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1. The civic rear bumper acts as a parachute. I was able to achieve ~45mpg without it installed, running on BFgoodrich touring tires @44psi. This is more proof for me that high gas mileage vehicles were never a real goal for any car manufacturer. All the car manufacturers are controlled by a single hand, manipulating them as if they are competing against each other when in reality it's just another control-arm of the conspiracy to keep humanity in bondage. In this case, the Supression of advancement (i.e. free energy/REAL alternative fuel sources). Type free energy into youtube.

If the civic is a car that honda has placed on the market to compete against other car manufacturers, why would they add a parachute to the rear? That's like placing weights on your body before a running race. Aero dynamics isn't a new thing. It's not like we still have to work it out --work out the kinks. Give me a break! The Native Americans had it down over 9000 years ago (as one example). They call them tipi's and arrows.

2. The boot around the CV joints (on the axle) goes out before 100K miles. More like around 70K. Because the auto car manufacturers hate you and want to keep you in bondage, they refuse to make the boot out of a more resiliant material such as *gasp* silicon. Remember those silicon wiper blades you saw at wal-mart? Well they suck, but the material is great. I know, I'm a revolutionary thinker. They must shoot me soon.

Not only will they not make the boot out of silicon, but they will not design an axle that doesn't need to be replaced because... well, that would make sense. And we don't live in that kind of world, did you notice n00b?

3. If your axle boot breaks, don't replace it with a 2-piece or single-split boot that you slip on. The Chinese single-split boot which I paid 25 dollars for corroded within 5K miles. Don't support the Chinese because you don't save money in the long run, and the Chinese are slaver-robots.

4. After 25K miles, my Denso plugs gapped at ~.052. The proper spec is .040" +0 -1. The tips are out of shape. I have replaced the plugs with stock NGK's. The NGK's, for some reason, were all gapped at .042, so I modified them to .040. My gas mileage has been poor (30-32) lately, and I believe it's due to the Denso's being worn out, so that's why I just replaced the plugs...

5. Honda doesn't want me to take it easy on my civic. When I take it easy on my civic, the car runs poorly --the opposite of peppy, unresponsive, engine feels semi-ruff. But when I rev it higher and take off quickly, the car runs smooth and nice. This is the case with both manual/auto civics. I posted about this a while ago but I feel like the bottom line is this: My friends saturn SL with a 1.9L engine runs consistent no matter how you drive it, so why doesn't the civic?

Test of 20 motor oils in 75 New York Taxi cabs, driven 60K miles each:
http://www.xs11.com/stories/croil96.htm

Engine oil myths and facts. (confirms what was concluded above)
http://www.nordicgroup.us/oil.htm

An interesting article on tire pressure. I told costco to set my tires to 44psi after the rotation, and the guy says to me that if I put the pressure so high that the inside of the tire will bulge and will wear much faster than the outsides. Well I don't believe that, and to this day my tires have worn more evenly then ever running them at 38-44psi. The car looks better too, and I've gotten like 43-45mpg. Not only that, but my car is still perfectly aligned after 25K miles. (I've got 115K on my civic)
http://www.officer.com/article/artic...on=19&id=27281

 
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ecu constantly changes the map depending on how you drive. brake harder, and the brakes grab better after a while. same with punching the gas. its weird. yeah things were made to break, otherwise shops and auto parts stores and dealers would be out of business lol.

 
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Yeah but that's not the whole story. The whole story is that if things in general didn't break, then we would live in much greater freedom. Conversely now, what is the nature of the work we do? We work and work and work because everything is broken. Everything is against us.

The ECU can suck my Johnson. Can't I replace it for one that doesn't suck? Can't I bypass it?

 
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See, I'm talking about ECU's like this. What's the story with aftermarket ECU's?

http://www.autopartswarehouse.com/sh...hip/honda.html

 
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aem standalone ecu ftw, then you can tune it however you want. believe me, there were plenty of days where i thought i would be much better off without a car at all. nothing to fix, no gas bill, ect.

 
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Interesting. What about software such as E-manage or AEM EMS to mod stock ECU? I'm new to this whole thing. The only thing I want to do, for now, is to get rid of the ECU conforming to driving habbits because it works against the driver, not for him.

Just noticed the cost of this thing. Haha. ^_^ No no, I'm not into racing. I just hate stock ECU config.

 
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ROFL: "

*Legal in California only for racing vehicles which may never be used upon a highway." -AEM ECM

 
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i'm thinking you prolly couldnt use a piggy-back for that sort of stuff because you still have to keep the stock ecu happy. just a question but with that whole parachute bumper has anyone tried a thin aluminum or steel or something like flashing or sheilding under the car to basically cover up that hole and smooth out the air flow?

