Hi All:

___Whoooa, let us all pull back on the reigns a bit. Although the threads intentions are noble, until we get more end user data, this thread is speculation … Please wait for Bluecivichybrid or NASAngineer to really want to start pushing tanks and not experimenting over a shorter highway or city segment. Right now, it is just a big experiment. If Blue or NASA do not take the reigns, someone in the very near future will. What you want to look for is an HCH-II w/ an lmpg in the low to mid 60’s as we see HCH-I’s from Hot_Georgia_2004, Kenny, RJ, HCH03, and Lakedude. Until someone really wants it from turn of the key to the time it’s parked in the drive tank after tank, some of what is posted in this thread is pure speculation at best and possibly bad advice at its worst.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes

 

I hear no mention of the use of the rev counter? It is a work of art in the 06 cars and should surely play some major part in performance management. For example, at what point do the three stages of the valve gear operate in terms of RPM?

 

This might be difficult for me as I have a mother who drives the 06 too and she averages 44 mpg. I try to drive the 06 as much as possible but I can't have it all the time (it's her car).

For example, I racked up the first 150 miles of my current tank at 50.0 mpg, and then she dropped it to 47.5 mpg driving it just 30 miles. So, mpg in the 60s may be difficult in my case. I'd look to NASA for tank experiments.

Also I don't like to run my tank out of gas (anywhere near when the gas light comes on). Although it's a long term thing (80,000 miles+?), I don't want to burn out my gas pump. I usually get gas at 1/4 tank remaining. I also do not top off. These things combined would not make me a good candidate for 1000 mile+ tanks.

Unless a certain somebody comes at me yelling "TORCH! TORCH!" that is

 

With so many compliments on your initial message, why did you decide to remove it?

 

Hi ElanC,

thanks for the encouragement. But, seeing as some thought that most of it was pure speculation at best and at worst bad advice, I didn't see myself continuing to update the thread. I did put a lot of effort in summarizing all of what is currently know on the 2006 civic hybrid.

I'm all for sharing what is currently known about the car. I just got one and I am myself leaning new stuff every day.

However, being told by a senior member and a hypermiler that my post was basically useless, I didn't see why I should continue updating it.

Sorry, I don't want to sound negative, but, I tried to summarize in one thread ALL of what I READ in the boards. Most of the information was taken from NASAngineer's threads which show a lot of study in them.

Maybe someone else would like to continue the thread.

Thank you,
Stephane.

 

Hi Bluecivichybrid:

___I can understand a family member destroying tanks. I think we all have at least one of them

___What I do want to see from you or NASAngineer is parking lot to driveway numbers in the 70, 80’s and even 90’s now that you can nail 80 + out on the highway. Tbaleno and I were talking about you two the other night in chat WRT how we can help by showing you a way to hit the highway warmed up with maybe a 60 + mpg segment showing from the parking lot you left not 5 minutes before. Building your segments FE up after that first 5 minutes is the easy part once you are back again achieving an 80 - 100 mpg LS highway and the resultant final coast down into the garage …

___Tulip, we can probably forget about the HCH-II’s Hi output cam timing mode as that is not a fuel saver in the least! Even when considering a stronger pulse for its use although that remains to be seen …

___Slajeune, I did not want you to delete your post but did want to temper speculation is all … I am a big boy and you can respond to me directly. You had a lot of information placed at ones fingertips and I know you spent a lot of time typing it up as well as reading, researching, and trying to understand the various HCH-II threads that NASA and Blue have been involved in over the past 3 weeks. Please repost what you typed up and leave a gap for future tweaks and discoveries … If I was any more honest and said what I really felt, this thread would have been ripped to pieces.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes

 

Hi Xcel,

thanks for the reply. I did do a lot of research and as such, I think that this is a good status of what we know so far.

Thanks!
Stephane.

 

What I seem to be finding is that topography has as big (or larger) of an effect on FE as technique. On the flatlands of Illinois (my home state, BTW) I can see where you could reproduce those numbers anywhere just by applying the exact technique, but my experience here in the S.F. bay area is that the exact same technique gives very different results depending on where you use them. I'd guess that bluecivichybrid would get very different results on different sections of highway using the same method (on some he would get worse, on others he might do better). So, a bay area driver has to modify his/her technique to match the terrain, and in many cases you're only going to get 50 mpg regardless of your method.

My commute is 25 miles of 4-lane, heavy traffic. Dropping below 60 MPH is not an option, even in the far right lane (my limited testing indicates that speeds below 60 quickly result in honking horns and flashing high beams). I can P&G and DWL with speeds between 60-70 or 60-75, but I still don't beat (by more than 1-2 mpg, and SoC is dropping) what the car can do on it's own with the cruise control set to 60. Even on cruise, the car does a good job of maximizing the downhill sections and using the minimum fuel flow level to maintain speed.

In non-freeway situations, it's a completely different story. My technique here is to look ahead to the next 'waypoint', which is usually the next stop light/sign, a sharp curve, stopped traffic, or even the crest of the next hill. I then work back from there to a point where I think I can reach the waypoint by coasting, possibly with some EV assist help. That point is usually about half-way between my current position and the waypoint, but not always (hills can move that point significantly). I then 'pulse' to the 'coasting start point' and coast the rest of the way. The intensity of the pulse depends on the distance to the coast point. Using this method I have been able to get 55-65 mpg, again depending mostly on terrain. I expect that when it warms up, I'll do even better. Unfortunatley for me, most of my driving is on the freeway, so I don't get to practice it much.

I'd love to hear about this! As I posted elsewhere, it seems like the warmup period is what's really killing my overall commute average FE. If I reset the trip 10 miles into my commute, the trip MPG jumps from 51 to 62!

 

wow i'm so glad I don't live in the speedy States.

Ya for straight line hwy I think having CC on is just more efficent and worth the hardly extra effort P&G forces you to be in.

 

Hey, this is one of the better threads started here in the last few weeks. The info needed to summarized for the new or interested folks, if not even everyone. I was surprised when you took it down. I hope I didn't contribute to that decision.
If so, anything I wrote was mis-interpreted. Sorry.