ok i did a quick search and didn't come up with much.

what i would like to do is to get the s running at lower rpm on the freeway, i was wondering what the most simple way to do it as well as a very reliable way to do it. i have heard of changing a gear in the diff? and was wondering what the pros and cons of it were.

if you could give your input or post a link to the specific thread that would be great.

i know my way arounnd a car and have learned mostly through expirience and do most of my own stuff, and i was trying to conceptualize this and just couldn't find a way to know that it would work.

my two biggest goals would be better freeway mpg and lower revs which i believe would prolong engine life. also i would like to avoid loosing power, like if the taller gears would reduce acceleration.

just wondering, please be gentle, i know that there is probably allready a thread exactly like this, i'm just not that internet savy, so try not to flame me..... too badly

 

i don't think you want to change gears in the diff, as that would affect all your different gears, which would just make your car accelerate slower. what you need to is to just change the last, 6th gear, which is usually only used for cruising. and even then, yeah, you're gonna effectively lose power in that gear.

personally, i get ~26-28mpg highway, which i think is fine. a few more mpg ain't gonna save you that much money.

 

i was mainly wondering cause my other car a 94 lude vtec has bisically the same engine... i know it doesn't have the same performance or as high revs, but it get up to 34 mpg if its all highway, and it runs about 3000rpm at 60 and 4000rpm at 80 and as you all know the s is not much but a bit higher rpm range, i just thouht that lower rpm would translate to better mpg. with out power loss hopefully.

i just have a bone stock car and thought that if there were one mod i would do it might be this

 

Well the easiest way to do it is to put HUGE tires on the rear wheels...but that will cause more issues than it's worth.

The way most people do it is to change the differential to a higher gear ratio unit...but this makes the rpms lower in all 6 gears which will make your car slower, and drop out of VTEC when you shift possibly.

Another way and I'm not sure if this would work well, would be to put a longer 6th gear in. The problem with running lower RPMS in top gear though is you'd constantly be having to downshift to accelerate or go up an incline.

Honestly running 4,000 rpms in 6th gear on the interstate is not hurting anything and you have plenty of torque at that rpms to accelerate a bit if need be without downshifting. Contrary to what you may think...fuel economy would not go up if you ran lower rpms on the interstate, particularly if you have inclines where you drive.

 

ok thanks for the input, its not to save money exactly, buying gas is no problem, i was thinking more along the lines of easier on the engine and just wondering why my car which is ten years older and not much slower gets much better mpg with the same size engine

 

ok thanks again it was just something that i was wondering about i had heard that it could be usefull, i guess that its not helpfull, now give me a second while i go shoot the giver of misinformation.

 

The compression ratio is the culprit for poor fuel economy per displacement. I bet your other 2.0 liter car doesn't make 240 hp.

Find another car that makes 240 hp and I bet it's fuel economy is about the same or worse, most cars making 240 hp run a V6 or V8.

 

actally they are both 2.2, but same difference right. and yes compared to other cars which make the same power the s is very feul efficient. i was just wondering if it could be better.

 

driving habits make a HUGE change in a car like this. If I drive mine easy I can squeak out 27 mpg commuting and 32 mpg highway. If I drive it like it's meant to be driven it will be in the low 20's.

 

i'm sure changing gears such that you will cruise at 65mph @ 2k will get you much better gas mileage. but again, there are other considerations.

just fyi, my z06 was a 5.7l making 420hp+ v8. @ 65mph, the tach was at about 1.5k if i remember correctly. the car gets 31-32mpg!!! on highway if you can believe that. so yeah, tall gearing makes a huge difference. the difference is, that car also made just about as much torque as hp. your s2k will not go anywhere if you had that tall of gearing.