a bit of a rush and I've never driven manual so no previous experience there to fall back on.

The FE's great and its pretty sporty if I want. Playing with the E-brake is fun too :).

My only gripes are with the lower headroom due to the moonroof that all the CC equipped cars had (didn't want it, need the headroom), the extremely light and twitchy throttle pressure, the lack of side airbags, and the FF setup.

I'm going to give it the once-through at 100k miles and set it up for hypermiling.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the D17A2 is VTEC-E, just Honda stopped calling it that in 95 even though it is implemented functionally the same way, ie, 12/16 valve modes.

Crossover is somewhere between 2500 and 3000 rpm depending on load. Fuel economy should be optimized if you can keep it below that point.

As members will tell you, hypermiling technique *rarely* calls for RPM in excess of 3000 rpm anyway.

3000RPM?....i wonder what that feels like...i go up to 2500 for a quick start....and when i need to break 70mph....

We can count on Shifty for the technical details on Honda. Thanks.

3000RPM?....i wonder what that feels like...i go up to 2500 for a quick start....and when i need to break 70mph....I resemble that remark...

Crossover is somewhere between 2500 and 3000 rpm depending on load. Fuel economy should be optimized if you can keep it below that point.

As members will tell you, hypermiling technique *rarely* calls for RPM in excess of 3000 rpm anyway.

thanks shifty.

Oh jeez. I may break 3000rpm just getting it started going uphill, especially on warmup exiting onto a 50mph road. Driving itself is usually ~2000rpm. Looks like either take the FE hit or lose my shoes when I'm driving.

Kick it up to 4000rpm if you want to really "feel" the vtec kick in. You need to do it once in the life of your car. I whip it out a couple times a year, vtec that is. :woot: