jonc

Had a quick tussle with one from rolling start with the new CTR approaching fast up my chuff exiting a roundabaout on to an A road. Up to about 60 I slowly pulled away with him even pulling out to try and overtake. I'm not the greatest driver and I fluffed my change into 3rd but he still couldn't gain up to 80 when I slowed down for traffic. Judging by his face he wasnt best pleased and ragged off at the next round about to make a point at which time I'm turning off for my exit where I saw his Type R badge. Granted his car his new and the engine may still be tight, can't say for sure since I don't know how many miles were on his car. Mine's nicely run in 44K '02 325i.

Any one looking for a new CTR, stick with the previous version, as my brother has proven with his, is faster compared to mine (but not by huge margin!) Brought a smile to my face from what would be an otherwise boring commute from the station.

delcbr

is that the e36 325i? cos i remember racing one in my reno 5 turbo and thinking hold on why cant i get past this car as i had raced plaenty of fast stuff b4 like standard scoobys and clio 172's mk1 and a red top 2litre 16v nova which was match i matched right upo to a 120mph on a private road(aye right) and expected to get past the e36 325i on a j plate it suprised me.
now i can see why ppl rate the 328i.
i never raced a civic type r though but plenty of clio 172's which matched me to 90 mph and that was me standard boost albeit with a new turbo.

jonc

No mines an E46 (year corrected!). 192bhp, 181lb/ft , quoted figure for 0-60 is 7.1 secs, though BMW are usually quite conservative with their figures. Its near enough identical to my previous 172 in real world driving. I guess the Type R's measly 142lb/ft of torque is not enough to haul around 1338kg despite its 198bhp figure, though 220-240bhp is more the norm for a hot hatch in this class these days.

delcbr

they do say torque talks and i have read that its torque which affects acceleration not bhp.maybe someone else can be more specific on this.

OcTag3n

iTrader: (4)

I'm led to believe that the bigger engined BMW's can be remapped to silly torque figures, somet like 700lbs of torque & about 330bhp depending on the engine.

What would 700lbs torque accellerate like?

Sub97

There's a lot of talk on the Civic Type R forum about the new Type R.

General concensus is there really is nothing in it between the new one and the old one in terms of acceleration.

However, as the old one is now 6 years on, and considering how much the rest of the field has moved on, this isn't really seen as good enough by most of owners of the old shape CTR.

Cosworth427

It's a Civic Type R not a flipping V8 drag mobile!

Anyone experienced the brakes, handling and dynamics of the new car before slagging it off?

Matteeboy

Well Evo get a shockingly bad lap time in it.
2nd slowest car they have tested I think - the slowest being a 1.6 Focus!!

delcbr

i think u got your wires crossed i checked and the bmw 535 td chipped will make 453 lb ft torque.
the only other one that gets near it is the 850 csi at 435lb ft once chipped.

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

Martin Brundle described torque & bhp rather well, he said that the torque is how hard the engine punches, the bhp is how fast it punches.

Jeff Stryker

Thats sounds sh*t to me

misty

Where did you get those figures from? I think the CTR is still about 6.6 to 60 and 17.5 to 100. The best I can find for the bmw is 7.7 to 60 and 22 to 100. In anyones book the CTR would have been way ahead at around 100!! I think his engine needs a few miles to bed in yet.....I've had an e46 330i, and to honest I was very disappointed with it's performance, a nice cruiser, but no rocket ship.
Dave

Olly

I had a long drive in a new one a few weeks ago in a borrowed one. Not a test drive.

Expected it to feel quick, especially seeing as I'm not exactly driving a rocket at the minute and hadn't driven anything tasty for a few weeks.

But it didn't feel it. Not really sure whether it was deceptively fast and just felt slow, or just simply was slow.

Speedo seemed to tell a different story. But also seemed to be wildly optimistic too.

And before you say, yes I did rev it to murgatroyd. Ex RX8 man, so quite used to it

Puzzling. Especially compared to the Focus ST I drove recently, which I thought went like a rocket.

Handled well though, VERY quick steering, nice and chunky inside. Not so nice from the outside though.

Would I buy one? No. Focus ST? Yes.

davecweed

535d = 415 lb/ft torque, chiped(dms) = 510lb/ft, which = approx 700 nm torque

super6four

Driven the new car a few times now, at a lounch do and other occasions. most recently had a chance to drive it back to back with stock EP3, lightly tuned EP3's and also EK9's at Brunters for a magazine feature. As far as performance goes there is really nothing in it between EP3 (what I drive now as it happens) and the new car. The Ek9's were a little quicker of the line but mid and top end loose out a bit. Though their handling was spot on, needing a well set up and driven newer car to keep up.

Anywhoo... The new car is a little more stable round mid sized bends, and the improved steering feedback inspires confidence, and is a little more forgiving, though I still maintain a better driver will get more out of both older CTR's, on track at least.

