lca13's 93 California VX Thread

[GasSavers_TomO]

nice, and congrats! now get to that how-to, lol!

[lca13]

Best tank ever: 68 mpg.... 325 miles over one week's commute. Some A/C on even. Couldn't have done it w/o the Super Mid though.

[garyhgaryh]

Originally Posted by lca13

Best tank ever: 68 mpg.... 325 miles over one week's commute. Some A/C on even. Couldn't have done it w/o the Super Mid though.

You went from avg 50mpg to 68mpg?!?!
Do you have the shift light hooked up?
Thanks,
Gary

[lca13]

hey, been offline for a bit. No shift light but have driven one with a light. basically tells you to shift as soon as possible.... like 1600 rpms

[smccall]

lca13, please post a DIY on this process. I'm looking at a VX and just found out that its a CA FED VX. So far I know you need a non CA FED ECU and a 5 wire O2 sensor. Is this correct? TomO, please chime in if I'm missing something or if you have a write up on this.

[GasSavers_TomO]

Fed emissions ECU, 5 wire O2, and a socket for the 5 wire O2 are what you need for parts. LCA is the person to look towards for the wiring though. There is a post by him in a thread somewhere around here on the wire details though. Try searching "O2 conversion".

[smccall]

Thanks TomO

[GasSavers_mango]

lca13, congrats on getting that conversion squared away! Is there any chance that you could share all that precious info that you've compiled? I'd like to convert my CA VX.

[garyhgaryh]

Mango, where do you live? I bought a fed vx ecu a few months back. I haven't done the conversion yet, but am planning on doing it this year. If you live in the bay area (CA), we could get together and work on the conversion. I'm in need of a connector and the o2 sensor.

[Hondork]

I live in Oakland and would be interested in this mod (I, too, have CA VX). I'm just getting it back on the road after doing some major bodywork.

On another note...
Earlier in this thread there was some talk about front brakes being stiffer than rear brakes. I know most of you already know this but:

The shoes in your drum brakes only engage the drum surface when you depress the brake pedal. Then springs pull them back away. This is nice because there is no friction when it isn't wanted but the downside is that after a while the shoes wear down and they don't engage the drums as much. Yes, there are mechanisms in place that supposedly self-adjust but none of them really work great.

The pads on your disc brakes are always in contact with your rotor. They don't retract when you take your foot off the brake, they just stop squeezing. The calipers do not have any mechanism for retracting, that is why you have to force the piston back when you put new pads on. Disc brakes always have some amount of friction (beyond the fact that our front brakes are tied to the tranny/engine as TomO pointed out).

So what we gassavers really want are drum brakes all around. Unfortunately there isn't a reasonable swap for this. I don't know of any front wheel drive cars with drums up front, they just don't work as well. Maybe Honda or Toyota will come up with a "no braking/no friction" disc brake set up one of these days.