Honda Accord
 

Hey, I'm new. I'm driving a 13 year old Accord with an automatic and 115k miles. I'm averaging about 30 mpg in the city, and 38 on the highway up from the 24/30 epa rating that I was getting prior to acetone and better driving habits, but want to get more out of it. My goal is to get it near 60 mpg without spending alot of money on it as an example of how anyone can afford a green machine with a little bit of work.

Yep, seems that way. I'm just worried about the cost of that. I plan on doing that after I have exhausted the free and nearly free modifications. I don't have the technical know-how to convert it to a 5-speed on my own.

I hear that GasSavers.Org stickers improve your fuel economy :)

Seriously though, welcome aboard. What size is your engine? How much does your car weigh? You could really benefit from some aerodynamic modifications.

It has a 2.2L four banger and weighs 2700 lbs. I definitely need to do something about the weight, and am going to be adding a grille block in the next few weeks. I'm probably killing my FE because the engine is only 125 hp.

I'm not sure I follow you. 125 HP is overkill for fuel economy. All of the high gas mileage vehicles have 55-60 HP engines.

If you could somehow shave 300 lbs off of your car it would definately help, but that much weight reduction might be difficult.

I think aero mods and weight reduction are the way to go on that car. Of course you could always swap in a smaller engine (1.6L, etc.), but that would require a bit more work than you might be willing to put into it.

...alternatively, you could swap the whole car for one with a manual transmission and/or smaller engine. You of course always have this option, but it might be worth considering before you put a lot of sweat equity into the current one. Someone may be looking for just the car you have. If you got a fair price for that one, you could put those funds towards one either for less money or in newer condition. Craigslist and local want ads can be of great service in this area. Just a thought.

Welcome, and you're in the right place whichever you decide to do.

I vote for just swap the car, parts for f series are annoying to come by, at least in my mind, and you might as well go for a stick accord or mehbe even a civic hatch and save some money and effort.

I can't just sell it unfortunately. It belonged to a friend of the family who died and left the car to me. It's sort of a sentimental thing. Plus, due to a destroyed interior and broken door handles, it probably won't sell for much on the used market. The thing runs great, so I'm also afraid that if I step down to a different car, it may prove to be more costly due to repairs. I also have to drive alot for my work (I work in film), so I kind of need a car that I trust. In the few months that I've had it, I've driven to and from New York twice, to and from South Carolina, and all around the state of Florida. There aren't many cars with over 100,000 miles that I would trust for long distance driving.

As long as the interior is disintegrated though, I think I may strip it to shave some weight off of it. I think that this thing does have the potential to get pretty great gas mileage with some work though. Eventually if I can afford to drop a five speed into it, I probably will.

And Matt, I was thinking that the engine size might hurt the mileage because it's a big engine for such small output, and the car weighs significantly more than the high gas mileage cars on here like the Metro or N600 meaning that I need to step on the gas pedal a little more to get up to speed. My logic is probably wrong on this though. The higher powered Accords from the same year also used 2.2L engines, so I'm thinking that this one is a less efficient version of the same motor. I don't know much about cars, though hopefully after tinkering with this one, I will.

I don't think so. I've already hit 40 on it once on the highway. I'm sure that with some engine mods and some aerodynamic alterations, I can get pretty decent mileage. Picking up a SuperMID will probably help tremendously as well.

I certainly hope that I can achieve a minimum of 50. I'm going to try everything that looks reasonable that doesn't involve major engine modifications. It runs too good for me to try doing anything that could possibly harm it.

Sounds like you're doing a lot of highway miles. Aero mods are relatively cheap and easy to do. I would make that a priority. Start with the grill block than belly pan.

In my experience, the size of the engine isn't as big a factor as you might think, unless you spend a lot of time idling. The bigger factors are of course driving technique, final-drive gearing, vehicle weight, rolling resistance, aero resistance, engine accessory losses, driveline losses, etc.

Also, if you spend that much time on the highway and yours is a lockup-type torque converter, the tranny may not be such a big factor either (final-drive notwithstanding). You may be the one to 'write the book' on the hypermiling driving technique with an automatic.

my advice:

somehow get that N position to restart your engine

buy a good battery and then ride the starter.

I definitely will. If I'm spending money on this (which I migth have to do), I may just wait until I can afford to drop a stick into it. In the mean time though, I'll see what the possibilities are of an AT. If I got 40 mpg out of an unmodified car that's only supposed to get 30, I think that some pretty good numbers can be seen before the switch.

I agree with zpiloto that aero mods are the way to go. Could you put some pictures of your car in here, that way we can all see which aero mods are possible and advisable. Have you considered narrower tyres, and which tyre pressure are you using?

I think so too. I have a few ideas, but I'm not sure about how I'm going to fix the rear of the car. Here's a pic of one nearly identical to mine. https://www.imagestation.com/picture/...e/eed23b52.jpg

I've removed the mudflaps on the front of the car and the front licence plate mount. A rear wheel skirt, belly pan, and front grille block are in line to be added, but any help on the rear of the car is appreciated.

You could always make a boat tail to extend the back of the car a bit. Possibly air tabs? Some sort of spoiler that would direct flow coming off the roof? I'm not the best with aero, :(

You could strip the black side strips and the exterior antenna, better aero and saves weight too. Cover rear door handles with tape (unless you use these often).

what year of car is it?
2.2L engine that only puts out 125hp is most likely tuned at least to a point for economy as it seems like Honda was building 1.5L engines that put out close to 125hp around the same time.
getting a shop manual for your car and taking a looking at the wiring diagram, and comparing the wiring on the manual to the automatic should give you an idea on how hard a swap would be, as doing the rest of the swap might be as easy as getting all the parts, unbolting the old tranny/gear selector linkage, and bolting in the new tranny/shift linkage, but I would opt for waiting a few years then getting a car with a 5 speed.
Synthetic fluids, better tires, belly pan, grill block, make the car lighter, would be the order that I would start.
also, things like broken door handles can be replaced very easly, new and used ones should be avlible.

It's a '93. I think that the reason for it being a 2.2L while at the same time Honda was making a 1.6L with the same power is for the aditional torque. I think that it puts out something near 150 ft/lbs of torque.

Better tires are next on my list. My front ones are bald, so now I'm looking into some LRR tires for it.

Belly pan I'm planning on doing when I get the time to, but I'm nervous about the grille block. I was about to do a grille block when the car started overheating badly to the point where whenever I would drive below 30 it would be far into the red because the radiator was blocked with dirt from the dirt road that I had been travelling on becuase of where the last set I was working on was. After that scare, I'm a bit nervous about blocking it off.

Any ideas for a better back window? I think that it's at about 40 degrees right now, so I'm sure that it can be better.

accord
 

For 5spd swap and other info, check out cb7tuner.com.
There is lots of info there. Good luck.

nice car - my brother has one just like it. We swapped a JDM F22B in there, but not for FE. :)

https://photos-030.ak.facebook.com/ip...86030_8825.jpg

Getting a 5-speed may be your best hope for increasing FE, unless you want to try really shaving some weight and fabbing a D15 in there somehow...it'd be tough (and unrealistic when you can get both of those easy by buying a civic) but interesting.

Other options(that can be found on cb7tuner.com) are buying an H22 or H23(they are the same) throttle body and intake manifold. This will increase the airflow. This has been proven to increase fuel efficiency for these cars. If you want to really get freaky, get super conservative cam.