 
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Man this would be a great thing to find a solution on. Frankly, it deserves it's own topic. A simple and effective solution would be awesome!

 
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i dont know i may try it then... i thought about it a while ago crawling under there but got busy expanding the nearly complete pile of turbo parts and didnt pursue it. i seem to remember a car commercial a few years ago with something about a fully enclosed bottom for just that purpose maybe lexus or toyota i dont really remember. i'm just thinking it could prolly be done with some screws and some thin sheet metal with a few bends, it just may be difficult to find solid mounting points

 
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It would be funny if you filled it up with bondo.

ROFL! ^_^

 
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This thread sounds like it belongs here: http://www.abovetopsecret.com

I've always wanted to get a CF sheet and flatten out the body under the front and rear bumpers.

 
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Wow, conspiracy 101. Here is something to chew on:


1. Mechanical devices break over time, end of story. If you take care of them they wont break as often or take much longer to break.

2. Cheap parts = crap no surprise here. Why are you shopping at Costco for car parts?

3. No car likes to be driving nicely all the time, they are designed with people beating up on them in mind. So they not only are made to take a bit of abuse. They require it. Race cars are built to a point that if you baby them, they will break.

4. Cars aren't designed primarily to be fuel efficient. They are designed to make people want to buy them. As a side effort the car's engine was designed to conserve fuel, the car itself was designed to make people like it and want to buy it. They couldn't acheive this by leaving the back bumper off. And of course they weren't designed to last forever, can you imagine how much the car would cost if it lasted forever? They have to cut corners so people can afford to buy them.

5. Over-inflated tires will wear incorrectly, just as under-inflated tires will, if you are over-inflated and your tires are wearing correctly, there is something wrong with your car compensating for it. Or the tires are cheapo.

6. The boots are rubber because they are cheap to make, do their job for 100k and are easy to replace, again, for little cost. They are like any part on the car, when they design it, they are looking for the best bang for the buck. If it weren't for this principal there would not be an aftermarket market. Just like any OEM part there are upgrades including upgrades to silicon boots.

7. People buy the oil that makes them feel the best. It's not about being strong armed or whatever, people stick with what they don't have problems with.

8. If you want to free yourself from the clutches of the automotive and oil companies walk everywhere. Driving is a luxury, not a right. And there is certainly no law, or any statement on behalf of the automotive industry that says they are making cars that last forever. So what do they owe you? They said the car was fuel effecient. And on average, it is. They didn't say they took every effort and cut no corners on research and development to make it as fuel efficient as humanly possible. If they had said that, you might have something to say.

 
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You also have to take into account the added weight of enclosing the bottom of the vehicle. Not to mention sometimes something will seem like it would be more aerodynamic, but its not, and you wouldn't know without a wind tunnel. The manufacturers have to have a balancing act between weight, aerodynamics, power, etc. Also when it comes to tire pressure there is a fairly wide range you can run tires before they are overinflated or under inflated. I've been running tires at approx. 40 PSI for a long time and my tires wear fine, the reason the manufacturer suggests 30 PSI is because it makes the car ride a lot softer.

 
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buy speedholes for your back bumper

 
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i dont think enclosing the back bumper would weigh that much, the whole car might, but not just the back bumper. i got to looking at it, and you could do a pretty bang up job enclosing the gap that allows air up inside the bumper cavity without to much trouble. and use the underside of the trunk floor to mount it to. yeah you cant always predict what will be better or worse aerodynamically, but some things are just common sense. there is a big gap allowing air to get up inside the bumper acting like a parachute. block it off and see what happens. it won't cost that much to to do and if it doesnt help then oh well, not too much lost.

 
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Could you sound any more orthodox and confirmist in your opinion? I'll reply to you when I get a chance...

 
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There is no significant added weight to the bumper if they had designed it correctly in the first place. That means the bottom should extend forward and mount onto the underside of the vehicle, eliminating the current gap. That's like an extra 5mpg right there.

And what's the deal with the manual (Non CVT) HX? It get's like 39-45mpg on a D16 engine. Honda could have mass produced these instead of the DX, but didn't, WHY?

 
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I'm thinking some sort of foam type material cut to innner-bumper dimension and pressed in. Shaped aero dynamic of course.

 
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****, even that is over complicated. Maybe a single layer of parachute cloth tied to underside. Why says the gap needs to be filled in?

