I have a 5speed in my E and today I noticed that I can have the tranny in 1st and I can take my foot off the gas and she will coast along at a crawl without stalling. It doesnt jump, or anything. I have owned a 5 speed before but it was a 84 VW Rabbit - if I took my foot off the gas in that car eventually it would stall. Not Ellie... she wouldnt even stall in second gear, but it was kind of jumpy at the low rpms. So, is this something Honda does to the car, or is it just because this engine idles higher??? Let me know of your experiences. Bye the way - the shirts ROCK!!! I want one in all colors! :D

If you want to have a real good time, go to a very flat road or parking lot and you can eventually work your way through all the gears, except maybe 5th, without touching the accelerator. That's how my Mom taught me how to drive a stick.

Torque, gears and flywheel on your side here
First off torque the power to withstand a motion - or create one(OK not physics here)
Torque keeps the power constant and up not making the car bump and jerk, this is also a function of the flywheel to keep the thing turing at a steady rate.
Next enter the gear ratio in all of the element gears - not an extreemly high ratio of engine turns (RPM) to wheel turns
Thus 80 MPH in 5th is 4250 give or take


My old Ford truck could start from all four gears by slowly releasing the clutch it had inline 6 cyclinder engine 300 cubic inches or 4.9 liters 50 CI per cylinder

Element 2.4 liters about 150 cubic inches but 4 cylinders about 37.5 CI per cylinder

Also piston stroke gets into the equation too

OK what did I miss?

Pretty simple.

Your Element doesn't stall because because it's little "brain" is pretty smart. It keeps the idle speed up by modulating the throttle. Older cars with dumber "brains" don't know to do that, so when the amount of idle throttle is not enough to overcome the resistance where the wheels meet the road, the pistons stop moving and the engine stalls. :)

I would not recommend driving in too high a gear for the speed you are moving at. That applies more and more torque to the engine internals until you hear it "lug" which is when the engine sort of rattles. This is really hard on the engine. Don't do it. When you're driving through the parking lot, do it in first or maybe second. I *cringe* when I hear people driving around in p-lots in 3rd gear in a little 4 cylinder. You've seen them. Sort of pinging and clanking along. REALLY bad for the engine if you make a habit of it.

Think of it as pedaling a bicycle in too high a gear up a hill. Think about how hard you have to push those pedals. You might even hear your bike's crank making creaking noises. You don't want to subject your engine to that kind of stress needlessly. On your bicycle, you can just stand up and pedal, which would be like your Element suddenly growing giant drops and rises on it's crankshaft and tripling the stroke of the engine and giving you 300 lbft of torque and 14:1 compression LOL. Your poor Element can't do that though, so keep that transmission in the gear where it belongs! :wink:

[quote:2a829a6004="isdkelly"]Torque, gears and flywheel on your side here
First off torque the power to withstand a motion - or create one(OK not physics here)
Torque keeps the power constant and up not making the car bump and jerk, this is also a function of the flywheel to keep the thing turing at a steady rate.
Next enter the gear ratio in all of the element gears - not an extreemly high ratio of engine turns (RPM) to wheel turns
Thus 80 MPH in 5th is 4250 give or take


My old Ford truck could start from all four gears by slowly releasing the clutch it had inline 6 cyclinder engine 300 cubic inches or 4.9 liters 50 CI per cylinder

Element 2.4 liters about 150 cubic inches but 4 cylinders about 37.5 CI per cylinder

Also piston stroke gets into the equation too

OK what did I miss?[/quote:2a829a6004]

Not much. Good description there.

Piston stroke is largely responsible for torque. The K24 in the Element has a pretty long stroke relative to the bore, ESPECIALLY for a Honda. This is the only Honda engine I've ever seen that has a torque "number" equal to the horsepower "number". The ability to make more low end torque makes it easier for the engine to move the car in first gear at idle (see bike pedalling example)

Most of what is happening here has to do with engine electronics though. If the Element had no ECU it would stall in first gear at idle in a second.