racing question
 

in your n/a does any one else kick most peoples ass off the line then loose in third??? i have a 87 n/a and that what usually happens to me well when racing relativly decent cars.

makes sense. the lower power and low weight of the n/a will allow for a good start off the line, but at higher sppeds the other cars higher power will have an advantage. same goes for hondas. they suck at high speeds.

i raced a kid i know with a 2002 honda prelude vtec controlerand intake crushed him off the line but as soon as i shifted into third he past me

The car make more power than your car - how did you expect to win?

I believe the VTEC Prelude makes at least 190hp.


-Ted

Prelude is one of the only fast hondas ;). Sucks they discontinued them, they should have discontinued the civic Si instead :D.

the prelude is always the slowest hondas. they have a lot of power from the showroom, that's about it. you can do up a little v-tec civic and easily smoke the lude. the prelude is alwasy the one of the slowest hondas at any track event (quarter mile or circuit).

howi

the prelude has always been hondas flagship luxury/sports car in north america. they used it to test new ideas such as vtec and 4wheel steering. the only reason this expensive car sold well was due to its high power and luxury apeal. it was never meant as a performance car. like howi said, preludes always get smoked at the race track.

i totally agree.. my friend has a 2000 Prelude and i love it when his vtec kicks in...

The car make more power than your car - how did you expect to win?

I believe the VTEC Prelude makes at least 190hp.


-Ted



i didnt expect to win i knew i would, he just though he could take me off the start, so i raced him. does any one else loose to the new tiberon GT?

yeah, i take back what i said. 3000lb FWD cars are definately awesome. they handle so well on those corners.

I had a 97 prelude and that thing was slowwwwwww. Nice as far as luxury and a little peppy when the vtec kicks in (kinda like a small turbo....very small) but the damn thing was almost imposible to make go any faster without putting in a turbo or super charger. my tII could kick its ass any day even with the turbo not working right now. lol.

Yea but for a honda...its pretty fast. I mean stock for stock its the fastest. But most people don't buy hondas for performance, they buy them for reliability and luxury, which you have to admit hondas are reliable as hell, just slooooooooow :D.

S2000 is the fastest. Preludes stock for stock are fast because they have the best engine. Most Honda tuners will do a motor swap in their Civic and take down the Preludes.

I wouldn't say Hondas are slow, I know a handful around here in KC that could run with the best of them, but yes those posers that run around with Altezzas and chrome tips are slow.

its not the car that counts, its the driver.. a car is never slow, but only the drive is..

only if ur going downhill

"Yea but for a honda...its pretty fast. I mean stock for stock its the fastest. But most people don't buy hondas for performance, they buy them for reliability and luxury, which you have to admit hondas are reliable as hell, just slooooooooow ."

most people do not realize just how fast a civic/integra can be. in full race form, they are sick quick. this is no doubt due to their extremely low weight and the fact that aftermarket modifications are relatively cheap and abbundant compared to other cars. at high speed courses however, they will lose to true sports cars due to their lower horsepower being unable to fight the forces of friction such as wind.

Not to mention the extra traction control/torque steer problems FWD creates, and the usually uneven weight balance from having everything in the front of the car.

How did this become a honda discussion board???

I know what you mean dude, Sometimes I'll do some fast shift work to crush some Accord or maybe even an Integra. I always crush them off the line but I don't push it past 65 in those situations because of the danger factor, I figure that if I can crush you off the line and my car cost me less than a 10th of your car and its 10-16 years older...Then I have won in every way possible.

-Max
"Hondas are like Pigeons, I'm sure there are some good ones...except they are surrounded by a million stupid ones!" - Me...HA ha ha

Oh, yeah. Don't forget, even some great cars I can kill off the line if they happen to be automatic transmission.

