stmotorsports
Senior Member
Quoted post[/post]]
holy old thread batman!
I would however like to see pics of a 4wd civic and/or teg- specifically the underside and/or suspension, etc- anything that would be different to accomodate the 4wd setup
I still say IF you could build a rwd/awd Honda AND really do it justice it would be crazy sweet, if nothing else just for the uber-rareness of that type of build and super coolness factor BUT ONLY if you could do it justice and put the required amount of time, resources and $$ into it- SOLID ENGINEERING & FABRICATING, decent hp/tq/gearing, decent driveline buildup, etc...
those idiots that built that "awd" integra in that Honda Tuning series had no fucking clue what the hell they were doing- they supposedly took the crv rear end all apart and just sat there and stared at the guts for like hours with no clue of what the hell they were looking at or how to get it to do what they wanted it to do so they just started welding the center and rear differentials solid to eliminate any differentiation between front/rear and rear left/right. Then on top of that they went and put different size tires front/rear and were like- "oh this thing sucks cause it's making all kinds of weird noises and its handles all squirrelly...". First of all, anybody who is not a complete retard knows that you don't go putting offset diameter tires on any fulltime awd vehicle unless you want to burn shit up and/or break shit in short order. Let alone a vehicle with solid welded center and rear diffs- that's essentially like the front of the car trying to outrun the rear, or vice-versa which is even worse. You're just begging to seriously fuck shit up and/or crash and probably kill yourself. Secondly, of course the goddam thing handled squirrelly, anyone that has ever driven a drag car with a spool or welded diff or even a locker will tell you it's not for turning. Like not at all. So trying to build an awd street/track performance car with welded center and rear diffs would be like trying to road course race an old full-time 4wd truck with a full-time locked transfer case and locking rear end.
Again, if one were to actually try and do it justice and do it up right I'll bet the results wouldn't be so bad. All you would really have to do to bypass the 'realtime 4wd' stuff would be instead of solid welding the center diff, just permanently preload the clutches so as to keep the rear drive engaged yet still allow for some amount of slippage between front/rear. Back when I was looking into possibly trying this I even came up with a servo motor setup in the center diff that would allow the driver to adjust the clutch preload on the fly- kindof like the sti front/rear bias switch. Also, since the front crv diff is different from normal b-series diffs (how much different I'm not exactly sure, never looked that far into it), and the rear crv diff I've been told is supposedly close to a miata diff, with the proper resources (mostly $$) I'm sure one could probably have existing aftermarket lsd units modified/machined to work or custom ones made so you would end up with true lsd's front AND rear along with a viscous clutch between front/rear kinda like a subie.
IF someone were to go thru all this, the end result- no it still wouldn't technically be true awd because due to the nature of the design of the driveline, there is no way to allow for actual differentiation between front and rear. It would end up being fulltime front wheel drive with fulltime viscous clutched rear assist. Which probably wouldn't be so bad for autox or road/course racing imo, you would always have the same amount of drive at the front wheels so I would think chassis balance & handling would probably be reasonably predictable as opposed to some of the 'true' awd cars that tend to constantly hunt for torque split between front to rear, causing it to sometimes act more like a fwd car and sometimes more like a rwd car depending on individual wheel slippage during split-second maneuvering. But as far as making a drag racer out of it and putting higher power levels to the rear setup, probably a bad idea as previously mentioned by others.
Would it be worth it going thru ALL that work and spending all the necessary time, thought, labor, $$, etc just to add all the additional rwd stuff to a car as opposed to just keeping the car fwd with lsd? Of course not. But then again, I've seen people waste a LOT more time and $$ on other shit that ends up being even less worth it. Like being with a girl for almost 6 yrs of your life, spending every available minute of every day with her, buying her a $3k+ engagement ring, etc only to have her leave you just like that for some other guy. Worth it? Fuck no. All that time and $$ wasted, I could have been driving a sick awd civic by now.
But I suppose if you were bored and had loads of disposable $$ and/or solid fabricating skills and resources, then why the hell not...
