Honda – Car of the Day

America Gets Jipped

garythepowers — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 01:41:05 +0000

Sometimes I think Japan and Germany still have a mini-grudge against the USA because of how WWII turned out.

Japan’s Honda Motor Cars has a for a long time kept their very best Civic to themselves in the form of the Civic Type-R. Another hot rod Civic has been making the rounds as Honda thumbs its nose at America with the new Honda Civic Mugen RR.

The RR is Honda’s 237hp Civic that is nearly track-ready. Take a Honda Civic Type-R and let Mugen tune it and you end up with this little gem that the American car buying public will never get a chance to buy. Actually, no body is going to get a chance to buy the best Civic. The RR started its life sold out. There are only 300 of these confusing little cars. Confusing, because this car has a serious identity crisis. It is basically a full-on track car that started its life as an economy car.

And on the other end of the scale is another car that is making the rounds in the automotive test fleets and that is the Audi RS6. The Audi has more than twice the power and cylinders of the Civic. It is powered by a 571hp twin-turbocharged V10. Ahhh, I love the smell of overkill in the morning.

The meanest A6 has a conservative factory 0-60 estimate of 4.5 seconds. It will be faster than that.

There are no plans to bring this version of the Audi RS6 to the USA. Are the Germans still bitter? They actually plan to bring the next version of the RS6 to America in 2012, but a lot can change in 4 years. The one thing the RS6 isn’t, is a deal. This sedan is on sale right now in Germany for $126,000. That puts the RS6 in some rarified company, but it has the horsepower to back it up.

If you really want one of these cars I would suggest the one of the 1000 Honda Civic Mugen Si’s that came to America this year.

Or if you need a RS Audi sedan you can buy the 420hp Audi RS4.

You can read more about each of these cars at Inside Line.

Honda Civic Mugen RR

Audi RS6

Honda Civic Mugen Si Sedan

Audi RS4

600HP for $25k

garythepowers — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 23:37:07 +0000

So the 2006 GTO has resurfaced as my “Car of the Day”. (COTD) The 2006 GTO received the same 6.0 liter engine from the Corvette.

With a stock 400hp and 400lb-ft of torque it is has some pretty stout performance out of the box.

However, under the twin scoops of the hood, sits a very tunable motor. The LS2 engine has a lot options to get even more horsepower out of it. The GTO is a great platform to handle more power.

One of the easiest and most cost effective ways to really “boost” the horsepower is a supercharger. There are plenty of supercharger systems designed specifically for the GTO. They are relatively low cost, around $5,000 and can add as much as 200hp to the GTO. All a supercharger really does is simply push more air into the engine. More air = more power, it is that easy.

This can be very appealing to speed freaks out there and would allow a person to keep a relative stock feeling to car without modding the engine to the edge of reliability. A supercharger with a low psi on this engine would have little to no effect on reliability.

In fact, a lot of manufacturers are supercharger their cars from the factory or including a supercharger dealer option. Companies like Mercedes-Benz, Mini, Chevy, Saturn, Toyota, Ford and Lotus just to name a few are all have or are currently offering supercharging options.

One of the problems with boosting the horsepower on cars is the reliability problems. This isn’t a problem with the GTO and one of the kits made specifically for the Pontiac. It is being done a lot out there, so watch out for any GTOs that seem to have a little extra whine. They could be sporting a 600hp boosted engine.

Reliable, powerful, and a good deal, what more could you want? This makes a GTO an even more appealing option. At 400hp the GTO is fast, at 600hp it would be a real sleeper capable of running with nearly anything.

If a GTO lands in my garage it wouldn’t stay stock for long and is a big reason the GTO is the COTD. I’d be looking for a power boost.

Honda Civic Si Sedan

garythepowers — Thu, 01 May 2008 02:41:06 +0000

The Civic Si Sedan is my current COTD. Is the car I want most in the world right now? Not necessarily. However, with gas prices continuing to inch towards $4.00 a gallon I find myself looking for a more economical ride.

Yes, I’m aware that there are cars that get better MPG than the Civic Si, but there is a prerequisite amount of fun or sportiness that a car must possess. The Civic Si Sedan has that “fun” in spades. It has even been called the “poor man’s M3” or even the “economical guy’s M3”.

There is a certain school of thought that says “it is more fun to drive a slow car fast, than to drive a fast car slow”.

Imagine how frustrating it would be to be in a 550hp supercar stuck driving in traffic behind that mini van driver on the cell phone. And then for a quick moment the traffic pattern breaks and you find yourself with a stretch of open road. Well if you can cover a ¼ mile in less than 12 seconds, your temporary window of no traffic will have closed, because you caught up with the next bunch of slow drivers.

The other hazard is blowing past the next municipal revenue gathering spot and the police haul you off to jail and impound your supercar with the “arrest me” red paint job. With that much hp you can end up in serious trouble in just a few seconds.

Again with the 550hp car there is frustration knowing that you aren’t really getting to utilize the full potential of the vehicle due to the local laws. However, if you happen to have a car with a sweet chassis, manual gearbox that is a pleasure to row and a jewel of an engine that loves to sing, but only has 200ish hp, you could really enjoy the potential of what that car has to offer.

There are several cars that fall into my sporty/economic car scenario. However, the COTD for me is the Honda Civic Si Sedan. The Si Sedan has several things going for it. It is a special car. They only come one way, with the most powerful engine ever in a U. S. Civic at 197hp and a great 6-speed transmission. It has upgraded wheels and suspension built on the great Civic platform.

With the Si Sedan you can drive it like an economy car and get nearly 30 mpg or you can drive like you stole it and add a serious dose of fun to your daily commute.

The last time I made a visit to the Honda dealership to admire the Si Sedan, the salesman blasphemed the essence of the Civic Si when he said this “Yeah, it’s a great car, we would sell a ton of these if they came in automatic.” Well, if they came in automatic they wouldn’t be a Civic Si!

I’ve got a lot more to say about this car, but that will be visited in other blogs with the Civic Si ends up as the COTD or in my garage as my actual car.