 
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yeah the hx lean burn engine is very efficient and ive heard them getting more mpg than honda hybrid cars. its pretty amazing when you look into how it all works and yes it actually can run lean and use less than the full set of valves. the cvt tranny would also have been a big step up if they just improved on it a bit more. infinite gear ratios and no lag between shifts is pretty impressive. if youve ever drove or taken a ride in one, you will wonder why they even have the regular auto trans.

 
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hmmm..well...I don't want to sound mean but I bring the truth....

Think about how much it costs to just pay an engineer to think about a car......think about how much all these "superior" materials would be to produce? If honda got on the ball & made the best car every w/ the best materials every made...you wouldn't be able to afford it?

Sure they could make a car w/ silicone infused alloy boots, 400hp, handles like an f1 car, gets 50mph, & has the aerodynamics of airforce fighter jet...but guess what.....it would cost a ridculous amount....then you'd just complain about the price......

I love people always talk about how they engineered this & that wrong....If you don't like it buck up & build it...

Bitching gets you no where.......Someone obviosuly had enough & made all these cool car companies so they could make it there way.... ford,chevy,dodge,honda,toyota.....they all started from the average person!

People build cars, people aren't perfect, thus cars aren't perfect...
People break & cars break......see the connection?

 
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It seems to me you have the typical victim mentality of a weak-minded American citizen. I don't know where you're from, but that's what you're acting like. If you don't understand the how or why about something, you think someone or "Big Brother" is out to get you, keeping you down. If anything, that sounds selfish.

It seems to me you're raising a lot of engineering questions. What's your background in that? I'm going through four years of hell to get a degree in Aerospace Engineering, and even now I can tell you airflow and fluid dynamics are a hell of a lot more complicated than reading an article on wikipedia.

And the back bumper... Are you serious? You think it's a conspiracy that they didn't take off the back bumper? Would you buy a car without a back bumper, assuming Honda could even sell you one? You might want to look into whether or not that would satisfy NTSA Pedestrian Safety requirements. Honda is a business, and businesses need to make money to exist. To do that, they use less than optimal, but still adequate materials to sell the cars. For most things, using a $5 part that needs to be replaced by a $5 part at 100K miles is cheaper than spending $30 on a part that will last 200K miles. Until you've tried to satisfy a customer's design and cost requirements, I don't think you'll understand those two terrible words that are "over budget." Compromises are made in the interest of coming out with the best bang for the buck in the final product, especially in such a highly regulated industry.

9 times out of 10 when you think you've found a conspiracy, have you really? Are you sure its not just unfortunate circumstances, or your own jaded imagination?

I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill here. Like pheaton said, driving is a privilege, not a right. If you don't like what's out there, start walking. You're owed nothing.

 
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And you seem to be the type that walks around town bent over with his pants down. It's very selfish of you to hold onto your conformist opinions, since it's people like you, who don't ask questions, that have gotten us exactly where we are now: On the edge ready to fall to our destruction. But who cares? There's another "genuine" election coming soon which will fix everything...

Oh I understand the how and why of things, all too well.

 
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Exactly. If the HX was mass produced, the bullshit hybrid program could never have taken off. Hell, I'm surprised it took off even now! The whole thing should have been a disaster, offering TRVIAL gas mileage improvement. Completely over-priced cars for "improved" gas mileage that isn't even promised. And the price tag? Jeeeeez.

Why were hybrid cars even released? To offer a solution without offering a solution. In other words, hybrid cars are seen as some advancement, and illusionary step forward. The masses think, "Ohhhh, look at us go, we're making progress. Things are moving forward, are you naive?" But instead they should be saying, "What kind of **** progress is this? Where is the water powered car that came out decades ago? What about the current water powered solution? What about free energy that REAL scientists have been researchings for a century, if not longer? " But they don't.

Do you guys remember that show in the 90's called Beyond 2000? There was a real sense of advancement when I watched that show as a kid. Flying cars, streamlined society, a Utopia if not close to it. That's what would have happened if humanity was actually in control of it's own destiny. Look at the early 1900's, the mid 1900's. People had a vision of the future and they were optimistic. Gadgets were built like quality and things worked and lasted. Where is our vison now? We just take it up the *** now.

 
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Huge engineer costs you say? So in other words, the car companies are paying engineers lots of money to reinvent the wheel over-and-over again? These outrageous Engineer costs you bring up, why should they exist? You bring in an engineer when you need something new invented, or something dramatically improved. What have we done with cars recently that is new? If you're going to say Hybrid, please don't make me laugh. The word new, in my book, is integrated with the word progress, and the hybrid certainly doesn't fit that definition.

