The reason they do it is because there is soooo much potentual there. 8 second hondas are not unheard of in the least. Blame the media though, because that is where these kids get these ideas of theres that their car can go fast. Dont blame Honda, blame the kids who tinker with things they do not understand.
The reason for body mods is because they are cheaper, and most kids can slap them on (although not aligned, shimmed, painted properly, or otherwise) so thats what they go for first.

Hell, right now, my 1991 fox that was my daily driver is now my project because I wanted a proper tune (Megasquirt), replaced the old 1.8 for a 2.0 (PG block to ABA(94), same counterflow 8v), and put a nice cam in there too (270*). The down side is the car has been sitting since june, and I have till the 8th of january to finish it (mom wants her garage space back). Is it being built properly, yes, is it taking more time than it should, yes (Im 150 miles away at school 9 months out of the year). Am I down to my last dime on it, yes. These are all reasons that the kids dont do things properly: Dont know what they are doing, Lack of Time, Lack of Money, and Lack of respondisbility. (1 and 4 I have, its 2 and 3 that are killing me) Its not going to be fast, but it is going to have more power than that junky lil 63 HP 1.8 had (I called it dangerously slow).

Anyway, my point is that dont give up on our generation, some of us still are worth something

 

Refreshing to read such candor. I've had 2 Civics (remember the CVCC?, put a Monza exhaust on it that rusted out in a year).

I see plenty of tacked on ricer body kits around here, but everyone seems to behave. I should video some of these, with the wind catching part of body and flapping it around like a bedsheet.

 

The normal procedure around here for the "ricer body kits" is to install the kit in grey primer, fill the seams with Bondo, and then drive around until the kit gets cracked or knocked loose, all without ever having smoothed out the filler or painting the kit to match the car.

I don't think I would ever install a fiberglass kit on a street car. Sure, you can get a lot more intricate details with fiberglass than with polyurethane, but one good smack on a curb or speedbump, and the fiberglass practically shatters.

 

Sometimes I think we as Cooper owners put our heads too high in the air at times. It's nothing wrong with modding a Civic. I've seen a number of Coopers running around here with a CR body, but they changed the bumpers out to black. I'm a firm believer that you should do something right the first go around. This is why my wife waited to have all the parts and money saved up to have her body kit installed....properly. Nope, you won't see any flapping in the wind from hers as they heavily braced it during the install. The molded sideskirts, finely smoothed. On a drive down to Panama City 2 weeks ago, I smacked her front end hard in a dip in the road. Some scratches, but no shattering. Like what was mentioned before, it's not always the kids. I can't tell you how many times I've had old men in Corvettes try and race. And lots not mention the Rustangs.

History repeats itself. Every so many decades, a new breed emerges. These teens that mod Civics and Sentras, etc. are no different than the guys that souped up their Chevys back in the '50s. The '80s had teens hooking up Fox body Must.....err Rustangs.

Remember, MINIs aren't perfect. If they were engineered better, they wouldn't have Tritec engines in them. Possibly something BMW built as to recycling Chrysler's stuff. They wouldn't have strut towers that failed, or Midland trannys going out at 5,000 miles. Make a note, an enthusist is an enthusist whether he or she drives a Civic, MINI, DeLorean, etc.

 

A good analogy Quarter horses were bred for exactly that ... a quarter of mile. Cowboy horses, I believe, to run down quickly those stray cows.

Thoroughbreds have always been bred for distance with the ultimate test being the Belmont Stakes for 3 year olds at a mile and a half. It interesting that if you watch a thoroughbred race and its and looks like the winning horse is pulling away from the field ... usually that is NOT true. Rather, the other horses are fading while the winner is fading less (unless your Secretariat, of course ... then you just beat the crap out of all the other horses).

You have a good analogy and maybe thats why exotic GTs are sometimes referred to a thoroughbreds

Yeah, but I dont think it was blatant like that post.

Your correct. I see nothing wrong with kids trying to make their cars faster. "Kids" have been hotrodding their cars since ... well I think the moonshiners did it first during prohibition to run away from the Law but latter picked up in the 1950s.

 

+1 you gotta use what you have

 

To put these numbers in perspective, Sabine Schmidt drove a diesel Ford van around the Ring in 10:08. 0-60 in 21 seconds. And how about 8:16 in a taxicab?

 

I'm not at all surprised that MINI wouldn't consider the Ring to be an "appropriate" track for the MINI. Looking at the layout, with several 1.5+ mile-long straightaways, it probably favours horsepower over handling. In fact, those straights are long enough for a car to bump up against an electronic speed governor, if so equipped. Even if the test cars don't have governors, a 200+ MPH supercar is going to be able to make up a LOT of ground on those straights compared to a car with a non-governed top speed of "only" 150 or so.

