O.C. Honda Owners Getting Up to Speed : Autos: Custom motors, suspensions turn small models into street racers.
In the soft summer twilight, 21-year-old Chris Tran heard the rumble. The black ’69 Mustang blew past him, all muscle and attitude.
At the stoplight, the Mustang driver eyed Tran’s four-cylinder compact and revved his engine. Tran revved back.
The race was on, the way it was in “American Graffiti” days, when the ’55 Chevy took on the ’32 Ford Deuce Coupe. Only this time, it was street racing with an import twist--the American muscle car vs. a souped-up ’91 Honda Civic Si.
Street racers say Hondas are the hot rods of the ‘90s, gunning for classic American cars on the race track and in illegal stoplight-to-stoplight contests.
Honda racers replace their clunky metal hoods with lean fiberglass and add anti-roll bars so their lowered cars don’t flip from the extra speed. Others shoehorn speedy Acura Integra engines into plodding Civics and bolt on nitrous oxide tanks or turbochargers for extra punch--both illegal for street driving. Anything goes to kick up the horsepower from 95 to 300, into the big leagues.
“That’s the whole big thing now--little cars beating big cars--a David and Goliath-type deal,” said Tran, co-owner of Speed Image in Santa Ana, a high-performance body shop that soups up 20 to 30 Hondas and Acuras each week. “Pride gets in the picture. A lot of guys, they spend $5,000 [souping up their cars], and they’re not going to back down.”
The game of chicken can lead to deadly consequences. On Aug. 13, a 17-year-old girl died and four people were injured in a crash after a white Honda Civic and a blue Mercedes-Benz raced down a Fountain Valley street at 80 m.p.h. and through a red light, police said. The Mercedes driver, 20, said the Honda driver pulled up alongside him on Brookhurst Street and revved his engine, throwing down a racing gauntlet; the 20-year-old Honda driver told police the challenge came from the driver of the Mercedes.
Hondas are made for safe highway and street driving, not for racing upgrades that “could create an unsafe vehicle,” and void the warranty, said Art Garner, a spokesman for American Honda Motor Co. in Torrance.
Police don’t keep statistics on street racing, but say they haven’t noticed an upswing. Street racing is an “exhibition of speed” misdemeanor, punishable by up to 90 days in county jail and a $500 fine.
But these days, police are busting young drivers in souped-up Civics and CRXs the way they used to snag Mustangs and Camaros. Police cite Honda drivers for lowering their cars past the legal limit or disconnecting pesky smog devices that slow the exhaust. Suddenly, racing Hondas--the young-family car, the college kid’s choice--is hip.
“Here in Southern California,” said Westminster Police Sgt. James Waller, “especially in the younger crowd, you’re known by the car you drive. Everyone wants to do something different. They want to stand out from the crowd.”
A generation ago, teen-agers pined for sexy American cars, all chrome and curves, all bark and bite, for cruising and dragging--that cool California ‘tude romanticized in the 1972 film “American Graffiti” and The Beach Boys’ songs of endless summers with “my little deuce coupe.”
Now, while the entry of Hondas is duly noted by classic-car fans, they are dismissed by purists, sometimes with racial slurs, said Richard Heath, co-publisher of Full Throttle News, a Signal Hill-based racing publication.
Generally, the big car vs. little car rivalry is not framed in racial terms. Mostly, it’s just kids racing kids, but there’s no denying the subtext, Heath said.
“The period in the ‘50s and ‘60s was always a popular time. That’s what [American car fans] identify with,” Heath said. “It’s an American pride. . . . Detroit was it. . . . I’d say there is a little bit of a rivalry there, American vs. Japanese.”
For a new generation, Detroit is no longer the only game in town. At Carmate parts store in Glendale, a longtime seller of high-performance parts and accessories for Japanese cars, young Honda drivers beg owner Al Sia Jr. for speed. Faster, they plead. How many horsepower can you give me? In the last five years, sales of high-performance Honda parts have quadrupled, Sia said.
At Brotherhood Raceway Park on Terminal Island, two-door hatchback Hondas jockey for position at the entrance to a drag strip where amateurs compete for fun or money. The quarter-mile races last all of 12 seconds.
“Your Hondas, your Acuras--there are more of those than the big, fast guys,” said Chad Norwood, a Brotherhood official. “They go buy a brand-new car, they rip out all the interior except the dashboard and front seat to make it lighter.
“It’s baffling to me, Norwood said. “I’d take a ’68 Camaro over a Honda any day.”
Tim Bateman, 17, still can’t believe it when Hondas hit up his ’68 Mercury Cougar. When the drivers rev their engines next to him at a red light, he’ll look over and shake his head in disgust.
