How to power up......

[TUNGSTENGREYWIDOW]

For the past month or so I have been brainstorming on how to get more hp out of the P5. Based on the info that I get off of this site and a little common sense I have reach a very promising conclusion. I took specs from alot of my friends N/A hondas and have compared them to our cars. Both cars are pretty well matched. The difference is most hondas have a high compression rate at stock and honda has done more R&D than mazda has. Now the main issue that is our problem is weight. The gross weight of our cars are about 3600lbs where as a honda is about 2500 to 2800lbs. so the solution to are problem for now is to put our cars on a diet and shave off some of those pounds. In the next month or so I plan on taking my P5 to a body shop and striping off all of the access crap that the factory puts on our cars knowing that we don't need it. If I had put in any incorrect data please correct me. Don;t worry about feelings be harsh. Being kind will not make the cars faster.

 

[uclap5]

im pretty sure our cars are 27XX lbs, and a CRX lets see.. im going to pull a number out of my ass is 1800-2200.

you can build up NA, but without mucho $$$$ you are never going to see the gains of a turbo.

You probably wont save much weight by stripping the interior. your better off getting lightweight wheels, clutch, flywheel, and hell, try out that underdrive pully.

 

[Logan]

My CRX was 2200lbs.
Newer civics are close to 2800 I think.

You have to consider the strength of the bodies of these cars.
Proteges are much stiffer cars, Honda's are flimsy.
Some of the extra weight in your Protege comes from being a stronger, firmer car. That kind of body responds well to suspension changes, potentially making it easier for your car to become one heck of a track car.
Sure Hondas have Double Wishbone "F1" technology suspension (except the front of the new civics) but the bodies twist real easily.
I'll keep my porker protege thank you very much.

 

[ALLMAN]

Yes, I currently own a 2002 new generation civic and a P5, and the GVW, was around 2800 on the civic..although I too thought our cars GVW...hold I'll go look right now on my car door.......DAMN,!!!!....3664 lbs is what my car says...well I guess your right...man I could have sworn a 2800 car as well......yes, if you could put a grocery list together of things to remove..please do..Peace!

 

[herbieP5]

GVW is how much the car can take fully loaded if I am not mistaken. In our manual there is the GVW and the actual weight of the car which is more like 2800 pounds. the GVW is the weight you should not exceed with passengers and other heavy ass things in your car. At least this is my understanding of it. correct me if I am wrong

 

[perfworks]

herbie 5
your right!
gross vehicle weight is fully loaded
i had the car weighed at a scale in a salvage yard one day while looking for some parts
it weighs with me( 160lbs) 2780
thats for a p5
really thats not bad at all in comparison to some all wheel drives that are around 4200!!
and i hope this doesnt start something with the AWD people out there but there are just real heavy

 

[occytron PR5]

The Mazda USA website says that the curb weight for the manual trans is 2716 lbs. The automatic is 2749. Not too bad.

 

[herbieP5]

The engineers at mazda are not living in a closet, they are not going to make a car that is substantially heavier than the competition, especially in a sport compact segment where the engines are only pushing 130-150 hp average. I was shocked yo find out my p5 only weighed 2700 pounds. that is not heavy considering it is a hatch.

 

[occytron PR5]

Thats definately light indeed. considering a WRX wagon weighs 3220 lbs. That a mighty sizeable difference.

 

[herbieP5]

so all we need is 97 more horse power and two more wheels spinning and we can take a WRX. anyone have the solution to this problem????????????

 

[occytron PR5]

well it depends how you want to beat the wrx. you could beat it on the twisty roads but then get creamed on the straights. but i guess with the horsepower you could beat it anywhere. still i think that i would rather a car that is a little underpowered but more confident in the curves than a faster staight line car.

 

[acidbug]

For the past month or so I have been brainstorming on how to get more hp out of the P5. Based on the info that I get off of this site and a little common sense I have reach a very promising conclusion. I took specs from alot of my friends N/A hondas and have compared them to our cars. Both cars are pretty well matched. The difference is most hondas have a high compression rate at stock and honda has done more R&D than mazda has. Now the main issue that is our problem is weight. The gross weight of our cars are about 3600lbs where as a honda is about 2500 to 2800lbs. so the solution to are problem for now is to put our cars on a diet and shave off some of those pounds. In the next month or so I plan on taking my P5 to a body shop and striping off all of the access crap that the factory puts on our cars knowing that we don't need it. If I had put in any incorrect data please correct me. Don;t worry about feelings be harsh. Being kind will not make the cars faster.

You Cannot compare our cars w/ Honda's...Our protege's don't get much HP by going NA...where as honda's respond much better to i/e/h...

The best way to get HP out of our cars...is either
1. Turbo...as seen with the Mazda Speed
2. Nitrous...as seen by me, patio, and a few others!

For the price of $200 for a CAI or $350 for a Catback exhuasst...you will only see gains of upto 15hp...

But with Nitrous you can get gains upto 75hp for about the same price.

I am trying to start a group buy for NX Kits...anyone interested please check out my thread!

http://www.protege5.com/vbb225/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16321

Chas

 

[ALLMAN]

You Cannot compare our cars w/ Honda's...Our protege's don't get much HP by going NA...where as honda's respond much better to i/e/h...

Older generation Honda's yes...newer 7th generation.....the same expected performance gains we get from i/h/e on our P5's are actually better than the 7th gen's due to SOHC vs. our DOHC


(hand) ....sorry...dumb attack on the GVW, yes that number is the total max capacity for safe travel......curb weight is what I should have been talking about....thanks for the correction ..LOL!

 

[TUNGSTENGREYWIDOW]

Thanks for the info guys I thought that the GVW was the cars weight. I guess I should stop asking the dealer about the tech stuff. To me it does not make any sense for the people who are suposed certified to fix are cars to give such wrong info. Again thanks you guys just saved me a s**t load of cash. Guess I'll go buy a turbo with that body work money. Are there any suggestions.

 

[RZFD]

Don't think Hodas respond better to mods than Proteges. Hondas have the obvious advantage in aftermarket performance because there's just plain more modded examples around. Becasue of that you can't install a header without potentially breaking federal regulations and there aren't any tried and tru ecu mods. And like you said Honda's usually have compression in excess of 10:1. Overcome that and I think Protege motors will respond a lot better simply because of the displacement advantage.