My wife and I bought a bone stock silver 1996 civic dx hatch 5 speed with 86k on the clock, manual everything and no air-con. According to one site it weighs in at 2242 lbs, another said 2250. It was in decent if neglected condition and returned about 30 mpg mixed. The d16y7 worked fine and with a tune up, elbow grease and 20-0 mobile 1 it started returning 32 mixed. Since then the mod list has grown to include:
14" hx wheels with falken ziex 185 60
Suspension techniques front and rear anti sway bars
eibach sportline springs
koni sport adjust dampers
rear disk brake conversion with new oem t.a. busings
stainless brake lines
99-00 si master cylinder
ate super blue brake fluid
hawk pads and new disks all around
acura gsr leather seats
After all that the car is returning 35 ish mixed mpg, stops and turns with confidence with the tires being the limiting handling factor at this point. (ziex are a good value, but not a great performer). I was very pleased with the primarily suspension induced mileage bump!
I am buying enough colorplast this week to follow you sensible folks lead in making aero improvements to the bottom and nose of the car, although my performance leanings will stop me short of any wheel arch modifications due to brake cooling considerations. Thanks to you for breaking ground in this and so many other areas and sharing the results.
I bought a d16y5 (vtec-e) head that used to reside in a 1997 civic hx coupe. I am going to grind to match ports with the manifolds and get a cowler stage 1 regrind which will leave the 4 valve intake lobes alone but mildly bump the lift and duration of the secondary intake and the exhaust valves. I am also going to take .010 off the head to bump the compression to just over 10.0 to 1 and hopefully still run regular gas, run a hx or ex intake manifold, and the hodata thermally isolating IM gasket (I am going to lean towards performance on some engine issues as well).
I want to replicate my Volvo 850's intake plumbing in that it utilizes a cold air intake placed at a very high pressure zone just behind the grill. hopefully the pumping efficiency gain with the high pressure will mitigate the cold air atomization loss.
I am planning on running a stock hx ecu, although the more I read the more likely the need of a custom tune becomes. I definitely need to find a tuner with a open mindset and knowledge of hx air fuel ratios if i end up with a ob1 conversion and custom tune. After all that I am hoping to see 140 at the crank (125 at the wheels?), which would equal a 99-00 civic s.i. power/wieght wise, and return <45 mpg mixed, my first major milestone. A friends 99 s.i. returns 26 mixed.
If that all works I am going to put a jackson racing supercharger on our silver bubble. With the supercharger, a truly fast, fun and efficient sports hatch should be possible. The numbers I have in mind are, >45 mpg mixed, <15 sec 1/4 mile, <7 sec 0-60, and a good G.T. for 7k total investment (labor charged out at .001$ per hour!). the biggest downside of the supercharger setup in my mind is that it would almost necessitate the installation of a limited slip differential to enable the power to be utilized in integrated manner. That is a 1.5k design feature. That would be more money that I thought I wanted to spend. I?ll cross, or turn away from, that bridge when I get to it.
After the upcoming aero work I have these parts going on:
96-00 civic ex headers (25$!)
96-00 ex-si catback (25$!)
new high flow direct fit catalytic converter (not cheap!!.)
used d series parts are SO CHEAP!
and very importantly I am going to add bunch of sound/thermal barrier to the interior so the car is sonically comfortable on long distance trips.
the overarching goal is to irrefutably demonstrate to myself and anybody who cares that a absolutely engaging high performance and comfortable sports compact that seats 2 and a bunch of their stuff, or 4 people in a pinch, shreds back roads and cruises at 75-80 getting >45mpg in either scenario is entirely possible.
Or not??? we shall see!!
I'll post as I mod and document the results. I do not think I am going to be as documentation oriented as some of you and measure to .xxx as much as I appreciate it, however I am going to follow through with the project and document results to .x and share as I have already learned so much from this site.
Happy Motoring!!!
Linear Mode
