Cars with lengthened axles – why?
filed in 1993 Honda Civic
Question: :I’m seeing a lot more cars lately with lengthened axles, and usually very small diameter wheels to go along with it. On some, they stick completely out of the car.
I dont know the why, but the *how* is that they are just running wheels with the wrong offset.
What does this do to the handling
in the toilet no doubt. I have never seen one of these jerks going over about 25mph though.
Also has to make for short lived suspension components and *very* heavy steering at low speed.
Usually (in every case I’ve seen so far), this is accomplished by using incredible amounts of offset in the wheels and the possible use of spacers. The intent (or so I’m told) is to make the Honda Civic (or other econobox) “look like an Indy car, man”. I won’t even bother to comment on that. Sure it does something… it kills the bearings which are used to loads along the bearing not 6 inches outside. The bearings will wear conically and very rapidly, throwing camber and wheel control out the window.
Stability isn’t the issue. Like everything high school kids are doing today, it has to do with “style” (or a lack thereof). Why else would Geo Trackers be so popular?
Sure, every generation of high school kids likes to modify their cars, but this is the first generation that does not seem to have performance as the goal.
Billy Crystal’s Fernando Lamas seems to have summed up Generation Xers:
“It is better to look good than to feel good.”
Shallowness is now viewed as a virtue. *sigh*
Just a little clarification: I believe high schoolers are not considered Generation Xers. I don’t know what they are, but I think Generation Xers are now the 20-27 year olds (or something like that). Take a look at “Friends” for a good example.
I must disagree with you. When I was in high school, twenty some odd years ago, the hot-rod look was “in” among the greaser set. You know, narrow wheels in front, big cheater slicks in back, and the rear end of the car raised up so that the cheater slicks didn’t get too intimate with the bodywork around the rear fenders. Let’s not forget the obligatory glass- pack mufflers, which provided an aural equivalent to today’s bass-boom-box stereo from hell, albeit with less of a beat.
Now you might say “but they were setting the car up for drag racing.” But you’d be wrong. Since this was on Long Island (NY) there were no deserted roads for informal racing, and none of these guys went to the strip. If they had, it would have been funny to watch, as very few of these beasts had anything in the way of underhood substance to match their NHRA style.
I was pumping gas after school, and regularly would fill up these badassmobiles, occasionally popping the hood to do fluid checks. Most of them were bone stock, and poorly maintained. Hell, the chariot belonging to one of the most notorious greasers had a single-carbed six, and two feet of pipe welded to the bottom of the car opposite the real exhaust pipe, so it would look like the car had dual exhausts.
Also, while jacking the rear of the car will counteract weight transfer for a quick launch, doing so without improving the control of the rear axle through traction bars or some other mechanism, is gonna result in some pretty scary wheel hop when you push the loud pedal. Most of these guys had done way too much jacking, and none of the necessary mods to make it work.
You can also imagine how well the cars braked and handled with odd sized tires, a completely screwed up suspension geometry and a significantly raised center of gravity. Possible worse than a Civic with 6″ wheel offsets.
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