1.8L Civic: Proper acceleration to highway speed

[St. Mushroom]

I think I fell into the too-gradual-acceleration-to-highway-speed sink, probably due to misreading LOD.

Anyone find a sweet spot (seconds) for 0 to highway speed on flat terrain? Let's say 45 MPH? This is basically how I start my morning commute.

[xcel]

Hi St. Mushroom:

___For a std. DWL accel, keep LOD way down and accelerate very gently. For a P&G routine, you can open it up some and bring LOD up to 70 + %. Warm-up P&G with is your way to higher FE but leave the high LOD pulses for after the ICE is above 160 degrees F.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

[atr]

Here's a cool little read I found:
http://www.efficient-mileage.com/acceleration-test.html

I also remember reading something a while back that pretty much stated the best way to save gas it to give the gas some get up and go. bring the revs up to 2,500rpm from the 1-2 shifts and the 2-3 shifts then drop it into 5th gear (coming from a manual transmission).
With a auto let the car do the work. Give it enough gas to get the car shifting to the next gear around 2500-3000rpm. once you've reached your desired cursing speed let off the gas a bit to let the car shift to a higher cursing gear.
Don't go giving the gas all it has unless you really have to.
I normally get up to highway speeds (around 55mph ish) as quickly as I can without going past 3,000rpm.

It really comes down to using your head, know how to accelerate in a given situation. if the road is fairly tame traffic wise you can be a tad more relaxed. If it's busy rush hour traffic do what you can to get up to the pace of traffic so you can merge safely.

[xcel]

Hi Atr:

___Never above 2,500. Never. The only time I have been in a 1.8L Civic w/ a stick for a lengthy period was in OK and it allowed 85 mpg over a 3 or 4 mile RT. Everything was below 2,000 R's if that helps?

___Good Luck

___Wayne

[St. Mushroom]

Excellent advice, thanks!

85 MPG. Wow.

[PaleMelanesian]

I don't believe I've touched 2500 rpm in about 6 months. Even then, it was only because I was on a highway with minimum speed limits, combined with the short gearing of my transmission. Most days I never even hit 2000, just like Wayne said. Also, I have a smaller, less-torquey engine than the 1.8, so it should be even more capable at lower rpm than mine.

[atr]

Hi Wayne,
I payed some attention to what revs I actually shift at and I found that I don't go past 2000 on a slightly uphill (1% grade) on ramp. But that's with a 2.4L 4.
In my old civic (99 ex 5speed) I found that it needed a little more gas to get moving so I typically ran it up to around 2200-2500 when taking it easy. 3500-5000 when needing to get up to speed on a very short highway on ramp.
There's one ramp I can recall where you HAVE to nail the gas because the awesome highway engineers didn't have the foresight to give cars a little more room to get up to speed. There's literally about 500-700 feet to merge into traffic moving at 60-70 after a 25mph curve out of a clover.

So again, I say it really depends on what the situation is.
1600 or so between shifts on level ground or downhill merging.
1700-2200 going up hills and merging
2500+ for when you get that urge to merge in a tight merging situations

The accord as you know has a 2.4L 4 that feels darn near a V6 coming from the 1.6L that was in my civic. So much torque there's no need to rev it.
I found the same with a family member's 09 civic. much more torque then older model civics.

[PaleMelanesian]

For the record, my Civic is the lower-powered DX version of atr's. I stand by my rpm statements.

[a_1steak_sauce]

I've got a 1.7L 2001 civic. I've never timed how long it takes me to get to 45. I usually keep a closer eye on my RPMs. I never go above 2000, unless I'm going on an uphill and need to downshift to maintain proper minimum speed. I know I take roughly 8-10 seconds to get to 30 MPH. I'm guessing somewhere around 15 seconds to get to 45. I'll time myself on my commute to work today and get back to you.

[some_other_dave]

Hee. For 25 MPH clover-leafs, I like to enter them at 40-50 MPH, depending on the curvature, and hold my speed through that. Or, if there are people in front of me, I FAS through it. Since my car just about never exhibits oversteer (and I have a lot of practice "catching" cars that do), I don't worry about not having any power available while I FAS.

Then again, I'm a semi-reformed speed junkie who digs lateral G's.

For my CRX, I give it about 25% of the pedal (no instrumentation for load!) up to 2000 RPM, maybe up to 2200. Sometimes in 1st it's a little higher, but that's only if I'm not paying close attention. Sadly, I need to run 2500 RPM on the freeways. Any less and I will get run over; I'm at 50 MPH as is and figure that's on the edge.

Originally Posted by atr

...let the car shift to a higher cursing gear.

I think my 5th gear is a "cursing" gear, at least judging from the reactions of some of my fellow drivers when I'm in 5th.

-soD