Accord 4 cyl vs. 6 cyl

I'll never forget the day I was in my 92 Civic Si, at a traffic light, next to a big Caddy.

The light turned green, he wanted in my lane, and.....despite his trying from the moment the light turned, he had to settle for getting in behind me.

Who'd a thunk it. A 92 Civic Si beats a big V8 Caddy off the line and down the road.

once you get that little baby well set up and bouncing off the red line, you got to spend a /whole/ lot of extra cash to find anything that'll beat it! whole lot of extra cubic inches too...

Mine was stock from the day it was new, and I probably had 40K miles on it by the time this incident happened--if not more.

Oh, yeah, it knew all about the redline. I see no need to baby a Honda

4 cylinder engine. That car is alive and well today, with 137K on it; my nephew has it.

It still has the original clutch, too.

Yup - had mine for 7 years and redlined it almost every time I drove it. Distro bearings exploding was the only "breakdown" it had in all that time. At the end of the day, there are any number of cars, driven hard, that will beat it. I timed it around 10-11 secs to 60mph, which ain't nippy. But first and second gear just nailed most cars. On the motorway, it was waaay underpowered and that of all things pissed me off the most. Dropping to

60mph in traffic then having to wait again while the next 30-40mph slowly approached ... a

Oh I dunno ... £7k on a (quite poor) TVR Grif 5.0 would beat it by about 6-7 seconds up to 60mph I reckon ;)

But then I suppose a '91 Civic these days probably only fetches about £2k for a good example (mine was a Jap VTi model) so valid point re: the cost difference.

a

some disbelief at the problem you describe. unless you're used to driving a porsche or something /substantially/ faster than a vtec honda, there's no way you'd be complaining of this car being a slouch. seriously, if the car is as bad as you say, there has to be something wrong, for instance, the kick-down on the automatic should not be significantly delayed. if yours has a problem with slow downshift, it needs fixing.

jb, thanks for your thoughtful response. Perhaps this "lack of acceleration" thing is more just in my head than anything else. Perhaps my expectations are too high and unrealistic. Perhaps I think my car is a slouch because I know my car is a 4 and not a 6. Know any good car shrinks?

had done to the car other than valve adjustment & exhaust? how long has it been like that? have you had anything replaced like oxygen sensor or thermostat? low grade after-market components affect performance. and have you had the egr system cleaned? does it hesitate? has the air filter been changed any time recently?

My radiator cracked near the cap and leaked coolant but I caught it right away and had it replaced. The Honda dealer who replaced it said it was just "normal part failure" which he said occurs in about 1 in 10 Accords. He said I did nothing to cause it. I do change the air filter frequently and it was done when I had the tune-up with valve adjustment a few months ago. I have not had the egr system cleaned...that's a good point.

"honda specialist" has been telling you age is an excuse. your car is low mileage by honda standards. and the engine technology is not that retarded. a friend has a stock accord vtec your vintage with /many/ more miles. when driving that car, i'm much more concerned with keeping my licence than i am about whether it's a 6.

In fairness to my "Honda specialist"...heh heh!, they did not recommend the tune up with valve adjustment and muffler replacement as a repair solution to my "check engine" light problem. That work needed to be done anyway and I did not even mention the "check engine" light problem to them as I didn't think it to be that serious at the time, based on what I knew then. I was only mentioning that work to potentially eliminate them as causes of my C/E/L problem. The place I go to actually has an excellent reputation among Honda owners and many get their work done there instead of at any of the 5 Honda dealers in town.

Thanks again, you've given me some good info. and some good places to start.

not being snide at all when I said "clear enough?" I wasn't sure I was being clear.

Now how could I not like a post like that.

Signed,

Troy Williamson

I just picked up an '05 LX 5-speed (yeah, I know it'll be a pain to sell - but I still wanted some fun while driving!) No problems whatsoever merging out in traffic. Only thing which may affect merging out is when you're trying to merge into traffic and you have an idiot that doesn't want to let you in. Then it doesn't matter if you have a 4, 6 or 8. The current Accords have 160 hp and 161 ft/lb torque so that does the job for me. Using turn signals when merging or turning definately helps as well.

If gas mileage is a factor for you, the 4 gets 26/34 mpg while the v6 gets

20/30 mpg - information from Edmond's website. Test drive both of them and see what you think.

-Dave L.

Oops - you're right, I could've sworn the newer fours were pushing 200 hp, but 160 it is. The newer sixes have 240 hp, while the pre-2002 ones have 200 hp. My dad has a current-gen DX with a four, and power is certainly adequate for both city and highway driving.

