well it has taken probably about two months to conclude this through reading many posts and talking to a rice driver. they think they know what they are talking about. this guy tells me all about his car, how he's gonna put a turbo in it, massive pipes, and stuff and eventualy have 600 horsepower. i don't know if such a tiny engine would have that great an output. either way he thinks i need nitrous in a 170k mile car, and to use it as a daily driver. what the hell is wrong with him. i think it could be that he is both rich and spoiled so he goes through money like water. anyway...what do you think.

 

He is probably correct. There are many 2.0 to 2.4L "rice" machines that can blow my stock 1979 L-82 away in the 1/4 mile. But I drive a Corvette so what the heck ;) .

PS-it is difficult to compare old technology with the new. Some of the Lexus motors are rated at 340hp. That compares very nicely with C4s. I do wonder at times, however, at what expense these HP ratings are achieved. My 1979 L-82, I would guess, is stressed at 33% of its potential, 225HP. The Subaru W-something is rated at 240HP from 2.2L I believe. They must be a penalty from exacting that kind of HP from such a small engine. I may be wrong, perhaps the Japanese got it right and GM slipped?? Just as another example, My 2001 Base Impala with a 3.4L engine puts out just 180HP. There are vehicles with much less displacement putting out much more than 200HP. BUT, my Impala with the 60 degree V6 engine will monotony on for many miles with its pushrod engine without major surgery. A hyped 1.8L Civic for how long. I do not know......


[Modified by paul79, 9:22 PM 1/5/2002]

 

I look at it this way.

Their $10,000 used honda civic with $10,000 worth of "mods" is a fast $20,000 car. With this $10,000, they probably added nitrous and a turbo. They very well may have a very fast car.

BUT

My $6,000 1979 Chevrolet Corvette with the same $10,000 worth of nitrous and turbo work will make the guy or gal driving the import racer wet their pants.

I actually respect anyone who can mod the crap out of their car and make it really fast. Whether it is a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle, a Corvette, a Honda Civic, or anything else... it can be made to go fast. Hell, give me a fast Vega any day. "Corvair, Unsafe at any speed"??? Yeah, especially with that blown 502. :crazy: :yesnod:

Its the ricers that I don't care for. I may have a different definition of ricer than most folks around here. I think ricer is stickers, park bench, fart pipe, clear tails, and 110 horsepower. If the car has the power to back up the stickers and park bench wing, then I respect that. Now a high horsepower at ultra high rpm small displacement motor is not my cup of tea. I'd rather have the cubes and torque and horsepower associated with the almighty American V8.

Maybe I'm going soft, but I am starting to accept the idea of increasing the perfomance of import cars. I think it would be funny to make a sleeper honda civic. Keep the exterior completely stock, squeeze every last bit of horsepower out of the 4-banger possible, and then blow away punk ricers at the track on sundays.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again. I can accept import tuners as long as they can accept low tech gas hog V8 American muscle handing them their **** at the track.

 

Let the ricers compete on the same circuits as the American V8's within the same rules, restrictions, and budgets and see how well they do. The ones that can do this I can respect, most need special classes becouse they can't compete with american V8's at half the cost, and front wheel drive is a handicap in just about any performance driving category. True performance cars are either all wheel drive or rear wheel drive otherwise weight shift and balance are all wrong. There are reasons that there aren't any front wheel drive supercars. Don't get me wrong there are some imports with great performance and the all wheel drive versions especially. But trying to make a drag car out of a front wheel drive is like trying to box with one broken arm why start yourself off with a handicap and add to that 3 times the cost to get the same performance as an american V8, just doesn't make sense to me but to each his own. Sorry I just got on a rant for some reason.

:cheers:
Pat Kunz