6000 Mile Road Trip Report

[der Mond]

My wife and I packed the Fit up and drove from Fairbanks, Alaska down the Alaska, Cassiar, Yellowhead and Cariboo highways to Washington. After visiting friends in Everett, WA we headed down the Oregon Coast to the northernmost Redwoods National Park. We camped there for a couple days and headed to Ashland, OR to visit a friend and from there headed up I-5 to Hood Canal. We spent nights in Port Townsend and Port Angeles and took the ferry to Victoria, BC. After that we headed home. 6000 miles total in 17 days. I drove days that ranged from 150 to 760 miles. The weather was unusually good, and driving conditions were amazingly good. There is little traffic in BC and in the remote places people drive fast as there is little law enforcement on the roads. I took the Fit through its paces, with many opportunities to wring it out to 6K rpm at wide open throttle, up long stretches of ascents and fast descents in which I limited speed to 100 mph. If you ask me what my gas mileage was I can’t really say. I drove with complete abandon and gas mileage was actually my least concern. During slow stretches it appeared to be getting at least 40 mpg. What is most important to me is that the car performed absolutely capably. It held the road fast, cornered and braked perfectly and did very well in crosswinds in the rain. It felt like it was on steel rails. The only exception was on I-5 at night in Seattle in the hard rain through worn pavement that had been rerouted across former lanes. I had to slow to 50 for that to keep from hydroplaning. I was able to pass anyone I needed to. What is most important to my wife is that with her chronic pain condition and my history of back surgery for L4-L5 disc herniation, we both left the car each day with no back discomfort. When we started the car had 47K miles. It still had and has original plugs and OEM valve adjustment. I had filled it with Mobil 1 Delvac 5W-40 turbo diesel oil and in 6K miles of hard driving it used a quarter-quart. The stereo provided great music listening when we were bored or tired, my wife particularly catching up on vintage Jefferson Airplane. The bottom line is that the car meets my every definition of Gran Turismo. You need not hesitate to take the Fit anywhere there is paved road.

08 Sport 5MT SSM
PRM JetStream Intake
Megan Racing Dual-Outlet Muffler
Progress Auto Rear Anti-Sway Bar
Yoko AVID V4S 205-55-15 on Drag D-24

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4067/4600678616_78ac29d833_m.jpghttp://farm5.static.flickr.com/4032/4600077997_6fe9c7c0d8_m.jpghttp://farm5.static.flickr.com/4058/4600690182_3b70159160_m.jpghttp://farm2.static.flickr.com/1091/4600704710_c162bb8677_m.jpg

"There's roads, there's roads, and they call, can you hear it? Roads of the Earth and roads of the Spirit. Best roads of all are the ones that aren't certain; one of those is where you'll find me 'till they drop the big curtain."

[claymore]

Man that is one heck of a trip. Nice report and great news for fit lovers everywhere. I found the same thing with my Jazz but only went 900km.

[manxman]

That was a really nice description of a great trip, Dennis. I'm glad that everything worked out so perfectly. And I had no doubt about the car's ability to perform well, because you don't slack off with proper maintenance, and don't buy ridiculous modification parts.

In fact, to Raaaaaaaaay on fitfreak, who finally DESTROYED his car by his combo of stupidity and insanity, YOU, my friend, are just plain BORING! Ya never take any chances with your life or your wife's. Good thing. The idiots who do take such chances with bonehead mods eventually get exactly what they deserve.

[der Mond]

Gee, as they say in the Army, tanks!

[VillageIdiot]

Raaaaaaaaay..... I can't believe all of the remarks to the effect that what happened was unavoidable and could have happened to anyone..... I guess that he has now destroyed 5 oil pans and I believe he scraped through the bearing housing that supports the stub axle of the outer CV joint..... "It's just part of living the low life." The Fit is a proven design that is a fabulous car to drive and live with and capable of being flung around like a sports car, haul people, pets, larger objects than a Hummer, slept in, and comfortably driven at high speeds hour after hour....When I see the terminology used by those that are into this destructive low life fad, like stance, dropped, flush and slammed it makes me think of what happens in public restrooms.... It is crap.

[manxman]

"Unavoidable- could have happened to anyone"----------

WHO HAS SHIT FOR BRAINS!!!!! It's just part of the mentally defective life.

I don't know if Dennis was aware that my earlier post was congratulating him for not being one of the above.

[VillageIdiot]

The affliction is of epidemic proportion and is most rampant in Asia with the gangster VIP fad, Hawaii has a mess of them that believe they can go anywhere anyone else can in a car that isn't "slammed" because of their superior driving skills. I think Florida is loaded down with them more so than even SoCal but further up the eastern seaboard it is spotty.... Dallas has a mess of them on the north side of the county, a few high dollar jobs that are riding on air in Houston.... The guys in Central Texas are more into driving their cars and the cars there reflect it in the choice of suspension components that they are using..... These bastardized over sized paper weights are even in places like Oklahoma and Nebraska and the less usable the car is the bigger the accolades it will receive multiplied by 2 if there is an expensive bicycle rack on the roof..... The first threads I read online about the Fit were by adults that were turned off by the low hanging plastic cladding, over sized 14 and 15 inch tires, and wondering why the cars coming here weren't equipped with 13" wheels like the original Fits.... These non automotive enthusiast obsessed with JDM gearshift knobs 18x10 wheels and zero ground clearance take themselves so seriously and are oblivious to the fact that they are laughed at on forums elsewhere on the net.... It is funny as hell and in a few years they will be laughing at others that are doing stupid things to there cars.

