Ron sez [vis-a-vis stuffing a Ferrari V12 into a Honda Civic]:
> Nah - the Civic isn't a mid-engined car
Well, mebbe not, but the forthcoming Honda S2000 roadster is. According
to Sports Car International (Feb/Mar 1999 issue) "to achieve such an ideal
[50/50] balance, Honda gleaned racing wisdom and placed the entire engine
behind the front axle, creating a lower center of gravity. [Sic. Surely
the author meant "a lower polar moment."] This also creates a low yaw rate,
making for excellent transient response or lane change capability."
Of course, the S2000 is a rear-wheel-drive car... And since it is fitted with
a six-speed tranny and cranks out 240hp and 151 lb/ft of torque, with a
redline of 9000rpm--and weighs about 2800 pounds--maybe the polite thing
to do would be to leave that Ferrari V12 under the scrap metal and just
attach a supercharger kit to the dinky 2 liter Honda 4.
But seriously, people do make RWD cars out of Hondas; there's a guy running
an '88 Honda CRX with a Mazda 13B rotary in a RWD setup for drag racing.
It's running the old quarter mile in under 10 seconds and is still in
initial development. But I wouldn't call it a Honda. On the other hand,
I'm personally planning to turn my 89 Honda Civic Si into an AWD car by
fitting the center coupling and rear-drive components from a same year
4WD wagon (and ratcheting up the traction by putting a Quaife LSD in the
front differential; the centershaft has a viscous coupling).
And although I do plan to boost power after I have a way to get it to
the ground, I haven't considered putting a V12 in it--or even a good old
Rover V8. Hell, I still haven't figured out what to do with the exhaust
system once I use the center tunnel to run a driveshaft through. I don't
want to jack the car up, I just want to run fast.
-lar
"This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no fooling around. No
time for dancing or lovey-dovey, I ain't got time for that now. I sent a
message through the receiver, hope to get an answer someday. Why stay in
college? Why go to night school? Thought I'd be different this time." -D. Byrne
|