[quote:b427bd37a4="TomB"]I was surprised at how short the gears are on the E. It's really humming at 70-80 mph in 5th. The upside is that acceleration is very quick around town. The downside is that highway fuel economy will suffer, and it will be a less quiet/relaxed cruiser on long trips.
If I had my choice, I would love to have taller gears in the 5-sp E. I got to thinking that you could possibly achieve this with taller wheels/tires. But the stock ones are pretty big already -- 215/70R16. Can anything bigger fit in the wheel wells?
Or along a different line: is there any chance to someday have a different final drive ratio installed? (seems unlikely)
-Tom[/quote:b427bd37a4]
Question: Have y'all had a vtec based, 4-valve/cyl engine before? It is not the same thing as the old standard large displacement, 2v/cyl V-6's and V-8's you might be used to.
Example: I had a '91 Chevy S-10 with the 4.3 V6. Redline was basically 5K. The truck had a 3.08 ratio, with the 4spd A/T. 55 was 2200 rpm. Sounds low and nice, but that is almost half of the available RPM band for that mill.
With that in mind, look at the vtec engines. They are built, read BUILT to rev. Higher revving in a Honda vtec motor does not ipso facto mean lower mileage. Setting this engine down to a lugging 2k rpm on the open road would not be pretty. It wouldn't be drivable.
So, before everyone jumps on the "...it revs too high on the freeway..." bandwagon, go back and chart the freeway rpm's on your older domestic engines against the factory redline and then do the same for the E. You might find that in a lot of cases, the E isn't using anymore of the available rpm band than other types of mills.
Oh, and I added the 235/70-16 Goodyear Fortreras to my E. They are 4% taller than stock, a difference, but not that much. I register 60mph when going 62.4mph.
Just my $.02 :wink:
