Jalopnik
This series got its start- and continues to be so much fun for me- as a result of my own search for just the right personal Project Car Hell; I came close to buying the 20R-powered Austin Healey Sprite in the very first PCH, and I've been searching ever since. I considered and rejected the '65 Falcon wagon, and now it looks like my cousin might take on the '68 Torino GT himself. But then I realize that I have two machines with Super Sleeper Potential right under my nose: my daily-driver 1992 Honda Civic DX and 1997 Ford Crown Victoria P71! Why, I could turn either one into a ragin' dragstrip monster with easily-obtained hop-up gear right off the shelf! Gadzooks!
The 90s Honda Civic is edging ever closer to Ford Model A and '55-57 Chevy territory when it comes to the sheer number that have been sap-enhanced by wild-eyed hoons looking for crazy acceleration out of a once-sedate transportation car. Sure, most of the Civics you see on the street with 6" diameter tailpipes and Space Shuttle wings would be hard-pressed to buzz out a pathetic 15-second dragstrip pass, but don't be fooled by the foolish antics of the all-show-no-go crowd! Were I to go about upgrading my Civic, it would be done stealth-fashion: don't touch the body, use a quiet muffler, and keep the wheels/tires as stock-looking as I could get away with. I could stick with the D15B7 that's already there and add mild turbocharging... but why do that when I could add a quick 80 horses with a B18C plus ECU, transmission, and accessories, straight from Soichiro's homeland? The B18C isn't a particularly challenging swap into a 5th-gen Civic, so where's the hell? Well, here in California we have über-strict smog laws... and I'd need to make it even harder for my new VTEC setup to pass the test once I bolted on a supercharger. Then, of course, the stock suspension and brakes would need some help, and the list goes on and on. But who cares? Imagine the glorious torque-steering mayhem that would result from tripling the factory horsepower in an already funky-handling front-wheel-drive economy car!
A sleeper Civic would indeed be a great deal of fun, but our forefathers didn't invade Grenada so we could drive front-wheel-drive cars! Hell no! Rear-drive V8s colossi rule this land, buddy! My Crown Vic has a nice stiff cop-grade suspension and big brakes, but the 4.6 SOHC V8 leaves something to be desired in the power department. I could do what Quickvic did to his Crown Victoria and nitrous my way to glory... but that wouldn't be difficult enough. What I need to do is pick up this supercharged F-150 Lightning engine and transmission and stuff it into the engine compartment. The fun will be just beginning at that point, since California's smog referees are known to gaze disapprovingly upon truck engines in cars, even if the donor engine retains all its smog gear and is from a newer vehicle than the transplantee. Of course, I'll probably find at that point that the factory one-legger rear end (the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Department apparently didn't feel like spending the extra for limited-slip diffs in their detectives' cars) doesn't quite do the job of applying power to pavement, and (knowing Ford's love of pointless year-to-year hardware changes) getting all the engine accessories to work might be a beat-head-on-wall exercise in frustration. It will all be worth it, however, when I'm rumbling around town with a great big blower sticking through the hood of my Ford... oh, wait- wasn't this supposed to be a sleeper project?
Comments
P71, of course.
Hell? The Civic. The Vic is too easy, and once you finally get the Civic all squared away, it'll promptly be stolen by 15yr olds with baggy pants.
only the civic if you want it to run reliably <.<
definitely the P71
@bd_juju: Hmmm... true. I've already had one Civic stolen. But these days the baggy-trousered thieves mostly don't bother with stock-appearing 5th-gen cars.
If you want to get crazy you could convert your civic to rear engined rwd... that would be a hell with a cool payoff. It's been done a few times, here's one: [www.metacafe.com]
Definitely the Crown Vic. Hell will be trying to get that blower under the hood without adding a big-assed scoop or power bulge.
Yeah, blower and a big noisy pulley. Forget about sleeper status.
And I voted P71, can ya tell?
This one's easy. All you have to do to the Crown Vic to make it wicked deadly is trade it in for an LT1 Caprice. No challenge there.
The Honda is the way to go. But you should make it RWD. And S2000 drivetrain in a little Civic wagon would be awesome like beer.
@beercheck: Here in the midwest, and = an. Next week I'll teach you all about dangling prepositions.
Wrenches down, the Crown Vic.
Every time you think it'll be better than before a mod, something you didn't expect to fail, will, and you're back into your project.
P71, and there's some precedent...
