Import gurus....Fill me in on something

Ok, about a year ago I ran a Honda Prelude(No clue what model.) I had the 4.8L, handheld programmer, airaid intake. Fastest time back then was a "blazing" 15.4@87mph. :smokin: Anyway, on to the car. It was white with rims with removed hubcaps, no passenger seat/rear seat, and a nice size can out the back. He told my buddy while I was racing someone else he had a full jspec engine(I have no clue what that means), dc sports headers, skunk cam, stage 2 clutch, cold air intake, and an aluminumarrowspace alloy flywheel. From a roll, I spun and he smoked me. From a 30 roll, I hung pretty good for a while, then he pulled away from me a little.

Anyway, fast forward to the now. I hate bench racing as much as the next, but what do you guys think? He has some 17" rims now and a carbon fiber hood. No power adder of any kind. I just don't think he's in the 12s, based on how little he pulled me with the old 15 sec setup. I saw him riding around town the other day, but couldn't catch up with him to pick a race.
Think about it....the guy already thinks he has the race won, and he's one cocky SOB. With the exhaust closed, you really have no idea what's under the hood, so I figure I can sell the idea that I only installed headers and electric fans(the only two visually obvious upgrades from last year). I think I can ring him into running for $100. I'll be on my slicks, so traction won't be an issue for me.
It looked like he was running high 13s/low 14s last year. He hasn't had to add a power adder, because no one could beat him last year.(No one he would race, anyway.) Any chance I'm off on his times, and should I take his money? I was even thinking of giving him a car out of the hole, because I know from our dig race he isn't pulling 1.7 60ft times. Input please.

Well, if he's got nothing else done since then you've got the race in the bag I'd say.


Put money on it. ;)



Edit: GET VIDEO!

^Agreed. Make some money and put the cocky SOB in his place. Late...

I'm pretty J spec means it's the JDM (japanese domestic market) motor. I personally would put money on it..I doubt he's running 12s N/A.

Prsonally I would not put money on races since it can lead to all sorts of trouble. BTW if you do make sure a 3rd party holds all the money.

IMO the best thing to have decisive prrof you are faster, make a video as red said.

I own a Prelude myself, and I can tell you right now, theres no way he's doing 12's without something extremely major done to the car. You can get a Prelude into the high 13's relatively easy, but once you get into the mid/low 13's you'll hit a brick wall before you can even think about touching 12's. From a dig you'd take him pretty easy, since FF's have a hard time getting below a 2 second 60ft.

Thanks for the input, guys. I always travel with backup to a money race. I'm not worried about this guy in the least, though. He won't do anything when I do win the race. I had posted losing to this guy on another forum last year, so I'm definately getting video of the race. I'm also going to get a before race vid of his cocky a$$ and an after vid, when he might be a little humble. Stay tuned, because I'm going to try to make this happen soon. :biggrin:

I would really love to race him for his driver seat, so I could get video of me taking it out of his truck and putting it in the back of my truck. Now that would have "classic internet video" potential. :lol:

Ahhh. $100 is one thing. What if he's heard about your truck through someone? And he rigged up a whole bunch of nitrous just to beat you? And if you lost your truck. ahhhhh. I don't think you can add performance parts to a bus. :(

This is the one and only problem i see, when you pull up and he sees your car dont you think he is going to notice the slicks out back, now why in the hell would a 15 second truck be running slicks. I hope you get a video when you run him, i need some good racing footage.

Video! Video! Video!

man with a truck like yours, pushing as much muscle as yours I am surprised you're so worried about a Honda :grinno: You should beat him easily and even if he has a jdm engine and stripped interior, I don't see any prelude running 12's without some serious mods to the engine. good luck anyway.

I personally think he might be the one trying to take you. If your not going to tell him all the mods you have done since then, whose to say he is going to tell YOU if he has done any mods to the car since the first race. On paper, this looks like a no brainer. You should race him, beat him, and win a few extra bucks. I just have a feeling he may be trying to scam you just like your trying to scam him. Ask around town and try to get a little more info on the car. Just my opinion.

Rob

This is true. However, the lude would have to have some real mods to be running in the 12's. My opinion...smoke him. If he has the mentioned mods, plus one or two minor extras, you will wreck him.