[manxman]

It is funny as hell and in a few years they will be laughing at others that are doing stupid things to there cars.[/QUOTE]:confused::rolleyes:

Only if they live through the disasters that their stupidity causes with their cars. I have been waiting for two years for Raaaaay to flip his car on the freeway from all of the broken off wheel studs and the oil pan scraping the pavement. He should have been a clear example of "evolution in action- the strong and smart get stronger and smarter, but the weak minded trash themselves and get the hell out of the way".

At least he won't be advocating any more idiocy with cars on fitfreak. That won't save the site, but will be a considerable improvement. The destruction of his car was the best news that I have heard in the last year.:D

[claymore]

:D.... The RAT ROD is dead. Especially funny as he had just been bragging about his superior driving skills.

[der Mond]

...yeah, manxman, I did appreciate the compliment. And I checked out Raaaaaaay's photos. I had an '87 Carrera 3.2 that I lowered to Euro specs and it had more ground clearance than my Fit had out of the box. You can see it at Rennlist.com where I used the same username. I choose 205-55 tires because I drive roads occasionally that have gravel stretches and road construction, so ground clearance is a good thing, and for looks I like the way they fill out the wheel wells. Even with my car a few millimeters higher than stock I cannot believe how fast I can go around tight on-ramps without tire squeal. Basically, I can drive the car as fast and hard as I would ever want to short of the track. And I judge the ride characteristics to be Goldilocks "just right" for a daily driver that I take my wife to dinner in. I don't need to stress the whole car out banging over every crack in the road. With Bilstien shocks in my Carrera I couldn't use the CD player. It was sure fun to wring out, but I like the way my Fit rides better for a daily driver. When I drive it in the VTEC range it is fast and loud enough for me on the road. Bling is just that.

[Shora]

.... I had filled it with Mobil 1 Delvac 5W-40 turbo diesel oil and in 6K miles of hard driving it used a quarter-quart.

Wow, sounds like a fun trip. Cool pics too!

5-40 weight diesel oil? Is this an inside joke flying over my head?

[claymore]

Us car manufacturers got together with oil manufacturers to lower the molybdenum (moly) amount in lubricants used in emission controlled passenger vehicles because the moly was causing significant degradation of the efficiency of the catalytic converters by plugging them. Unburnt particles of moly were becoming trapped in the platinum matrix inside the converters so they took out most of it.

However they left the moly count high in lubricants used in diesel applications because they are not emissions controlled and they have a much higher loading of the bearing surfaces just because of how a diesel works.

Moly is a lubricant additive that is used for it's gliding surfaces protection properties for applications under heavy pressures. Most notable for protecting flat tappet camshafts and lifter gliding surfaces during initial break in of new engines.

Some people have had new cams and lifters destroyed using the new oils because there is not enough moly in them to prevent galling on initial startup.

However since Fit/Jazz do not use flat tappet camshafts and lifters there is little benefit to be found using diesel oil with a high moly count.

There are several threads around the net saying that Honda oil installed by the factory has a special high moly count to assist with the break in process of new Honda engines and by the reports of oil analysis some people have had done on their initial oil change it appears to be true.

But there is the problem of clogging your converter to consider and it is severe enough to have the government order the formulation of ALL lubricants used in emission controlled passenger vehicles changed to reduce the amount of moly so one would think that it is a serious problem.

So it comes down to one of those decisions that make for 100 or so opinions on if it is worth doing in our cars or not.

I fall on the it's not necessary side of this one because of our engine not using flat tappets.

Will it hurt your converter and is there enough of a benefit to offset that problem that is the question.

[VillageIdiot]

