Turbo Mini-Me

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A close college friend of mine has a beat 5.0 stang. With junk yard parts his car could beat my gsr swapped hatch in the quarter mile. He got 3.73 gears, the heads, and intake manifold off a 90's explorer. Added a home made intake, home made exhaust, used pacesetter headers and pumped the timing. With bald street tires he ran a 13.5. My gsr hatch was at best in the low 14's. Now if we started from a 40 mph roll I could smoke him.
 
Oddly enough I can take my Camaro apart with a 10mm socket and some allen wrenches. After the 80s GM went mostly metric.
 
A close college friend of mine has a beat 5.0 stang. With junk yard parts his car could beat my gsr swapped hatch in the quarter mile. He got 3.73 gears, the heads, and intake manifold off a 90's explorer. Added a home made intake, home made exhaust, used pacesetter headers and pumped the timing. With bald street tires he ran a 13.5. My gsr hatch was at best in the low 14's. Now if we started from a 40 mph roll I could smoke him.
Thats what Ive seen on YouTube, the Mustang gets the jump but the B16 CRX would take over in the end.
 
What do used heads do? Better flowing ones from a V8 Explorer?
No, Edlebrock, AFR, whoever. Stock 5.0 heads suck. Get some cheap (couple hundred bucks) aftermarket ones off eBay or at a swap meet, throw in a used cam (another hundred or so) from the same places and its no competition. Im just re-iterating; Unless you're willing/able to shell out the big bucks or somehow else have the means, a Honda is just waaaaay harder to make "fast." Thats why I'll just enjoy my Si as it is power wise and focus on the Camaro.
 

not that I condone street racing, but those looked pretty good races. Further, it appears to me from the sound (and I could be wrong) but the Mustang sounds like an auto, while the other car is a standard. An auto-tragic fox w/that AOD w/out the benefit of the aod-shuffle (also known as shifting from 1st to D back to 1st in an effort to get 2'd gear) will lose every time to another similarly matched car w/a standard. Drive line loss is a mother.

That said I'd like to know the mods of the two cars in the vids.

No, Edlebrock, AFR, whoever. Stock 5.0 heads suck. Get some cheap (couple hundred bucks) aftermarket ones off eBay or at a swap meet, throw in a used cam (another hundred or so) from the same places and its no competition. Im just re-iterating; Unless you're willing/able to shell out the big bucks or somehow else have the means, a Honda is just waaaaay harder to make "fast." Thats why I'll just enjoy my Si as it is power wise and focus on the Camaro.

While I wouldn't go so far as to say the stock 5.0 heads sucked (they were and still are above and beyond some other manufacturers stock heads) they did/do have their limitations. Edelbrock, Air Flow Research (afr) Twisted Wedge etc. heads are great but they mostly (if only now a days) deal w/aluminum heads. EXPENSIVE unless you run up on one helluva deal on them. World Products and the like who still deal in IRON heads are what I'd be recommending for a cheap head.

I don't have a fast honda, (hell its not even quick yet but gets GR8 mpg) so I don't know just how difficult making them fast can be, but from what I've seen/read/researched, it takes a bit more finesse to get these engines to respond well for less money.

I'd like to see what the little d16 in my hatch could do, but something tells me it'd be like building a 305 motor. Sure you can get some performance out of it, but dollar for dollar spent you'd come out better starting off w/a 350. I used to believe there was no replacement for displacement, however recently I've discovered there is... and its measured in .psi
 
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The thing is, a swapped honda civic/crx is overall a better car than some junkyard built mustang. I could flog my civic all day, still get over 30 mpg highway, and not worry about a thing. He enjoyed well under 20 mpg, and constantly was having issues with his t5 trans and messing up his valvetrain.
 
Thats why I have a Camaro. :ph34r: And a DD Honda.
 
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Interesting... I didn't know that. That include the C5 Corvette? I was considering that when I bought the S2000.
 
For the most part. Like I said, a 10mm socket is what I used most on the Camaro. Same held true for my brothers fourth gen TA. I believe my dads 02 Tahoe was the same way. So a C5 wouldn't be far fetched either.
 
Thread is open again.

One of the mechanics at work has 2 Dodge Caravan 2.5L turbos. Oil lubricated and water cooled. Both of them were off low mileage motors because he stored them from core motors years ago. Good turbo to use?
 
Not sure, but probably if you crank up the boost a bit. Go see if you can find a compressor map for the turbo- I'm sure there are plenty posted up online since those turbos were popular for junkyard setups for a while.
 
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