|
The Next Generation Shoebox
Words and photos by Jeff Burk
Here at DRO we don't care what the body style is or what kind of motor
a car has or even what country it was built in. If it will smoke the
tires and go fast, we like it; if it has power-adders such as a blower
or nitrous, we like that even more. Which brings us to the subject of
this little essay. A nondescript, plain Jane, dark blue, slightly dented
Honda Civic that just happens to do the quarter-mile in just under 12.5
seconds at just over 108 mph.
Not impressed with those numbers? Consider these facts then, the 2,500-lb
Gen X shoebox is powered by a 1.8 liter (that's just about 100 American
cubic inches) all-aluminum, four cylinder, overhead cam engine with
fuel injection and nitrous oxide. As far as the DRO staff is concerned,
that's the description of a hot rod.
The hot rod we're featuring here is a test mule for the R&D department
at Competition Cams of Memphis, Tennessee. It actually is the pet project
of Comp Cams engineer Mike Bond who uses it to develop and test the
company's import car dedicated, ZEX brand of nitrous oxide injection
and Comp Cams branded camshafts.
|
|