Nice ride, so this may cause considerable offence... Stanceworks 308 GTBi (Honda K24 Swap)

Well if that particular model the 308 save the company from shutting down for good, what do you think? Remember it’s not all about the weight, which all you care about, if I wanted a light car I would buy a Civic or an old Fiat or something really light.

 

A same year 911 was never faster than a 308 is stock form was it?. Nor was a same year corvette is stock form, I don't think? one lighter, one heavier, both slower. For the time a 308 was a fine car....its not 1980 any more but at the time it was about the best you could get just as its hard to beat an F8 today....not to say there aren't lighter cars than an F8, there certainty are, but that is not the purpose of a F8......or a 308.

I went up to talk to an FSAE team some years back to help them get rolling and it seemed like every question was about weight....I finally suggested they just remove the engine if weight is the primary concern. That not only lets them save the engine weight but also lets them remove the fuel tank, massively lighten the frame, much smaller battery, savings everywhere!

One guy finally say "but it won't drive...?"

Exactly! You are after a car the drives. you don't want to add weight you don't need but the point is not to make a light car, it is to make a car that goes fast and that means you need the weight you need. You need an engine so stop talking about it and start designing for it.

Same is true here, a 308 chassis is just a poor choice for an engine designed to put out 160hp so weight will always be an issue, no way around that really.

 

It feels like we're on the exact same page. This is all I am saying: weight is a problem with the car.

Reactions seem like I've said the car has trash handling, or that the driving experience is awful, or that the machine sucks.

All I've said, albeit rather critically, is that the car is heavy.
Well, that and that the engine is anemic, which is subjective.

 

I watched some of your videos tonight. Cool stuff.

I like your analytical narrative regarding the build problems you foresee and need to solve.

 

Well, kind of.

I said weight is a problem with an engine designed to put out 160hp....the honda engine. Remember you went to great length to explain how everything about that engine is optimized for low weight? So is the car they put it in. Others just use a bigger engine to get more hp, but honda always seems to prefer to reduce weight to get a decent power to weight ratio figuring the weight savings helps economy I guess. That was the thing with the NSX and S2000 (which became a 2200), great cars performance wise, but left many wishing for more lower end torque in daily driving, so better track cars than street cars.

The ferrari engine is designed to put out 240hp (about the highest output at the time, other than the bigger, and heavier, ferrari and lambo models, and honda was at about 100hp) and the structure designed to hold the physical size and weight of that engine....which makes it heavier but the goal at the time was more about top speed than autoX type handling or drag racing and the added weight is just added stability ( I don't buy drivers under 3000lbs any more, they they just flat s**k in the rain) while the added hp gave acceptable/competitive acceleration and makes the ride smoother which the 50+ demographic who could afford them liked. The weight was a design choice to make a nice driving street car that would sell well and that is what a 308 is.....which means it's not aligned well with your particular race car project goals and that means more work for you taking off all the weight they added to meet their goals. Most anything can be done with enough effort, so light weight 308 it is then

 

I learned how to drive a manual in a 1970 Europa... and a 79 Esprit.... both were fun. I like the Europa idea because they are linked to the Gt47 Race car.. and I think you could make a real copy / screamer while not having to spend a ton for lots of HP and fun.

 

I appreciate that!

That's all true.... but the engine I pulled out of my car also makes 160hp. So that's all kind of moot if you're willing to stick by your original point.
I do hear what you're saying, though.

 

yeah, if its kind of broken I guess its 160hp....or 0 its its all broken like mine.

 

That’s spot on for factoring the standard 20% drivetrain loss figure. Wikipedia says 202bhp for US model 308 GTBi cars. That means 161.3 hp after drivetrain losses. Sure, there’s some wiggle room in that figure, but not a ton. Even if we say it’s 15% loss which would be very low, that’d be 171.7hp at the wheels.

Mine made 163whp. Totally fair and within the margin of error for things like age, altitude, temperature, etc.

 

I was initially shocked at how soft the suspension is and how slow the steering rack is when I got my 308 but understand now that both benefit high speed cruising. It certainly does seem like the 308 was designed for the autostradale and autobahn. Gilles Villeneuve set the speed record from Monaco to Maranello in one (although that may be more an indicator of driver sanity than vehicle performance).

There are two famous Enzo Ferrari quotes which I find interesting:
“I build engines and attach wheels to them.”
“I build a young man's car that only rich old men can afford.”

There is a history to the old cars and the marque which a lot of us honor and cherish. The 308 is at the turning point in history where the company began to change.

