I'm very interested in doing an AWD conversion on my ITR. I've been thinking an awful lot about doing this because I'm sick of having to give guys in AWD Talons the old traction excuse. So here's what I've been thinking, its along the lines of what they did in Honda Tuning.

Obviously a CR-V Tranny would need to be involved.
Prelude shifter mechanism (cable shift linkage)
Get Hybrid Racing to make a custom mount to bolt it up.

Here's the difference.

Instead of using a CR-V open Rear differential/end, use a Quick Change rear end.
No matter how you look at it, I'm going to have to get custom axles made and a custom driveshaft. You can get the quickchange rear end in any gear ratio and it holds gobs of power, and its LSD, so I'd just get it in the same ratio as the CRV rear end. I got a printout of the transfer case from a CRV and as best as I can count the teeth on the transfer gear, we're looking at a 3.2 ratio. My dad says that's probably accurate.

IF YOU KNOW THE CORRECT RATIO PLEASE LET ME KNOW.

Anyway, get a quickchange rear end with Independant Rear Suspension. If I were to use the CRV rear end, it would probably explode the first time I dumped the clutch.

I really want to make this conversion a class act, so in the planning phase here I'm not taking price into considation unless its just rediculous.

It seems to be the general consensus around here that TIG is the way to go for quality welds....right?

I talked to a buncha people today. The guy at Home Depot sold me on a Stick welder, but when I talked to the guy who does a lot of welding for me, he said go with a MIG for my application. I asked him about TIG, and he walks over to this giant machine and next to it a wire feed unit. He says that its really made for heavy duty kinda stuff above and beyond welding a Unibody.

So I called two of my buddies, one of which is very knowledgable about welding and the other knows a decent amount and they both say TIG is the way to go, no question.

I want this conversion to be immaculate. I look at the conversion in Honda tuning, and its just nasty. The big metal tent they put over the rear end makes me want to throw up. Anyway.

The two main questions I have:
What is the ratio of the rear end on a CR-V?
What welder would be the best looking/stongest?

Don't take the skill level required into consideration, I will have plenty of time to practice, so lets just say that by the time I'm ready to do this I'm gonna be a badass at welding.

I'm also interested in knowing if anybody has suggestions/concerns/solutions for this conversion. Basically, how could I improve the conversion that Braille did?

The stats on my car currently are in the Garage portion of this website but here's the basics:
https://honda-tech.com/gara...=2279
2000 ITR PY
84.5mm Endyn built GE Sleeved GS-R engine (stock crank)
Headwork good for 9500 rpm
Hondata S200 with everything
Precision SC-61 @ 15 PSI (Haven't tuned it for more yet)

Thanks in advance.

 

PM sent

 

simple autobody welding for a beginner: definitely MIG. nothing else holds a candle.

welding aluminum, or stainless or whatnot: TIG unless you want it to (probably) look like ****. only few have mastered the MIG AL welding and its still not as clean as TIG

the guy at home depot who was trying to sell you a stick welder must have been smoking crack, MIG is the easiest to learn and is pretty ****** clean compared to flux core and even the good ole' big stick. my dad lays down some beautiful beads stick welding but he's used to welding steel .5 thick and **** like that.

and seriosuly, TIG is not a beginner welder. your friends must want you to buy one so they can borrow yours. bottom of the line TIG is like a grand, and MIG is easier to learn on.

mig it up motherfucka!!

 

MIG is what i learned on.

use it. cheap, quick, strong, simple, and FUN

 

awesome. That's what pretty much every local welder I've talked to has told me. After reading the FAQ in this section, I was lead to believe that TIG was the only way to go because it kind of harps on the downfall of MIG such as splattering and such.

To make this conversion ever cleaner than Braille's, I'm thinking about using stainless box tubing to mount up the rear end.

Here is the rear end I'm thinking about using:

Learn More:
http://www.1speedway.com/irs_quickchange.htm

I figure that ought to hold. I'm looking to put down 500+ hp.

The Honda Element uses a flat rubber type mount to bolt the rear differential up, so I'm thinking about ordering two of those so that its not bolted straight to the box tubing.

