'99 Cavalier vs Ricer..(kinda long)

[dbartoschek]

OK.....so me and my buddy are crusin' back from the bar in my bone-stock '99 Cavalier. We pull up to some riced out 2-door civic coupe at a red light...i look over at his car and he looks back....he throws some revs....i throw some back....Light turns green and we're off. We both got good starts and i was about half a car ahead up to 50km/h....then i started pulling on him more once i hit 60km/h.....kept pulling until 80km/h, and then he started pulling me in, and passed me....we shut down at about 110km/h...since the speed limit on this road was 50km/h, but by this point he had close to 2 car lengths on me? What the hell could have happened? How are Civics compared to cavaliers? i always thought they were pretty even...i'm assuming all he had done was an exhaust........anyways...i pull beside him once we're slowed down, doing about 70km/h and give him the thumbs up and he just laughs.....then the next set of lights i put down my window to ask if he's done any work on his car..and he was like." How many car lengths do you want me to beat you by this time?" in a cocky ass voice....HATE THAT SHIT!!!!....i got a shitty start (wheel spin) so he smoked me.....then the next lights he's like..."oooooh, i'll give you a chance this time, and give you a head start!".....didn't race anymore after that though....I HATE COCKY ASS RICERS.

[DeViL]

More like he played you. Doesn't seem like a ricer to me you just lost.

[93EagleVisionTSi]

Sounds like you need to do some stuff to your Cavvy to prevent that kind of thing from happening in the future.

I would reduce the weight to start with...then go with an aspracing.com crankshaft pulley. I'm not sure if they make one for your Cav, but if you ask they probably can. At any rate, I would try that mod first...a lightweight crankshaft pulley...no matter who be makin' it.

About the weight issue...I would check this one out if I were you.
http://www.mustangworld.com/forums/s...threadid=22230

Please don't strip your Cav like that though. Moderation is okay. Just remember that it's GM and it deserves better.

[SilverLotus340R]

he didnt have a freaking no2 bottle did he

cuz then id laugh...cuz thats just dumb

obviosuly he must not have done anything else to the engine....

another All Show no Go

[Cbass]

Originally posted by 93EagleVisionTSi
Sounds like you need to do some stuff to your Cavvy to prevent that kind of thing from happening in the future.

I would reduce the weight to start with...then go with an aspracing.com crankshaft pulley. I'm not sure if they make one for your Cav, but if you ask they probably can. At any rate, I would try that mod first...a lightweight crankshaft pulley...no matter who be makin' it.

I'll point out, do all the bolt ons like cold air intakes, underdrive pulleys, spark plugs and air filters, you're not really making a difference. An engine works by pulling the most air possible through it. Then you have a fueling system that adds an appropriate level of fuel, to match that air.

There are two ways to get more power out of an engine, either give it more fuel/air, or make the existing combustion more efficient. Now something I hear a lot is "the type R engine is so efficient! It makes more than 100bhp/liter!". This is true, it is efficient, and it does make that specific output. No one seems to understand what makes it efficient, it's just "honda magic".

The B18C5 type R engine has 12:1 compression. Same static compression as a Hemi. HP is a calculation of RPM and torque. Want more HP? Move your torque band to higher RPMs and you'll get more horsepower. However, you'll sacrifice low end power, as in, that stuff you need at a stop light. Honda compensates for this with VTEC, which allows for more cam duration and less lift at lower RPMs. It is also a very oversquare engine, meaning the bore is much wider than the stroke is long, giving it better high rpm performance, but less low end torque.

This is about as efficient as you can make an engine, and still have it streetable(any power below 6000rpm, and running on pump gas). Therefore, the goal becomes getting more air in and out of that engine. This can be accomplished with better exhaust, which is the most common way. This leaves the cylinderhead as the bottleneck in the flow, as it probably was in the first place. Solution? Open up the ports, clean up any casting flash, and port match the manifolds to the head. This will drastically improve the flow of the engine, meaning? More fuel/air, more power.

Some factory intake manifolds are quite restrictive, such as any stock manifold from a 70s American V8. This would be the next bottleneck in the flow, and would need to be replaced, or at least ported as well. Porting a manifold can be much harder, as there is less room to work, and you can't really get into hard to reach places. It's usually a better idea just to replace it. Now you can make you decision of whether you want high RPM performance, or low end grunt. Long intake manifold runners will increase low end performance, at the expense of high end power, and vice versa.

