I know this is not a racing car and that it is not safe to drive this car at very high speeds. However I am very curious and love to make experiments, so I was once the only car in a big straight part of the México-Guadalajara Highway, which is mostly downhill and decided to try and reach the 180 km/h (about 110 miles per hour) the manual states the speed limiter turns off the engine. I reached 196 km/h (122 miles per hour) before I reduced my speed, as I thought it was too fast for the car. The speed limiter never reduced my speed or slowed down the engine. I was driving with a business partner and he took a photo of the velocimeter at 190km/h (he didn't believe the car could reach even 150km/h as some days before, the car ran out of battery and we couldn't get to the top of a small but very steep hill, he had to get out of the car).

Does the car really has a speed limiter?

It's weird this car can reach 120 miles per hour with the battery fully charged but cannot get 5mph in a steep hill without battery...

Please note I do not encourage anyone to do this... just sharing my experience.

I think the purpose of the speed limiter is to avoid going so fast the tires blow out.

61.5mpg lifetime - 82mpg in recent months

Best Run >
www.cleanmpg.com

"fanatic" is what the lazy call the dedicated

Gravity is a beautiful thing.

(...unless your parachute did not open)

...because you'll see me passing everybody at 90 miles per hour going up mountains.

If your car did *not* go up a hill at 5 miles per hour from the *gas* engine alone then take it to a dealer IMMEDIATELY. I have purposefully tested the limit of the gas tank and *when the car is out of gas it WILL run 100% off the battery but if the battery gets down to 2 bars of charge then the car will slowly shut down to save itself.* This car is noted as "always running on the gas engine" but that is more like 99.99% accurate as some of us have gotten the car to run off the battery completely (not EV mode but when it is out of gas or starving for fuel and still running at 10 miles per hour up a slight hill). You should never have an issue running the car on the gas engine alone though. Are you sure you were not out of fuel when that happened to you?

And the speed limiter on a level road at 110 miles per hour might be 125 miles per hour downhill or 105 miles per hour uphill - I didn't do the calculations yet but many cars have limiters on them (and if not then the internal black box notes this and I'm sure ours does too - in fact - if you buy the ScanGauge II then it will track the highest speed attained which might be helpful if you have a 17-yr old kid who borrowed the car and your FE dropped in half). =)

--> Averaged 685 miles/week and 49.0 mpg in first year (35.7k miles from Aug 7, 2006 to Aug 7, 2007)

I am shure I had gas, I just filled the tank with 93 octane premium gas (as the Mexican model manual requests), but I had no bars at the battery gauge. I took my car to the dealer to check this months ago, and they even tested the car themseleves to find out the car couldn't get to the top of a hill without battery. They said they requested help from an engineer in the Honda HQ in Guadalajara, but he told them that this was normal, as the engine is very small.

In my experience the car has very good power when the battery is charged and the electric motor is on. When it has no battery the gas engine is very small to power the car alone. Maybe it's due to the difference between American an Mexican models. I still have very good milleage.

Thanks for your reply.

Hello since this is my first post (i'll introduce myself in the apropiate place later) a small resume. Frank, 28 from the netherlands (europe)

I'm awaiting delivery of my pearl black HCH2, with beige leather and full options on november the 15th.

I don't now the specs on mexican hybrids but my HCH has 90 bhp on fuel and an additional 20 bhp electricity. This should be more than enough to get up a steep hill. Trying to get up a hill from a standstill might be a bit heavy on the clutch (but thats what the parkingbrake is for)

I've crossed the alps, dolomites and pyrenees in cars with a lot less oomph. In average an european car would have around 110 bhp, but most have a (a lot) less. On the German autobahn 110 bhp would get you up to around 210 kilometers per hour real. I'll be sure to test this with a gps as soon as i get my hybrid. of course i'll run it in proparly first.

One of your "problems" might be the fuel quality. for high performance you need high octane fuel. A lot of cars overhere run on at least 98 Ron or higher. In germany they sell 102 octane with special additives for riding at high speeds for longer periods. F.Y.I. max speed in the netherlands is 120 kilometers per hour, at 140 youre cruising allong with the rest of the traffic and above this speed you have to pay a hefty fine when cought but it would be wiser to go to germany where there is no speedlimit on a lot of the highway's

Hope youre HCH gets its speeds back a.s.a.p

Higher octane gas does not equal better performance. Octane is a measure of combustion resistance. Putting a higher octane gas in a car that does not need it results in worse performance, not better. The american version of the car requires 87 octane (regular unleaded), and I find it hard to believe that any other versions of the car with the same engine would require a different octane gas. If the engine is essentially the same the gas should be the same. Can you guys think of any reason that the engine would be different?

True stardog but when you want to have higher performance you will run the risk of pre detonation and as you mentioned yourself high octane fuel reduces this risk. So when an manufacturer knows that the available octane is low or the fuel is of poor quality (the one has nothing to do with the other of course) The reduce the risk of pre detonation. This can be done in millions of ways (for instance alter the detonation period, change headgasket or verry serious other pistons etc.


The ivtec is a very high tech engine with different modes for the cams and even difference in the time between the egnition of both sparkplugs in each cilinder.

Altering the egnition timing a bit is a small job.

Oh and don't rule out the perfomance levels at different altitudes. I live fifteen meters below sealevel. This really makes a difference compared to someone who lives at 1.000 meters above. This has to o with oxygen saturation in the air.

Pardon my spelling i've i make any mistakes.

Now the real question that's on everybody's minds...

What was your FE at 120+ miles per hour?

...because you'll see me passing everybody at 90 miles per hour going up mountains.

I had a similar run though not at 120 miles per hour but was amazed to see NORMAL numbers between 90-100 miles per hour. That means, if you are "cruising" at 94 miles per hour and have, say, 20 mpg instant FE and you head down a slight hill then the FE zooms up to 60 mpg. I was really surprised to see this rather than most Automatic cars that rev so high at higher speeds that FE suffers. I can't remember what the RPM was at 100 miles per hour but it was NOT 5,000 RPM. I seem to recall that it was around 3,000-4,000 RPM though I can't remember for sure.

--> Averaged 685 miles/week and 49.0 mpg in first year (35.7k miles from Aug 7, 2006 to Aug 7, 2007)