haven't seen this one before i don't think. pretty sweet. the gearbox sounds trick. standard Honda internals but with a custom new casing mounting it...

"The RD180 uses a bespoke five-speed transmission that enables the Honda engine to be fitted longitudinally. This transmission uses the standard Honda internals in a new casing. Building a unique transmission is not the work of a moment, which illustrates just how determined Vemac is to make the RD180 an uncomprimised driver's car.
The longitudinal engine fitment gives the car an excellent balance and very neutral handling that the skilled driver will be able to exploit to the full and the less experienced driver will find extremely friendly and predictable. "

http://www.vemaccars.com/e/index.html



ps, watch out for RyanR. he is fast for minimal track seat time. his 1.5 year of frequent canyon commute really paid off. car is so dope now. i ran ~2:15 in #1 CCW, with a passenger, and on azenis and ryan wasn't far behind. could probably do a sub 2:10 on R tires... that's amazing. andrie was hauling pretty quick with his NSX on advan slicks and did a 2:07.

 

No price??? I take it it's one of those "if you have to ask..." type things.

Gearshift on the door seems interesting.

 

Nice almost lotus like.

 

isn't there a team running one of these in the JGTC? I saw one leading GT3000 yesterday, I wondered what the hell a "Vemac" was.....

 

That car is similiar in the basics only, it runs an NSX engine. Yum.

 

Looks like a Lotus Espri

 

With the gearshift on the right door, it seems to be tailored to a LHD driver, driving a RHD car...?

 

Do you step over a really high door sill, or does the shifter go with the door?

 

Yep and I think they finished second in the GT300 championship...if I recall correctly. I know they won 3 races in 2002.

 

Not really. Some cars do have this, particularly some cottage-industry-type Brit cars. The McLaren F1, for example, has the shifter to the right of the driver.

 

interestingly i read in a UK mag that the development director of this car is some 24 year old guy who grew up in motorsports. id be happy to see a car like this, but id rather have an elise/exige instead...

 

the RD180 should in theory handle better than the elise... since they gone the proper way of longitudial engine mounting.

sunspeed... pretty sweet. review coming when i have time to write more about it.



few more pix at : http://homepage.mac.com/adriancockcr...toAlbum31.html


[Modified by GhettoRacer, 6:25 PM 2/17/2003]

 

I like
I think it was a good idea for them to utilize
the oem honda trans internals. One less thing
to have to worry about trying to locate, should
something break.

 

Prototype Racing exhibited their Honda-powerd Elise conversion at the 2003 LA Auto Show last month. Looked like it would be a lot of fun to drive!

 

This car has a 1.8 liter engine, I'm assuming Type-R. It's not the car being run in the JGTC. The car being run in the JGTC is much bigger and has an NSX motor in it.

If you follow the link GhettoRacer posted, you can find a PDF file with lots of information on the RD180.

-Mike

 

yah the bigger one is called RD320 and google didn't come up with too much concrete info on it. RD180 is prolly like 50k and the RD320 double that or more.

 

Is that how many track days you've had so far?

Did I ever mention how much I hate you?

Fuqasnowcoverednortheast.

 

I;ve seen that car in a Japanese magazine. IIRC it has been out for quite a few years?

 

yah sorry to hear all the crazy snow out there. yall need to go buy some rallye cars so you can continue to have fun in the off reason.

 

Hmmm, 180bhp weighing in at only 1764lbs.

Sounds fun...

 

Because I can't afford nonsense such as this is why I'm building my own. Car in sig.

 

haha, there you are! i was actually just thinking about your mini project yesterday and wanted to check your progress.

note to self: book mark the site this time... as google weren't able to find your page.

 

you know that! Ice-Racing on frozen lakes out here in upstate / western new york last weekend... kind of a medium speed track with snowtires.... keeping 50mph easily on the corners because the lakes and course layouts are so huge.