re: Frankmehta's Practical Workhorse: Honda Civic AT CNG. EDIT: Sold! Quote:
Originally Posted by raghav.carfreak I personally think 7k is reasonable buddy, which brand have you used?
Isn't that what all dealers charge (between 5-6k or higher) for hid bulbs? what's the temperature you've got?
Is dim/dip a problem? Because I've heard that it takes awhile for hid's to switch on(something to do with heating up?)
and are these bulbs on your hi beam or low? Is the other still halogen or removed? (sorry for noob questions, It's just that I'm seriously considering a hid set up, since I dont have fog lamps in the civic, or i'd install them there, Vitamin M doesn't allow a projector set up or Projector headlamps either, so that's why
I want more of a functional set up, rather than show off, so just focussed bright lights should do my job |
The lights are not branded and have been installed directly (without projectors) in the low beam only. The beam has been focussed accordingly, to prevent any beam scatter to oncoming vehicles.
Dip is not a problem at all, as the Civic activates high as well as low beam when dipping, which means that the high beam comes on almost instantaneously and the low beam takes a couple of seconds to come to optimum brightness, but since the high beam takes care of the job anyway, I don't find it much of a bother.
The performance of these lights is top notch, though, and it is highly recommended. I'd recommend a temperature of 5000k over 6000k anyday.
NEXT STEP: To install 3000k HID fog lights in the stock locations of the Civic bumper. Quote:
Originally Posted by satyamkaushik Just wondering, did you notice any change in the air conditioner's performance ?
I have heard that the performance goes down a bit ? |
Absolutely not, sir. In fact, my car just went for a cooling coil replacement and the AC chills so fast and so much that mom (who feels cold very easily) just keeps complaining throughout the journey. I thought my Fiesta could not be bested in this department, but MAN, you need to sit in my Civic to realize how chilled the cabin can become!! Quote:
Originally Posted by saurabhkum Just a thought, is sequential kit works much better in automatic transmission? I've not seen or come across civic with cng. This thread is making me think on same lines. Will wait for long term report . |
I can vouch for the fact that the sequential kit does extremely well on CNG. I am yet to face an occasion where I am low on power or in the wrong gear or bogging down on a slope. It's all smooth and convenient. Quote:
Originally Posted by arvi86 I guess I need to look out for someone in Chennai who could do this job before settling for the HASS key.
Sir, you have made me jealous!
The stock headlights (Low Beam) in Civic are useless and your Xenons would have solved that problem. They look cool too. |
Thanks. Yes, the Xenons have done a good job.
Just did a 250 km round trip to Lonavala and back on Saturday night. Here's a few things I noticed: - I topped up some gas on the way, at Navi Mumbai (odo read 50 km) and when I was back, the odo read 250 km. She was still on that tank of gas, albeit the switch as showing the red LED. NO PETROL was used on this trip at all. KILLER!!! Filled gas the next day and 9.46 kgs of CNG went in. Which means I did 200 km on 9.46 kg of gas.
- Putting math into perspective:
On CNG:
Average: 21.1 km per kg
Cost: Rs. 315, which translates to 1.5 rupees a km.
Total cost of the trip: Rs. 375
If the whole trip was done on Petrol:
Average: 12 kmpl
Cost: Rs. 1541 (for 20.5 litres), which translates to Rs. 6.1 a km.
- The headlights performed really well. The new Xenon bulbs coupled with the quite spectacular stock high beam did a fantastic job of lighting the road like day. Even in torrential rain, both did a fabulous job of making the drive safe.
- The car performed commendably on slopes and ghats, as we Mumbai people love to call them. Not even once did I feel her bog down on CNG on inclines of any magnitude, even with the AC on. There were only 2 of us in the car, but then again, I feel she will cope great even if she is on full load. Pickup from standstill felt very healthy on the ghat section and the car didn't cease to surprise me with it's prowess on an alternative fuel. Really, the car JUST doesn't feel like it's running on gas.
- The AC performed like a star. As mentioned above, it's a revelation as to how fast the AC cools the cabin and chills the occupants.
- We managed to scrape the car twice on toll naka speedbreakers and I was not amused. Only two of us in the front, and still the rear scraped the breakers. Driving gingerly over the breakers didn't result in scraping, though. Otherwise, the suspension really held up well and cocooned us exceptionally from irregular surfaces. The handling was confidence inspiring at high speeds and even though, it's not a patch on the Fiesta S, she did a good job of hugging the road fairly well. Steering weighed up quite well, surprisingly and even transmitted a wee bit of feedback from the road. Overall, I feel Honda got their ride and handling combination right.
We did feel the rear bottoming out 1-2 times at speeds in excess of 80 kmph on bad bumps and some bumps even tried to change her direction. The high speed ride of the Fiesta was much better and she remained unfazed over bumps.
- The ICE was the reason why I enjoyed the evening so much. I love driving, but I enjoy it more when there's good music playing from good speakers. I totally LOVED the way the system sounds, and the Pioneer head unit is really shining, here. I had loaded 32gb of WAV tracks on my USB drive and selected RANDOM. Bliss... Totally!
- The car went through 2 hours of TORRENTIAL rainfall. Probably the heaviest I have ever driven in. Big potholes full of water tried to deviate her from her path, and the big ones successfully did that. But otherwise, she was munching miles at quite a quick rate, and I would like to mention the wiper arm setup here. I don't know why or how, or even when someone found anything wrong with the configuration of the wiper arms, but let me tell you one thing. With the kind of rain falling that night, ANY wiper system would be put to it's toughest of tests. The wiper blades were operating at full speed and did a great job in keeping water off the screen. There was no run-off from the roof or from the adjacent areas. It's quite a perfect configuration, IMHO, and sometimes I smile when I see the two wipers go their own ways and come back to meet at the centre. Was always intrigued by unique wiper designs and I am glad to say that this design is quite effective.
- The all round disc setup did a very very good job and the discs have great bite at all speeds. Even after 2 hours of high speed driving with intermittent hard braking, there was negligible fade in the bite and the car still stopped where it was beckoned to. No complaints on that aspect. Felt very safe inside the car and even felt like pushing her to her limits, but desisted as I have recently lost a dear friend on the Expressway (Sam Kapasi) and I didn't want to risk anything in that weather. Still managed to do 120 on a constant basis and even touch 165 and 140 on two separate occasions. The car felt like it could do more, but I didn't oblige.
- The other thing I found worth mentioning was the fact that the engine stayed at low RPMs (2.2k) at all points while cruising at speeds of 120-130 km and only rose while accelerating. If it was on Petrol, I would have seen the needle pinned at 3000 RPM plus. Maybe, CNG is more efficient than Petrol at high speeds (when high volumes of air is being swallowed by the intake). Maybe, just maybe. But I did clearly notice the low RPM at all times on CNG and this is probably the reason why she gave such a good average.
Overall, had a FANTASTIC trip, enjoyed a good drive through some torrential mad rains, and ate some good food at Sunny Da Dhaba. The Civic is a very very good lateral upgrade and I wish I get to relish many more such happy trips with her.
Last edited by frankmehta : 8th October 2012 at 13:09.
Reason: formatting
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