How much power?

[Vanilla Sky]

I'm not sure if we've ever discussed this here before, but I've always been curious about this. How much power can our cars actually make use of. I know Johnny-O has a traction bar setup for his drag car, and I know he puts down quite a bit of power, but he's only going in a straight line. What will this chassis be able to handle without having to back significantly off the throttle while doing wheel to wheel racing? What's too much for the street? Would relocating any of our suspension pickup points help out? I know that's how a traction bar achieves its goal, by moving where the radius rods connect to the front cross member.

So, what are you guys with turbos feeling? Are any of you feeling like the chassis is just not up to the task of the power available?

[Rendon LX-i]

When I was boosted chassis felt fine. I mean chassis does have flex issues which some braces would be nice . I'll end up doing that . Fabbing something up. Traction bar from expected speed is a must which cost a pretty penny .

[AccordEpicenter]

With adjustable coilovers and good bushings in the front end and especially (i cant stress this one enough) good solid motor mounts I really didnt have traction issues at 300whp ish with drag radials if they were aired down a bit. The setup did torque steer a lil but im also open diff/stock trans. If you have good motor mounts and good bushings any additional "traction bars" arent really needed imo. I never ever ran into wheel hop. Anybody who has wheel hop issues needs to check their motor mounts. As for one legged burnouts etc Ive added more weight onto the pass side tire via the adjustable coilovers (car sits imperceptibly higher on the pass side front) to preload that wheel for more traction. The results: even with an open diff, the car lays down perfect equal length rubber every time, even on the street. I have not, however really had the car turned all the way up to max power (429whp) to see how it would hook then... I dont think I could get it to hook on the street with that much power unless I get bigger tires.

[MessyHonda]

double the amount of power so around 240hp

[Vanilla Sky]

That's not a ton more than rjudgey is running in his road race car. He's a bit of a special case, though, and he's in a Prelude IIRC. They're pretty similar up front, so I'm sure he's bound to have stories and fixes.

[Rendon LX-i]

I'm 200+ an I have no issues. Haven't launched it yet but I'm sure I won't have a problem . Neve had wheel hop

[Vanilla Sky]

Have you done any autocrossing or anything? Maybe an track day or even some fun mountain touge? That's my main concern. I know these can be set up to go in a straight line, because several high powered 3geez have been out on the drag strip.

[gfrg88]

Eric would have the perfect answer for this. He does a lot of autocrossing, right? Does he still have his car? :dunno:

My car at 240whp felt good, besides the nasty torque steer under full boost :D

[Vanilla Sky]

I'm not sure if he's still around. I seem to recall his car being down for repair, but I think I'll send him a PM.

Mid 200's is my goal. I don't care what it takes to get me there, but that's where I want to be. I know that's easy as hell with a swap, but I'm seriously considering just a turbo A20.

[89T]

At around 250 with the phantom grip lsd. Strait line is great. Cornering can get dicey, with the front end wanting to push while on the throttle. I would assume if you had good throttle control and better tires you could overcome most of that. I was running kumho 17" z rated tires..

[rjudgey]

Mines very happy with 200bhp 160lbft feels like it could handle another 50bhp easily although I think a LSD would be needed to get the most out of pulling away from corners, the GAZ coilovers has made a huge difference though in being able to get the power down especially drag racing when I can jack the rear end up nice and high to put all the weight on the fronts and reduce the weight shifting to the rears when taking off. I get nice clean take off's now and don't loose any ground on the Evo's and scoobys. I know mines a bit lighter being a 2G but a 3G accord hatch isn't far off the weight and a coupe isn't much heavier again.

[gfrg88]

I'm not sure if he's still around. I seem to recall his car being down for repair, but I think I'll send him a PM.

Mid 200's is my goal. I don't care what it takes to get me there, but that's where I want to be. I know that's easy as hell with a swap, but I'm seriously considering just a turbo A20.

Well with just 10lbs, shitty tune I reached it. Only problem I had was when I started over-revving and cranked the boost up to around 15psi... 200+,xxx miles didn't help either..

[Stealth]

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[247shuer247]

Technically, any car can be pushed with any amount of horsepower. With all that modding though, the question is, how much of the original car will be left to call it an accord, civic, etc. Vanilla, are you looking to get 250 hp on pump gas? So for example, my neighbor's Subie is pushing 350whp on a 2.0 liter motor. You may say "oh he just has a big turbo", well that isn't the case. It all depends what octane you're running. He's using e85 fuel (equivalent to 100 octane), he had to build his motor extremely strong for it to take this octane, but he doesn't have to have big turbo because of this.

It all depends on what kind of ride you want. I could see a 250 hp accord daily driven, but once you get above 300 hp, it starts to look like a show car, etc. Now I'm not saying that you can't DD a 300+ hp motor, but you have to think of its practicality.