Honda hasn't invented anything different except for hybrids. My point is that when a new non-hybrid civic comes out, it's same as the old civic. It's all a rehash. Where does your engineer come in now? Honda didn't need an engineer to go from a 5th gen design to a 6th gen, they needed an artist. Same car, illusionary step forward. No significant improvement. And I
should mention that cars seem to be going down hill in quality, not uphill.

And here's the main point, since you're probably not sure where I'm coming from. I wouldn't know where I'm coming from either if I didn't address this. The system is against us. The system is the problem. Think about it. You mentioned some super car that Honda released that would sell for so high because it's so good. Now why is that? Manufactured bondage. Hypathetically speaking, If a car comes out that get's say 300 miles per WATER ounce, and was engineered so that it was super robust with --as I call it-- Russian simplicity/reliability, the cost of such a car would be outrageous. But there are 2 ways to think here: Bondage or freedom. Sure, you could price that car as high as you like because it's genuinly NEW and IMPROVED, and only the rich could drive it. Or you could sell it at current car prices and set humanity and the environement free--make gasoline obsolete. It seems the first choice is always chosen. People like you and I pay inflated prices for GOOD things because they are GOOD. So anything that is good must be expensive! Hey, I've got a revolutionary idea: how about good things become cheap, so that the whole world is nothing but cheap good things? Abundance over scarcity, the thoughts of a heretic.

Don't you see the obvious? When we take a car like the one I mentioned, we compare it to current cars and we say, "Okay, this car will sell for 75,000 dollars (or is WORTH 75K) in comparison to current conventional gasoline cars." But how can we make progress with this system? When something revolutionary comes out, it's too expensive to afford! We've been stagnant for the past 30-40 years. There's plenty new under the sun, but it's supressed by the system.

All this talk about Engineers is trivial any way. Go look at your REAL engineers, they are in private garages working on water powered cars and powering their houses with free energy, worried the legal thugs (AKA Swat team) aren't going to kick their door in. Most likely they've already been payed a vistic, and the government allows them to use their invention personally, but they can't market it.

It's a real inctricate web of enslavement, and if you want me to explain every detail I can't. All I can say is that we live in a negative utopia.

 
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I agree with alot that is being said in this thread; however, there are certain keywords that trigger people to think your talking crazy. Phrases like i don't know, the masses, conspiracy, they don't want you to know, the truth is out there(x files).

There is a logic between both sides of the issue and asking questions is a step in the right direction but:

There is an extent to which you can ask questions before you start to lose sight of why you began to ask those questions in the first place?

Your questions sound more like rants and obsessions than general dissatisfaction with the auto industry

 
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Better to sound like a nut than to not make a sound at all. Although I agree subtlety is the most effective means, sometimes a rant can be a powerful thing. It doesn't matter if I rant, so long as I make sense.

 
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1. A more accurate statement would be that mechanical devices can be made as reliable or unreliable as we want them to be.

2. Cheap parts shouldn't be made. I'm not saying no alternatives, what I'm sayings is that STANDARDS, for some reason, aren't being set. How can you have progress when standards aren't being set? I'll give you a blatant example in regards to car external styling. Go look at say new American car's like Crystler, lincon or whoever else and compare them to foreign styling. You'll find that a lot of American car's look like ***. Poor choices coming from the top, you say? Who not consult artists? Why not consult the people themselves? Design a car on a computer, let the artists and people judge it, THEN release it.

There's no mystery on what a beautiful car looks like. Mazda RX-7, Miata, 5th/6th gen civic, Nissan 240SX, CURRENT SUBARU! Even previous/new Ford focus gen. Good car designs are a given. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what looks good, but rather it's obvious. I went to an art school for a year. I could have walked upstairs into the auto design center and picked a car design blind-folded and it would look better than a Chrystler. There are 350 milllion Americans in this country, so there isn't a shortage of artists. But here's what I'm really getting at: there is a STANDARD for exterior body styling, so why aren't American cars meeting that standard? The American market is dying in large part to it's external styling, and it has NOTHING to do with American's not having taste. Being partly an artist, it is blatantly obvious that American car companies are being designed unatractively accidentally on purpose. Answer me this if you don't agree: Why is it that American knew how to build cars in the past (60's, 70's) and now all of a sudden we can't?

3. I've seen people abuse their civics. They can take it to a point but they do fall apart. The quality is only illusory. I like civics but in comarison to the body quality of the past (think Volvo, old mercede's/bmw, SAAB) they are not so good.

