39 replies to this topic

[Jobu]

There was a B16 Type R. It was the 'B16B' exactly the same as the B18 Type R engine but not stroked..

I think the B16B was about 185 BHP. The EK Civic Type R wasnt availible in the UK but some were imported, but your not allowed to import them anymore...... So few were imported they're like gold dust.

And i want one!

Josh

[Jammy]

Ahhh, I did wonder about the B16 Typr R.

How come your not allowed to import the Type R Civics anymore? :'(

[Jobu]

Not sure why you cant import the EK Civic Type R anymore, something to do with the year of the car or something. I did email a couple of UK based Japanese car importers, but they didnt seem to answer why!

Shame really because i think they're really nice, and would have one anyday!

There was a Japanese car breakers posted on 16V Mini Club that were breaking a couple. Not sure if they were imported especially or ones that had been smashed up in the UK. Probably ones that have been smashed up in the UK if you cant import them anymore.

Does seem strange though, i would still like to know why you cant import them anymore? :'(

Josh

[justkitteh]

Yip, thats the K20 Type R, rated at 200 bhp, Z Cars will then remap it (if you pay for their mapping system), they told me to expect 220-230bhp, but that was when I was talking to them about the front engined kit. They also told me it would be 2.5k for them to source the engine.

If your looking at the a 165bhp 4A-GE engine then look into the B16, IMO a slightly better engine, similar power, and would probably be easier for them to adapt the kit for this engine.

Slightly better, I don't think so, but you can get a Blacktop front clip with a 6 speed for $1500-2000, where as the B16 is like $3000 for just the engine and maybe the tranny, but no woring... Dials + wiring + ECU would probably cost abother $1k or so... Might as well get the new motor from ZCars at that point.

It might just be the noise of the Blacktop, but i think its the best 1.6 N/A ever.

http://www.20vmki.co.../firstrun6k.wav

MK1 MR2 with a Black top taking it up to 6000rpm, it redlines at ~8.3k. Tell me that didnt bring impure thoughts to mind.

[Jammy]

Ahhh, I was just talking about the stock B16, the 1.6 Vtec, not the Type R. The standard Vtec has 150/160 bhp and reline at 8k. I picked mine up (with everything for a conversion) for £250 (about $450), but the mostly go for about (£400-600). What more its pretty easy to get them close to 200bhp.

Funnily enough I've just bought a Mk1 MR2!

[z cars chris]

