Friday, February 12, 2010

How Many Engine options does one really need???

Today's post features one of the things that are foreign to us as we venture into full blown Honda ownership. Engine selection and the plethora of options available to us.  

Back in the old days, we had 2 tried and true motor options for our VW... the 1.6L (mouse) and the 1.8L (Mule). People had played around with limited or no success with the 2.0L motors, so all of us VW guys ran one of these 2 motors. 8 valve versions of course as back then, 4 valve heads were not legal, we all ran a Holley 350 carb (F.I. wasn't legal then either) and the only computers near the car were when it was at the shop and somebody was playing Solitaire on the desktop PC in the office.

Now, as you know we have a Honda. Here are the Honda Motor options:

  • B-series

        •  

        Yeah... you can see that this is a little more confusing than before. In layman's terms, it's like this.  

        VW Motor build: Find a junkyard living motor, build a stout bottom end, work over head(port, polish, valve grind, cam, etc.), fine tune carb, add MSD, install and go!

        Honda Motor build: Spend a gazillion hours on the Internet and phone figuring out best powerplant to start with, More hours on Internet sourcing internal parts to fit said motor, Install parts, Install bigger cams and better valve springs which cost much more than their VW counterparts(Note: No porting and polishing allowed!on the twin cam cars!), Rewire harness to remove unnecessary stuff, install motor, reconnect wiring harness correctly, cross fingers and hope car starts, take to dyno and tune computer -OR- transplant in a JDM(Japanese Domestic Market) low mile used engine/computer/transmission, leave it relatively untouched (which still is a pain in the butt) and go!

        Of course, You also have to decide, V-tec or Non V-tec, Single or Twin cam, Hydraulic or Cable clutch...

        I think between LaCrash and I, our collective heads are going to explode soon from the sheer volume of information we have to process. We have approx. 4 weeks until 1st practice and there is still so much to do, I don't know what to tackle first, but rest assured, come race day, we will be there and ready to do battle in the BEST Mini Stock class in the NW.

        By The Way, it's also time once again to remind everyone that if you are interested in Marketing Opportunities with Team LaCross, we would love to talk to you. Marketing with Team LaCross is a great way to reach thousands of potential customers not only in the Seattle area, but statewide as we plan on trying to make a few out of town races as well this season.  Click the link on the right hand side of this page to send us a message or e-mail with your contact information and we will be happy set up a meeting with you to discuss a Marketing Partnership with Team LaCross.



    Posted by at

    No comments:

    Post a Comment

    Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)