Dave

They are. RSX, TSX.

my crx dx was faster than that. had 305k on the clock too.

there's lots of little things that can improve the overall running of that car. for my 89 civic, the most remarkable difference was the quality of the oxygen sensor. new oem is the way to go, by a /long/ way. other little things, other than the tuneup stuff that needs to be done include, decent oil, decent filter, clean pcv valve, new thermostat, clean injectors, throttle linkage [make sure it opens all the way!] and something all too frequently overlooked, brakes!!! i overhaul my brake calipers every time i fit new pads. that way, they release fully and there's /no/ wasted energy. closing the windows at higher speeds helps too!

forgot to mention, having the timing belt tensioned properly helped too

- when i got this car, because i'd never bothered to check, the timing belt was way loose*, so timing was bouncing around a lot. correct tension made a great difference to the car as the timing, both ignition & valve, was now on spec.

• to give you an idea /how/ loose, when i took the timing cover off and turned the motor clockwise, the wrong way, to get the crank to tdc, i watched the timing belt skip a tooth!!! how it had never skipped in the

10k miles i'd had it before then, i'll never know.

Good advice ... but I'm long rid of it thankfully ;) Have an ATR now ... much quicker! BTW, old Civic, being a Jap import, had A/C as standard, so no need to worry about windows being open :)

a

Joe,

My wife just bought 2005 EX 4cyl w/leather auto. Since she has been driving Nissan Altima's for a long time I was concerned about the 4 cyl giving her enough get up and go since Altimas have a high revving engine or so it seems. I had her test drive it twice, local and getting on highway and she said it was fine. She has had it for two weeks now and loves it.

I drove it the other day on 95 in Ct to NY and didn't feel that there was any problem power wise. Certainly not as much off the line as my car but I had no complaints. What do I drive to compare, 2004 Acura 270 hp TL, so I should have felt way underpowered, I really didn't. So being what gas is now adays the 4 seems to be a good alternative.

George in NY

"George in NY" wrote

Funny but after reading the several reports here about how little (if any) difference there was in accelerating with the 4-cyl vs. 6-cyl, I thought maybe the 4-cylinder might be a lot lighter. But it's not:

2005 Accord EX automatic trans, 4-door Sedan (per Edmunds.com):

V-6, 3 L, 240 hp, 21/30 mpg, curb wt. = 3389 lbs

4-cyl, 2.4 L, 160 hp, 24/34 mpg, curb wt. = 3200 lbs

Perhaps all those horses under the hood are for people who really like to accelerate? Anything over, say, 120 hp (a guesstimate based on personal experience) for cars this weight is overkill for ordinary driving folks?

Elle Original owner, 1991 Civic, about 90 hp, if I recall correctly.

"Vikings Fan" wrote

:-) See? I mean no harm - none at all. I'm most concerned that you are happy with your car and can make the most out of it. Sometimes my 2004

4-cyl doesn't get off the line, and what it takes sometimes is manually downshifting so the torque? is up and ready for action.

Now the hard part -- I have to admit... I've been a Giants fan since 1954.

Howard

happy with your car and can make the most out of it. Sometimes my 2004

4-cyl doesn't get off the line, and what it takes sometimes is manually downshifting so the torque? is up and ready for action.

Sorry Howard, I guess I have a bit of a hair trigger sometimes. It's also hard to judge tone sometimes when reading an online post. Your advice made sense when I viewed it a second time.

I have relatives in New York who are huge Giants fans and they have been giving me quite a bit of grief about how the Giants have had the Vikings number the last few years. They quote the 41-0 playoff score of a few years ago quite regularly. I tell them this year will be different...we finally have a decent defense. We'll see on November 13, 2005 when the Vikes and Giants tangle yet again. I don't think I'm confident enough to bet.

Your comment about "how little (if any) difference there was in accelerating with the 4-cyl vs. 6-cyl" is not really correct. It may be reflecting some drivers' seat of the pants perceptions, but the many tests in automotive magazines and Consumer Reports say otherwise. For example Road and Track tests show a 0 to 60 time for the Accord EXV6 of

7.3 sec> "George in NY" wrote

"Kenneth J. Harris" wrote

Why don't you post this to the several people here who provided this observation?

I am merely going by what they said.

It may be

But don't these tests attempt to accelerate the car from 0 mph to 60 mph as fast as possible? Does your average driver always try to accelerate this quickly?

Take it up with the others, dammit.