If you guys can think of any good ideas for the type of rubber mount I could use to mount this thing up, let me know. Preferably a stock piece. In the Braille conversion they rigged up the rubber pieces on the top of the stock type R shock tower, but I want something with a little bit more contact area.

 

hey what size downpipe do u have since u have ac? any thing bad with that manifoild spark racing?

 

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Honda Tuning/Braille swap, this is an outline of what's required based on what I've read.

The only thing that bolts up is the transmission to the engine. You need a custom mount to make the tranny bolt to the chassis, then you need to notch the chassis. You need to get an accord/prelude shift mechanism and make that your shifter because the CR-V tranny uses cables. You also need to beat the **** out of your exhaust tunned on the passenger side to give the driveshaft enough clearance. You need to take your fuel tank out and replace it with a fuel cell. I plan on getting a fuel cell and mounting it under the car probably where the spare tire would go. You need to cut out enough sheet metal from underneath it to fit the differential and then weld a beam across the two shock towers to mount the rear end. If you are using a CR-V rear end, you need to mount two of those beams because the CR-V rear end has two mounting points. The driveshaft has to be shortened to use the CR-V rear end, but that can be done by any driveshaft shop. The rear axles need to also be shortened. In my case, I'm going to need completely different rear axles. I believe on the website for that rear end I'm looking at they said the rear end is made for a Porche style axle. The rear trailing arms have to be taken apart and modified. This is one of the most complicated parts and is very hard to explain without pictures, but they do a fairly decent job in the magazine on how to do it. Basically you need to mount up the CR-V hub to the Civic trailing arm, but since the CR-V hub isn't made for Disc brakes, theres no place to mount the caliper, so you need to make two adapter plates to place behind it with a place to mount the caliper. The holes in the center of the ITR brake discs need to be enlarges to compensate for the axle nut. However I'm thinking that I might could use a 2002 CR-V rear disc and the inner hole might already be big enough.


I'm also thinking that I might be able to use the 2002 Hub assembly since it is designed for rear disc brakes already and that might save me the hassle of making the adapter plate. I don't know if it would work, but its worth a shot.

The stock ITR wheels won't bolt up for the same reason, so you either get wheels with a bigger center piece, or do like they did in Honda-Tuning and get the wheel spacers. That's basically it.

If I'm leaving anything out, I'm sure somebody will let me know.

 

Here's what you should really do since you got a itr, keep it on the side and get another car to do the project with. I'm not hating or anything I just don't think you should do a project like this with a itr since they are kinda hard to come by anyways. Sorry I did'nt contribute to this in any way but please keep it in mind.
But good luck in your project whatever you choose to do so

 

No front end LSD with CRV trans, and the CRV only sends 20% of the power to the rearend after the front wheels rotate without traction 1.5 (might be 2.5, I forgot) turns.

 

With that rear end why would you still be implenting the torque bias of the CRV setup?

 

I've taken that into consideration plenty of times. But on the other side of the coin, I take into consideration the fact that the car wouldn't be in existance today had I not completely restored it.

Take a look in my garage and see what it was when I got it. The parts on it have come from plenty of other cars, the engines not a Type R engine, I have no idea what the original number is, although I have tried to find out. And above all, this conversion requires Type R suspension, and I don't feel like spending the extra $2000 or so it would require to upgrade to ITR suspension on another car.

Its a good idea, my dad tells me the same thing, but its just that I have so much work into this chassis already, its like well, what's an AWD conversion really going to hurt at this point.

The fact that it is an ITR is why I really want to make it a quality conversion and use the best parts for the job.

 

I believe SOHFAST is right. The Torque split on the CRV is completely dependant on the rear end. The center differential is housed within the stock rear end. It locks together when the front wheels spin faster than the rear. But I'm eliminating that all together. In the Braille swap, they just welded the center diff together to make it 50/50. I'm just eliminating the center diff all together so I'm figuring on a 50/50 power distribution. However I'm not to familiar with how torque splits work. If anybody has any insight, It'd be appreciated.

