If it Fits I sits.

Still loving on the car.

Trip report! We did a 1900 mile jaunt with the car 3 weeks back, up to Copper Harbor and the Porcupine Mountains. Two adults, two kids and backpacking+car camping gear for the week. Before the trip I raised up the coilovers and put the slightly taller OE low rolling resistance tires on. On those slower northern michigan 2-lane roads, we averaged 37 mpg. Funny what dropping from 80 mph highways to 60 mph 2-lanes does for fuel economy.

If you know the area around Copper Harbor, you know the trip out to High Rock Bay isn't really appropriate for a FWD car but managed to pick our way over the ruts and washed out spots. Quick steering, narrow and short wheelbase makes it kind of like a really crappy Wrangler. 16 miles took more than two hours, but we were moving fast enough to catch and pass a bunch of SUVs along the way. Lots of funny looks as we squeezed by.

High Rock Bay was my goal for the trip. It's the rock hunting spot on that part of lake superior, with all kinds of agates and other cool stuff. My dad tried to get us there in an old Pontiac 6000 STE when I was about 11 years old, but we got lost in a swamp and only made it out of the woods about 6 hours later. 25 years later I made it and grabbed some cool rocks to give to my dad.

After that it was over to the Porcupine Mountains where we stayed in the most beautiful spot I've seen east of the Mississippi. Our cabin was a couple miles into the woods, right on a river that was one long series of waterfalls and pools in the rock. Old growth forest all around and we were on the side of the river opposite from the hiking trail, so we didn't see anyone for 3 days. It felt more like Oregon than Michigan.

This week the car got rewarded with some new parts: Installed a set of Hawk HP+ pads and new rotors up front, bled the system, installed crash bolts and some camber bolts to get to around -1.75 degrees, had a shop make me a straight pipe from the axle back and fit some rally armor mudflaps just for fun. It handles and stops real nicely now. Going to try to get out to Gingerman for an evening test and tune in a couple weeks.

Sounding kind of cool between the squeals from the brakes at low speed and all the new volume and crazy pops and crackles from the exhaust. Boy do cars these days work hard to burn every last drop of fuel going out the back. Fortunately. with the cat and resonator in the middle it's still tolerably quiet on the highway (or at least no louder than the road noise).

Lubing my locks now...

I'd love to know where you stayed in the Porkies. I've been looking to make it up there and it sounds like the perfect cabin. For rent I assume? PM me details if you don't mind.

Track day, bro!

Got the car out to Gingerman last Friday for an evening test and tune. Got in about 20 laps. First time in a FWD car on the track in a decade, so I'm re-learning this whole trail braking thing and missing all my marks, but geez....the car was fun and faster than I thought it would be. It very, very happy to rotate. My GoPro was acting up, but I got in a couple laps with my phone as a video source.

Unfortunately, I completely borked up my alignment before going out there. I'd seen no toe change when I lowered the car an inch, or when I raised it an inch over stock, or when I went from slightly positive to -1 degree of camber. The week before I put a better set of camber bolts in (replacing some cheap ebay ones). Set the camber -2.25 degrees. I was watching both our kids while my wife was at the store. I got lazy and didn't bother to double check the toe before heading out. Bonehead move...

Everything seemed fine on the street. Good turn-in, stable except for bouncing around in every rut in the road (figured it was the camber). The only real indicator that something was screwy was that my fuel economy dropped from 36 MPG down to 32 MPG. Odd. At the track the car was very darty and unstable on the brakes but not too awful. On Saturday when I went to rotate my tires.

Oops. Turns out I had a full inch of toe-in. I'm not sure how the car was driving as well as it was. Going to try it again next month and see how much faster I am with the front wheels both pointed in the same direction. But first I think I need a new pair of tires....

About 10,000 miles in and still enjoying it. Running a General Arctic Altimax's on steelies this winter, which makes it reasonably competent, though my E36 with snows and a LSD seems to claw through the snow quite a bit better.

The big news for the Fit and everyone else is Ida as of january 16th:

Three across with a center rear-facer and either booster or convertible works fine. Three forward facing works, too. Took some screwing around to get the right seats (Combi Coccoro, Radian R100, and old evenflo booster). Only hiccup is that you really need a seatbelt extender to make the booster work, which I'm not super crazy about, and there just isn't a removable base infant seat that fits.

Love the Combi, though. Super, super compact. It comes with a lower anchor tether (slips around the front seat rails) which lets you get it VERY solidly positioned without much trouble. Put on the seatbelt a little loosely with the seat angled too far back, then tighten the tether to lever it down into place. Bonus points for routing the shoulder strap around front for extra stability. 10/10.

All in all, I'm still impressed with how much you can do with such a tiny car if it's well designed. It's not even much of a pain getting her into that center seat, since the floor-to-ceiling height is high enough that you can kind of just step right into the car rather than leaning across the outboard seats.

Bungee is just there to keep the center belt from getting in the face of my son and/or ratcheting itself in and putting torque on the seat. And it looks like the outboard seats are sort of angled inward. Trick of the camera lens.

Hey! Your name got shorter!

Glad the Fit is working so well for you.

That's great to know. Our Fit will be getting its second car seat in less than a week, and I'd like to place it rear facing in the center as you have.

We also have the Cocorro and it's awesome indeed.

I keep wondering how difficult it would be to get an additional inch of ground clearance out of the Fit. It would make a great backwoods twotrack ride with just a little more clearance.

In reply to bastomatic:

Well, there's a Fit-based mini SUV on the way.

My wife's 2010 Sport is a beast in the snow on General Arctic Altimaxes.

Heh, ours is too. Also on Altimax Arctics! Still I think I could use more ground clearance for those rare trips off road. Adjustable coilovers may be in our future.

Yeah, my wife's has a tweaked front bumper as a result of a trip on an unpaved logging road in Maine. I don't know what she did (she was on a trip with her cousin) but she hit something, somehow. I'm just glad I didn't do it. Her car.