"and the usually uneven weight balance from having everything in the front of the car."

a FWD car will handle BETTER with more weight at the front.

at a constant speed moving in a circle the car's weight distribution duz not technicaly affect handling. however, i say this using simple physics, and we all know it is not that simple in real life, but what i am about to say still applies to some degree. this is just some theory and it excludes certain things like suspension, the force on the drive wheels caused by acceleration, and the fact that tires stick and dig into concrete. this duz not make the theory incorrect, it just isolates itself from other variable so that it is easier to understand.

more weight at the front of the car creates more centrifugal force on the front axle causing the car to want to understeer. like when u throw a dart and the heavy front peice keeps tha dart flying straight. correct? well more weight on the front of the car also increase the downward force exerted by the front wheels on the ground, therefore increasing friction. These two forces (force friction/centrifugal force) will remain directly proportional to each other. so as the cars weight increases, so duz centrifugal force, and so duz force friction. so, technically, if we add more mass to one side of the car, it will not affect its balance in constant circular motion.

now, if the car is decelerating or accelerating, this balance changes. during deceleration, more downward force is acting on the front wheels, and less on the back wheels. at tthe same time, the mass at each end of the car duz not change. so the centrifugal force at each end of the car remains the same, while the force friction decreases at the back and increases at the front. this causes the car to oversteer. acceleration has the opposite effect, causing the car to understeer.

now, if u draw some force vectors and some cars with different wieght distributions, u will see that according to the aformentioned theory, a car with more mass at the front will understeer less under acceleration, and oversteer more under deceleration, when compared to a car with 50/50 weight distribution. the reverse goes for a car with more mass at the back end (it will understeer more).

im confident the theory is correct, but only to a certain degree. the theory ignores several factors. but i know for a fact that a FWD car will understeer less when u remove more weight from the back end. i know this because i drove them for 2.5 years at the track.

Re: racing question
 

In addition to the weight issue already described, your car can also wind out gears longer than other cars. This saves you the time of shifting, but it's negligable when you hit third and he has more power.

Steve

Having more weight on the front of a FWD car does not increase handling. It will increase traction while accelerating in a straight line, but when you enter a turn the wieght wants to pull out forcing it to understeer. When the front of the car is pulled into understeer, the front tires give out, and loss traction.

I beg to differ, I have an '89 4 cyl stang with 88hp, that car is slow. 'nough said.

Logan

ehh, maybe, but it's always nice to have more power than the other guy... and in most cases, it IS the car.

agreed, weight in front does not better the handling of a car. if this were true 50/50 weight distribution would not be a goal of any sports car manufacturers.

Weight distribution while maintaining constant (and perfect)circular velocity may not be a primary factor because there is no weight transfer, however this has no real world application. Moving mass has momentum, the more mass, the more momentum. The more mass in the front of the car when turning, the more inertia it will have and thus cause a greater force to move the front in a straightline, which will contribute to an understeer situation.

Friction and centrifugal force are inversely proportional in this example. If they were not inversely proportional then making a very hard turn would increase a cars traction, which hopefully we all know it does not. Mass increase (or in this case weight) is directly proportional to both friction and centrifugal force, but the two are not so to each other. Centrifugal force DECREASES the amount of weight (and mass, in case of body roll) over the frictional service, thus causing a loss of friction (and traction).

Addition of mass to the front of the car (or subtraction of weight from the rear) will result in both more friction and more centrifugal for the front of the car, its been stated how the attidtion of centrifugal force will contribute to an oversteer situation, but the increase in friction (or traction as it may be) will reduce the cars rotational ability (as there is less mass in the back of the car to give its centrifugal force towards the rotation of the car) and this will aid the fwd in its natural tendency to understeer. The wheels in the car do not want to turn, as the force of the car's inertia is attempting to go in a striaght line, running torque through the drive wheels only increases this tendency as the force of accelleration is further pushing it to go in a straight line. The more friction(traction) available, the more the torque is able to carry out this natural inclination, combine this with the more massive front half (and thur more inertia) and the lack of mass in the rear to aid in rotation, and you built yourself an understeer monster.

And just for kicks, heres a thought: does a beefier front anti-sway bar cause understeer or oversteer? understeer because it increases the contact patch on the front wheels. A beefier rear sway bar will increase the contact patch of the rear wheels, (and increase its mass), thus increasing its rotational ability.

Werd

too much initial D for this one. 3cyl geo metro vs Z06 corvette, corvette does win 10/10.