Brandon Smith writes:
> Whoa.. You can do motor swaps in SP? I'm pretty new to Solo2 and I'm
> currently running a stock Civic, but I had no idea you could do a motor
> swap in SP. It seems pretty counter-intuitive actually. Aren't things
> like cams and other internals restricted in SP? Do the rules really mean
> that someone with a 106hp Civic can't put in a cam which will give them
> maybe 5 more hp, but they could just drop in the B16A (Civic Si motor) and
> get 160hp legally? I must have really missed something if the rules truly
> allow someone to go from the SOHC motor to DOHC VTEC motor within the
> rules of SP.
>
That's right. In SP, you can swap engine/transmission combinations as long
as the car is on the same line in the rule book. That means, for my car ('90
CRX Si) I can buy the lightest chassis ('88 HF) and put the most powerful
engine in it ('90 or '91 Si), because the listing in CSP reads: CRX all
(88-91). In fact, Dennis Barry has built a CRX using this combination, and
he trophied at Nationals last year with it.
Since your '97 Civic isn't listed in the CSP section rule book (yet), I'd be
wary of investing a whole bunch of money in a VTEC motor right off the bat.
I doubt they would list the Civic Si on a separate line, but I've learned
not to assume anything when it comes to SCCA rules. I'm not sure how much
longer it will take the SPAC (Street Prepared Advisory Committee) to update
the listings.
I presume that when SP was created, they figured that swapping parts among
cars of the same generation was more common then buying performance parts to
replace them. Big brake kits, trick suspension kits, high performance cams,
and intake/exhaust systems were not very common outside of drag racing cars,
so most people went to salvage yards and pulled the good stuff from the
'performance version' of their cars and bolted them on.
Nowadays, we've got oodles of manufacturers making of high performance
handling parts for the imports as well as the domestics. In my opinion,
Street Prepared has been slow to adapt to the changes in street based
performance cars. I suppose it is because so many people have optimized
their cars for the current rule set. A new class that address the idea of
engine and suspension mods beyond the SP rules but not to the degree of the
Prepared class is being proposed. Dennis Grant has compiled a great set of
rules for the new Street Touring Unlimited class. See
http://autocross.dsm.org/stu.html
for more information.
For the complete text of the Street Prepared rules, see:
http://www.best.com/~mouton/sccasolo/
Regards,
Brian Meyer
Wichita Region
'90 CRX si CSP
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