I have been reading a lot on oil lately and it has been a topic of interest to me since I was in the 5th grade.... I first heard of moly as an additive for rebuilt motorcycle engines in the 60s and was selling moly additives at a service station owned by my father in the early 70s.... In the early 90s my cousin was laughing while telling me of reading that oil companies were starting to use it in modern oils and I had been trying to find a way to get a hold of a product containing it as a teenager for a BSA 441 Victor I was rebuilding the engine of.... Moly and zinc are both showing up in racing oils for use in engines with flat tappet cams due to cam lobe failure from using modern oils and there is legislation to change oil formulation even more next year... I have seen that phosphorus is being added to modern synthetic oil as well as molybdenum and zinc to prolong engine life and help prevent wear.... There is going to be a change from platinum to another metal (brain fart) I can't recall the name of that is said to be capable of withstanding higher heat and will allow the catalytic converter to be place in closer proximity to the engine... This change in metals has been delayed due to industry contracts to purchase platinum and this makes me wonder if this change has any effect on the legislation, could be effective enough to reverse it or if the auto manufacturers have just lobbied to have the additives that prolong the life of engines removed to sell more cars.... Like you Claymore, Mobil, Joe Gibbs Racing Oils and other oil companies recognize the problem for engines with flat tappets but are formulating their products with high zinc content rather than molybdenum.... Owners of turbo charged OHC racing engines with 30 PSI boost are being advised to use multi viscosity oil on the Mobil 1 site where in the past, multi viscosity oils were notorious for coking up the bearings in in the turbos... Molybdenum and zinc are said to adhere to the metal parts of engines during break in and are both used in larger proportions in special break in oils because of this... As strong as the film strength of todays synthetic oils are I guess I am stubborn but I have seen the tear down results of a 1970 302 Ford engine that my father drove at freeway speeds 7 miles with a non functioning oil pump thinking that the oil pressure sensor was malfunctioning and only stopped driving because the engine over heated.... I had been adding to the oil a Moly product we sold marketed by a company called Sta-Power out of Houston.... There was no scoring on the rod bearings, mains, cam or lifters and the compression was fine.... I just can't figure out why that engine wasn't trashed unless it was from using the molybdenum product in it when the oil was changed. It was a Torino that I drove after my father bought it when I came home from Vietnam and was released from duty and I had really put it through hell.

[claymore]

Yep it is a problem because the changes they are forced to make here travel around the world. so even if they find a new type of metal to use will they spend the money to change it all back?

Only if there is money in it for them.

[VillageIdiot]

There is so much technology that isn't being utilized that could make a modern internal combustion engine run as clean or cleaner than they do now that it has to be the bottom line that is holding things up..... Smells like corporatism to me.

[claymore]

How about good old capitalism. You invest the money you determine what products to make which USED TO BE our way of life.

[manxman]

I use a fuel additive that I learned about during the 18 years that I manufactured and sold the best air gun lubricant in the world. My gun oil had a synthetic base, and I used both zinc and phosphorus as anti-wear additives. There is a lot of insider info. that circulates among manufacturers of lubricant products, and when I heard about something called "GTA Fuel Enhancer", I contacted the exclusive marketer of the product.

The base of the Fuel Enhancer was a high molecular weight polymer, and while it was fairly low in viscosity (maybe 20Wt at room temperature) it was EXTREMELY sticky. If you put a drop of it on your index finger, then touched the drop with your thumb and separated the fingers, long snotty strings like spider webs would hang in the air. And soap & water would not wash the residue off. The mix ratio with gasoline was 1 ounce additive to 8 gallons of fuel. The effect on gasoline (and diesel fuel with the diesel version of the additive) was to make the air/fuel mixture in engines burn more completely and to eliminate pre-ignition and detonation.

The advertising claim was that any car that used this additive for 30 days prior to a smog test was guaranteed to pass the test, regardless of engine age. Within a year after I started using the product in my '07 Fit, the product formula and the manufacturing plant (in MA) was bought by the State of Texas, and all retail sales of the product were stopped. Texas now mixes the diesel formula of this product into every gallon of fuel sold in the state to freight hauling trucks. You can't buy an ounce of #2 diesel fuel in Texas that doesn't have this additive in it, and you can't buy it at all anywhere else.

The marketer let me know what was going to happen, and I bought enough of the gas additive to last my cars at least 10 years, before it became unavailable to the public.

I had a good reason to believe in the unique lubricating properties of the high molecular weight polymer in the fuel additive, because 10 years before I heard about the fuel additive, I bought a different version of High Molecular Weight Polymer, and blended it with my original Synthetic Paintball Gun oil, and marketed the blend to users of the modern, rapid-fire Paintball machine guns that have a cyclic rate of 30 shots per second. These guns would normally break down and jam after one day of use. The owners would have to remove the factory gun lube with dental picks, then re-lube and reassemble the guns for another day of use. My "HMP" lube would increase the gun's cyclic rate, would last for weeks, and could be re-applied without breaking down and cleaning the guns.

Capitalism is a great thing. If you do enough research, know your market well, and are willing to risk your own investment cash, things can pay off. My original lubricant cost me about $0.25 per bottle of the consumer size to make, and it retailed for $8.00. The "HMP" lube cost $0.30, and retailed for $10.00 per bottle. I designed and manufactured all of my products myself, and over an 18 year period, I sold over $500,000.00 of oil in the Paintball Pursuit Games industry, worldwide.

[Shora]

WOW, now those are some detailed answers.

Still, I cannot bring myself to put that type of oil in...well...anything but a diesel.

However, I don't claim to understand as much about such matters.:o

If you have more cool pics from the awsome trip, keep sharing!

[CuTeBoi]

So, that makes sense, now I can understand how someone made a risk, and made money.

Respect for Dave :P

Make money where there is a need.

[manxman]

Thanks Tony- I hope that all is well with you on your trip and new job!