Don't buy a honda after year 2k?

As a 'driver's car', I'm assuming you're referring to the brand/model that's
more sporting to drive.
As a person who likes to drive, I think the Accord is more sporty then the
Camary. But, the Corolla and Civic are about equal. However, if you were to
compare the Corolla XRS vs the Civic SiR, I suspect that the nod would go to
the Corolla... That would be a good comparison test, since the winner can
put to rest the question: which car has the better suspension/chassis?

I believe the two biggest gripe on the newsgroup was the fact that there was
no replacement
for the CRX (the Insight doesn't have enough 'sport' to take the torch and
the Del Sol was too weakly). The other was removing the double wishbone (up
front) from the Civic. All the other stuff got drowned out buy the trolls.

It seems like I have come full circle

True, but I have some skeptism concerning 2001 Civic (current Civic) vs
previous model. However, 2001 Civic does have a better automatic tranny when
compared to gas guzzler from previous generation.

(OK, for driving enjoyment I

Hopefully in 10 years, I'm still not driving the same tired old 98 Civic
Hatch.

Pars

 

Ask them specifically what was left out?

 

i love that vintage civic too. based on what i've seen, including the

Honda adopted the wishbone suspension to achieve a low cowl. They believed
their customers would find it more nearly appealing than the higher cowl lines
with which their competitors were stuck. The added bonus was that this
suspension provided a race-car "feel" and pushed passenger car suspension
technology forward. Wishbones have their problems, though, not the least of
which is the overabundace of bushings that deteriorate with time and miles.
Audi's A4 wishbone front end (which was not nearly as well-engineered as
Honda's) created very much ill-will amongst their customers. The best handling
affordable street car I have driven was an old MR2 with struts all the way
round. We are all aware of the strut suspension's challenges. This suspension's
saving grace is its simplicity and robustness. I believe Honda returned to this
suspension in the Civic's front for this very reason. Their new iteration is
very well engineered and works as well as a wishbone suspension. Modern cars
are apt to have high cowls for aerodynamic and pedestrian impact reasons. The
Smart Car introduced this strange look and now many manufacturers are adopting
it. What no one has mentioned is the new electronic power steering. Its not so
good. Almost exactly opposite from old 911's (which have fine steering feel). I
believe the blanket condemnation of the new Civic strut front end is misplaced.
I'm glad Honda spent their extra engineering time on the iVtec engine. Pulls
like a small block with an AFB in a Camaro.

 

low cowl? i can see that [perhaps] on the 88-91 civics, but not the
accords. i wouldn't call an mr2 "high cowl" either.

the handling thing is subjective. many cars have similar handling
limits, eg. g's in corners, etc. but radically different feels at the
steering wheel. wishbones /do/ "feel" better. that's why the new civic
is such a disappointment for former civic enthusiasts - it /definitely/
doesn't feel as good. that's not to say you can't make a strutted car
that feels great [911 like you say & a bunch of other euro stuff], but
not only is it harder to do, you still have fundamental geometry issues
which wishbones handle better. sure, they cost more & as you say, have
more moving parts that can wear, but that's a price i'm prepared to pay!
with respect, it's a misconception to regard struts as more robust.
there may be fewer moving parts, but tell that to a ford owner that's on
their 3rd set of struts after 150k vs a honda owner that's on the same
set after 300k. robustness is in the execution, not the design.

 

I have driven the current generation Accord and Camry back to back and
I was surprised how much better the Accord drove. Haven't driven
current Corolla or Civic and have to admit that I have never driven
one of Toyota's sporty models. I guess I was thinking of the
mainstream cars.

I was referring to quality/reliability, but I do agree that those were
unfortunate changes. The good news is that there are reliable rumors
that the CRV is coming back. And with all the flack they've taken, I
would expect the double wishbone to return on the next gen.

I have to admit, if I were looking to buy a Civic, I would try to hold
out for the next generation which presumably will be 2006. I'm sure
the current model isn't a bad car, it just doesn't have stellar
qualities for a Honda by most accounts.

All it takes is money.