4. Fuel efficiency and looks can, unquestionably, be integrated to one another. The back bumper should not be a parachute. And I addressed your comment about the cost of a super-vehicle in a previous post.

5. Depends what you mean by over inflated. My max is 44 and I run 38's. You can run 44's no problem with consistent wear, no problem. And 44 is like a conservative figure, since it's not like the tire will explode if you do 46. There is a safety there.

6. Too out of context to really address that, but regardless, the best bang for the buck is reliability. I'm talking in the grand sense. Silicon is more expensive because rubber is there. See, we're talkign standards again. Why not make silicon a standard in certain applications so that rubber becomes obsolete? BLAM, cost goes down, humanity moves forward.

I doubt there wouldn't be an aftermarket, but who cares? The reason there is an aftermarket is because cars are un-necessarily poor quality in some areas. We are talking standards again. We've been making cars for a century, you would rationaly conclude that we would have refined them to the point of 1 million mile reliability by now. In fact, cars were headed in the right direction in the past, but now they are engineered overly complicated making us less free. It all ties into what I'm saying about the system being against us.

7. Yes they do. I wasn't trying to force anything on them, rather I just thought it was interesting. People don't have money these days, and I want to ease their burden a bit. Why pay more for something that isn't better?

8. No, instead of taking every step to make my car fuel efficent, simple, and extremely reliable, they did the reverse: they engineered the car so that it is MORE expensive to produce, capped on fuel efficiency, and reliable only to a point. If you don't know what I mean, I can explain if you like.

 
Rep Power: 266

I don't need a 4 year degree in art to tell you that the statue of David is genius, nor do I have to be a genius composer to appreciate Beethoven and Mozart. Nor do I need an engineering degree to tell you that my back bumper is a parachute, and that Honda knew it was a parachute. Telling me what degree you have is just a bit pompous. Sure, it gives you a good say in the matter, but aero dynamics --unless dealing with technical refinements-- is quite simple. And as you can plainly see, there were no refinements done to the civic. By refinements I mean highly technical subtle changes to an already refined whole aero-dynamic foundation. I guess this is done using computers and wind tunnel testing. A Civic's aero dynamics isn't even in the ball park of your 4 year diploma.

You misunderstand me. I don't say that the rear bumper should be taken off. I was stating that it's so obvious that it's a parachute, therefore Honda obviously made it like that to limit it's own MPG. Obsurd you say? Let's look at this in more detail then.

First, it's so obvous it's a parachute that a child could figure it out. Why wouldn't Honda realize this? Of course they would! Hell, why am I even getting into that? They've been building the Civic for YEARS and we've been building cars for a century. Standards have been set, achievments have been made... at least they say. Therefore, incompetence or accidental oversight are not possibilities. I thought Honda was competing against the other companies? I could have sworn putting on weights before a running race handicapped you.

Second, given that it's not accidental nor an oversight, why would Honda limit it's own MPG? Let's look at the civic DX without the rear bumper, which is the same as a civic with a redesigned bumper that's almost totally aero dynamic. So it gets about 45mpg this way. Now let's look at the HX. It get's 45 with the parachute bumper. If you take it away, that's like 50mpg. How can hybrid cars enter the scene now? The importance of hybrid cars in the auto market is to create false progress: a trivial MPG increase which is easily outweighed by the inflated price of the vehicle. What I'm saying is that the controlled car companies aren't being allowed to release anything that's too good, and certainly nothing like water powerd cars. Only "solutions" that undermine humanity further such as ethanol --which creates massive food shortage and is extremely ineffecient for the food taken vs. ethanol-- are allowed in.

So THAT is the conspiracy, not bumper parachutes. Bumper parachutes are a symptom.

A business needs to make money ay? Yup, in this system you're right. More is the magic word. And what's happening? The corporations make more and more money, and less and less is in our pocket. All the wealth is being consolidated. Look at bill gates. Why the hell is he a billionare? FOR WHAT? Who needs a billion dollars to live? A person lives to be a hundred if they're lucky, so a billion dollars is a bit unproportional to anyones life span. But it's all being consolidated and taken away from people like us, and the money just sits there in peoples acounts, yet in terms of the economy the money still EXISTS (even though it's not in circulation) so all goods are proportional to the money that exists. All this money that is just sitting there, what would happen if all that money were redistributed into peoples pockets?

But the corporations aren't the problem either, they are just a means --a front-- through which the power is taken away from us through consolidation of wealth. Oh and don't underestimate me when I say I've found a conspiracy. One that controls them all.