lol, believe me if the new fit had been out last year when i was doing test drives i would have definitely taken a look, but i am still more than happy with the Note despite all the bad press and hateful comments that get thrown at it besides, i'm not done modding it yet and still have about a little over a year of payments to go on it lol

 

not trying to be rude, but you do realize that the hybrid version probably weighs in excess of 200lbs. or more than the RS manual being that it's carrying the complicated hybrid powertrain and extra battery weight right? a CVT, if constructed properly will usually only weigh slightly more than a manual...case in point, the Note....manual curb weight: 2412....CVT curb weight: 2460

also, you can torque brake a CVT if you want to...it's not recommended to do it repeatedly though

 

It is interesting that in F1 racing fully automatic transmissions of all kinds are banned. They are required to use gearboxes of a specified number of ratios. Granted, they have automated clutches and 0.05 second sequential gear changes, but the driver still has to tell the transmission when to shift.

Why? So that driver skill will remain relevant in racing. If they allowed full automatic gearboxes the computer would pick the optimum ratio every time so there would be no opportunity to make a mistake in the heat of competition.

So, the old "They use 'em in racing so they must be the best" argument has been turned on its head. Now they are required to use manual transmissions to give drivers the opportunity to make bad decisions!

The CVT is just the culmination of the ever-increasing number of ratios in conventional automatics. If you want maximum acceleration you want the engine operating at its maximum horsepower RPM all the time. The torque peak has no relevance when you can get any ratio you wish between the engine and wheels.

The other point of advantage for a stick shift is off-the-line acceleration. You can rev up the engine to store energy in the flywheel and use it to launch the car. This will result in a car-length or two advantage for the stick shift, but you're really abusing the clutch to achieve this. There's no reason why this couldn't be done with a CVT, but the transmission would have to be more robust to handle the abuse.

Now, the Fit CVT is not optimized for racing. It is optimized to provide good economy along with good performance in real-world situations. Side-by-side a good driver in a stick will be able to beat the CVT off the line and perhaps out of corners, but only at the expense of sharp attention to shifting and clutch. Get a bit sloppy and the advantage goes away!

Of course, all the manual transmission aficionados here, myself included, are always sharp, pick the best performance ratios, and never miss a shift!

 

your estimates are nearly spot on

exact weights are

Hybrid 1080kg for base model and 1140kg for S package which is similar spec to the RS

CVT RS 1070kg

Manual RS 1050kg

The hotversion hosts mentioned that the failing in the hybrid was because it "drove like an automatic" and that is what hurt it.

if we are talking only about performance the manual 6 speed wins in the GK5.

 

im not sure thats the base of the problem cause as most people know, weight is the enemy of performance...having 200 extra pounds of weight to carry around is going to slow the hybrid down considerably and make the suspension work harder making it handle worse than if it didnt have that weight no matter if it gets a little bit of a power boost from the electric motors

 

catch with this is that modern day road going automatics arent running F1 gearboxes.

fit is an econo car and the cvt is built and setup for economy. It does this job really well. For racing the manual is better. Lucky I didnt buy my fit for racing I guess

 

this is the main reason I didnt go hybrid, along with unproven DCT and replacement battery costs.

the car is slower cause of the DCT though, not the weight.

 

sorry to disagree, but anybody who's been around cars long enough knows that weight is the main enemy of performance, i do agree that the DCT they are using over there is unproven though as it is new for the Fit

 

I guess Ive only been racing cars for 20 years and own an auto GK and seen a direct race/comparison between the two. Perhaps your right, couldnt possibly be the transmission

 

no need to be sarcastic just because i disagree with you lol ...to me, it just doesnt add up that just the transmission alone would account for the slower acceleration when you have a whopping 200 extra pounds in the hybrid that's all

 

You're forgetting that in theory, a hybrid should be FASTER off the line than a petrol-only car. Batteries with 100% of power available from zero, so it should be a close, if not even, race.