 

Just had them replaced on my '94 GS-R. One factor that accelerates
their demise in the higher G-forces they usually encounter ;-]

 

From experience, the bushings for the roll (or sway) bars usually wear out
over time. These bushings have nothing to do with the double wishbone
suspension. In fact, my 98 Civic Hatch does not have any swaybars, which
means no added bushing to worry about. In my setup which consist of Eibach
springs & Tokico shocks, the swaybars would degrade the cars handling
characteristics (especially in poor weather). Also the extra stress on the
suspensions arms, caused by the swaybars, can't be a good thing. Swaybars
are an easy way to tune the car for the race track, but it takes away from
street and bad weather performance. The 98 Model Hatch is the only car I've
encountered that has sports car like dynamic without the use of any swaybars
(but an upper strut bar, in the trunk, was added in order to dial in a bit
of oversteer). This setup allows me to power around a right turn faster then
an rear wheel drive (except for the special few...like the old super
charged MR2...). The Acura Type-S can only dream of achieving the same
result when powering around a sharp turn. And, if the weather is bad, only a
Subaru class 4 wheel drive can compare. In my opinion, a front wheel drive
with a double wishbone suspension on the driving wheel is the best setup
that money can buy
(unless you've got money to waste).

In a rear drive setup a double wishbone up front can be an over kill
(especially if the car has a solid chassis), but when the driving wheel is
up front, the double wishbone setup on the driving wheel is the best setup.

Pars

 

eh? where'd you get that from????

the suspension arms are /way/ stronger than the body they're bolted to.
if sb's are going to stress anything, it's the frame, not the
suspension arms. they're effectively just springs that resist the roll
of the body within the freedom afforded by the wishbone linkages.

did you record the effect on steering both before & after with the same
set of wheels/tires? my 2000 hatch, same body/suspension as yours, is a
sloppy piece of junk without sway bars and a slot racer with. and it's
great in the wet. same wheels/tires.

again, did you record the effect on steering both before & after with
the same set of wheels/tires?

we agree, wish bones are the best, but, with respect, i hear the kind of
argument you've just presented frequently made by the kids that have
whale tails, blue led's etc. but not one of them has ever been able to
explain to me exactly why this should be. wishbones basically just
control the roll of the body within the freedom afforded by the
wishbones. in that respect, they are a very important stability agent,
on the race track or off. imagine this scenario; if you make a sharp
left turn, the body rolls to the right, but pops back up once you steer
straight again. ok so far? now make that a hard left, followed by a
hard right precisely as the roll of the body is "correcting" itself
after the first manoever. now you have not only a body rolling to the
left because of the turn, but a body rolling to the left as it
dissipates stored spring energy from the right side being compressed.
the two rolling moments add to each other. ever seen an suv flipped
over? this is how it happens. if you control the dynamic of the first
manoever, you correspondingly control the dynamic of the second.

admittedly, this makes not a fig of difference on the quarter mile and
not much on an oval track, but if you're lucky enough to live an an area
with hard bumpy windy roads, believe me, if your honda can hold the line
better than the other guy/girl, they're going to be sucking your tail
all the way home, no matter how much horsepower she/he's got.

 

What?. Are you refering to fact that sway bars degrade poor weather
performance, or 98 Civic Hatch doesn not have sway bars, or bushing failure
is common to sway bars??? look em up, the facts are online.

I believe the sway bar is connected directly to the Control arm. I'm sure
the forces acting on the control arm (by the swaybars) are more dramatic
then those that are translated to the chassis. I've heard of control arm
failure for Civics that have been upgraded with larger swaybars. Since my
Civic does not have any sway bars, I think adding one will cause an
unacceptable amount of stress on the control arm (and as you pointed out,
the chassis).

The following is tid-bit regarding control arm failure:
http://www.blaszakprecision.com/Control_Arms.html

Double wishbone suspension will 'lean into' the turn, causing the tires to
make
maximum use of available traction (especially when the car is off balanced).
Sway bars takes away from this effect. However, if the car is a floppy mess
(from all the swaying), the addion of a sway bar is an acceptable
compromise.
In my case, with the lowered springs, heavy duty performance shocks, low
profile tires on wide rims, the sway bars are not necessary. So, I get to
have
my cake and eat it...

Yep. I have to switch to winter tires. Obviously, they're floppy, but that
trait is
acceptable for winter driving.

Yeah, but it would be stupid to make a car track read without upgraded
wheels/tires first. And with the bigger wheels and tires, handling is no
longer
sloppy, even on the race track (assuming no swaybars on 2000 Hatch &
upgraded spring/shock).

I noticed the difference, the upper rear strut bar was the last of my
modification.

