I used to race people in the twisties all the time with my Miata. It's called the lovely Sea to Sky hwy heading from Vancouver BC to Whistler BC. Of course, having a fully reinforced chassis, shocks, springs, swaybars with shaved slicks certainly doesn't hurt. I still wish it had more power though. In fact, I think it was the good handling that made me reallize how unerpowered it was. Throttle steering was practically non-existant in the dry, too much grip. Maybe I should have gotten a mustang instead..

 

good handling definately points out lack of power of cars in this class

i used to try to get people to play in the twisties when I had my prelude sh setup with tein coilovers, tie bars, harness bar, 17" TE37s, (which definately felt under powered once I had that setup) until one day down in CA on 101 on the coast a setup crx decided to join in, we weren't racing, but he was still pushing his car too much and flew off the side of the road off a ~6' ridge. Fortunately when he flipped the window missed a tree stump by 5' and landed in mud or he might have had more then scratches from the incident. In any case, racing people on the twisties is dangerous, especially for the person with the setup not as good as yours.

Edit: BTW, do you still have your miata? What gen was/is it?

 

Wow, I didn't realize those were SOHC vtecs.

A B18C, or a H22A would be a nice engine to swap into our cars....

Edit: (If thats not too much hearasy )

 

Unfortunately, I had to sell my Miata when I got my P5. I really miss that car. There's not a lot of production cars that come close in handling to a fully race-prepped Miata. I've driven quite a few prelude's before (no SH's though) & they're very stable cars. A little long but they still handled well. You're right about the safety issue though, if anything happens to the other person, you are held liable as well. Whether it's straight or twisty, just be careful out there.

 

Foster, if you are under the misconception that racing in a straight line is SAFE, you are saddly mistaken.....a person that is dragracing without a properly prepared car for that kind of racing is just as much at risk of getting killed as someone that is racing in the twisties with a car that isn't properly set up....or pushed past its limits....sounds to me like the guy with the CRX didn't know when to back off and know when he was out matched....HIS mistake.

And you will hear it from me again too.....to have a car that handles as well as ours is a lot more important than being able to run the 1/4 and blow eveyone away.......but then that is MY opinion.....the shear power isn't that big a deal....if it were....I wouldn't have gotten EITHER of my P-5's

 

The Protege is not a sports car. If you wanted a fast car you should have bought a sports car.

 

If the Protege is not a sports car, then maybe it should not come from the factory with a spoiler, strut bar, and ground effects. But it does, wouldn't this mean it is a sport compact by now?

It just pisses me off that the 1.6 engine is not well supported for after market upgrades. I'm very happy with my car, it's just the engine that sucks. I truly agree that the handling is a plus for our cars, and the looks are bitchin, at any speed.

I have two more years of payments and my next car will be the P5 with hopefully the FM turbo kit added immediately.

Peace
________
WBBLatinASS live

 

Sometime you just have to drive a slower car than yours for a while and then go back to driving your own again. I drove my moms P5 AUTO, and thne I drove my P5(5speed) and oh man..it was sweet.


On a different subject: and particulary "setup". and by that I mean "car setup". I just want to say that most you you out there have no idea as to what's involved when you say: oh my car is set up for this or that. First of all, the most important thing is your tires\ruber, then suspension probably...and then horse power and other stuff. The point here would be that if you put on stiff springs on your car and nice slick ruber on it..it will be awsome for driving in a streight line..but it will suck a$$ in corners because the car will "push" due to the too stiff suspension. "Push" would be the thing that your car does when you try to steer and it contimues to go streight for a while, it's the same thing as not being able to make it go where you want in a corner.

Anyway, unles you run touring car races or are involved in touring car setup or whatever, you have no idea what you are doing to your car.

PS:
The stock P5 setup is nice and good for most conditions you will find on the road, but a bit stronger brakes would be nice even with the stock engine...And no mater how much horse power u will have u will wanna have more so just get used to it, or put money into it and get a Turbo and make it go all fast but stop complaining....


I hope this was entertaining and start liking your P5 already, you freeking test drove the car before you bought it, didn't you?

I love my P5

 

I never condoned street racing in any form, I talked specifically about the dangers of the notion of taking people in the twisties and how you see it coming out as a defense mechanism from car owners with cars with less hp then the other guy.



My disastisfaction with the power of the car doesn't come from wanting to go into a straight line, or wishing it was a sports car. I bought the car because it is a good size, easy to manouver, but with enough space to put a dog crate in the back and easily seat belt in another one in the back seat and take 2 more people in it. It handles with confidence, some of its competition can take a corner at or near the same speed, but in this car it feels good when doing it. To me, what its missing is the ability to make me (and my fiance, who's car it is) feel confident when taking a right onto a busy street by accelerating with a little more ghusto.

It also is a good priced car with hardly any complaints in the features department and gets good mileage. Of course I would have to trade some price and mileage if they offered another trim package that had those, but I would have.

In any case, we do love the car, and will add a few of what we believe are missing ponies and get a short shifter and we expect we will keep the car for some years to come. We'll probably keep it instead of trading it in in a few years and buying a new $20k car will spend the money on some leather recaro style seats and some other internal luxery items, plus freshen up the enginge (hot tank block, new rotating assembly, headwork, etc when/IF the time comes).

 

There is always a balance and tuning, but stiffer spring rates with shocks to match and slicks can help very much with turning. (Though I think non-dot approved slicks are very dangerous on the street) It can lead to oversteering (or pushing through corners) but not if you keep it in balance. Most cars out of the factory, even newer rwd cars are balanced towards understeer (opposite of pushing, turning the wheel but going straight) for safety reasons. So adding stiffer springs and shocks and maybe some other things (tie bars, roll bars, swaybars, etc) can bring the car into a better balance between oversteer and understeer.

And in my opinion it doesn't take a ton of seat time at lapping days or even an auto cross school to find the limits of your car and better tune the hardware to balance it. *If* your not going to drive up to those limits on the street and make common sense decisions if the road conditions aren't the same as your experience on the track.

Anyway, I do agree with you that there are a lot of people that never take their car to the track, so they aren't finding the limits of their car in a safe environment. They just bought some springs or whatever without any or little reasearch. There is no arguing that at that point if they think their car is all setup and want to run it like they were on a track, that puts themselves and others at undue risk.

Well, I'm sure by now I'm coming off to atleast some people as an opinionated ***, but what are you going to do

 

I dont know about all of you, but I love my P5. No matter where I go people look, especially the color and drop I have. I drove the car before I bought it, and drove others also( Matrix, PT Cruiser and WRX). For the money the P5 was the most enjoyable. The Matrix was hard to drive (XRS), the Cruiser was(well need I say more) and the WRX was too much. A lot of bashing going on about the car being slow, you knew it before you bought it, but you did anyway....it is a bad *** little car with so much potential, only your imagination and some bucks....Later

http://photos.yahoo.com/slamprotege5

 

Neither do I....there are tracks for that....both straight line ones and twistie ones.....I don't race on the street.....and discourage anyone I come across too.

the thing is....you may see it as a defence mechanism...but to many people, the handling of the car is more important than all out power....and it was a big selling point, otherwise they would have gotten a honda that has so much more potential in the power department.

BTW, the "dog crate" space was a big selling point with me as well.....and my wife....as she shows dogs, but didn't want a minivan any longer. :{D