And s13counterpart. I don’t know what’s happening canada-wise most of my ideas and biases come state-side. I really didn’t care nor know that much about canada-side events until more recently. One of the reasons being that son240 members wouldn’t really give a shit, nor does anyone believe an S chassis can do anything than be a ‘street-drift’ car lmao. Only because I plan to get more involved have I actually read anything locally.
You’re comparing a honda to a 240sx or m3 platform. First of all I’m thinking SM SM2 type events. Dunno whats up in canada… but the ones winning are rx7s, m3s, corvettes, and guess what they have, fat tires and lots of instant torque, gobs of it. They rock.
Hondas are a poor man’s weapon of choice. They have several advantages. When J-Rho talked about how furious the hondas are, I believe he was talking about STS, he said when the data was analysed, what was ironic is that the hondas albeit power-wise less, they were actually faster in the straightaways than the corners vs his 240sx built STS and some other cars he compared.
Secondly a honda is fwd, narrower, shorter wheel base, miles lighter, doublewishbone, lots of advantages that on the cheap will beat anything else to begin with vs a mcpherson 240sx or m3, much heavier, rwd, different power to weight ratio, rules, etc… different worlds buddy, heck even against a corvette, there’s many different factors giving them an advantage in certain autox classes.
But look at j-rho’s built SM winning 240sx. It had gobs of torque, response, the dynograph looked almost like a v8 init? He spent quite a bit more than the average 240 owner would, but it was doable. koni 2817 dampers… people are just hearing about konis here… and a few ran yellows thinking they were ‘too soft’ lol. To put things into perspective.
Look at DON from PDM, not as built as J-rho’s car, but still up there. For canada he did pretty well, although he told me before its pretty hard to compete with the m3s, this was a couple of years ago. J-Rho proved it, it can be done. Both of them are ka-ts.
The hondas may not have alot of power but they’re also a lot lighter which is the biggest plus for them. This is something every honda guy takes advantage of. Work on the advantages, not disadvantages when being on a budget. Pulling out of corners torque wins. This applies to all. Yes things may be worked in different manner but all stateside guys who win, build cars with torque, responsiveness and fat tires in mind when building SM SM2 cars for that short burst all out short time event. Yeah it also mostly depends on the gearing in which range of the powerband you’re working in, but all things worked out, torque and responsivness wins. An SR is unheard of stateside winning national events. It just lacks any real torque low to mid range, and the short burst of power upwards becomes useless and just trouble to control when it hits. Not many guys build cars around an SR check any SCCA NASA forum, any autox forum state-side. J-Rho jokingly mentioned a 2.4l stroker SR, but how much would that cost. The only cars built around SRs are road racing cars which are constantly in the upper rpm range and on throttle.
I’m building an all around car that’s all. An SR should do great in road racing. I just don’t enjoy the lack of low-mid range power if I were to use it for anything else.
Just opinions people, you’re entitled to it. I’d pick a 400whp ish LS over a 600whp SR any day, even if the SR is ‘faster’… if we’re talking paper to paper theoretically… I just would.
However those weights, honestly, have been floating all over the internet, and none have been really consistent, regardless of scales… what is known, is that the center of gravity is lower it being a pushrod… and… most of the new found weight is in the much larger 6spd tranny. Do a good enough job of swapping it and it’ll be a 50:50 split… yep. Everything takes money.
I love autox, even though its even more hated on son240 than lapping it seems lol. I went to a couple of events last year and beginning of this year just for fun… but I hope to start road racing next spring 
But give me the monies $$$.
