You must have just bought your Prelude..... and if so, welcome to the family (wise choice)!

Our cars are geared high, because the engines aren't very torquey, they need higher gearing to keep the RPMs up for the high power band. If you set your cruise at 70mph on the freeway, you will be doing 3500 rpm. Sounds like alot, right? But when you consider the peak hp on our engines is 200@7000 rpm, and the red line is 7500 with the top engine speed of 9000 rpm, it's all relative. Crusing at 3500 rpm in our car is like cruising at 1200 rpm in a Buick.

You will still get overdrive-like fuel economy. It's a different design than alot of cars. If it was geared in 5th to do 1500 or even 2000 rpm at 70 mph, you would have no torque or power, and thus the car might actually stall out!

In fact, keep your car in 5th and slow it down to 1500 rpm.... see what happens!