The weight of the 288 GTO, the factory-made race car based on the 308, was only 2,550 lbs so it is not like Ferrari could not make light cars with their V8 engine.

 

Come on, apples and oranges again.

Sure, I don't doubt that rwhp number in any way....you have the worst engine of the series hp wise with an output well below what the car started and ended production with, but the 160 honda comparison point was crank so 125-130rwhp? We need consistent units for fair comparisons.

 

i thought you were using the same drivetrain loss figures. My Honda engine makes more crank horsepower than the 308’s engine does. Not really apples to oranges. It’s 202bhp vs 205.

 

I once owned a 1980 Honda Accord. That engine was rated at 79 HP when it was new and I think my particular car was probably around 50 when I got it in 1998.

 

You have the higher output rarer version vs how it was normally sold beginning to end of production at 160hp ? Fine then compare the better 308s at 235-255 which is apples to apples right? or if rare versions are fine compare to the 650hp 288 number, same engine....but that doesn't seem fair.

 

It's not rare... it came in literally every production TSX made (some had like 200hp instead of 205 if you want to split hairs)... Roughly 155,000 cars. You can get them in any junk yard across America, and it's the K24 everyone uses when swapping them. They also came in the Accord in euro and JDM markets. No one wants the version out of the CRV, which is the one you're quoting.

You're being kind of unfair about this one. I didn't go buy some exotic Honda engine. I'm also quoting the Ferrari engine that came out of the car I own, not cherry picking a low horsepower one to fit my example. It's the one that puts out the power figure you, yourself, agreed was too little for the weight of the car.

 

As said, my engine could easily be tired or worn out. "20%" drivetrain loss is the standard figure everyone tends to use for a reason, but it isn't exact. I've seen cars with more than 25% drivetrain loss between engine dyno and chassis dyno, and I've seen cars with as low as 15%, although never really any lower than that.

The Ferrari figure of 202bhp could be high, it could be low... but, with my 163whp run, it's absolutely bang-on, if we use the gold standard of 20%.

 

As I said earlier, 1980 US spec is the worst example of any manufacturer you can find. The 308 had more power than the 911 of the same displacement and more power than the Corvette with about twice the displacement. And , like I said, the 1980 Honda had 79 HP. You want apples to apples against a K24 maybe compare it to the engine in the Alfa 4C - 1.8L 240 HP stock.

 

You're fighting tooth and nail to ignore the worst car of the lot and I get it.

But it's the car I have. It's the one I bought, and it's the one I baselined. It's the one I am improving, and it's the one I have to reflect upon. Be upset with Ferrari for producing it, not with me for forming opinions around it.

I know there are more powerful 308s, and I am sure the carbureted version is much more enjoyable to drive. I'd take that bet. But I don't have one. The one I do have is a pig, and it was blessed with Ferrari's name.

 

So you never did take it out into the hills or try to have some fun with it did you? Yea, I figured that. You had a preconceived notion and plan and it's all just about numbers so no, you don't "get it" and it's kind of a shame you have such a sour opinion of the 308, a shame in the sense that you have one in your butcher shop that you never even gave a chance to. tsk, tsk, tsk...

 

Hold on, lemme go find my tiny violin somewhere.

 

You also claim you're going to drive it on the street when you're done. That's interesting, how do you plan on getting tags and insurance for your beast? You know I've watched much of your channel and it seems you have a lot of unfinished work. I was watching the Model A stuff and it just kind of left me hanging. There is a short clip of you driving it into the shop but other than that, maybe I'm missing some content?

 

That was my first trial run at YouTube, and I didn’t find a groove and finish the series. The A will be back as soon as my new engine arrives for it.
As far as how to insure and tag it, I’m not sure why that really matters to you, aside from what feels like more prying ways to discredit me and my work.
The Model A, along with all of my stuff, is registered, plated, and insured. Legally.

 

The 2V carb cars are 205, the 2v injected 195. The measures loss for a 308 is 17% (engine dyno chassis dyno, same engine), which puts rwhp at 162 for a 2vi car.

I'm not saying a TSX is rare....I'm saying it is the best and lowest volume version of that engine that you are comparing to the worst and lowest volume 308 engine that only ever existed because of rapidly changing US pollution regulations in the late 70s that took the factory a couple years to sort, and hp returned to an honest 235.

Even using the TSX as the comparison, google says that is a 3300lb car.....and slower than a 1980 308. The common civic version hard loess power but was in a lighter car, google says 2600-2900...and slower yet.

 

This is boring now; I’m off