I live in Moreno valley for all of you SoCal people here. I drive a ton of miles (120 a day) so the hybrid was the only affordable way. I'm a gearhead though, sold a 300hp Neon SRT4 (Stage 2) for this car, mainly because it affords the carpool lane, so hence my username, I think this is the slowest car I have ever owned.

I have done a few things to my car, I took off the engine cover, have already put on a K&N-style cone air filter, and put tweeters in the a-pillars from a civic EX. I have nighthawk lightbulbs so it is brighter than stock.

Learning experiences:
1. 18" rims are a no-no for a hybrid. I knew it would be bad, but was surprised just how bad it was. Thankfully my buddy let me swap him tires for two days to try it out. MPG went from 44 to 38, power was significantly reduced (Assist was on all the time) and braking was by far the worst.

2. Smaller tires hurt FE, but gain power. For the heck of it, when I needed two tires, I got P185/60R14 instead of P185/70R14. It's about an inch or so shorter of a tire, so it throws off the speedo by about 6%. In other words, my mpg should have went up 6% to correspond with the diameter change. In short, it stayed about the same, so it actually hurt mileage by about 6%. You can feel the car has additional rolling resistance as well.

Anyway, thats me. If anybody ever comes out with a smog-legal turbo kit for this car, I'll be the first nut to try it!

 

Welcome. I hope the Civic isn't too slow for you, but with all that driving you do I'm sure you're happy with it. Is it a manual?

 

Nope, I got a CVT. I just had the stock 1.25" exhaust cut off after the catalytic convertor and had a 2.25" system with a XL Performance muffler welded on. It sounds nicer now, a mild sound, but not to be confused with the coffie-can high pitched normal civics out there. So far it is hard to tell if it has helped with mileage, I will find out this week though, but it definitely seems like mid-range power is much better. What would have required a constant 4000RPM now is sufficient with constant 2500RPM, hence I think I will get a little better mileage.

 

Actually that is only a partial ton of miles per day. I'm averaging 197 miles/weekday (or 141 miles/every day) and will most likely hit 8,000 miles either tomorrow or Tuesday and the car will be 8 weeks old tomorrow - so that is 1,000 miles/week and I've only taken it out of town three times for a ~150 trip each way. I am in the same boat as I sold a 1995 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4 with about 360-hp AWD and twin turbos for my HCH-II. The complete opposite end of the spectrum but with my job this was the best choice of car and I am more pleased each and every day. Today on the way home from Erie, PA I was able to draft a few trucks and ended up at 49.9 mpg for the day (it was 47.9 halway through the day in Erie so I guess I averaged 52.0 mpg on the way home). Love it.

Oh, and where did I sell my last car? My dad and I drove it from Pittsburgh to San Francisco for 2,800 miles in 3.5 days. Boy would that have been fun in this car rather than struggling to maintain 20.0 mpg. Anyway, welcome and enjoy your car.