Alrite here it is, my best friend has a 97 civic with an intake my car def whoops up on him ...well anyways his cousin has a 98 v-tec honda prelude stock with just an intake, carbon fiber hood and body kit with 18" rims...well today he took a ride in his cousins car, he seems to think that his cousins car is faster than mine and my friends 5.0 mustang...so in two days me and him are going to race...what does everything think about the outcome??

By the way i have a 96 3.8 with SLP cold air intake, magnaflow catback exhaust, 160 degree thermostat, rksport headers

 

Update on the prelude, has a catback exhaust sytem also..my friend thinks he might have gotten a new header as well..

 

U got an auto or stick? I don't think you have anything to worry about, unless you suck at launching. I have a friend with a 98 prelude as well, intake, header, catback. He thought his car was faster than mine, until one day he sat in it and he changed his mine. And that was b4 I got my exhaust or intake.

 

I have a lowly 3.4 and ran my friend in his M5 '97 Prelude Si w/ his mod only being a cold air intake. From a stop we stayed door to door until the top of 2nd when he shifted to 3rd... he then pulled 3/4 of a car ahead. I was still at his quarter panel up to 95-100ish. Wasn't too bad of a run I guess considering my car was 100% stock at the time.

I'm sure your 3.8 with intake/exhaust/headers should be able to pull on him pretty hard down low and hopefully you'll be ahead of him a bit before VTEC kicks in. Even then he may have a hard time pulling on you.

 

Not counting other factors other than the cars, you should be able to take him.

Get a good launch and build up the distance as much as you can down low since he'll start pulling harder up top.

Should be fun though...

 

I think it's going to be a very good race. Might come down to the launches. good luck!

 

I dont know what the your car runs in the 1/4 but the Prelude should be able to hit a low 15 stock!!

With intake, header & exhaust your buddy should be in the 14s..

Carbon Fiber hood will free up about 20pounds or so but those 18inch rims aint gonna help him with his launch..

Honda cars suck off the line but when their vtech kicks in its a whole different story..

 

I was under the impression that VTEC helped create low end torque, so shouldn't it only matter at the launch?

 

VTEC uses 2 different cam profile/fuel-ignition maps. One is more agressive for the high RPMs, and the other more doscile for fuel economy. The high profile cam doenst kick in until over 5k rpms so thats why people say theyre dogs off the line.

Dont be fooled though. The cars are geared very short. It doesnt take much time to get the cars into the VTEC range. If the prelude is launched ~4k rpms, once it hookks itll only be ~a second or 2 before VTEC is engaged.

 

well sounds like i might lose who knows...i will post it up and let everybody know the outcome