A couple of years ago Bondurant got a better deal from GM and eBayed all their student Mustangs, as well as the instructor cars. From what I could tell, these were P71s with a full Cobra driveline, including the 5-speed.
And harnesses in all four seats, of course.
I'm still kicking myself for not being able to snag one of those at the time.
@dolo54: My idea was sort of along the same lines, only instead of a turbo V6 combine these two projects and put the Lightning V8 in the back. And re-tune it to Ford GT spec.
The project itself will be hell, and then you'll be entering something even worse trying to get it past CA smog. Though with the amount of fabrication it would take to pull a project like this off you may be able to call it a kit car when you're done.
On a more realistic note, I voted for the Crown Vic. The Civic's just too easy, even with CA Smog.
The only thing better than a V8 is a forced induction V8.
I vote for Vicky, except the paint is an issue.
It's a no brainer to make a Honda into a sleeper. Everyone goes for that option.
Vics (and Grand Marqs) that aren't painted a cop color are already sleepers to people who aren't familiar with them because they rarely encounter a hooning one--they see one rolling along a little under the speed limit with grandma and grandpa in it, or worse, a Flying Dutchman with no visible crew on board (very old grandma and grandpa). Youngsters of a certain age don't know that even the old grocery haulers (pre-malaise) packed a lot of heat. Just because they could. So if you lose the cop color but have it painted oh, powder baby blue--no primer, no rattle paint, but the real deal--you're halfway there. You'll need to find another engine to drop in though--the ebay one is already gone.
Sorry, the civic is heavily in the been there done that territory and it's too easy even given CA smog. I would have to go with the Vic. It'll be a little more interesting.
Points for Flying Dutchman reference! I'm thinking a P71 Vickie that's the mad uncle of a P51 Mustang! GMC blower on a big block crate engine, chopped top with dark gray primer and limo tint. Take no prisoners!
Armand's Christmastime hell recipe:
1 Crown Victoria P71
1 Supercharged Modular V8
1 Tremec six-speed transmission
Dash of Boost
Sprinkle lightly with nitrous oxide
Mix thoroughly
Allow the mixture to sit in the garage for a year or so while you fabricate the necessary hardware to put a manual transmission in an old man's car.
Hoon and enjoy.
@smokeydog001: Yeah, the bad uncle--everyone dreads his showing up at the family functions--but they're all too afraid to tell him not to turn up. They just hope he gets bored and leaves soon.
I'd like to make reservations for dinner at ARMAND4's!
If you have relatives in a more civilized state than California, register the P71 there. If it was Florida, that license plate coupled with a powder blue paint job would make it even more like gramp's car and even more of a sleeper.
Doing anything to the Civic will just make you into yet another stupid ricer!
The Vic, painted in cop colors. SUPER REAR VIEW PANT FILLING POTENTIAL!
Substantial engine mods (or swaps) either one of these is hell in CA with the smog man looking over your shoulder.
However, going green doesn't mean you have to sacrifice performance... If an electric Datsun 210 can do 11 second quarter miles, so can a Civic. Oh there's the little problem of going more than a quarter mile, but that's what hell is all about.
Then there's the biofuel route. Propane is burns nice and clean, and you and you can crank the boost way up. Same with ethanol. Or you could go with the tried and true vegie oil. Sure, you'd have to cut a few things, but wouldn't this 810HP V10 look great sticking out of the hood of your P71 ? Who cares if the mileage sucks when you get your fuel free ?
Every proper motorhead should do the Civic build once. Yes, there are a ton of aftermarket parts and potential engine swaps but there are a few challenges. Why not combine the 2 cars? A RWD civic with a Crown Vic drive train in it? You'd probably need to lengthen the whole car, but hey, this is PCH right?
oh.. and because it's CA... Make it a convertible!
I would choose neither. How hard can it be to find a suitable car, old enough so you won't be bothered with smog? I'd suggest Chrysler Cordoba with fine Corinthian leather, 600+hp 500ci big block and suspension upgrade (something like www.xvmotorsports.com stuff - if it fits Chargers and Challengers, it fits Cordobas :))
But from these two, it must be the Crown Vic. And I like the idea of baby blue car with plastic hubcaps and 500hp. But I'd buy a Caprice instead. Or a Roadmaster. Wagon with fake wood...
I was just about to start typing something really good here but JOLIETJAKE's suggestion of the Vic block in a RWD Civic is hoonarific beyond words.
