japanese pride in vehicle and in driver ability is something i agree with. who cares if you have mad HP? i saw a 68 camaro completely incapable of sub 11s in the quarter mile. why? TOOO much HP. it literally was spinning in 4th gear on 11" wide tires and with a 3.25:1 rear end and 1:1 4th gear. the japanese see this, and they find more creative things to do than make outrageous HP claims. ATESSA ETS, super hicas, subaru (yeah give it up to the AWD purists) and all things truly useful (like clip on air fresheners, and hi-chew!)

driver ability is way more impressive to me. 500hp is 500hp no matter what car it is in, but if the driver can't win the race he/she can't claim anything.

Agreed with the 2 posts above me. :thumb:

racing:
2000+ horses in a straight line
900 horses in a circle
450 horses under deadly conditions
250 horses sideways.

who's the best driver? who cares, it takes skill to do any of these

top fuel dragsters have 5 clutches, 3 of which burn after one run. it takes a while to get basically one pedal right.

nascar is laughed at for only being able to turn left. well when you do it that much your mind strains from repetition, and it sometimes is a battle of wits.

in rally you drive by faith. theres a rally saying: "in nascar you see one turn 1000 times, in rally you see 1000 turns once."

drifting is a beast of its own, where going where your car is pointed is NOT the object of the game. not everyone can hold a car sideways, but then again some cant even hold it straight.

driver skill > car

I think it is becoming the new integra or civic no matter how much you don't want to believe. Drifting coming into the mainstream is making 240s a hot commodity. Not just 240s but also any other RWD cars. There's a lot of people-not just the young crowd- that want a 240 or a hachi just because of what they read on magazines or watch on tv/video or because of NFSU. Look at all the domestic RWD cars that are coming out of the woodwork-mustangs, camaros, etc. I think that the theft rate for our cars will go up because of drifting. Like stated before,all these people that buy a 240 and think they're drifters right away just makes parts more readily available to us. I'm sure the corolla owners feel the same way we do about this subject. There was this kid that drove a corolla in my old neighborhood and everytime he would drive by(and I was outside working on cars) he would rev-he would never nod his head or put up a peace sign to say whats up. What I'm trying to say is that no matter what car it is.....there's always gonna be ricers. It's the ones that think they NEED an SR to drift or that they need a lot of HP to slide. Such is not the case(daihatsu in D1-go search it).
It's on the attitude of the driver. That's basically what I didn't like about hondas-even though I used to own a honda accord. I didn't like the attitudes of the majority of the drivers. They pull up to you and rev...always wanting to race. I just laugh at them and let them floor it once the light turned green-what a waste of gas I thought lol. They were COOL though!:nono: I see that happening with any cars. They hear your exhaust or see that your car is slightly moded and they initially want to race. I never really saw the point in street racing while there's traffic. On the 1/4mile, yeah it takes skill to quick shift, but how do I know the person can actually "drive?" I don't like the fact that people try to slide on the streets in the daytime either. Go to a mountain or open lot at night and do that.
Reason why I owned a honda accord=didn't want a civic or an integra. First love was a 1990 300zx that I saw at the nissan dealership when I was 10 while helping my dad clean the shop(he helped a friend do janitorial job). When I had a decent job, back in '98(19yrs old) I knew that the Z was out of my league, so I looked for another car. I wanted something that was 94 and up that was in my price range. My resources were scarce(dial up connection and newbie to the net world) and took me a year to finally find a car. Loved the '95 240sx and it was only a few years old but it was just above my set budget. Had I known I'd get a big raise years down the road at my work, I would've gotten it back then. Buying the Z compensated for that, however. Put over 22k in about eight months on the Z and wanted a daily driver, so I bought what I have now-'89 240sx fb.
SO, if you do work on your car or anyones car, have pride in your car, do a lot of research to gain knowledge about cars/car parts, a true enthusiast.....then much respect to you. Sorry for the long post :ugh:

naptime:

:werd:

im glad that people know the diff between hating hondas and hating honda drivers. its not that we hate the cars, only what people do with them and to them. :thumb:

darren337: so,so true.....

It's interesting reading your responses and although I didn't read all of them due to my lazyness I have a couple of things to add.

To people like us, autos/cars are what you make of them, they are just palette for us to paint on. Some care for the simplistic more modern art where the cars are more focused on engine adding simple body touch ups and some people, who we knock on, are in it for flash regardless of how fast their car is. The 240 is a car that to me most resmebles a blank canvas in which we get to do whatever we want with relative ease, in this regard it is much like the honda. And I should really stress this, as a car lover/tuner enthusiast you really can't bash Honda. There is just no two ways about it, they are an amazing car company. Their cars are some of the longest lasting most reliable cars on the face of the earth. And just like the b16/18 swap into the civic was all the rage, now so the 240 takes its place with an upgrade in terms of turbo/RWD which any sports car enthusiast would enjoy.

