What does it take to get custom gears made?

[Matt Timion]

I'm thinking of having someone make me some taller gears for my Honda Fit once it arrives. Perhaps a taller 5th gear? Perhaps remove the third gear and put the 4th in it's place, and the old 5th in the place of the 4th?

Does anyone know how much work/cost it would be to have this done and installed? I was thinking of trying to get a guy to do it for me for free under the conditions that I would help him sell the gears to other people who wanted it.

[psyshack]

Matt

It would be a mega mess. You more than likely would have to cut a whole new gear set. Or at best change the finale ratio at the differantial thus changing the ratio. None of which is easy. Or practical.

Some hypermilers have complained that they wish the new civics MT had a taller 5th gear. The AT cars lock the tq for what I like to call the fake fifth gear. Our Accord does this. While it works well in the Accord. Its been a bit of a problem with the Civic. There have been alot of reports of ghosting/hunting. With other things showing up. From shuttering to unexplaned noises and such.

In a hypermiling mode we would like to see the tach at the best possible low rpm for any given forward speed. With you Fit having the same EPA mpg rating as my Civic I hope it suprise's you as my Civic has me.

Im not up on the Fits engine spec's. I know its a 1.5L ( well I dont know,, I think ) it weights alot for its size, as does my Civic. I dont know if it has the semi atkins cam or not. One thing I do know, is our Accord and Civic seem to be suffering from the power to weight ratio grimlin. Sure the new Civic has more hp and torque than past cars. But it also weights more. Ive thought long and hard about a taller 5th or maybe even a 6th gear OD. After living with the car 20k miles I feel it would be a waiste in my driving enviroment.

Fact is my Civic going down the hwy, level and no wind at 65 mph will produce 44 to 46 mpg. All on its own. No hypermiling needed. I only get to see this on extented trips. But it does do it. Theres something about Honda magic. I cant explain it. The Accord likewise will go into the 40 mpg range with no effoert on the drivers part if conditions are right.

I hope your Fit will show that it has a place in the tach and speed-o where Honda magic shows its self.

Im looking forward to your posts concerning the Fit when you get it. Im sure you will push it to mpg extremes that nobody else is doing. I find myself on a island concerning the R-18 Civic. I havent seen anybody else pushing it to higher mpg levels. I have a feeling your going to be on a island yourself before long.

[Brian D.]

When you find out please let me know. This is exactly what I've been wanting to know about. My car screams at highway speeds. Of course a 6th gear would be ideal, but that's not going to happen (it's too much of a great idea to happen). I'd like to get my 5th gear down by 400RPM (yikes!).

[lindermant]

Check your local honda tuner shop; they should know if the Fit transmission can accept any previous years honda gears to customize your final drive.

There's a shop in VA called InlinePro (www.inlinepro.com) that offers that service, but I have an automatic so no dice for me...

And I'm with psy on the honda magic, with the exception of increased tire pressure and the use of a SG-II, I don't do anything other than keep my speed at 50-55mph with as little throttle as possible (primarily highway commute for me). I'm thrilled with my MPG numbers considering how little effort I'm putting into it

[Sludgy]

Going into the transaxle to change gears would instantly void Honda's warranty, so why not do something simple, like change the tires?

Taller tires would change the effective gear ratio. The stock tire is 175 65R14so try a 175 70 R14 or a 185 70 R14:

O.E. Tire 1 Tire 2
width 175 175 185 mm
aspect ratio 65 70 75
wheel 14 14 14 inches
width 6.9 6.9 7.3 inches
tire height 4.5 4.8 5.5 inches
diameter 23.0 23.6 24.9 inches
Diameter ratio 100.0% 103.0% 108.6%
Indicated speed 60 60 60 mph
Actual speed 60.0 61.8 65.1 mph

These tires will fit stock rims I'll bet they would fit under the wheel wells without any mods.

[Matt Timion]

Originally Posted by Sludgy

Going into the transaxle to change gears would instantly void Honda's warranty, so why not do something simple, like change the tires?

Taller tires would change the effective gear ratio. The stock tire is 175 65R14so try a 175 70 R14 or a 185 70 R14:

O.E. Tire 1 Tire 2
width 175 175 185 mm
aspect ratio 65 70 75
wheel 14 14 14 inches
width 6.9 6.9 7.3 inches
tire height 4.5 4.8 5.5 inches
diameter 23.0 23.6 24.9 inches
Diameter ratio 100.0% 103.0% 108.6%
Indicated speed 60 60 60 mph
Actual speed 60.0 61.8 65.1 mph

These tires will fit stock rims I'll bet they would fit under the wheel wells without any mods.

Of course that makes sense, but I'm planning for 3 years down the road when my warranty is up.

[omgwtfbyobbq]

In that case, find out what cars share the same transmission housing and you can probably have your choice of FD/gear ratio sets. For instance, most vw's during a two decade span used the same basic tranny in four/five speed flavors. They all bolt up the same so swapping is pretty easy. The lowest factory OD ratio is 2.762(FDx4th or 5th), and the lowest possible gear ratio (swapping FDs) is 2.601, which is a pretty big change compared to the highest ratio of 3.585. The point being you may be able to cut your OD rpm by ~25% just by swapping in a different tranny. What's more, if your tranny is geared high enough, you'll probably be able to make money on the deal because a lot of people are interested in certain high strung trannies for autox/etc... But trannies with low gear ratios tend to go for cheap.

[GasSavers_DaX]

Call Gear-Speed (www.gear-speed.com). They used to make custom B-series transmissions and would cut any ratio you wanted (within reason), but the custom units were about $5K for the whole thing. They were dog boxes also.

[Compaq888]

psy is right. stock a civic will do 44-46mpg. But we are hypermilers so we will achieve more than that. The next best thing to overcome the 5th gear is to do aero mods and inflated tires.

[Matt Timion]

Originally Posted by Compaq888

psy is right. stock a civic will do 44-46mpg. But we are hypermilers so we will achieve more than that. The next best thing to overcome the 5th gear is to do aero mods and inflated tires.

I guess this means I can't drive around with deflated tires now, huh?