Recommended mod for power and fuel economy

[James]

Hey guys,

I recntly made a change to my car that I recommend to everyone.

I always thought my car smelt like it was running rich and the temp needle always hung quite low, so after reading a topic on a 2nd gen forum I put 2 and 2 together and decided I might have a faulty open thermostat.

So I pulled my thermostat out and it worked fine, but it was an 82 degree one and from the manual I found out it was recommended to run an 88 degree one so I found the part number from the infobase and ordered an 88deg one from Honda, cost me about $30 and it is made much much better than the aftermarket one that was in there.

Well, I never expected it to make so much difference, the main difference has been to my fuel economy, I now get about 70-100km's furthur on a tank!!!

I average a flat 7 L/100km on the highway and around 7.8L/100km around town, whereas before I used to get around 9 L/100km on the highway and around 11-12 around town.

I also make a little bit more power and its probably much nicer to my engine.

So yeah, unless you know you have an 88deg thermostat in your car I strongly recommend you change it, its pretty cheap, I recon mine has already payed for itself in a month of driving!

The part number is 19300-PB2-811 the retail Honda price is $33.75 but if you go in and have a chat to them you can usually get a discount.

[turbocab]

do you recon i would be able to order one from autobarn or ripco etc?or will i have to go to honda

[James]

You might be able to get one from them but from what I hear on other forums it is worth spending the extra on a genuine Honda one, they are much much better quality.

[Fader]

This must be the problem with our T2 also, it smells to run quite rich, and also the temp does not get up to normal operating temperature. Its also running with the thermo fan near constantly on. I figured the thermostat was the problem, but we havent done anything about it. We are also currently running no intercooler (T1 style), so I figured its probably a good thing to be running cooler..

Our cousin (ToOlx) who lives with Brendan is driving the T2 around now, and will probably be doing a few mods and maintainence in the near future.

Not sure on the thermo fan, I cant remember... is there a sensor on the bottom of it for switching it on and off??

Cheers
Chris

[Hyperblade]

We have done this to all our cars, the indicator is if the car is not getting up to temp quick once started.

You don't need genuine Honda, aftermarket is fine.

[James]

Running cold can actually cause you to detonate too fader.

Hyper, I compared the construction of my aftermarket one and the honda one and I can say I am quite happy to pay the extra money for genuine to help keep my baby running just right. And also a lot of people in the US say they have had problems with aftermarket ones failing prematurely in their civics so I didn't really want to take the chance.

[city_cabriolet]

Fader, there's thermo senser that does the fan, its about $250 aus for the genuine one, so alot of people just hardwire it permanently on (my cab was like that when i got it, and never replaced the sensor)

[James]

You can get repco replacement fan thermo switches but dont expect much, mine stopped working after about 12 months, havn't bothered to replace it its just hard wired on.

[ToOLx]

Well I picked up my thermostat from the local Honda dealer over at Nundah. Asked for the part number that you have specified here. It has been superseeded so its now an 19300-PB2-817 here in Aus. If any of you other aussie's wanted to know incase you purchase one aswell. It's still 88 degree's and is the exact same item, just with revised part number.

Also had to get mine up from melbourne as there were none handy here in brisbane. Sorry to you victorian city drivers I just jacked like the reserve stash of thermostats hehe. Originally it was going to come over from Japan which was gonna take like 10 - 15 days but this one was located down south which was handy .

Going to be installing it tommorow with Fader aswell and measure up some piping for the new intercooler and stuff we got planned

Peace!

[turbocab]

how mutch was it?
i think i might need to do this,my car smells like its running rich and takes forever to get up to temp then it only ever gets like one fith of the way up on the temp guage even on a hot day
and ime pretty sure it uses more fuel than it should but i do drive like a tool most of the time

[James]

Ive noticed that my car uses less gas now when I drive it hard than it did before when I drove it really nice, Im seriously amazed at the difference this has made, the ECU must have still been running in warming up mode and dumping pissloads of fuel into it :/

I found like 7 different part numbers for it in the infobase and the guy at honda said they all superceded to the same part no. which must be the one you wrote there.

[mozzy]

yup thats pretty much exactly what he told me its gone from 19300-PB2-811,812,813 etc up to 817 obviously honda doesnt want to retain 15 year old part numbers when other honda's such as accords, preludes etc are able to use this particular thermostat aswell..

cost me 54$ including overnight postage from melbourne but the part itself was 34$, pretty much the same as hyperblades original cost in nz.

post written by toolx but im at mozzy's house on his computer

[James]

That was bigelboe's original price in NZ thankyou, hyper thinks hes too good for genuine parts

Thats a pretty f*ckn harsh postage charge IMHO. Im getting two windscreen seals from Japan and they aren't even charging me postage for that...

[ToOLx]

Yeah that postage is fairly extreme but its installed now and the temperature is sitting nicely compared to that generic supercheap one that mozzy, brendan installed like 3 years ago. its around halfway maybe a touch below seems to be running nice now.

Did the pod filter install today aswell with Fader pictures can be seen in the garage of how that went and costs etc. Sounds pretty tough when shifting gears when the turbo is winding up seems to get a bit of a bov sound coming through because of the back pressure. Just took it for a spin tonight when i got some dinner and i could hear the turbo spinning :p pretty neat

Sorry about that bigelboe i forgot you opened this thread

Cheers

[James]

Good to hear your temp has come right. The compressor sounds back through the turbo are awesome when you have a pod filter installed ay