Also, to the dudes who are so angry I still post here, my parents own a 2012, I'm the one who does the maintenance, chooses the replacement parts, cleans it, etc. Beyond that, my girl is considering a GK for her next car and as little as I personally like the GK; I have no issue letting her get one...if they turn out to be decent cars.

 

So...what I'm getting at in this discussion is that for a straight line (I'm not concerned about cornering), the manual tranny is going to be faster ONLY because it can take off faster than the auto CVT? That is the case with any automatics nowadays so I'm cool with that. A high stall torque converter can help with that (Not saying a high stall torque converter is available or do-able on a CVT).

I'm ok with that either way. I was planning on addressing the slow take-off by trying to reduce weight and rotating mass (Especially rotating mass) as much as possible to get the CVT LX up to its high rpm as soon as possible.

The other point about autos vs manual people usually discuss is that the auto has a greater power loss than the manual. So the manual would first get the jump due to a higher rpm take-off than the auto. Then the auto would continue to lose ground because it is getting less power to the wheels vs the manual, due to losing more horsepower through the drivetrain. I'm not hearing the same trend with the CVT here. So I guess the CVT drivetrain does not lose more horsepower through the drivetrain than the manual then?

I hate to speculate. It's just that I'm not seeing any 0-60 or 1/4 mile times from the manual vs and the CVT auto. Not yet anyways. I'm going to test almost as soon as I get mine either way I always like to hear/read (More like capture for documentation purposes) people's opinions on this subject matter.

 

i took that into account when trying to wrap my head around it and it still didnt really make sense to me just blaming the transmission mostly for the slow acceleration as i know that the electric motors provide instant torque off the line. the part that im having trouble with is if like most hybrids the gas motor takes over after a certain speed, it is still going to have to deal with 200 pounds of extra weight and even if the electric motors provide a little bit of a boost to the horsepower (say around 15hp) it is still not going to be enough to overcome the significantly extra weight that the hybrid power train adds, but i could be wrong and maybe the electric motors add more power than that. i guess it all boils down to how honda implemented the hybrid system on the new Fit really, but i still think it's kinda silly to say the CVT will be significantly slower based off the hybrid when in fact it is only about 50lbs. heavier than the manual, but i guess we shall see once some magazines start doing some fully instrumented tests.

 

Not a CVT but a good example how automatics are becoming very advanced.

http://youtu.be/X4HpD5K6Qws

 

Fit Hybrid electric motors add 29.5hp giving it pretty much the same power to weight.

Im going off the experience of driving a CVT GK5 fit for the past 8 months, I own one so its not as if Im trying to bag it out or say its not good, performance wise it wont match a manual is all.

Will be interesting to see just how much slower it is to 60mph and over the 1/4 mile.

 

For comparison sake just to give you an idea as to the power loss a cvt incurs, when I had injen doing the testing for their intake on my car they did a dyno as well...for an engine that's only making 109hp stock it was getting around 92-93 hp to the ground

 

Thank you for the info! That's not too bad. 15% loss of horsepower in an automatic. I'll look forward to gaining some of that with lighter wheels and possibly a lighter pulley.

 

The hybrid fit is the fastest. It hit 0-62 in 7.87 second!
https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/3rd-...ond-stock.html

 

here's the dyno chart just so you can get a more accurate idea of how the power is delivered on a CVT:

 

Big thanks for the dyno chart. I like how the torque seems linear throughout the whole powerband. Actually, it's weird because I never saw a dyno chart where the torque not only stayed mostly the same but picked up as it went higher into the rpm range. None of my dyno's runs ever did that in any of my cars. They all had torque slowly dropping off at some point before hitting the top of the rpm range.

Also, the air/fuel ratio seems richer than what I'm accustomed too for an N/A vehicle. I was looking for 13.0-13.8:1 or so for fuel economy. Surprised it is so rich. Could pick up some power I'd think by leaning out the air/fuel ratio some (Intake & exhaust) to bring it up to the 13.0-13.5 range. Just my thoughts. But what do I know?