I've done this, in an avoid maneuver on the highway, while zipping
in between cars, over did it, half the car ended up in the shoulder before
I could yank it back...shoulder was covered with a solid sheet of black
ice (I was doing 140km/hr). After surviving that episode (I was sideways in
my lane while surrounded on each side by slower moving traffic), the next
day,
I purchased the Eibach & Tokico in order to increase the car's precision and
avoid the need to over steer because of the sloppy stock setup. Of all
my upgrades, the springs/shock returned the biggest results (even more
then the low profile tires and wider mags).

now you have not only a body rolling to the

Now, add rain and in the above circumstance and
your sway bar equipped Hatch will spin, mine wont (assuming similar tires).
Here in Canada, poor weather performance is an important issue.

 

bushing failure is common in sway bars, but usually where they're rubber
donuts that split with age. failure of the big bushing in the rear
trailing arm is real common too.

regarding wet weather effects of sway bars, please cite me a reference
from a website that shows theory. i say this because, the ricers i've
met at our local track were all saying bad things about sway bars, but
they were running 18mm fronts, 22mm rears, so one rear was lifting off
the track on hard turns! that's the most ridiculous setup i've ever
seen. now, if you're telling me that a car with a mismatched sway bar
setup like this has poor traction with 3 wheels on the ground, you'd be
dead right. keyword: "mismatched".

you are right in this for that model civic. the tab that the sway bar
connects to is welded to the lower wishbone in a way that makes the tab
susceptible to fatigue, so they do break off. in the absence of a cheap
nasty kludge like this, [which does not affect the strength of the
control arm by the way] i stand by the principle of my original statement.

those are problems caused by lowering taking the control arm pivot
outside it's designed range. nothing to do with sway bars whatsoever.

how is that possible? they don't affect suspension geometry.

you're eating the cake of low-pro tires & decent shocks. if you had
properly matching sway bars on there too, you'd be set.

don't understand. are you saying sway bars don't have an effect?

and that's why so many people that criticise sway bars don't know what
they're talking about. drive a car with standard tires /with/ sway
bars. they dramatically improve handling. dramatically. even to the
point that you wonder whether it's worth bothering with the tire upgrade.

sure, it's less sloppy than standard profiles, but that's scoring apples
against oranges - not right.

again, that's hard to understand. just linking the towers horizontally
offers no torsional stiffness to the body, that distortion experienced
in cornering. to improve stiffness, you have to have triangulation -
like you usually see on roll cages.

good shocks make a huge difference. i've experimented with different
grade honda stocks, kyb adjustables & bilstein's. the bilstein's are
easily the best. i was surprised how much difference they made to
steering - a hard turn that would before have caused understeer & a
little sliding suddenly became accurately tracked the whole way through.

regarding springs, if the springs have the same rate, there is going to
be no discernable difference. people replacing shocks/springs together
& then attributing the change in ride their wonderful new springs is
bizarre. spring steels all have pretty much the same modulus.
therefore, the only way you can change the rate is to change either the
diameter of the wire, or the length of wire used in the coil. [one
slight variation on that theme is whether the springs are progressive
rated, ie. they're close coiled at one end so they touch when
compressed, but that's non-linear.] any 2 sets of springs with the same
wire dimensions are going to feel identical, regardless of manufacturer,
heat treatment or paint color!

disagree. i grew up in rain, snow, black ice, etc. never had a problem
with sway bars then and see no reason why there would be today. spin
implies loss of traction. if all 4 wheels are on the road, as they will
be for a properly matched pair, there is no way it can loose traction.
and if they control roll-induced momentum like that described in the
flipping process, they can /reduce/ your chances of spinning because all
4 wheels are planted. again, the sway bars merely control the degree to
which the body rolls within the freedom of the wishbones.

 

jim beam wrote:

Flush out your head gear, dude, if both *driving* wheels are on the
pavement, how does another wheel is off the pavement lead to poor traction?

Photos of Integras racing at Lime Rock (CT) in the 80's showed a rear
wheel off the ground - blame it on FWD.

 

ok, traction is the wrong word. call it adhesion.

you raise a good point. rwd folk /have/ to deal with lifting problem
because losing a drive wheel forces them to. i think the fwd folk tend
to misinterpret a lowered car riding on the bump stops as "stability"
and therefore get themselves all messed up as above.

 

Ricers might, racers don't, they're out to WIN! Can't remember seeing
anything for show (except decals) at SCCA races thru F-1.

 

It always amuses me when Honda fanatics get so hung up on this "double
wishbone" mantra. BMW and Porsche both use MacPherson struts up front,
but hey, what do *they* know about handling, right? <snicker>

 

c(T) = 1.0

you /do/ know about degrees of freedom, right? you /do/ know about
maintaining geometry through the range of suspension travel, right? how
about sharing the background to your no doubt exhaustive technical analysis?