Hello friends, the clutch on my 2010 Fit is on the way out. As I contemplated doing the job myself, I thought, "I wonder if there is a 6 speed trans that bolts onto this model"? Or perhaps a 5MT that has better gear ratios? Because I'm at 3200rpm at 70mph and its LOUD in the car. Also mileage is pretty trash given the tiny engine displacement. Sure the car is not that aerodynamic, but I believe the gear ratio is also a culprit.

Thanks for any input.

 

How trash is your fuel economy? Fuel economy drops off significantly in these cars above 60.

There aren’t really any great upgrades for gear ratios for that afaik. I will say, a taller fifth gear will likely leave you needing to downshift into fourth to hold speed and pass much more often.

 

If you search around here you should find other threads on this topic as I know it's been discussed previously.
Note that the Fit is not unique in feeling over-revved at interstate highway speeds; every small engine, manual transmission, economy car I've driven has been the same. I will say that many manual transmission Fit owners beat the EPA highway fuel economy rating even with the high rpms, so if you feel like yours is especially low you might need a tune-up.
I also have a 2010 Fit Sport. It's an A/T so not a direct comparison but I typically get 40+ mpg highway. My previous Yaris hatchback was a 5-spd M/T with a 1.5L engine and I got 42-45 mpg on the highway despite sitting at 3000-3200 rpms for hours at a time. Lots of time to think since it was so loud that my wife and I couldn't hear each other to have a conversation.
Anyway, back to your question. My recollection is that there is no easy swap and no available transmission that you can pull off a different car and bolt on to your Fit without modification.
If you really want to make a change (and have a deep wallet) a good transmission shop can rebuild your existing transmission with (practically) any gear ratios you want.

 

certainly possible the O2s are getting tired, and plugs on this engine are a pain, so likely weren't done much. getting 32mpg/hwy, which feels poor given the small displacement.

lol yeah, its a conversation stopper. Out here in Cali there are long straights that everyone takes at 85mph, anything over 75 in the Fit feels, well, unfit.

Someone mentioned that 3rd gen Fit does have a 6MT option but likely it won't bolt onto 2nd gen. Back to the drawing board...

 

poor fuel economy could be more from the aerodynamics of the wedge-shaped body? an old engineer friend always said "air resistance doubles from 55 to 70".

No problem downshifting and/or skipping 5 as needed.

 

Wiki claims that 2nd gen Fits have a 6MT option?!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Fit_(second_generation)
investigating


I found the gear ratios:

5-speed manual
Ratios:3.31, 1.87, 1.30, 0.95, 0.73
Final Drive:4.62

5-speed automatic
Ratios:3.00, 1.68, 1.07, 0.76, 0.55
Final Drive:4.56

that explains the good mileage on the AT

 

I'm pretty sure that the top gear ratio in the GK5 6-spd is nearly identical to 5th gear in your GE8, so even if you could swap them there would be little benefit on the highway.

 

you're right!
First Gear Ratio (:1)
3.46
Second Gear Ratio (:1)
1.87
Third Gear Ratio (:1)
1.24
Fourth Gear Ratio (:1)
0.95
Fifth Gear Ratio (:1)
0.81
Sixth Gear Ratio (:1)
0.73

Now I know why everybody skips 5th

 

LKQ has some GE8s with 100k for $200 in my area. Now I'm tempted to try a manual trans rebuild, but don't have much experience with it. Surely its easier than ATs! If people are interested I can share my results here. Just would need a little guidance as to parts and compatibility.

Or maybe the simple answer is bigger wheels and/or tires? Not much room in those wheel arches tho, and they could add stress to the drivetrain and reduce acceleration...

 

The fuel mileage is worse for the AT than the MT. Most AT owners on this site I’ve come across have indicated around 28-32 mpg, while MT owners seem to trend in the upper 30s. My experience aligns with this, in the few thousand miles I put on an AT Fit I usually got 30-34 MPG in the summer in a suburban and rural area, in my 120k miles on my MT I have averaged 38 MPG in a major city through all seasons, with summer averages clearing 40 the vast majority of the time.

Drew is fuel efficient itt

Bigger tires would make all your gearing taller, accelerating would suffer from that and the added weight of the larger tires. Have you tried low rolling resistance tire and running 36-38 PSI rather than the 32 iirc the door jambs call for? It might get you another mpg or so. Beyond that, I’d try a little slower where possible

 

These threads don't make sense to me.
The Fit was designed as a city car.....meant to be used in the city.
If OP wants a quieter car, just buy a bigger car (Civic/Accord etc.). And if that's too small, get a HRV/CRV etc.

