Thats fine, you can pic me apart if you want, my reply was a quick witted and to the point, trying to help this guy out as apperently he doesn't know his car very well. So now apperently I need to write a novel here to bring more clearity to my statement for you. Sure, theres many times where I cruise on idle in first gear in traffic because I don't want to ride the clutch, but this isn't what he was refurring to. I also agree that the noise he is hearing could be 100 other things including your suggestion but assuming this guy is in 5 or 6 gear cruising along at 2500 and then steps on the gas regularly to accelerate at a given speed, i'm sure running your car like this over time will give your car the rattles too, i've been in cars as i'm sure you have with many people that lug there cars around all day because they were taught from somewhere that reving them out into the proper operating rage in the power band will make them wear out faster, this is such a factor with 4bangers and especialy ours. I will stand by my statment that 3500 is the lowest cruising speed for the best gas milage and tq for stepping on the gas when needed asuming you are in 3 gear or above, below that it isn't a factor as gearing is working for you with the low tq below 3500. Look at a dyno sheet of the s2000 tq curve or better yet pay attention to how your car responds to your foot at a given rpm range, you will notice that it is flat from 3500 -5500 just before Vetch is thinking of kicking in. you have no more tq at 5000rpm then at 35000. You will have some more hp but then there goes your milage as you stated. Hope this makes sense to you, Let me know if you need me to elaborate on anything else.

 

I really don't know too much about the car. What do u mean by cruising on idle in first gear? Any good websites to learn about cars?

 

wikipedia.org.

 

Ok my turn, I disagree with you. Please clearify for me or if someone else disagrees with my statement would they please chime in on why a higher octane fuel will NOT degrade performance and milage then the minimum required? I will add this to my statement. As long as the engine is getting the minimum required octane - which if you understand how octane works, in simple turms -lower octane ignites quicker/burns hotter) Higher octane - slower to ignite/burns colder. In this case 91 for s2000 will run at full performance with out detonation, If you could run 87 in our car with out the engine detonating it would have more power and milage but it can't because of our compression ratio is too high. If the motor runs with out detonation at 91 then anything higher will cause ignition to be slower and colder then what it would run at optimum, now I agree that 1 point higher isn't going to be very drastic but for the sake of argument it validates my point of how octane works and what it can do. For someone that may drive the car at low rpm or has short drives, the car may never get up to proper combustion efficiancy leaving the car prone for deposits and poor performance. The higher the octane rating above 91 the more this will come into effect. Pm me if you need any more lessons

 

In a crawl situation in heavy traffic when you don't want to keep using the clutch in and out, stoping and going which is hard on the car. What was mentioned was to just let the idle of the motor in first gear pull you along at 4or 5 miles per hour, as long as your on flat ground the car will pull you along without having to keep stoping and starting. just keep a little distance between you and the guy in front of you. Make sense?

 

Yea it makes sense. Traffic jam here is so horrible that it forces me to come to a full stop everytime though. I move for a bit then have to stop, just repeating this start and stop .

 

These forums can be a great way to learn about cars but there is also alot of misleading info too so you have to be carful about what info you are taking to heart. Look for consistancy and alot of times common sense. There are some great magazines out there with a wealth of knowledge, they are some of my favorite sources for info.

 

Just stay away from ones like these:

 

I was getting about 240-250 miles per tank. Then I started driving my wife around and it dropped to 150 miles per tank... she weighs 340lbs...

 

HA!! I bet there is some great illustrations though