Now that that is sorted out, you have an engine that breathes much better. Now you can add all those little bolt ons, and they might actually do some good. The right air intake tube can give you a small degree of play in your powerband, but not much. The main jump in efficiency comes from compression, and timing. The more you compress the fuel/air mixture, the harder it will push the piston down on the power stroke. Now you can select a cam which will suit the way you have built the engine. I'm not going to get into cam timing, because I'm not quite well versed enough in that to recommend the perfect cam for any given setup.

That's the low down, so you can spend all the money you want on bolt ons, and proudly list them in your sig, but they're not doing much, not nearly as much as they would if everything else was sorted out in your engine. Try to increase the airflow before increasing the efficiency, because,

1) That's the only way to get any considerable power increases.

2) You'll have to retune EVERYTHING to match the end result of the engine build, if you want it to be efficient at all.

This is assuming of course, that you really want a powerful engine, and you're not just a ricer who wants to flash his K&N air filter, and yellow spark plug wires. Thank you for reading this rant, I hope this educates some of the people on this board.

[dbartoschek]

Originally posted by DeViL
More like he played you. Doesn't seem like a ricer to me you just lost.

How does he not seem like a ricer to you? He's driving a Honda Civic with stickers all over it, and a huge ass fart can? I wasn't writing this because i lost....i wasn't expecting to smoke him, i have a stock Cavalier.... I was just expecting it to be close, and all of a sudden once i hit around 80km/h he just easily pulls me in and beats me? The whole point of this post was to see if Civics really have that much more top end power then a Cavalier, since i'm assuming his internals were pretty much stock, since i was beating him.....and the other reason for the post was just to bitch about stupid kids in Civics with stickers all over them, thinking they are all that.

[BlOOe46]

not speaking for anyone here, but . . .
i think what DeViL was trying to point out was that maybe this guy was playing with u up until the point he took u in, which would explain why he was able to do it so easily

i mean, come on, stock cav? noone is going to have too much of a problem taking one, even if it IS a rice burner

[dbartoschek]

He wasn't playing with me...trust me...his engine was screaming, he had it floored...

[Cyprus106]

Slugger, you just got beat? Typically, people stop talking shit after they've been beat. He had stickers all over his car and a hugeass fart can. He still beat you. Stickers or not. Cavaliers are not hard cars to beat. I'm not trying to be cocky or argumentative here, I've had my fair share of wons and losses but I've raced a few Cavaliers and haven't lost to any. I raced mt friends 99 Cav (stock.) He said since it was a Z24 it was somehow all-powerful or something. I won. 4 times in a row. I was nearly stock at that point. Cav's just don't have it in them I guess.

At any rate, just in case you didnt know for some reason, its typically best to stop talking shit after you've been owned. Granted, I can't stand people who are like that after a race either, but when you lose you lose.

[Cbass]

Cavaliers just aren't that fast, true, but they are a little quicker off the line than a base Civic.

Cyprus, you have to tell me though, where can you get these R1 seats for $150?

[DemonZX]

That guy was sand bagging hardcore!

[Cyprus106]

Cavaliers just aren't that fast, true, but they are a little quicker off the line than a base Civic.

Really? I don't want to disagree because I honestly don't know but that's kind of surprising. I didn't think they were quicker off the line...

[Cbass]

Well, it does depend on the year of the Civic and the year of the Cavalier. The difference is in the powerband, the 2.2 liter engine of the Cavalier has much more low end torque than the Civic, but also much less high end pulling power. The gearing is quite similar... A friend of mine is a Cavalier nut, so I hear this from him all the time

But seriously, please tell me about the seats! My passenger seat is moldy!

[Cyprus106]

CBass, You've got a new PM

[dbartoschek]

Originally posted by Cbass
Well, it does depend on the year of the Civic and the year of the Cavalier. The difference is in the powerband, the 2.2 liter engine of the Cavalier has much more low end torque than the Civic, but also much less high end pulling power. The gearing is quite similar... A friend of mine is a Cavalier nut, so I hear this from him all the time

But seriously, please tell me about the seats! My passenger seat is moldy!

Thank you! Finally, you answer what the original reason for the post was...