Anyway - the civic in the UK is not quite at the same level as the US, but they're really falling into the hands of someutter wankers now. But there's one near here that makes up for it - Stock "muffler" on that back, which is actually fake as there exhuast clearly isn't exiting there. Has the unmistakable sucking and spooling noises of a turbo too. Has a stance on it - not too low, but you can see the guy has spent time dialling in some pretty serious geometery. It rides on a set of wheels that to the ordinary man would be "meh", but on closer inspection are de-stickered Volks that probably weigh as much as a bag of doritos.
I'm not afraid to admit that in a straight line it made my non-stock WRX running 290/290 look a wee bit silly.
Oh and other than the nice, but thoroughlly understated rims everything else looked bone stock, down to the 1.6 badges. But I don't think it was a 1.6 any more.
@bobash: Oh, I'm definitely considering a Cordoba for a future project. The problem is finding one with the Soft Corinthian Leather in sufficiently Ricardo Montalban-esque level of quality.
@PatFromGundo: That gets old fast. Mine's gloss black. I get so sick of being stuck behind people doing EXACTLY the speed limit...
@Murilee Martin: Really?
[monterey.craigslist.org]
[sandiego.craigslist.org]
[sandiego.craigslist.org]
Hot Civics have been done to death. Crown Vics haven't.
Ergo, the Crown Vic.
@bobash: If I got one of those cars, I'd need to buy some extra Corinthian Leather and have a custom suit made out of it.
By the way, San Diego is 500+ miles from Alameda. California is big.
@Murilee Martin: A suit? How about a cat o'nine tails? A martinet? A good ol' fashion bullwhip?
Civic is evil. EVIL. Every little snot nosed idiot with a sewer pipe and a set of hubcaps can "trick out" a Honda Civic.
@Murilee Martin:
Hmmm, you would look... scary :)
And I have a basic idea of how big California is :) But even the PORT where I picked up my Coronet is farther than that... And even in Europe it's not that unusual to buy car that far away...
@FLB: Perhaps a riding crop. Ricardo would never administer discipline with anything as crass as a cat-o-nine tails.
@bobash: OK, just wasn't sure- sometimes people thing California cities are very close together. In any case, I can get a Cordoba closer to home- only problem is that I need a '75 so as to be exempt from smog checks. '76 or newer and I'd have to stick with the Malaise engine package.
dude,
NEITHER of these is gonna get you ANY pussy in the end...
unless some chick has a COP fetish
(yea, put one of those spolights on the pillar'
and a big blues brothers style logo on the door...)
but
you know
then you will look like the VILLAGE PEOPLE....
and that look attracts guys, not girls...
sell them BOTH! and buy a ...
well....
58 ALFA in PCH a while ago...!!
I agree completely, the Crown Vic for the win. I would hope the FoMoCo 5.0L V8 could be fitted without too much drama (my nuts-and-bolts knowledge is spotty at best), if not something with even more displacement.
@Novaload: I also applaud you on the Flying Dutchman reference. Well spoken sir! I used to joke with friends and clients about "headless Cadillacs", which looked to be without occupant(s) from behind, save for the gnarled liver-spotted knunckles at 10 o'clock and two o'clock on the bit of the steering rim visible above the driver's seat headrest. Large numbers of them nearby in Encino (and in Arizona and Florida, no doubt!)...
Murilee, no matter how much you 'soup' up the Honda, your still driving the same thing as all the other rice boy pizza delivery boys. Torque is non-existent. Real women do not dig Civics. FWD is wrong wheel drive. My Coke bottle has more displacement. You will always still be beaten by push rods and carburetors.
I dunno if you wanna goto hell in a Civic, or have real sleeper fun in the big ol' Crown Vic, but please, stay away from the Hondas... PLEASE!
All of these were given to me by a friend who owns a Civic
Hold
On
Not
Done
Accelerating
Virtually
Torqueless
Economic
Crap
Had
One
Never
Drive-one
Again
@Murilee Martin: ...And I shall show restraint by not making any cracks about Corinthian leather apparel for Murilee... I may draw blood, however, as I bite my tongue...
I'll take the P71, thank you very much.
P71, but the Lightening engine needs a 6-speed tremec, and it needs to be turned into a Ranchero. After that you can use the P71 Rachero to pick up an Accord V6 to put in the back of the Honda.
See, now, this is why I feel so not worthy. If I were to PCH what's in my garage, it'd be between an '03 Matrix and a second-hand Trek Mountain Track.