ok you guys
the civic type R kits are now being sold and we have a fully built demo car which weve started using,its taken us longer than we thought to do it as we built two demo cars and a new workshop in between
we havent posted times on purpose because i dont want to say something that we cant do
we went drag racing the other day and the times are now available from that
steel bodied type R demo did 0 to 60 in 3.25 seconds
12.5 standing quarter
it will pull third gear out of the traps no problem and was running yokohama a539 road tyres
one of my welders was driving it and he has never raced before, his reaction times were .8 of a second so he lost a bit there however it is a good measure of what an ordinary customer can acheive in a true road car
the bike engined monte carlo did 11.4 seconds
times were recorded at york dragway with no drag race sticky stuff on the startline
ive driven all the bike engined cars for several years now and would say that although they could be driven daily i would expect that most of our customers would treat them as a second car
theres a lot of so called experts out there who profess to know about building cars and bike engined cars in particular
in the past ten years we have built over 800 bike powered race and road cars, they are DIFFERENT to a car engined car,they perform in a different way and when you get into driving them the way they like to be driven they are extremely rewarding
there is no substitute for how immediate the response of a bike engine is any driver inputs to throttle brake or gearchange are instant the sound is incrediable and we get very little trouble with the engines gearboxes and clutches,that doesnt mean to say you cant break them you can,but they will stand lots more abuse than an a series and give a vastly superior power output per pound spent
i demo the cars to prople week in week out and without fail everyone is amazed at how they drive
both the R1 and hyabusa will take full throttle in 6th gear at 28mph and pull without juddering all the way to the redline
they will trickle along in traffic in low gears and yes you can stall them but you have all stalled your normal road cars on occasion if you havent then you must be driving an automatic
i am a fully comitted bike engined car nut and proud of it i just love the things for how mental they are
would i use one every day that would depend on what i needed it for there are pros and cons to everything in life im quite at home with the bike engined cars and have been for the last 15 years
the honda civic kit has thrown a big big spanner in the works and im starting to love it in the same way
ive done about ten demos in it now and had two track days at oulton park
we are messing with final spring rates and anti roll bar settings
first thing it does is lap after lap it runs at 90 degrees no fuss at all
you can set off in third gear just like its first at junctions etc
when the v tec kicks in it howls all the way to 9000 rpm where its doing 154 mph,yes 154 mph
we have mapped the v tec to come in at 3000 rpm so it has better torque all the way through the rev range not like the std honda e c u
just for the record std honda has 145 lb ft and 200 bhp at 5800 rpm
ours has 185 lb ft from 4000 rpm and 230 bhp
the car weighs 650 kilos fully built soundproofed and with 6 gallons of fuel on board
weight distribution is 58rear 42 front
this has resulted in massive rear end grip and contrary to what you might expect it rips round corners as fast as the bike engined cars blasting down the next straight with no wheelspin
the other benefit of the extra weight over the rear is that the back discs give even more to the overall braking effect on the car you can just stand on the anchors at the last miniute and it stops in a straight line,it doesnt even get out of shape if you change down as you brake and lock the back wheels with the engine braking(something id forgotted happened due to driving bike engined cars for years)
if any of you are sceptical i will gladly show you on a demo everything the car can do
in short there is a place for bike cars and a place for the v tec version, it comes down to customer choice now,before you could have the various front wheel drive conversions we then did the mid engined bike which suited enough people who wanted that and will still suit some people
the v tec will suit a different customer
one thing is for certain we havent stopped developing things a z cars and we never will watch this space
chris

[markrally]

Well that just about sums it up
I do intend using my Busa mini on the road but i wouldnt go shopping to tescos in it, i know it will be loud but thats why i built it after a demo ride.
I still havnt had a demo ride in the honda mini yet but time will tell...........

Cheers

[dean_chad]

everyone who has been in the demo willl tell you it is like nothing else.

its nice to see a company where the owner is so into what he does and will do anything for you as a customer

im not going to use mine everyday but as much as i dare! when i was in the demo it had just rolled over 20000 without any major fault and you can imagine it had been dogged all those miles. if you had the money i dont see why you could use it everyday but ear defenders are a must!

[Jammy]

Just got a couple of questions for you:

A lot of people on here always wonder what sort of top speed is possible in a mini due to its brick like aerodynamics. Have you actually got the Type R mini to 154mph, or is it a possible top speed due to the gearing?

Did you get that extra torque and power purely from mapping the engine, or have you modified the engine in other ways?

Are there any aspects of the Type R conversion that make it unsuitable for an everyday car?

And finally, how are you getting on with the front engined Vtec kit?

Keep up the good work!

[z cars chris]

