Yeah but how much power do the motors in the civic have? There's guys in america building electrics (say what you like about gas guzzlers in the states but they also have a healthy electric vehicle scene that dwarfs europe) that have crazy amounts of power - and they're just amateurs.. imagine the spec honda might shove in there as a big multinational...
(or at least, i hope they would - the last production electric i saw being a Berlingo that struggled to hit 60, and needed 8 seconds to reach 30)
Figures in the manual are bull though - i'm reckoning on them being in a car that's not properly run-in, and changing gear where the tick-marks are on a speedo from a non-revcountered car (which represent an engine speed around 5000, if you're lucky)..
I have to ask ---- how can removing the weight from your car increase what speed it does at particular revs in 2nd? Surely you also mean a gearbox swap (e.g. from an AHZ or CEH to an 8P) and/or changing the wheels for ones with a 10% larger rolling circumference with the speedo being re-set for them? That's the only ways i can see you getting ~10mph/1000 instead of ~9.1, regardless of weight (e.g. even heavily loaded with a very wind-shearing roof burden, i can hit limiter at 53 in 2nd after holding the pedal down awhiles).
If it's 8P then those figures seem reasonably accurate - 30-ish, almost 55, a little over 80 (if you dare hold it in 3rd that long!!), a little under 120 (if you have the power), and then whatever you can reach in 5th.
Gotta figure out properly what's in mine, whether it's an AKV (4.267 diff) or AKY (4.0625 diff) - cant be sure of how accurate the revcounter or speedo are, but they seem to indicate the latter, around 18mph/1000 in 4th, at any speed. Which means an 8P would be just the same but with a super high 5th... on the other hand, it might be the former (around 17/1000), in which case an 8P would be just too high geared - losing the edge in 1st/2nd, dulling top speed in 4th, and making 5th too severe to be full-time usable.
In either case an AYZ like in Metz (formerly 1L) saloon seems a safer bet - 8P gearset but with AKV differential - either keeping the same ratios plus the high 5th (comp to AKV), or dropping the first 4 gears slightly (comp to AKY) for a slightly sharper takeoff (even if having to change up a little earlier) and a still pretty damn fine 5th.
Trouble is they're probably like rocking horse poo
(not that i've hunted, but i bet they're a saloon-only option for 1 litre cruising, taken up by the odd grandad who was in the know).
Hm.
where were we
oh yeah. anyway. the GT gearbox should be, well, perfectly OK for GTs, as the 8P/AYZ are wide ratio and the GT needs less of a rev drop between gears to keep on the boil (5900 to 3600 instead of 3400, to use just 1st-2nd as an example), and it's 5th gear isn't all *that* bad - kind of halfway between 4th & 5th on an AYZ, reasonable for both cruising and speed, but maybe not "perfect" for either... (AFA, with a 4.0625 diff, and an 8P 5th bodged on somehow as a 6th gear would be bonzer)
