Making a honda into a rally car

[ramrod]

Like the title says, i Have a friend that was wandering if it would be possible to take a 92 hatch back and over time eventually make it into a rally car with 4 wheel drive. Is it even possible to put 4 wheel driveo n a hatchback civic? Can anyone point me in the right direction cause im shooting blanks?

[Davis Silver Sti]

No reason to make it 4WD/AWD. The best class to start rallying in is FWD. You can build a seriously potent rally car in 2WD. Plus making a 2WD car into a AWD car is no simple task PLUS he'll be placed in an OPEN class where you are going up against $250K+ cars. No Fun and way to hard to learn at that level.

I was part of a rally crew for a 4WD Galant (open class) and a Dodge Omni turbo(FWD turbo class). While I'm usually a big fan of AWD cars, they can be a real nightmare when they are used for rallying. The budget needed for a good AWD rally car goes up tremendously. (I was a part of rallying when it was SCCA, and I'm not familiar with the newer NASA or rally America classes)

If your friend is thinking about getting into rallying....

Go to a few big events, look around the pits while the cars are being worked on, talk to other drivers, go to a rally school, get a co-driver that is just as excited, get a feel of this type of racing in person then go get a USED turnkey rally car, and expect to roll it on the first race. (don't forget a rulebook)
see here for used cars: http://www.rallyclassified.com/

Good Luck!

[ramrod]

Thanks, I think the main thing is he wanted to make his into one. Because you know we all love the feeling of somthing weve made lol. But I will def give him a heads up

[Chaos_cb7]

It is passable but not easy to make a civic awd. You have to know how to fabricate custom suspension parts but I'm sure someone out there has at least a ruff how-to. There is a rwd integra that competes in drift events using a CRV transmission so a civic would probably use the same setup.

There is always the option of just finding the old AWD civic that where made in the 80s. The Honda tech at Larry Simmons owns one. He went to a class in Chicago and met up with a lot of people that sayed there where a lot of them around that where modified and did really well. You would just need to reinforce like hell being it an 80s car. They ran on a d16 (or d15 cant remember) so engine parts shouldn't be a problem

[daveb91]

The awd civics I have seen 4th gen style run a d16a6. They have a weak awd drive system. Seen some with zc swaps. Those things are a little top heavy also. There was an article in Sport Compact Car a while ago about a husband wife team running a 91 civic hatch fwd as a rally car and doing quite well.

[Chaos_cb7]

Yea the awd systems on those weren't gear driven they where more like a torque converter on an automatic setup. Iv also heard that they where top heavy but I'm sure that could be fixed a lot easier then a full awd conversion.

[ramrod]

Yea i think i have only seen one awd civic running around town and i was shocked lol. And i was thinking you could probably modify some crv components to make it awd but not for sure

[daveb91]

With a plasma cutter welder and grinder anything is possible.

[Chaos_cb7]

here you go lots of pictures
http://public.fotki.com/morgie/qsr/crx_gsr_awd_turbo/

[low_s10_21]

that is one sweet crx

[ramrod]

Nice find almost looks factory