I wouldn't be so worried about people ricing out their 240's giving us a bad name, each car is different and I've seen riced out RX7's and supras to no end. The thing is your 240 is your 240 and thats it, it can be a drifter/showcar/dragger/sleeper/highway racer but in any case it will be different from mine and then next guy who posts. Deep down we all have a little flash in us that comes out in different mediums. I know I was and always will be influenced by the subtle style of the European automotive styling where clean lines and very minor additions make one sexy car.

As for drifting and racing and all that stuff, it really doesnt matter what I bought my car for, I for bought it for me and I bought it for fun. I had a true blue race car and I'm in school now so I'm a little bit poorer and little bit more in need of practicality. There's no need to worry about ricers and all that crap as long as you are happy with what you got. Everyone started pretty much the same and that's what matters, not where we all ended up. Your car has a million HP? cool man nice job. Your car has flashing yellow lights on the hood? Hey that's great, good luck with that. Don't be worried with how other people view you or what you do with your car. To be honest I've been invited to numerous tuner shows to cover and I can't even tell you how insane some of the thigns we see are. If the shows were all full of what people thought were cool and not riced out, no one would win cause all the cars look the same. Everyone makes fun of the person trying to be innovative and its always that person who is remembered for starting something new.


The Japan scene going N/A and all that is just a prime example of art imitating life imitating art. We try to imitate them and they try and imitate us back and every once in a while you get someone who does something totally new and we all have a new boat to jump on.

Soo all in all even if the 240 is now being considered the new intergra or civic, so what, our cars are reliable, they can be made fast with a few simple steps and damnit it saves me a crapload on insurance as compared to my old car.

my .02

ghetto: werd

ghettostamps: i agree with you 99%. my only disagreement is the honda bash.i dont bash hondas because they are a great brand... reliable, solid, while vanilla at times, they get the job done. but i want to note something: honda motors have so many aftermarket internals for their engine available.

why? their motors are pushed much closer to their structural limits at the factory, meaning to upgrade means to rebuild. older nissan motors can go a while before internals NEED to be swapped.

currently greddy has a bolt on twin turbo kit for the VQ35DE. BUT they can only push it to 350-375HP, because 400 is the structural limit of the rods. an even better motor example is Volkswagen's AEG motor, which is their bread and butter 2.0L inline-4. yeah, thats very euro of me, but i dont know too many other engines that can have a super bolted on with 5psi of boost, WITHOUT needing lower compression, or upgraded anything.

still tho, honda makes some good cars, great motors, and because of that super large aftermarket parts catalog, they can do just about anything, and be just about anything you make them out to be.

^ yea... just like what you guys have said.....i agree.

hondas are great cars and all, but its the fact that what the drivers do to them...

and just like what my mr2 friend told me....i dont consider civics as sporty cars unless they have upgraded the engine(engine swap i mean) and have all disc brakes... :)

You make a very good point, so I guess the question now would be to ask is it better for a car company to push the limits of their car at the facotry or let the consumer do it? And in doing so would we give up reliability and so forth.

And not to be an ass but I used to have a GTI and used to be part of the whole VW scene in NY, and one of the first things while trying to boost your car, 2.0 or VR6 is to lower the compression, they come stock at 12:1 IIRC or at least the VR6's do.

i would think car companies would be better off if they provided options. what if you wanted a brand new car, but were planning on changing the exhaust? the car dealerships could add $500 to the price tag, and being a large company, they can make a killing off that (buy in bulk). i thin ka lot of consumers would jump on that. the exhausts are legal, so there's not much of a reason not to do it ... if you don't like it, just get stock.

dj radam:
one of the better examples of factory options was the the corolla. the difference between 2 of the 4A- engine series was simply a different thickness gasket to drop or raise compression. its sad that they dont still do this, but they market to the most common consumer, which is generally an idiot who doesnt change his oil unless a service note comes from the dealership, or the motor blows, then he beligerrently wonders "what happened, why did it break?" we suffer for the greater good of idiots.

ghettostamps:
yeah, the VR6 is a 12:1 engine, but the AEG 2.0 is only 10:1. the bottom end on these engines are built bulletproof, which is why finding aftermarket internals is rare for a veedub, and mainly all you find is hotter cams.

http://eurotuner.com/techarticles/23618/

just read the last paragraph which talks about the current (soon to be previous) generation of 2.0L motor. i would think that neuspeed knows his ****, and this isnt a HUGE mod, but my main point was that a similar percentage gain in horsepower from a honda motor requires at least hotter cams because of the internals being closer to structural limit from factory

Ghettostamps: :thumb: You've only got 10 posts at this point but damn have you made use of them!! Also it's sweet to have another tuner out there with the same views!!