Just speaking theoretically;

there have been a post or two about honda as an alternative to golf for the obvious choice for FWD rally car.

I don't know much about the little buggies, but looking at them it looks seems the WB on civic hatches grew from about 86 to 101 inches over the years, and the suspension evolved somehow, but you can put the same honkin' honda engine into all of them.

So to those who know: what year and model is the hot honda rally model?

alkun Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just speaking theoretically;
>
> there have been a post or two about honda as an
> alternative to golf for the obvious choice for FWD
> rally car.
>
> I don't know much about the little buggies, but
> looking at them it looks seems the WB on civic
> hatches grew from about 86 to 101 inches over the
> years, and the suspension evolved somehow, but you
> can put the same honkin' honda engine into all of
> them.
>
> So to those who know: what year and model is the
> hot honda rally model?

Something that has strong front suspenders which means prolly a McPherson strut.

And I have no idea when they stopped doing their complicated and weeenie so called "double a arm" shit they copied from Mercedes and Audi.
>
>

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

CRX for the struts and light weight with an Integra Type-R engine with the (was it a torsen?) fancy-butt diff?

---

JohnLane

Overkill is consistently more fun

alkun Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
what year and model is the
> hot honda rally model?

Al,

88-00 Hondas/Acuras all have double control arms on the front. At the back there is a trailing arm with 3 lateral links setup.
00-09 Civics/RSXs have struts on the front and a shock suspension in the back.

I did a fair amount of rally related research before I built one(Civic) and ended upwith a 97(long WB, wide track, more headroom than previous years). I talked to many guys who have rallied the early cars and the only consistent suspension issue were the rear trailing arms which fatigue with time and the spindles fail. It usually takes more than a season to have this failure. Steering ratios are slow but a quickener can fix that along with some P/S pump work(Honda pumps cavitate).

The later cars(00+) have great engines that can be swapped in, more interior space and more weight.

No matter what Honda you start with there are great options for motor, trans and brake swaps. Not necessarily cheap, but definitely great power and great gearing is available. Hondas can have great torque with the right parts when normally aspirated. A decent place to start searching about swaps would be www.honda-tech.com although the site is not as technical as it used to be.

Other forum members know more than me and hopefully will give you more info: Kris has a lot of knowledge with early cars. Paul seems to do very well with a late RSX. Andrew has done great with an early car at OTR. Cody with the CRX does a great job driving it on its limit.

I will start rallying my car this season and I will be able to tell you more about its reliability, especially suspension, soon. One last note: the Bilstein replacement shocks for the 96-00 Civics are 50mm! If you stay within those model years all you have to do is revalve the 50s and you have a fantastic starter rally suspension.

George

---

Civic Rally Car

Is there anything preventing someone from taking a wishbone car and hacking the tops of the towers off and raising them a bunch and using struts and knuckles from something?

From what I understand, the whole reason Honda was using the wishbones is because they could make the hood and beltline lower. When they started making tall truckly cars they realized they could save money and use struts. Except for the first wishbone Accords, the wishbones had a strut-like camber geometry.

---

Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.

Pete Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is there anything preventing someone from taking a
> wishbone car and hacking the tops of the towers
> off and raising them a bunch and using struts and
> knuckles from something?
>

Just the reality that 90% of us who start such a project will not finish it.

9% of us who would finish it would get it very wrong indeed and crash the car badly enough that it would not get run again.

1% of us who would finish it would get it right and not race the car cuz it took sooooooo much effort to get it right that they cannot see taking a chance with it.

See where this is headed?

Hows about getting something done to go and play?

---

JohnLane

Overkill is consistently more fun

Worked for us in Production class spec.

I can't fathom why there isn't more people running honda's that want a FWD.
AFAIK:
Un-matchable HP/displacement STOCK

A ton of suspension travel

Good suspension choices

Lots of aftermarket support

OEM and aftermarket LSD's

Light

What am I missing???

---

Gone fishing

david amor Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I can't fathom why there isn't more people running
> honda's that want a FWD.
> AFAIK:
> Un-matchable HP/displacement STOCK
>
> A ton of suspension travel
>
> Good suspension choices
>
> Lots of aftermarket support
>
> OEM and aftermarket LSD's
>
> Light
>
> What am I missing???
>

The incalculable momentum of -it has to be a crusty old Golf if it's FWD and going rallying even if you have to re-engineer half the car to make it not blow up- group think

---

Quote
Morison
[jvl] Ohh noooohs! There's an h'off tawpik thread in the gent-urinal dick-cushion four-hum. THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!![/jvl]

Pete Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is there anything preventing someone from taking a
> wishbone car and hacking the tops of the towers
> off and raising them a bunch and using struts and
> knuckles from something?
>
>
> Pete Remner
> Cleveland, Ohio
>
> 1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
> 1978


This is actually kind of interesting... I need to be more specific with the initial question. Looking for a car that can make a fun low budget,low power entry level rallycar, with room to grow.

I agree that the 2000 up hondas, like rsx look like they make killer serious rallycars, No doubt. But most decent runners are like 10 grand, while there are piles of the earl 90's cars for $1000. That leaves a bunch of room in the budget for custom work. Plus the tinyness is appealing,

The only bad thing I can say about the Hondas besides "cost of entry" is that you have to disassemble the suspension to get the axles out, the CVs won't fit through the shock wishbone dealy.

VWs oftentimes you don't even have to pop the balljoint out...

---

Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.

alkun Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> This is actually kind of interesting... I need to
> be more specific with the initial question.
> Looking for a car that can make a fun low
> budget,low power entry level rallycar, with room
> to grow.
>

For who?
>

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

I think one of the biggest issues is the fact Hondas are believed to be good cars and thus have good resale values. I think my 2005 Civic Si is now worth more then my 2005 Legacy GT, the GT has 50% more power, more room, AWD, Leather Seats, and is basically all around a fancier car...

Like wise a 2005 WRX costs less then a 2005 Civic Si, a lot less, so if you are going to spend that type of money on a starter shell I think most pick the Subaru, I do not see this so much a contest between very old Golfs and Hondas, more a contest between other like priced cars. I think it was the 2001-2005 Civic where they finally went to the simple McPherson struts in the front - but I am no expert here.

I do think my Honda Si has a lot of rally potential, it is a better car then my 20 year older Golf was, but we would hope so. It needs a LSD and may need gearing, the motor is lively but not till rev'ed, one needs to drive it like they hate it to get it going but that is normal for FWD rally cars anyway. It has limited steering angle, this may be an issues when recovering from that way over cooked turn but I have not really explored that end of the spectrum with my street car.

The seating possition and cabin room are very good, lots of room for 6-3 me esp if rally seats got mounted lower.

---

In the long run reality always wins.

Derek has a good point. But there is a little part of me (which is at least as twisted as the rest) that wants to build or import a EP3 (2001-2005) Civic type R. I think it could be a bad-ass group-2 car. They are homologated. There are parts over there. Yeah, they cost mucho.

Cheap as the 3 Sentras I already have? No. As fast exiting a corner as my old WRX? Probably not.

These seem to be fairly popular across the pond.

---

Ted Mendham
www.rensport.net

tedm Wrote:

> These seem to be fairly popular across the pond.

Where?
why? (Maybe there some class thing like the Finnish Junior Championship restricted to 1,6 GropeN cars that compels people to get them...)
>
>
> Ted Mendham
> www.rensport.net

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.