When I have a little more time, I'll do a curve-fitting analysis of laptimes versus horsepower and see how well they correlate, now that I've found sites that list a bunch of results.

Regardless, my response to the fact that a $35000 Honda Civic posted a lap time that's 1.5% faster than a JCW is still the same - yawn.

 

But that is just the point. A performance car needs to perform in both the corners and the straights. I quote:

"In total, the Nürburgring incorporated 172 corners - 84 right-handers and 88 left - and between them those corners included every conceivable combination of radius, camber and gradient. For its entire length, the circuit was 6.7 metres wide apart from the start-finish apron which was 20 metres wide and thus created a natural funnel with which to start every race. Almost every twist in the track was designed to test and challenge the best of the best"

"Greatest & most challenging race circuit in the world"
Jackie Stewart

http://nurburgring.org.uk/

172 corners is not a small amount. The track is meant to weed out the "Best of the Best"

Of course cars with higher top speed get better times ...

I think many people are convinced that road races are won in the corners but they are not. They are won in the straights. Its all about the fastest time and the only way to have the fastest time is to have the fastest car on the straights ...

Back when cars were on the Mulsanne Straight at Lemans, about 3 miles long, the GT40s were dominating. Porsche kicked their 917Ks up to 240/250 MPH JUST for the Mulsanne straights and walked away winners.

That said, the quicker you get around the corner at slow speeds, the quicker you get up to top speed so, of course, its also important to be able to corner quickly ... but only to get back up to top speed.

BTW. 1.5% over 14 miles is pretty big for only one lap.

In the long run, it doesn't matter what any of us "think" ... the fact remains that car makers take their cars their for testing (including MINI) because it is ... the ultimate test of a cars performance.

 

No - it isn't. The difference was eight seconds, on a course where the two cars were taking almost nine minutes to get around the track. The length of the track has no relevance, hence the "percent" part. If they had run two laps instead of one, or ten laps, the *percent* difference between the two cars would still have been the same - 1.5%

Unless you performed the runs multiple times and kept getting the same results within a second or two, there's no statistician in the world that would call that difference "significant".

The Civic R and the JCW have almost identical horsepower ratings, and their weights are probably in the same ballpark. So, it's no surprise that their times on the Ring are fairly similar. With the Honda costing $6-7k more than the JCW, I can't understand why your first post made it sound like the MINI should be ashamed they came in behind the Honda.

 

I meant significant if its a race. If it were a 12 or 24 hours race, the MINI is going to get lapped by the Honda ...

My first post? I said Why is it always the "tighter course thing"? There is a reason the RING is the ultimate test for road cars. A reason all the top automakers go there to test their
cars.

I said nothing about being ashamed of.

 

I've kind of gotten used to people (young and old) either reving their engines or attaching themselves to my rear bumper. I just put on my sunglasses, stare straight ahead and drive in a manner which hopefully will discourage them. Most of the time, when you totally ignore them, they go on...blowing smoke and tooting their own horns. But, there has been a time or two, that I've actually called the hwy patrol on a couple of men who insisted on tailgating and acting like they wanted to pass, but then would still stick like glue behind me. I think they were trying to be macho and intimating at the same time. Too bad they feel like that's the only way to get a woman's attention!!

 

For me, a quick "brake check" usually gets them to understand that they might be buying me a body kit if they run into the back of me. So many soccer moms around here do this in their minivans. Most of you won't agree with this, and that's fine. It's just what I do.

 

Howz about another 'take' on this . . .

Even after owning my MINI for almost 3 years, I still think people are way too close to my rear because THE CAR HAS NO REAR!!! I checked this once by parallel parking my car and backing up until I thought I was right up near the bumper of the car behind me, and when I got out to look, I still had 2 to 3 feet of space! That's not a lot of space when cars are moving in traffic, but those tailgaters may not be quite as close you think.

Or maybe they are. =o\

 

That is true !! Never thought of that.

 

I have a friend with a '92 civic....there is a group of 5/6 of us and we all make fun of him for his "ricer"(...don't get me wrong, they make fun of me too for having a mini. but i don't care i love my car!) he has a body kit, intake, and 4in coffee cans. it sounds bad, he has a misfire, and its a pos!! like most rice out there

 

As a 18 year old kid I may relate to people that drive these ricers. Just like any generation we try and turn the cars that we are given into hotrods. Back in the mid 1900's they just had cars that were a little bit cooler and had more potential. But I must say I laugh my a$$ off every time I see a cavailier with a giant wing and a body kit

 

Back in the 1900s? What was that like ancient history

 

He said MID 1900s, aka the 50's. Welcome to the early 21st century!