in answer to your questions the theoretical top speed of the type R version was calculated be us before we ran it
based on top gear x diff ratio x tyre size with a maximum revs of 9000 rpm
the car has a digi dash fitted which picks up speed from the front wheel these are pretty accurate providing you programme them correctly
any way i reckoned that the top speed would be 153.9 mph at 9000 rpm
we went to bruntingthorpe for track and race car and bill sollis to drive the car, it had done 4 miles before we went there
bill drove it and came in saying that he thought it would be better if it had taller gearing as he had hit the rev limiter down the straight in his words "it just goes all the way in top till it hits the limiter"
i told him that the top speed was 154 mph at those revs and he couldnt get his head round it as he had been driving it along with one hand on the wheel
the trouble with bruntingthorpe is its 2 miles long and 500 yards wide so everything feels slower than it is
a look at the tell tale on the dash revealed 154 mph at 9010 rpm
until we get satellite timing gear on the car we will have to trust the dash and the maths but it feels strong all the way through the revs and a 12 second standing quarter with 120 mph plus terminal speeds tells its own story
tuning wise we have a bog std engine and box the trick bits are our own exhaust manifold and the hydra ECU,our tuning guy is richard bulmer who has worked for years with all the top rally teams honda touring cars etc etc using MOTEC engine management
he is a very unassuming chap who sorted out the systems on our twin engined kit cars and is in the final stages of doing the ultima system with us
he has vast amounts of experiance with the hondas and can find power and torque where no one else can
the hydra system is his own and as such he has a vested interes in getting the best from it
we have a further upgrade using throttle bodies which gives 255 bhp from a std engine and one of our autograss cars is running 401 bhp with a supercharger fitted to the std engine all are mapped and fitted with hydra management
cost of the system and loom is £1200
stainless exhaust £600
throttle bodies £587
all including vat
basically these v tec engines seem just about bomb proof they will accept ridiculous amounts of bolt on goodies and come back for more each time
if you had turned up ten years ago with a 255 bhp engine of 2 litre capacity normally aspirated in your car it would have cost £15 to £20k a honda v tec and gearbox from a crashed car will set you back £2350, bolt the bits to it and for the princly sum of £4737 you have got the same thing if you are unfortunate enough to kill the engine then all the tuning bits will bolt onto another doner engine and this time you wont need to buy a gearbox
fantastic
we have run a 255bhp version in autograss for the last 3 years the driver sits in 3rd gear on the start line at 9000 rpm and side steps the clutch he shares the car with my daughter who does exactly the same thing thats 10 starts a day for three years of racing
never broken a clutch still the same one
never broken a gearbox still original
never broken a drive shaft
the car pulls 88mph in third
we have cosworth,vauxhall,toyota,lexus engined cars racing in the same class none of them will do that,all of them have had serious amounts of cash spent on them to get the same power we have from the honda std
you canunderstand why we wanted to put them in the minis
the same grasstrack car has now had the supercharger fitted,no rebuild just bolt it on and see if it works
its done 8 meetings so far no problem and we are over the moon with it
we have just got the contract with the hydra man to develop the honda with a turbo kit and i will be turboing the monte carlo demo car later this year,that should be interesting
if you have any other questions just ask
chris

[Sprocket]

On to the general knowledge quiz

What was Honda originaly known for producing the best of, since the company was founded?

The correct answer consists of three words

[Bounce]

Honda. The Gods of N/A!

[danwebster]

Chris,

You may not remember but you took me and my brother out in one of your cars at curborough when we were filming the dvd. (my brothers is the green KAD engined mini)

What impressed me the most was the way they go in a straight line, I don't mean the performance, i mean when you accelerate they go in a straight line, and when you brake they go in a straight line. At the time I thought about selling my car to build one and I'm still contemplating it now, they're that good!

[Jammy]

On to the general knowledge quiz

What was Honda originaly known for producing the best of, since the company was founded?

The correct answer consists of three words

Quick guess: Petrol lawn mowers?


Chris: One last question. You say its a standard box, is it the standard FD? If so what tyre/wheel sizes you using on that, because it seems, with a 12 sec 1/4, your not having much of a traction problem? (Although I spose launching that car in 2nd or 3rd resolves most of that. Also, do you think the LSD helps out alot with that?

[Sprocket]

On to the general knowledge quiz

What was Honda originaly known for producing the best of, since the company was founded?

The correct answer consists of three words

Quick guess: Petrol lawn mowers?

Close but not quite

Internal Combustion Engine is the correct answer.

They were the first product Honda made as he seen there was no decent reliable engines available.