DMC12

http://vettenet.org/torquehp.html

Steve.

jonc

The figures quoted are factory figures, BMW get their figures with a full tank, passenger and luggage so are conservative. For example, Evo have tested the 330i 5.9sec 0 to 60 even though factory figures are 6.8 secs. I've time myself unscientifically at 0-60 at 7 secs and 0-100 19 secs.

I've "tested" the 325 with a '04 CTR when it only had a few thousand miles on the clock and I could keep up no probllem. Now that its got 17k it pulls away.

I can only go by from what I experienced on this occaision. The Type R was 56 reg so its perfectly reasonable to expect the engine was still a bit tight. Despite its extra 6bhp and 140kg weight advantage, on a rolling start the new CTR was still slower, but conceed that its probably more fun to drive.

mikey s

all the new ctr's are i-vtec now. when there new the ecu wont let them produce as much power or something, it retards it for engine longetivity etc.

alot of people find that once there run in the performance gets much better.

LegacyJim

everyone seems to expect miracles from hondas since the first EP Civics were launched,

your comparing a £30k 2.5 6 Cyldiner to a £16k 2.0 4 cylinder, bang for buck says the civic better BHP per ££

they are two completely different cars your comparing, your better off comparing a BMW 120 Sport and a new Type R or something like that,

i test drove a E36 328 Sport back a while and was impressed with the performance, however i drove the EP3 and wasnt, both cars are the same in the 0-60 time IIRC , i think the overall feel of the car can alter how fast it feels as well

MooseRacer

The boggo ctr is £17.5k and the GT is £18.5k....but I take your point


My company car was up for renewal earlier in the year...ordered a Golf GTI as I didn't want to get one of the old shape CTRs. I was really worried that Honda were going to completely waste the competition with the new CTR - I needn't have worried though

Tommy_Lee

Having had a good poke round the new CTR i am very impressed by it!
In red it looks stunning,with some great detail and a great interior,seats are great absolutely no comparison to the previous version in terms of quality!
Best packaging by a mile in its sector.

jonc

Happened again last night, almost exactly the same scenario, same junction, same road and same black car, except this time I didn't fluff my change into 3rd. Rolling start pulled about a cars length up to 50, then from 50 to 80 the CTR made no gains at all. This time he gives me a friendly flash when we arrive at the next round about. So there you go, it may have a nicer interior than the previous CTR, it is definitely slower than the previous CTR. Without actually driven the new CTR I'd say the old CTR was more hard core and also wins on the looks stakes despite the breadvan proportions.

what would scooby do

Previous CTR was slow so god knows what yours is like then !

lestippp

I understand what your saying but I owned 2 of the old style CTR's and for a front drive vehicle they are very quick, not when compared to my Sti ppp obviously, but quick in a mega hatch way!
I still prefer the old style and the new one has defo diluted the "Type R" marque for me. It's soft and fluffy next to all other Type R's. The gear change in the old one was the best I have ever experienced until I had a Cayman s for the day and that says a lot. The ctr was always going to disappoint with no power upgrade (well 1 extra horse in the stable) when competing with todays mega hatch line up. If they make one with 240+ bhp and 4wd it will be awesome!

jonc

Just don't understand how Honda could release a heavier car with virtually no power increase in the face of competition where 240+BHP is now the norm in its class. Even the new Corsa VXR is faster!

borat52

Actually its pretty spot on, but you have to think of the pistons as the 'arm'. Liots of torque at low revs means although the pistons aren't 'punching' the crank all that often they are pushing real hard every time they fire.

BHP is broadly torque x revs which means if you can keep torque high and get the revs up then power will be high, of course torque tends to drop off as revs increase past a certain point which means your battling to increase the revs faster than the torque drop off in order to get more power. This is what he means by how fast it punches, although at 8k rpm the pistons may be punching the crank less hard, they punch it 4 times as often as at 2k rpm which means they can afford to punch it with 1/4 of the force to generate the same power (they usually will be packing a lot more than 1/4 of the force at 8krpm hence why you can produce more bhp up there).

Essentially you need revs for bhp.

For outright speed bhp will always be the king, but for driveability low down torque is very important.

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

Nice article!!

Jeff Stryker

Now that sounds like a better description

Fabioso

Type-R when we were talking EK9 and DC2 used to be about getting rid of weight and leaving in the engine noise, now its about diluting the "badge" to appeal to the masses and I'm not buying in to it

Sorry Mr Honda but you really have lost the plot into a wishy world of comfort and compromise with no edge.

Stick the Satnav and give me a proper car like you used to make

Although the JDM versions look a bit more like it, I still can't see why I'd want to pay £20k+ for a car they make in Swindon but sell in Tokyo.

Dracoro

Weight is a key factor.

Sports cars aren't proper sports cars if they are heavy

F1 cars have LESS torque than many german turbo diesel cars.

Basically, the lighter the car, the less torque it needs.

Im my view, the Civic does not need more power (torque or bhp) but does need to shed a load of lard. If Honda aren't prepared to do this then they need to put more power in.