Building a Racer to beat a Honda CRX - Options?

[nocones77-vw at yahoo.com (nocones77-vw@yahoo.com)]

I'm not sure why everyone on this thread is focusing so much on peak power.

In order to really answer your question, you'd need to tell us what sanctioning body and class you're talking about. Or at least give us more info than just what you can do to the engine.

You won't make 100+whp on a 1.6 or 1.7. But what kind of torqe do the Hondas put out compared to a properly prepped 1.7 VW? What kind of gearing options do you have? How much weight can you lose? Can you change weight distribution? What about the #1 most important thing: suspension?

Without knowing anything at all about your class rules, I'd have to say that in order to keep up with a CRX, you need to be significantly lighter, or make significantly more power, or be able to completely re-engineer the suspension. For a tiny little FWD econo-box, the CRX makes a pretty damn good race car. Low, wide, short, and light, with a true double-wishbone suspension...not to mention cheap!

Neal

----- Original Message ----
From: Cory Langford <Cory_Langford@bcit.ca>
To: Scirocco List <scirocco-l@scirocco.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 12:10:59 PM
Subject: Building a Racer to beat a Honda CRX - Options?













After doing some nosing around, it seems the class that a mk1 (or mk2) roc

would end up in at the local track is dominated by 90s Honda CRX's with the

1.5L 16V engines.



They seem to be putting out about 108-110 HP with legal mods and weigh in

around 2000 Lbs.  Internet lists the torque from the factory at 90 Ft-lbs

at 4500 RPM.



The local track is short and full of corners. It is far from a high speed

track, there is only one real straight section and it is not that long.  So

a quick point and shoot style setup seems to be the way to go.



I figured a high torque car would be better than a masive HP beast.  So the

question remains, can a Roc be designed to out class the 0.06 HP/Lbs crx?



Class is limited to 1750cc, so the 1.7L from a mk1 or early mk2 works

great.  BUT: the 75HP it comes with stock might get bumped to 80 with legal

mods (still invstigating) and the curb weight for a mk1 roc is around 2000

Lbs as well is it not?



That puts the roc at only 0.04 HP/Lbs, what I am hoping for is to get a

whole lot more torque out of the engine to pull out of the corners.



Just looking for ideas :)



Cory
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