Reminds me of the other guy who was complaining that he can't haul lumber from Home Depot in his Fit.

 

In regards to A/T fuel efficiency, the (or at least my) keys are:
1) Look far ahead, both in the city and on the highway. The little game I play is to try to drive without touching my brakes (except for red lights and stop signs). I use the transmission and engine-braking to control my speed on long downhills. I'm quite happy to roll towards a red or yellow light. This does make other Mass-hole drivers quite angry and I'm regularly aggressively passed only to roll up beside the passer just as the light is changing and can proceed without losing all of my momentum. If you drive the same route regularly you can definitely learn the timing and duration of different lights to minimize both acceleration and braking in town (traffic dependent obviously).
2) As mike410b suggested, I run my tires at 35-38 psi (lower in winter because our roads are horrible, higher in summer when I can see and avoid the potholes). This does help.
3) The most important thing is I don't speed. Ever. In fact, I'm quite happy to drive along at 60 mph on the interstate (65 mph speed limit). This probably makes some of you angry, and as I indicated above, it definitely makes my fellow New England drivers angry, but since many of them are going 15-20 mph over the speed limit, which I will never do, they're going to be pissed off at me regardless, so...

I'm from the Midwest and I'm too lazy to get so excited to be anywhere that I need to speed to get there two minutes faster.

Way back in my M/T Yaris hatchback days I briefly entertained ideas of *upgrading* the transmission. My dad is a mechanic so I had a built-in knowledge resource, and I think I read something about how the gears from some small Toyota (maybe the Echo) could be put into the Yaris transmission to change the top-gear ratios. Then I remembered that I lived in a very hilly location at the time and the Yaris, which had less power than a Fit, was already slow off the line (more people angry at me, this time in central NY) and required some finesse to hill start and I stopped worrying about it.

 

Fuel efficiency was hit or miss with the 5AT cars. I found with my VBP that I could get 42 to 45 MPG on highway trips frequently before the KWSC BUT back then my usual routes were rather flat with minimal traffic and I rarely used AC as well.

The big thing I found was to keep that darn torque converter locked up when putting around town and the momentum going. The slightest of inclines sub 40 MPH would cause that converter clutch to unlock and engine RPMs jump up 750 to 1k when you're in 5th so I tended to use 4th to avoid this in traffic. Out on the highway it wasn't an issue since the converter more consistently stays locked at 45 or 50 MPH with the exception of course of higher load/throttle input or a good/hard enough wind gust.

Plot twist... We almost effectively have the GE8 RS's 6MT here as it is in the GK5.

Going from the bit of research I've done two years ago (looked up parts while drunk, memory is spotty), the BIGGEST thing is getting the 21000-RF8-000 case imported and swapped onto the GK5 transmission (along with the GE8 specific transmission mounts if any).

I've yet to verify this but its on my to do list when I acquire a GE8.

 

I just want to add a note: no car is designed for cities because cars make cities worse. Cities that have less car infrastructure are usually nicer places to spend time and live because car infrastructure is very antithetical to human infrastructure.

 

sure, it's unusual for an AT to have better mileage than manual. But comparing a 5spd AT with good ratios and a w 5spd manual with wonky ones could certainly yield unexpected results. And as other have said, mileage is all about driving style.

Good idea to overinflate. a couple extra psi shouldn't cause too much extra wear. I guess bigger wheels with a thin tire could change the driving profile in an optimal balance between slower acceleration and higher cruising speed? Not an expert.

The mediocre mileage is more a consequence of the high revving and noise at highway speeds. Likely there is a reason the engineers made the top 6 speed gear ratio the same as the 5 speed. Certainly possible to install some sound deadening.

 

interesting tidbit. After finding the gear ratios so close, I'm less enticed by a 6MT swap. Rebuilding a manual trans is not my expertise, so I'm leaning more toward wheel and tire hacks. Maybe some sound deadening on the engine cover or hood...

 

Building on this 6th gear in the GK is exactly the same final ratio as 5th in the GE. That's a lot of effort to go through to have exactly the same outcome, lol.

 

+1
This project would be more of an exercise in futility.

 

So... you're a "BMW guy" posting that a thread "doesn't make sense" on a Honda sh!tbox forum about bypassing limitations on an economy car, and then you say an MT rebuild would be an "exercise in futility" just because?

Mmmmkay... thanks for the helpful input.

 

What does my username have to do with anything?

Others have already mentioned the final drive is the same, so there's literally no point in doing the "upgrade".

Anytime, sweetcheeks!