Also if I need more power to the rear wheels, I'd pop the front axles out. I'm not too worried about the fact that the CR-V front differential is open, I'm more concerned with the rear. So what if I only get 3 tire fire, 2/3's of my wheels under power are in the back, and that's what counts

 

I would find another car like the other guy said. Why destroy a perfectly good chassis that was made for road racing.

 

Honda Tuning magazine already did this, AWD Integra. See if you can find the article.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Sikocivic &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Honda Tuning magazine already did this, AWD Integra. See if you can find the article.</TD></TR></TABLE>

yep, braille auto was the shop. saw it at drift atlanta.

 

Yeah, if you read my posts I mentioned that article plenty of times, that's where I've gotten most of my information. I have all the articles.

 

Hopefully within the next couple of months. I'm in the process of gathering parts right now.

 

didnt they end up not using the type r until they knew how they would do it? it was an LS with an ITR motor.. in the article they mention the 220,000 miles on the ls struts

 

correct. They used an older chassis instead of the ITR.

 

About that torque bias thing, I got to thinking about how torque split works. I'm no physics major, but I know there are plenty of those guys on here, but here are my thoughts.

You know how when you are trying to get a really tight bolt undone with a impact gun, it helps to use the shortest extension possible?
Why? because you lose torque the longer the extension. I could be wrong, but I'm thinking that it might work the same way for this setup. Since the power has to be transferred from the front differential, through 4 gears, then through a long drive shaft and then to the rear differential and eventually out to the axles, it makes sense that the rear wheels wouldn't have as much turning power (torque) as the front would. However, when you take into consideration the amount of usable power, I think I would be putting a much greater amount of power to the ground through the rear wheels then the front wheels when you take weight transfer into consideration. Lets say I'm making 500 hp. I can really only put about 240 of that to the ground on the front wheels before they break loose. Lets also say that I lose 100 hp through the drivetrain, and I'm still putting 400 hp to the ground in the rear. When the weight transfer kicks in, it will allow the rear wheels to put well over 240 hp to the ground, probably something more along the lines of 350 or so with the stock wheels and tires, and more than likely all 400 if I were to put a big nasty set of slicks on it. All around it'd be a better setup. I doubt I'm really going to lose a full 100 hp through the drivetrain in the first place, but its better to over estimate that kinda stuff

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Type-GS-R-Turbo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
You know how when you are trying to get a really tight bolt undone with a impact gun, it helps to use the shortest extension possible?
Why? because you lose torque the longer the extension. I could be wrong, but I'm thinking that it might work the same way for this setup</TD></TR></TABLE>You don't lose torque, you just have more deflection so you lose the impulse which is what really breaks the bolt. But in a drivetrain, a long driveshaft doesn't lost any more power (besides the small increase in weight).

 

I have soemthing to add, normally worst caase scenario you're going to see a ~15% loss in power through the drivetrain. So let's say since you have to transfer through the differential (front and back) you're losing a total of ~20% (worst case) Provided all other variables are constant you would still only be sacrificing 100hp to the tire and if you think about it out of 500 that's still 400hp to the pavemennt. Two words: Holy hell!

Edit: sorry for my bad spelling and one more thing. There are a lot of people who think that using the ITR chassis is a bad idea which is totally logical BUT, if it turns out professional, nice and most of all functional then you really have a one of a kind!


Modified by SOHFAST94 at 1:54 PM 2/11/2005

 

keep the wrx and evo in mind when figureing out how much power is lost threw the drive train. and also think of these cars when you are figureing how much power is to the front and rear of a AWD. i think the wrx is like 70/30. 70 in the front.

 

I'm impressed with the way the WRXs launch so if I could get close to that sort of torque split I'd be happy.

SOH, right on. I'm thinking if I make it an immaculate conversion, there is no reason why not to use a ITR chassis. If I planned on cheaping out on it, then yeah, buy a cheap chassis, but I don't. If there was ever an Enzo Honda, I'm gonna make it how he would've had it.

 

I love the idea and was thinking about doing it myself. Please get this done and post some pictures and times. make sure you think of everything......ill give you some of my ideas if you need help..... Screenname Kingbb69...if you need anything!