Picked up my CRX HF

[McPatrick]

I picked the HF up today and drove it home which was a 220 mile stretch. It drives really well and I was surpised how nice the pickup still was when considering the difference in HP between my VX and this CRX HF. Some of that extra HP in the VX is of course needed for the extra weight compared to the HF.

Anyways, it was a real nice drive and once home I couldn't resist filling it up again and get a first idea about mpg. I will have to add that my wife drove in the front with our 2003 Buick LeSabre (that she got for free from family) and she wasn't patient enough to drive lower speeds, so we ended up going close to 70 mph for the whole trip. Filling up at home I calculated 49 mpg which thought was rather good considering there aren't any LRR tires on there now but instead some no-name tires that are too wide anyway.

I'm thinking about putting VX wheels on the HF. With the VX I definitely noticed an improvement in mpg going from steelies with normal tires to VX wheels with LRR tires. About 5 percent I'd say.

All in happy I'm happy that I bought it and it's fun to have a different car to fine tune again for FE.

Will post some pics this weekend after I have time to give it a thorough cleaning

[mrmad]

Cool to see you got it, be looking forward to the photos.

I've never driven a VX and am curious as to the difference between the power of a VX and an HF. My HF is probably the only car I've ever owned that I have never redlined, there's no point as above 4K rpms, there's nothing there. It does make up for it with some reasonable low end torque (for a 1.5L 4 cyl). Does a VX have similar low end grunt and then have more in the upper rpms when the Vtec kicks in?

With 190K on my HF, I'll probably need to rebuild/replace the engine in the next 50-100K miles and the VX engine seems like a nice upgrade.

[McPatrick]

I would say that both the HF and VX accelerate quite nice at low speeds, but that the VX keeps on accelerating easier in 3rd and 4th gear whereas the gears seem longer even in the HF and you get a bit of a slower feel above 30-40 mph. I bet though that most people that drive the HF for the first time would not guess that it only has 62 HP (from what I hear).

By the way, if you see some good, blue CRX seats offered let me know. I have looked at the del Sol seats, but I can't help it...I am usually leaning to original equipment and other than that these seats do rather well for me (as in no backpains on long drives).

[mrmad]

If you like the stock seats but they are torn up, do what I did: Wal Mart seat covers and I added the luxery touch, the $14 seat pad under the driver's seat cover.

[McPatrick]

I would if it wasn't for the fact that I absoluetly hate seat covers. I will agree it would be the most economic option

[UfoTofU]

I haven't looked into it myself but I think that you can have the torn up bolsters re-foamed and re-upholstered for reasonable prices.

I was thinking of looking into this as there is an upholstery shop just down the road from me so I would be able to bring the seat to them.

You can sometimes find good deals on tore up seats by someone who decided to go with racing seats. You just have to hunt around crazedlist.org is a favorite of mine.

[McPatrick]

Yes, that might be an option. As far as I can tell it would only be the side parts of the seats that need reupholstered and not the rest of the seat. I will look into that.

[UfoTofU]

McPatrick

Not sure where you are located but here is a good deal...

http://sacramento.craigslist.org/pts/437750434.html

[Gary Palmer]

"I'm thinking about putting VX wheels on the HF. With the VX I definitely noticed an improvement in mpg going from steelies with normal tires to VX wheels with LRR tires. About 5 percent I'd say."


If your not in to big of a rush, I would really be interested in seeing the difference in like 3-4 tanks, before and after on the wheels. If it really is that high of a percentage increase, by changing to the VX wheels and tires, I would be interested possibly making that change.

[GasSavers_Ryland]

when you have time take off one of the steel wheels from the CRX and check out how much they weigh, if they are stock they should be pretty light, partly because they are only 4.5" wide, insted of 5" wide, and they are made with slightly thiner steel, I can't easly proove it, but I wonder how airodinamic the thiner steel wheel is, compared to the thick spokes of the alloy wheel, it's something to look in to, of course alloy wheels do look slick, and the VX rims are a pound or so lighter from what I can tell, but with the HF they did put some thought in to the whole thing.