Due to recent financial setbacks... Project Ah-Peh is in serious limboh. Right now all that I can do is to make a list and prioritise what needs to be fixed.
This car is a classic. It's 4.68m long. That's because it's very old school and the car design philosophy was different then. Everything, engine, transmission, etc all were designed in a straight line, unlike today's tall vehicles which stack mechanical components one atop another. And it's relatively low at 1.39m. It's wheelbase is amazing, at 2.72m which later translates into very secure road-holding. The double-wishbones suspensions, though ensuring very good handling in spite of old tyres, eat a lot into the rear cabin room thus the legroom is only slightly better than that of a contemporary upmarket 1.6litre car.
Maximum power is 130PS and even after 16 years it still feels ever-ready to rev and agile, a testament to being a Honda. It's fuel-injected and SOHC so its key advantage is torque. It maxes at 4500rpm with 18.1kgm but actually the curve is such that from idle torque begins from 14kgm and reaches 16kgm by 2000rpm before moving till 18kgm by 4000rpm. This holds out until 5000rpm. All this pulling a weight of about 1250kg. This is all shown graphically below.
And guess what... it has got to be a... manual! What else for the anal-retentive me! It's clutch is quite worn out and needs a bit of accelerator while engaging it... but... hehehe... it rocks!
Btw, the stereo features 4 speakers at the back with very nice wooden boom boxes eating into the trunk... it sounds awesome!
So far, these are the problems it has.
1) Front passenger window can't be lowered completely or it'll misalign when it goes back up.
2) Front window rubber seals are worn, so there's wind noise at 90kmh onwards
(1) & (2) would cost about $300 to fix... bleah
3) Tyres look old and are oversized! The speedometer's reading is 6% slower than reality! So when I was going at 100kmh... it was actually...
(3) it turns out 16" tyres cost $100 a piece! GASP!
4) There's this pathetic "Proton" logo on the 16" alloys - I'd rather have gotten smaller rims and a better brand instead...
5) Alternator belt making interesting sounds tt correspond with engine rev... its getting worn... sigh...
6) Clutch is worn and needs a bit of fuel or pre-rev to engage smoothly. Gearbox feels rough when not warmed up.
(I don't even want to ask how much it'll cost)
I'll post pictures when I actually get down to washing the car lol
Jerry
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