brian g

This is in response to Dave Coleman's slam of high HP cars titled NORMALIZING Your Vector in the current issue of Sport Compact Car. I think he speaks for many sport compact enthusiasts but at the same time he misses in a huge way, the point of having a big horsepower car. The test of a car like this should have been at a drag strip with slicks on the car. I don't know of anyone who has a Honda that makes this much power and doesn't visit the drag strip on a regular basis, although I'm sure there are some out there.

Point is, other than Dominic Conti's short-lived drag career I don't believe anyone from Sport Compact Car goes to the drag races to race. At least it's not apparent from their articles. Nor have they ever tested a car other than USCC cars on a drag strip. They need to expand their horizons a little to what is arguably the sport that is most responsible their magazine's success. It's not like import (sport compact) drag racing isn't still a huge part of the industry.

The car in question is Hasport's K20 turbo EK Civic, so of course I am biased. I edited Dave's original article and I think you'll find my version rings a little truer. He was in my opinion being melodramatic to make a point. As I've said before though, with power comes responsibility.

Life in the fast lane is not for everyone

There's a 455-hp Civic on our cover. Let's take it for a drive.

Step 1: Drive to the gas station. Let's see I only going to put in 4 gallons of premium to get me through 'til tomorrow when I go to the strip. I want as little as possible in the tank when I put the good stuff in at the track.

Step 1.1: Complain about the price of premium.

Step 1.3 Pay $2.55 a gallon for premium.

Step 2: Head to work or home with an eye constantly on the lookout for a victim. These stickers all over the car will usually incite some V8 pilot into racing road rage. Have to make sure the battle is from a roll since I don't have the drag radials on the car. As fate would have here's a Z06, what's even better is it has dealer plates. As we're driving by the Chevy dealer I've stumbled upon a salesman taking a prospective customer on a test drive on this stretch of the freeway. I can here him now, "Let's get on the freeway where we can open it up. You're gonna love this thing, pure American muscle. Oh look there's one of them stickered Hondas, let's play."

Carefully I select a gear to get in the fat of the power band. I leave the car on low boost because of the 91-octane gas in the tank and toggle on the traction control on the EMS. Got to love this AEM engine management. I'll need to wait to apply throttle, timing is everything, and this much turbo is a bit laggy.

I'm in the second lane doing the speed limit of 55 and I keep an eye on the salesman as he comes up on the right at about 65. He slows down to match my speed and get my attention. Just as his speed equals mine I roll throttle on. The salesman in the 'Vette is really cocky, he lets me get about 10 yards on him before he punches it to real me in. The Civic is quick with the K20 in it, but the Z06 is quicker. My timing is impeccable (lucky) though, just as he pulls even the turbo spools and torque comes on like a freight train. I throttle back a little, because even on low boost at 75mph and sticky Toyo Proxes, 375 hp can haze the tires on this lightweight.

I grab the next gear and start to pull away like he thought he was going to do to me. In just a few hundred feet I'm doing a buck ten and I can see he's already given up. I slow down to give him a thumb up and see the reaction on the customers face. As I do he darts over two lanes and exits the freeway before I can get to him. Oh well, hope he didn't need that sales commission.

Step 3: Drive home and think about tomorrow night and the drag strip. Full boost and slicks tomorrow, 455hp, hell yeah baby!

A 455-hp Civic isn't the dick-swinging achievement of engineering it used to be, but isn't a decision to be taken lightly either. There are probably hundreds of these things on the streets in the US today. But before you start building your own, consider the big picture. Strictly speaking this isn't going to be a daily driver, not that the reality won't stop some people from daily driving it. And it's going to require a lot more maintenance than most people are willing to do it. You're going to have to monitor the car carefully and park it at the first sign of trouble until the problem can be located and fixed. Gone are the carefree days of filling the gas
tank once a week and checking the oil once a month.

So why do you really want a 455-hp Civic? In Hasport's case, its purpose is twofold, we needed a test bed for our newest mount kit and we want to put a street car in the 9s in the quarter mile. What you see in the magazine is just the second step of a 4-step process to achieve that goal. The next step is well underway with a larger turbo and a newer engine with the hp goal of 650hp. The final step will be to sort the chassis and drive the car to its eventual goal of 9.9 or better in the 1/4.

If you want to be on the cover of Sport Compact Car, well, as Dave Coleman said, no thanks. That's not what SCC is about. To bad I say, I bet it sells magazines. We got lucky, Sport Compact Car wanted to do an article on a car with a K-series engine swap and we had a car ready to go.

For the average person a 250-hp Civic would be much better. Little things like boost response, part-throttle drivability and traction are everything behind the wheel. Having driven many Honda Civics with many different engine combinations I know what will fill my needs. The car I'm building for a daily driver is a 2001 Civic Sedan with a K24 CRV motor and a Jackson Racing Supercharger. I'm sure I wind up with 250-275 whp and a very drivable power band. And if I need more power, an hour with a couple of wrenches changing pulleys and I'll have 300+ hp. More than enough to quench most peoples need for speed.

