Well, I came back from my trip and I gotta say that I'm both impressed and dissappointed. So here's what happened. I went 130 miles one way and 130 miles back for a total of, you guessed it, 260 miles. I started off at five in the morning going west with winds comming straight at me at 15-30 mph. I set the cruise control at 60mph with two other passengers in the car... although you could consider them one more passenger since combined they weigh less then 200lbs. I traveled about 40 miles before getting to the main hill on the trip. The topmost elevation for this road is 4,200 ft above sea level. The elevation for my town is 2 ft. I climbed up the mountain at 60mph and with cruise control on. When I got to the top I was down to around 28mpg's if I remember correclty. I then upped the speed to 70mph on the cruise when I got to the first big drop and for the most part my mpg's starting to slowly crawl up.... the awesome thing that I saw here was that my instantaneous never fell below 60 and lingered around the 70-80 mark for most of the remaining trip, except when I had to climb another hill. On the way back I came down through the other side of the border on a mountain that's a lot more crooked and steep then on the US side. It was really late when I came back though so all my attention was on the road and me not falling asleep rather then on checking how I was doing with the mpg's. When I got home I checked the gauge and it ended up at 35.5 mpg with about 1/3 of the gas tank left. Usually when I've made this trip and with a lot of neutral, cruising down the mountain, and much lower speeds, I have about 2-3 bars left on my gas gauge. That's where I was impressed, but I didn't get anywhere your mpg's Duc... but I guess now that I think about it, it's pretty good considering all the factors.

 

All things considered it sounds OK, I have not ever gotten that low (b4 or after mods) but have never climbed mountains either. Are you lead footing it now you have some power? It is easy to do I catch myself driving like a mad man daily now I can actually move out of my own way

Clif

 

yeah man, I've catched myself hauling *** too. It's nice having a hybrid that has good power to where you can actually speed by other people with normal cars and not have ur mpg's suffered. I'm gonna try not to take many trips outside the city next time I fuel up to see how it performs on short routes.

 

Been a week whatcha know?

Clif

 

yes it has... so far i'm getting 42mpg's on pure city driving... well, i drove about 15 miles on the outskirts of town but i think that's still pretty good. With the holiday rush however things are starting to get really slow in the city (traffic wise) so we'll see with what I end up with. Hey duc, when u accelerate what rpm's and/or instantaneous mpg's and/or assist bars do you usually get before reaching your cruising speed? I'm asking this because I don't know if it's better to pump the gas to get to cruising speed faster and then level off or to gently get the car gain velocity until cruising is reached.

 

I am all over the RPM range, sometimes I shift before the light (on the dash), sometimes just after, and a lot of the time I redline it (just below actually). I do not have a constant though I do notice better MPG's when I baby it more than hot rod it. No matter the foot I am always above 50mpg's after 10 miles or less, I either soft or lead foot it then level it out and keep the real time guage at 60mpg (or try should I say).
Clif

 

I am really interested in getting the exhaust mod for my '06 HCH, though not the air intake yet. But I've never modified a car in any way. Can you explain it as if to a moron, Duc? Like, after buying the muffler you linked to, is there anything else I need to buy for it? What shops are good for installing it? How long does it take? Is there anything more involved than just saying "Here's the muffler I want, now install it please"?

 

Any idea why Honda doesn't just use 2.25" exhausts since it gets better mileage? Is it louder or does it affect emissions in any way? There must be a reason?

 

Noise, cost, packaging. A larger exhaust will naturally be louder, although still within the acceptable ranges of most people. Defining "most" is what manufacturers struggle a lot with. In a controlled lab experiement, I would be doubtful that the exhaust would add more than 1-2hp and 0.25 - 0.5 mpg, to be honest. I've been around modified Hondas a long time (since 1998 or so) and the lowest horsepower models usually gained nothing or next to nothing on a dynojet with no realistic hope of better FE either. It's too bad the amount of assist is variable based on SOC, otherwise it would be possible to dyno test the HCH before and after.

 

well, I've never put my HCH to an actual statistical test which yields results in actual numbers and I've also never modified any vehicle prior to this one, but I can tell you just by the IG that my mpg's increased in the range of 10 to 20. Even when I drive with my foot stuck to the floor, I have yet to get anything below 30 mpg's on a tank. Before the mod I could not reach 30. Perhaps my driving technique was to be blamed for (which I think has improved as well), but technique aside and simply flooring the pedal just like I had been doing when I first got the car has given me the above results.