Answering your question, if you add a roll cage, better suspension, strut bars, etc. You could push anything, but how much of the car is still original? What makes it an "accord". If you're going to keep the stock a20, then the car should be able to handle any power that the a20 puts out with some modifications done to the chassis, but nothing too crazy. Once you change engines or add a MASSIVE turbo, then it's just not practical as a DD, but as a show car.


Swapping an engine does not throw practicality out the window. thats like saying a b18 or b16 cant be used in a daily driver. when in fact they are all stock engine that have meant to be driven on a daily basis. And i have seen 4 gen accord with 300 plus horsepower that look far from show cars... they are indeed track only cars but they belong no where near a car show :slap: lol

[Stealth]

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[gfrg88]

Technically, any car can be pushed with any amount of horsepower. With all that modding though, the question is, how much of the original car will be left to call it an accord, civic, etc. Vanilla, are you looking to get 250 hp on pump gas? So for example, my neighbor's Subie is pushing 350whp on a 2.0 liter motor. You may say "oh he just has a big turbo", well that isn't the case. It all depends what octane you're running. He's using e85 fuel (equivalent to 100 octane), he had to build his motor extremely strong for it to take this octane, but he doesn't have to have big turbo because of this.

It all depends on what kind of ride you want. I could see a 250 hp accord daily driven, but once you get above 300 hp, it starts to look like a show car, etc. Now I'm not saying that you can't DD a 300+ hp motor, but you have to think of its practicality.

Answering your question, if you add a roll cage, better suspension, strut bars, etc. You could push anything, but how much of the car is still original? What makes it an "accord". If you're going to keep the stock a20, then the car should be able to handle any power that the a20 puts out with some modifications done to the chassis, but nothing too crazy. Once you change engines or add a MASSIVE turbo, then it's just not practical as a DD, but as a show car.

I've had two cars on e85, and have converted 3 others. The two of mine completely stock, internally, and did nothing to the engine for e85. Two of the other cars were high comp all motor, nothing special for e85. and the other just a turbo strapped to stock engine...

Don't know where you read, or who you heard that the engine has to be "built" for the e85. Oh, also, I'm planning on running e98 on my car :)


edit: I've had two 300+whp DAILY cars. looked like stock cars. sleepers. ;)

[Stealth]

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[MessyHonda]

from what i heard e85 uses more fuel but its like using 100-110 octane but you will need bigger injectors.

[Vanilla Sky]

You can quite easily use e85 with these engines. You'll have to add about 15% more fuel, which you can do with bigger injectors in conjunction with tuning or bigger carb jets and an ethanol-safe carburetor and some changes to the ignition timing. Changing the fuel line to an ethanol-safe line is a good idea, too.

Engine swaps, even wild ones, aren't out of scope for me. Neither are cutting the floor pan out of a 3gee and mating it up with a C4 Corvette, which is an idea we threw around to make our Corvette a bit different. That's not what I'm talking about.

Every chassis is built to withstand certain stresses. For instance, you don't put an LS1 into a Citroen DS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_DS) without making a few changes. I've done enough car hacking to make oddball things work. That's not what I'm looking to do. I want to know how much a CA Accord chassis can handle before it either breaks or begins to handle poorly. I know people encounter wheel hop and torque steer, even without a ton of modifications. I know the fixes for those things. What I don't know is how much power I can utilize on a racetrack. I'm eventually going to use the car for track days, so I want to know if I should bother with building a motor that puts out 300hp, when the chassis limits the amount of time I'm on full throttle.

rjudgey, I think that answered my question fairly well. How well do you keep up with other cars on the track, like MX5s, 944s, E30 BMWs and maybe E36 BMWs? I don't expect to keep up with even an E36 M3, but I'd like to be able to hang with the faster Miatas, Civics, and Integras. Of course, if I plan on getting serious down the road, this approach might put me into even faster classes.

[AccordEpicenter]

lol you guys are gonna need more like 30+ % more fuel to support the same power level as straight gasoline with e85, but it does work pretty good with turbo cars. I thought about going to e85 but id need 2x walbro fuel pumps, maybe bigger lines, and prolly 1600cc injectors, so forget it... Either way your not gonna murder the chassis with 250-300whp. If you want a stiff auto x car then you should go with a 6 or 8 pt cage and weld it in. thatll remove 95% of the flex in the chassis of these cars that you cant get with strut bars etc... if you dont want to do a cage im sure welding the spot welded seams solid will help a bit

edit: if you have a decent enough suspension/wheels/tires and just 250whp you should murder e36 bmws unless they are heavily modded.

[rjudgey]

I don't have too much of an issue keeping up with E46 M3 most circumstances I'm quicker just down the straights it's hard to get them to move out the way and I don't quite have enough power to make a clean pass by them to make it safely to the next bend. If I get the next engine up to around 230-240bhp then I'd be able to do this easily!! Plus looking at loosing more weight out the chassis too!!