300 horsepower is about the max for street use and it's easy to build this kind of power in a reliable engine. We used and abused our 02 Civic Si for tens of thousands of miles without a whimper. It had an RSX head and stock CRV block and 275 hp, we loaned it to everyone and his brother to drive. Hell the car even made the cover of Sport Compact Car and Honda Tuning. To top it off we took the engine out of the Si and put it in a 94 Integra and drove it to 1st place in the FWD open class of the Sport Compact Car/Super Street Time Attack Challenge. (See next month's issue of Sport Compact Car and Super Street)

Of course, I'm not the average person I'm very lucky. My job allows me to experiment with many combinations and build multiple cars. Most people have only one car, which makes 455hp a luxury that’s tough to afford.

brian g


Edited for grammar and spelling


Modified by brian g at 9:46 PM 6/3/2004

mos

Yeah, the real trick is having more than one car.

Nice write up.

DIRep972

iTrader: (1)

I like.

Reilly

hadboosttroy

not that i agree, but good view from the other side

red91sit

I kinda agree but if it had traction control and a better sized turbo for something between hi and lo boost it would be perfect in my opinion.

Adi Radoncic

Agreed on the article

Smokinsax

we could go on and on about what kind of hp people can live with...in MY case more than 300hp is a bit overwhelming, but to others its only the begining......

wHOAlly

this ver is much more of a REALITY than the original

Joseph Davis

Technician's perspective versus layman's perspective. One's more informed than the other... but the other pays the bills for the one.

Not saying you aren't totally right, Brian, but you'll have to sell Dave Coleman on all this.

99blackcivicSi

i don't agree with some things in the post but a good read none the less

BoM

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mos &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Yeah, the real trick is having more than one car.

Nice write up.</TD></TR></TABLE> YEP!

a nice daily driver is perfect! and a racecar is a dream.

tthame1

I agree with this a lot more than the Dave Coleman's post.......I know plenty of guys with daily driven 400+ whp civic that absolutely love driving them every day. Sure, its a lot more maintenance, but its worth it.

RTE117

That was a nice read.

JOeS

Nice story

I certainly won't complain when I have 455 HP I would even be glad with half the amount...

G"UNIT

damn i like this write up to... there both good points

MIKES

Good write up. But, 450hp can be reiable, and can be used as a daily driver. Cars don't break themselves, its people that push the limits on their stuff. If a car makes 450whp max, that doesn't mean they run that all the time. My setup will make that no problem. But it won't stay there on my day to day commute to & from work. It will be set at roughly 280-300whp which puts it in a totally different league. My car only sees boost on the weekend (maybe give her **** 3 to 4 times all weekend) because I am always stuck in traffic going to work or coming home. Gas has never been a issue for me. I used to drive my 10 sec GN everywhere until I got a second car. Its simple, fuel consumption in a properly tuned car means she kicks ***. You couldn't put a value on the fun factor of a turbo car, so why sqwabble about gas???? None of the cars I have ever owned gave me good gasmileage so theres no love loss there. The secret I found to turbo cars is frequent oil changes & plug changes. But above all, its venting the crankcase pressure. The less stress the motor sees, the longer she lives.
For all the DIY guys. The new Corvettes come with a electric crankcase pump to vent their motors and lots of the turbo guys are using them. I have seen personally how well they work with mid 9 sec turbo Buick GN's when I was in Bowling Green watching the shootout. They run hobb switches to activate the pump to come on at say 5psi. Its small, clean and effective. Most people just put them in their inner fenders.
The moral to the story is, Motors live when people think.

01ITR#700

Good read with good real world perspective. It seems as though people think that if you have 400-500whp it's impossible to drive daily, get to work etc. But most if not all the guys that have Honda's/Acura's making that power will openly tell others that they are perfectly fine on the street.
I drove my 400whp ITR to work all last week and this week, 60 miles round trip Apprently some people don't realize you can drive a turbo car and never hit boost, fuel economy is great when properly tuned.
Mark

Joseph Davis

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by MIKES &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Motors live when people think.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I'm stealing that saying and claiming I came up with it. Thanks!

ShaunRR

Yeah, Coleman's article didn't really ring true with me either. There is no shortage of daily driven Supra dyno queens out there. Some of them with over 900whp max.

I do agree with one of his points though. You don't have to feel like a sissy just because you have "only" 300whp.

Full-Race Geoff

great write up brian

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by brian g &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Strictly speaking this isn't going to be a daily driver...Gone are the carefree days of filling the gas tank once a week and checking the oil once a month.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

only part of it i disagree with youve been to our shop, the only problems we have are with transmissions. i drive the 420whp AC civic every day jon drives his 400 whp silvia everyday, javier was driving his 450 whp sentra everyday until the tranny let out, henrys turbo integra is running strong, still no motor or longevity probs, and we seriously neglect these cars, wihle abusing them daily.

THE BEAST

I agree with Geoff...!