As I was driving to work this evening in my WS6, I noticed a Civic (hatchback, early to mid 90s or so) zipping through traffic in an apparent effort to catch up to me. We rolled up to a stop sign side by side and he revved a little bit. So I looked over at him and gave it a little gas as I took off. I heard him go WOT, so I did the same (nitrous was off). To my surprise I heard a turbo spool pretty loudly and noticed that I was only pulling on him by a little bit. I heard a blowoff valve as he shifted out of first and I pulled a little more on him. Then he hit the rev limiter a couple of times in second and I pulled away quite a bit when that happened so then I shut down.

I was reasonably impressed that he stayed somewhat close to me (except for shifting and the rev limiter), so I slowed down to acknowledge him but I noticed that he seemed to be slowing down more as I slowed down, and he was looking down. He never would pull up beside me, so I figured that I hurt his feelings. So I kept going, and I saw him coast into the right lane and then he pulled over to the shoulder and turned on his hazards. I could have turned around and asked if the car was alright, but that probably would have just added insult to injury. Anyway, I have no idea what really happened to his car. It could have been something as simple as a loose wire or an intercooler pipe that blew off (been there, done that on my old Stealth twin turbo), or as bad as a blown engine.

As I kept going, a guy who was behind us at the stop sign pulled up next to me and was laughing really hard. He said it was so funny that the Civic "blew his **** up" while racing me.

 

Doh, sucks for him, nice murder.

 

He blew it up!!!!!! LOL Probably dropped a valve from overrevving. If his piping just blew off it would have seemed like he slamed on his brakes while racing you.... and he also wouldn't have a need to pull over to the side. He could've driven to the nearest gas station to fix it. Imagine how it feels in a car like mine.... I was getting on the freeway next to a guy in a civic and decided to show off a little. at the top of 3rd my piping blew off and I swear its the equivalent to slamming on your brakes. 540whp down to 140 in an instant. I drove all the way home that way..... so I knew I wouldn't be dumb enough to try and show off again!!!

 

Good kill, ya should have stopped to see if his car was ok though. He may have been looking down at his gauges to see what was going on and was slowing because his **** was broke.

 

great kill man... kinda harsh though...could've atleast asked if he needed any help or something... hehe...

 

It depends on how his turbo piping is configured as to whether the car would be driveable with a blown off intercooler pipe. If he has a MAF before the turbo (typical factory setup, at least on Mitsubishi), when an intercooler pipe blows, there is a big discrepancy between the MAF reading (basically 0 because no air is coming through the MAF any more; all the air is coming in at the blown off pipe) and the actual air coming into the engine. Therefore the car won't idle or run well because the air is unmetered and so the ECU has no way of figuring out how much fuel to add.

However, if the MAF is after the turbo and right at the throttle body or if the car was running in speed density/MAP, then the car would still run but not have boost.

My old Stealth twin turbo had the MAF before the turbos. So when an intercooler pipe would blow off, there would be a loud noise and the car would fall flat on its face. It would barely idle or it would die. It is quite a scary feeling because the first thought that crosses your mind is that the engine is blown up.

At first I didn't realize that something was wrong with his car, or I would have pulled over. Like I said before, I just thought that he wasn't happy because he got beat. I only realized that something was wrong when I looked in my rear view and saw him pull to the shoulder and turn on his hazards. By then I was quite a ways down the road and I had to be at work in a couple of minutes.

 

Clearly his flux capacitor was on the fritz

It goes to show you, you can make ANY car fast, but you can't make them all reliable.


Cheap
Reliable
Fast

Pick two. You can't have all three. If someone makes a Civic fast, the vast majority of the time it's because they don't have money, so you get stuck with "fast" and "cheap," not "reliable" Hey, if you had money, you wouldn't be racing a Civic!

 

+1 Atleast to give a helping hand.

 

lol, the trueth hurts!! good kill.

 

He probably just blew out a V-Tec bearing or something...

 

Very nice.

I give you a very hearty, JABA The Hut laugh.

Awesome murder.

 

Nice kill. Keep up the good work...

 

I don't know, I seen some civics put down 500whp on a mustang dyno. From what I read, they have a hefty amount of money invested.

Racing is expensive period, if your a diehard, your spending big bucks regardless of make or model.

 

I raced a kid around here twice- both times I beat him and both times he put a rod through the block. Turbo'd civic first time was stock 1.6L with a 16g turbo/fmic/supportings, second time was a 1.8 GSR forged internals/50trim running like 30lbs of boost (this time I was on spray) and he blew it up on the highway. Sucks, I stopped both times for him.