Brandovibe

I have a 2001 Civic Ex with a 5 speed manual trans. It is a great car but i do a lot of highway driving in it and it feels like i need three more gears! at 70 MPH the RPM's are way too high and at 80 miles an hour the car is SCREAMING. It gets great gas mileage but i want to get even better at those speeds since that is where i am usually cruising at. It has 250k miles on it and im thinking that the less rpms it is doing, the longer the engine will last also.

So my question is, how do i chage the gearing on a front wheel drive car like this? Is it easier/cheaper to change the final drive or just fifth gear? I know i know, if i change just fifth it wont be matched to the rest of the gears, but that is ok, like i said, the rpms are so high, even if it dropped 1500 rpms in fifth, that would be ok. I could use it just like an overdrive on the highway and cruise around in 4th on regular roads.

Has anyone ever tried to do this? If so, please let me know where you got the parts, and the best way to go about this.

Thank you for any input on the matter.

ezone

I'm here to be your ray of effin' sunshine....

The car has already lasted 250k running as designed. The RPM has not hurt it thus far, has it?
A ball gag can muffle the screaming nicely.. <---I wrote this entire reply just so I could say that!I doubt it. 1500 is a bit below its powerband and that makes it less efficient.
You'd likely burn up MORE fuel because you'd have to keep the throttle further open for a larger percentage of the time.

The engine probably wouldn't have enough torque at that low of an RPM to keep the road speed up (overcome wind resistance) unless the road is perfectly flat and you are drafting off of a semi trailer.

Unless you made internal engine changes to increase its torque up a bunch at the low RPM ranges you are planning on running it at.
I really don't think there would be any real return on that investment. Leave it alone and buy gas with that money?

It made it this far without blowing up. Keep it full of oil and coolant and it should keep going.

JMHO....YMMV....HTH

Brandovibe

Ha! thanks, im still laughing from that reply!

Im not worried about return on investment, i just want it to be better. You are absolutely correct that it has lasted this long but it annoys me how high it revs at highwat speeds. I know what you are saying about powerband and wind etc etc, maybe im wrong thinking that it would be ok at 1500 rpm lowe, but i KNOW that i could at least drop it 5-700 and be fine.

Everyone that is in my car on the highway all say the same thing "put it in fifth dude!" when it already is, followed by "why is the car screaming like that at only 70 MPH?!?"

It almost feels like they made a mistake with it, im always chekcing to make sure that it is definitely in fifth and not third.

I did learn from posting on another forum that the lx and dx manual transmissions from the same years will fit in the ex, and their 1st and fifth gears are taller. Im thinking of getting a trans from one of those to see how much difference it makes. I do like the snappiness and respsonsiveness of my first three gears, but even at only 35-40mph im driving around in fifth gear all the time.

I noticed this when i dorve someone elses civic (forget the year and model now but i think it was 6th gen) and i was driving in third gear where my car is in fifth. The LX and DX have less HP than the EX (and with higher gearing) so with more power i know i can gear it at least slightly taller than the stock Lx or DX. Know what i mean?

ezone

I think I was a bit strung out when I wrote that, it was like 1:30 AM. Needing sleep badly.

I think the EX was supposed to be a little more sporty and zippy (LOL), that's why the different gear ratios.

Brandovibe

Good thing you were, It was amusing!

I just hope that if i change it, i dont wind up saying, "man, it lost all of its "zip" i shoulda kept it the way it was!