Raced My Friends Rice Burner, 95 Civic EX Options

[CupCrazy38]

Well, my friend has a rice burner. Bought his 95 Civic EX for $8,500 and has been modding it ever since. Performance wise, he's got headers, short ram intake, exhaust, SOHC V-Tech(economy, not performance V-Tech), and a few other stuff.

Well, off setting that is the fact that he's got this huge, heavy wing, 2 12"s in the trunk, 17" rims, and for the first 10 runs he had a friend with him....

I have my ST w/no mods and 1 10" in the back trunk.

Most of the time I'd beat him off the line, and we'd be even through second, yet I'd pull away in 3rd for some reason.

Well, we raced a total of 12 times, 10 of them he had a passenger, and the last 2 I had one.

Even with the passenger, and him alone I would pull away in 3rd gear.

The races were from a dead stop to 65-80 mph depending on the speed limit and what part of town.

My question is, my friend has been dring his car for 3-4 years now, and he would have really crappy launches and he sucks at shifting. When asked, he says his car is pushing 200 hp..... and I had a friend G-tech my car and it said I have 90-95 at the wheels. While not completely accurate, it did help me in improving my 60ft times and 1/8th times drastically...

Would all that extra heavey crap be enough to offset what performance mods he had to make our cars equal? Or was it just his shifting that caused him to loose every race? He's been bragging for about a year about how fast his car is but he wold never race.... now I see why.

This post has been edited by CupCrazy38: Dec 29, 2003 - 11:25 AM

[boosted_K2]

ya even though it may not seem like it, driver is a HUGE factor, if he is as horrible as you say he is, that alone can change alot, bad launches and not sticking in the powerband, missed shifts, stuff like that can cause around a 3-4 car length difference or more if it was severe enough. but yea i too highly doubt hes putting 200 HP down. although as you said the G-tech pro is not 100% accurate they are a very good gauge to see what kind of range you are in. 90-95HP sounds exactly where you should be... did you happen to mention to him that his 200HP car got beat by one with 90-95HP? hehehe. also drag may have had a factor from his stupid wing... but i think that race was too short to make a big enough difference... and although hes got all that extra stuff, i think civics are a bit lighter than the celicas, so that probably evened it out more than anything.

and by how you were explaining it, it sounds like he'd shift out of the powerband everytime going to 3rd gear, one of the things i noticed with my 97 ST was that 2nd gear is the prime one for pulling on people, then to me it seemed like 3rd gear would just die... so if that is the one you pulled on him in, its probably something he was doing.