There are two JDM spec H22s, the 93-95s come with 200hp, the 97-99s have 220hp.
Typically when I hear JDM spec H22, I think of the one that has 220hp, meaning it comes with an extra 20-60hp more than other preludes(depending on year and motor)
Then the JDM ECU adds another 5hp, if he has that.
Then he's got I/H/E, not all that much gain, let's say 15 at the crank to be conservative, so now he's got 220-240 at the crank.

But you mentioned a skunk 2 cam, and you don't know which it is, they have 2 or 3 stages of cams...and obviously the cam shows improved gains when paired with the better I/H/E.

Then he's got a light-weight flywheel which will allow him to rev faster and hit Vtec sooner...I know this isn't the end-all-be-all, but it is where his peak power is.

So you have no idea how well his car is tuned, it may have had 300hp or more at the crank, and it is light(even lighter now that it's gone on a diet)...and that was a year ago.
Who honestly doesn't buy a single mod for their car in over a year???

All in all, I agree with Rob and Neutrino, you don't know what he has, so betting might not be the best thing. I know your a damn fast truck, and I'm not suggesting his FWD prelude will be able to compete with a 11sec truck on slicks, but just don't underestimate your opponent. Best of luck though, and let us know how it turns out.

If I were the guy with the lude, I'd be REAL suspicious if a guy I beat in a race would come back wanting to run me again, this time for 100 clamshells...he'd have to be a complete moron to run you for any sort of cash prize...plus, if he asks you to pop the hood, will he know the difference between the 4.8L and the giant 6L? I dunno, I just don't think he'll bite.

I couldn't imagine him running 12's without the aid of forced induction or nitrous. I'll be surprised if he even wants to bet after he hears your truck, and sees slicks out back. I would think bigger 17" rims would only slow him down if he had smaller wheels before. The carbon fiber hood won't offset the weight of the new wheels.

I couldn't imagine him running 12's without the aid of forced induction or nitrous.


Look at Kris' thread 'Pictures of my Sleeper'. He's got an NA low 12s civic hatch. I'm not saying it's common...just possible.

well if he didnt beat u that bad back then when u were runnin 15.4s, then u can definitly beat him now.. and even if he notices the slicks or anything else just ran him to show that u can beat him now.

Ehh....I dunno, If he is willing to race you, knowing your mods, He might be really fast. I know most preludes don't run under 13 seconds, but with the right money and time, anything is possable...I would not bet on you, or him. Just race for fun.

heed the advice of others. You made the giant leap from 15's to what now looks to be 11's on the bottle and I somehow doubt if he was dedicated enough to racing to strip his interior and do all that work including a jdm swap that he would just stop there.

It isn't probable at all that his prelude will really be able to contend with your truck BUT I would ask to check out his engine first and if you see something like a front mount intercooler then he is running boost which would be the only way I could see him being able to compete with you at all
No Turbo? No Nitrous? Run him twice for $100 and treat yourself to an amazing night out.

I've done my homework on him alittle here lately. I actually eased by his car at the dorm today, and didn't see a front mount intercooler. My bud Tom also told me today that he rode beside him on the main strip, and a blow off valve was not audible visible between shifts. I'm really thinking his only additions to the car since we raced were the wheels and hood. He wasn't being beaten by anybody at the time last year, and he doesn't live here(he goes to college here and stays in the dorms). He got beat one time last year by a early model mustang with a slightly larger cam than stock. Nothing else was done to the stang, and I have since OWNED it bad.
The 4.8L and the 6.0L are all but identical to the eye. I still have the stock engine cover on the 6.0L, as well as the 4.8L engine sticker on the radiator shroud. Only "obvious" additions to the motor are the long tube headers and the electric fans. I can play off the "new sound" of the engine as being because of the headers/exhaust system. I do plan to pop my hood, and to get him to do the same before I throw any money down. I'm still not sure I can get him to bite for cash, but I know he'll be up for a run. I'm running BF Goodrich Drag radials on a set of rims that look like my everyday wheels, so I doubt he'll even notice them. This is going to happen any day now. I waited for him to show up around his car today, but I got tired of sitting there, and went to the shop to help Tom with his bag setup.
THERE WILL DEFINATELY BE VIDEO OF THIS RUN!!!! :iceslolan

Some of you guys have really gotten me worried about what I had originally though was a "sure" thing. :)

Well, I would lean heavily towards your truck in this race, but man, nothing is a sure thing. You never know when somethign is going to break or anything like that. One mess up on your part and he's all over you, lol.

