n00b with an old CX

[ajohnmeyer]

Hello all.
I'm Andrew, and I just this month bought a 1994 Honda Civic CX hatchback. It had 275,000 miles and a blown head-gasket when I bought it, but it's all fixed up now.
I haven't driven a car much since January when I stopped driving my 1991 CRX. I sold the CRX a few months later and just rode my bike everywhere (about 1700 miles so-far this year)
I had plans to never own a car again, but I got a job that required me to have a car, so that threw a wrench in my plans.

My plans for the CX are to maximize the aerodynamics as much as possible to increase the MPG. Then in the next 2 years, I'd like to rip out the engine, cooling system, gas tank, and exhaust, replacing them with a 9" electric motor and a bunch of batteries.

Looking forward to talking to you all,
-Andrew

[SVOboy]

haha, you're in the right place, man.

Check out MetroMPG's EV conversion, basjoos's civic aero thread, and the people powered forum to put in your mileage for the commute displaced list.

Welcome!

[ajohnmeyer]

yeah, I've been reading the Aerodynamics links from MetroMPG's profile, I'll have to look into the EV links too. I need to get pics of the car and the bike up too.

[SVOboy]

What kinda bike are you riding?

[thisisntjared]

welcome to the site! your first steps should be mimicing what basjoos has done to his civic. it really is amazing. also a close to next mod, if you need tires, is low rolling resistance tires, they save a good chunk of gas immediately and get better as they break in. they just suck for traction.

[ajohnmeyer]

I've already bought two low rolling resistance tires to replace the two bald tires that were on the car when I bought it. It was pretty surprising to see a 2mpg increase after those tires were mounted, I wasn't expecting that big of a gain. Can't say that I mind that kind of surprise though

So here's the CX


and the lovely backend


and my other car, a 2007 Surly Long Haul Trucker

[smccall]

Welcome to the site. Good luck on getting even more mpg. Did it take alot to get your CX running? I recently passed up on a CX with a blown head gasket thinking it would be a lot of trouble getting it running right.

[ajohnmeyer]

it's not much trouble getting it running, it's just that you have to remove the cylinder head, if you know how to do that (and more importantly how to get it back on) then it's only about a 4-6 hour job by yourself. Of course a blown headgasket always requires new coolant and an oil change too, throw in a little extra time to fix anything else that is wrong (a new coolant hose in my case) and it's more of a 7-9 hour thing.
I would warn you against removing a cylinder head if you've never changed a timing belt though, as you need to do that to get the head off. If you don't get the timing belt back on correctly you can really screw up your valves, Honda D and B series are interference engines, it is possible to get the pistons to smash into the opening valves if you get the cams that far out-of-whack.

[smccall]

I do oil changes, brakes, tune ups, and other maintenance but I've never done a timing belt change or water pump change. I need to learn how to do this. I guess it was a good thing that I passed on the CX. If I had the knowledge, then it probably would have been a steal. So I guess you did not have to machine the head or had any problems with the head being warped.

[SVOboy]

Dang, that's one hell of a touring bike, if I've ever seen one!