Monday, December 13, 2010

Class 5 ICE to PIE, the Ultimate Goal

So two months have gone by and I still cannot afford a Class 1 PIE conversion, let alone a Class 5.  But that is the ultimate goal and there is now a person in Pittsburgh who has successfully converted a 2005 Honda Civic.

I happen to own an 2004 Honda Civic VP.  OK, so you have never heard of a Honda Civic VP?  I didn't either until the salesman said he had just what I was looking for right on the lot.  It appears that Honda tried out a version of its Civic that was placed somewhere between the Civic CX and the Civic EX.  So in 44 years, I may have a real classic on my hands.  But so far it has done very well for a 6 year old car with almost 76,000 miles on it.  And just now there seems to be a tapping sound when the engine first starts up.  Is that a valve tap?  Or maybe it's knocking (a very technical car mechanic term).  Maybe I should have had all that maintenance done at 60,000 miles like the owner's manual recommended.  It's a little late now.  Oh, by the way, I did notice in the owner's manual that sometime after 100,000 miles it needs an internal timing belt replacement.  Or maybe it should be done sooner on a 6 year old car?

Anyway, there may be an expensive engine repair in my future.  And now might be the perfect time to look into converting it into a PIE.  Yeah, I could do a comparison of how much it might cost to convert and then, when the time is right, maybe when batteries are cheap enough, and I have a full time job again, I can convert it into a nice PIE.

More to come...

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