RAB

How strong is the chassis of a honda/acura? I've been wondering ever since my dad said that what I'm doing to my car is ruining it ( that is stiff suspension driven as a daily and a auto-x) of course I adjust the shocks to be soft for daily use. He believes that that all the stress imposed on the chassis during auto-x and even daily driving weakens the chassis. He also believe that road racing would be equally as bad.
I believe there is some validity to what he's saying I just picked up a copy of Sport Car Compact and they did an article on the Mugen JGTC, the article read that the Mugen/Dome team stiffened but the suspension so much that the car would most likely have 2 years of track life to it as the chassis would weaken due to the stress imposed on it.
So what yall think.

illusion

i seriously hope not. im about to get my frame pulled because of an accident and i want to continue autox'ing and starting doing HPDEs.

TriK

i think.. if you make a good roll cage (cage with multi point, welded to the shock tower with a plate on it).. and you weld all the cross member (insted of the stock spot welding)..

you should not have probleme with chassi flex..

eg6ajk

riding hard suspension on the street, using slicks and not having any other stiffing done on the chassis, will definatly stress the chassis.

i ride on 8/6kg/mm suspension on fairly bad roads (canada), every few months I need to tighten my suspension pieces and other parts as everything becomes loose

from what i have seen chassis flex is as much as 4mm in some places (front) on my car...this is from the marks on various parts after finishing the course, hood flex and so on.

should you listen to your dad...i mean, the car is not a classic and if you don't have fun then why not just get yourself something like a sentra

Lo-Buck EF

yea. unibody cars will flex. i have video of my friend's s13 (92 nissan 240 sx) at an autox with 8/6 cusco comp 2 coppies from japan. in this one right hander, the front end just gave up for a second and the hood, fender and headlight were all at differant heights. then they came back and that never happend. and he's on street tires. like someone else said, with a good rollcage to stiffen the car, things like chassis flex would be addressed and most of the stresses would be channel'd into the rollcage, which would be able to take/deflect it. ever look at the top of your front fenders? i know mine are all dimpled as were the ones on my friends sts-spec maxima. stress relief. a good thing about driving hindas is that they are readilly avaliable as far as chassis go. so down the road when ur (ex.) 92 cx hatch gets a stress crack in it somewhere and the shell is all fatigued, u can go buy another one from the old lady up the street for reasonably cheap.
-spencer

e36s52

the h1 winner last year had 250,000 miles on the chassis plus some track time. they're certainly subject to fatigue with time, but welding and a cage, etc, will all help.

travis

I swear that most of the ITC CRXs and VWs are held together ONLY by their cage, LOL!

Crack Monkey

Yup, stiff racing suspensions and hard track use will wear out a chassis. Will you notice it in a daily driver? Probably not.

chad

only had 220,000 miles

but mine also had 200,000 on the chasis

Tweakmeister

metal fatigue

having the stiffer suspension and the likes will make it worse much more quickly.

Knestis

Might depend how much salt they use on the roads in Outer Mongolia.

Seriously, the chances of this being an issue on an autocross/street car are minimal. (Once again - heed the Monkey!) You can do a better job than a lot of people with similar cars by making sure that you run the car high enough to keep it off of the bumpstops...

Kirk

Ross

RAB

Thanks for the respones, so it seems to me that I should check the nuts and bolts on on chassis components and have the honda techs or my mechanic take a look at critical chassis points every once in awhile.
Also does a roll cage really channel the stress from the chassis into cage, seems counter intuitive to me.

spettinger

as soon as i get a torch my car will be seam welded. oh yeah.