I'm just saying don't go into it overrly confident.

Cheat. Get one of your buddies who he doesn't know to run him on the streets from a light. You know..like a random encounter. That'll tell you what he's got.

Cheat. Get one of your buddies who he doesn't know to run him on the streets from a light. You know..like a random encounter. That'll tell you what he's got.

Only problem is most of my friends are into the "bling" hype. Most of them are on BIG wheels, airbags, and of course I have some that are just plain oatmeal(sorry if any of them are reading this, but you know who you are. :lol: ). I could get my buddy to run him in his stock 30th Aniv Trans Am. Just a stock LS1, and I've handed him his butt a few times. :biggrin: I wish I was fast enough to take his Ninja 10, but that thing is stupid fast!!!! He puts all of his money into that thing!

In serious street racing I've seen guy's get hurt bad doing a setup or sharking on someone for money.
Here's how it works....
Car "A" beats car "B". You race car "B" and sandbag and lose. Now you know the difference between you and car "A". Now you bet car "A" money and smoke him. When he realizes what happened guess what. Same thing in pool and shaving points in football.
Now what we have here is you know how close it was the last time you raced this car and lost. Now this guy knows he can beat you but all the sudden you want to race for money. Now unless he's done some more trick stuff to he's car or he's stupid which has been pointed out in another post he should know that you've done something to your car knowing you can beat him. Now if he accepts your bet guess what?....you can bet your bottom dollar he's done some upgrades and real possible he'll smoke you, but if you feel lucky go for it. Myself I'd race him but wouldn't bet till you've done somework and found out what you can about him and the car.
If you were running on a level playing field, meaning both running the same class cars then I'd say go for it, but your not. If you had a Pro Street I'd say go for it, but you don't, so go out and have some fun and forget the money and enjoy a good time, and next year you two guys try it again.

get the guy i the LS-1 to run him depending how he hangs with the LS-1 you should be able to judge what hes done with the vehicle

Do it like this.
Have your friends LS1 run him.
See how well he does (If he'll run it)

Then go bragging about how you "Murdered the Ls1" and be sure to throw in that it looked like maybe he misshifted when you two raced.

See if he takes the bait that way ;)

Basically act sorta like a ricer, and you'll have no problems

Or just never say anything about ever having raced that LS1. Well, racing is a gamble...and to me $100 is alot of money..but it's not. So I'm not sure how you feel about that much money. I personally would put $100 down if I didn't see any obvious signs of mods.

Odd are heavily in your favor - what's with all the bench racing? You seem to want to find out EVERYTHING about his car before you run him, if you're that unsure of your truck you shouldn't bet him. That's what betting is all about - taking a chance. Just run him then come back and tell us how badly you beat him. Like everyone else said, sub 13 second Preludes are possible but not probable (if he can beat your truck I think he deserves $100).

Let him beat you. Leave. Call him up the next day and beg him to race you for $500. Own him. :) ....then run like hell while he and his buddies shoot at you and try to chase you down to kick your ass.

^^LOL...agreed!

Again we come back to weight. The average weight between years is about 2950lbs in stock form. Like what has been mentioned before, it is hard to get the preludes into 12's without boost.

i'm down for what dampachi said. or something like that anyways.

Heres my plan. run him more than once.

Run him the first time and have it be close.
Run him again and than lose
And than tell him that you think that you can take him if you get your shifts down. Then bring up money. He should bite considering that he beat you twice.

hmmmm 11 sec truck no spray....

a 12 second (yah right) prelude.... possibly spray

11<12....

why are you worried?

hmmmm 11 sec truck no spray....

a 12 second (yah right) prelude.... possibly spray

11<12....

why are you worried?

I'm not "too" worried about him. I just had a lack of experience with import cars, and I just like to get as much info as I can going into the race. I hate giving away my hard earned dollars because I didn't do my homework. :nono:
I've had my BF drag radials on for a week now trying to run into him, but no luck yet. We'll cross paths soon, but the truck is going under the knife Saturday(minor surgery- my stock posi just can't stay locked on a "hard" launch, so I bought an Eaton and will be putting it in Saturday). I'm going to the track in Hattiesburg Sunday for the big meet, and I really hope I can get 500 miles on it before I get there. I do need to give that rearend a proper break-in.