Then he’ll wait for the green light, see who jumps first. Off the line, the Honda might get a good sprint. But down the road, his Cougar smokes ‘em every time.
“I try to show off,” said Bateman, who recently had to replace his hood after it flipped off during a 125-m.p.h. freeway race, he said. “Like, ‘Hey, man, this is the real thing.’ ”
In his black ’68 Mustang, Rene Gomez hunts down loud, muffler-failing CRXs like a hungry mountain lion after an impertinent squirrel.
“I just pull up and love [to intimidate them],” he said. “They try to imitate the real thing, and it just doesn’t happen. . . . Either you have a muscle car or you don’t.
“This Honda racing, it’s boomed,” Gomez said. “It seems to be out of control. It’s like Hondas are taking over. But I don’t think it’s right. It’s not real.”
But Honda drivers say the muscle men are getting sand kicked in their faces.
On a recent Saturday at the Terminal Island track, 23-year-old Andrew Nguyen of Tustin scanned the crowd of dreamy cars: A flame-red ’55 Chevy Bel Air, a lemon-yellow ’68 Dodge Dart, a sky-blue ’67 Pontiac GTL.
Mighty V-8 engines don’t scare him, said Nguyen, who slapped a bigger exhaust system and nitrous oxide tank on his black ’88 CRX. The nitrous oxide system forces more fuel and air into the engine, giving it more kick. The nitrous oxide makes the engine run cooler, pumping up the horsepower.
“I could beat 80% of those muscle cars out here . . . 90%,” Nguyen boasted. “With my Honda, they don’t give us respect, just because it’s just a little tiny car. But I line up with them, and I can waste most of these guys.”
Muscle cars, Honda aficionados say, are old, clunky gas guzzlers that break down all the time and demand engine work. Why would you want a patched-together junkyard heap with sky-high insurance premiums?
They’ll stick to light, efficient, sleek Hondas, thank you.
“Figure between a ‘60-something [car] and a ‘90-something: Which is going to impress the girl more?” asked 23-year-old Chris Bui of Tustin, who drives a red ’95 Acura Integra. “You have to go by that and whatever [young drivers’] parents are going to buy them. Their parents are not going to buy them some old car.”
Don’t count the old cars out, said Daryl Muter, 46, of Orange, a member of the Orange County Cruisin’ Assn.
“Just look at it,” he urged, casting a loving gaze on his ’55 Chevy Bel Air hardtop at the Terminal Island track. “It’s where it all started: rock ‘n’ roll, the ‘50s, Elvis. And it never died. . . . They’re never going to die out.”
Kids see Hondas as a challenge. A Corvette is born fast; that’s no fun. But taking a slow car and making it fast, now that’ s sweet. Then you spring the car on the unsuspecting. No telling what junior is packing under a Honda hood anymore.
Kids are going crazy under those hoods, experts say, with novices spending $800 for basic upgrades such as lowering the car and improving the exhaust system. Others spend as much as $10,000 for deluxe turbo systems.
The foolhardy rush to add turbo or nitrous oxide without making the proper engine adjustments. That’s when connecting rods collapse and pistons burn and engines explode, said technician Steven Lancaster at Pro Mustang Performance in Costa Mesa.
“You can send parts to Honda heaven real quick.”
Not if you know what you’re doing, said Tran, who opened his high-performance garage for Hondas and Acuras last year because the demand was so high.
Nevertheless, Tran said he doesn’t street-race anymore. It’s too dangerous, he says.
But on that summer day last year, he wasn’t about to back down to a Mustang bully.
He thought he’d lose. But he wanted to run anyway. You never know. Maybe the guy’s a bad driver, maybe he can’t shift.
First light, the Mustang burns rubber. Showing off. Next light, Tran gets a good jump; the Honda and Mustang pull up together. Third light, they wait for the green. Rev the engine. Together, they take off at 95 m.p.h. down Newland Street.
“He killed me,” Tran said. “He just beat me.”
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Civic Pride
What turns a factory-issued Honda into a hot rod? A package of changes that can cost more than $10,000. Here are some of the steps to a quicker, more potent Honda:
* Raise exhaust efficiency with racing headers: $4,000
* Boost horsepower with illegal addition of nitrous oxide fuel injection system: $500
* Upgrade rear-end adhesion with spoiler: $400
Improve handling and stability by adding:
* Racing springs and upgraded suspension components: $1,700
* Stiffer struts, thicker sway bars: $800
* High-performance adjustable shocks: $600
* Enhance “grip” with larger wheels, tires: $1,500
Source: Speed Image
Researched by APRIL JACKSON / Los Angeles Times
