Test drive Honda Civic sedan 2003 - 2005 sedan
A thunderstorm of street raises
Honda brand cars are enjoyed by street racers with limitless respect. Available, hardy, with fighting character. Giving in a comprehensive refinement, they served as the basis of a whole direction in the tuning industry. Yes, and Honda Motor Co herself regularly indulges her fans with the release of special road versions. Hot abbreviations VTI, Type-R, Type-S are not for everyone to have a special explanation. Moreover, the origin of the factory charging cars is exactly the opposite of the process that we mean by tuning, that is, when the standard machine is upgraded, receiving a more powerful engine, a reconfigurated transmission, sports suspension, etc., etc. Honda initially creates a maximal car , and then carries him gradual Dawngraid, receiving mass modifications as a result. This was the fate of the last Civic family generated by a three-door Type-R.
Not a car, but a sight for sore eyes! Unique! The body is almost a single -volume, with an absolutely even floor, which provides a high level of stiffness on twisting and, as a result, the coordination of the work of pendants and the accuracy of the steering. The swiftness of the bullet -shaped body of the car is emphasized by seventeen -inch wheels and moderately developed body kit. Little animal, but dangerous! A mile away shows: it is worth contacting this only with exceptional confidence in those forces that are hidden under your hood.
Because under the hood of Type-R there is a very serious unit of a hundred horses from a liter of working volume. Without any turbines and compressors there, but with the I-VTEC gas distribution phase system. 1200 kilograms of mass, six steps in the gearbox. And the red zone of the tachometer, starting with the number 8000 and extending to 9500. He looks like a massive sentence to the opponents in city races. Will it be carried out? The Type-R salon is eloquent: the case will be serious. This is the interior of a real sports car is black, ascetic, extremely functional. Even the air conditioning is perceived here as an element of luxury. But the laconic perfection of existing details is admired. The embossed chair reliably fixes the body, but does not cling to it with a dead grip of Subaru Wrx seats. The three -spoke steering wheel is unconditionally good, the contrasting dashboard is read even with a cursory look, the pedals on the pedals delight. There is its own masterpiece of the gearbox lever with a titanium tan. It is in the Minivanian based on the central console, that is, with the performing mechanisms of the box, it is connected by a system of cables, and this almost always promises problems with the clarity of switching. However, there are no problems on Type-R at all: the node works surprisingly accurately, and the levers are really small. You will have to get used to only the fifth and sixth gears included from the neutral diagonally. And the newly-made Typ-Erist needs to get comfortable with the dimensions of the car. The visibility from the driver’s place is, in principle, a good, but the feeling of an invisible bow should be train separately. Without it, it will not be possible to fully enjoy the resourceful of the car in the city stream.
The dynamics of the machine can be praised by praises for a long time, inventing beautiful epithets. But I would like more facts. So: with an inept handling pedal and a gearbox lever, switching will take you a significant part of the acceleration time. Both to the coveted 100 km/h, and up to 150, because the intensity of acceleration remains in the crates-lining even at high speeds. And wet coatings require accurate handling of the accelerator pedal, otherwise the car will be doomed to helpless slipping. According to the prevailing Honda tradition, the honor of her and praise! In each gear, acceleration is two-stage: somewhere up to 6000 rpm Type-R, it just dashingly takes speed, and then shoots to the limiter at once. Moreover, its engine is completely unlike forced engines with their tops full of life and coma lower. And at the top of the emotions, there are more than enough, and in the lower speed of the I-VTEC revolutions amazingly elastic, stretching in the sixth gear with 40 km/h. Yes, Type-R openly provokes a quick ride, but he does not perceive calm regimes as something unnatural. Machine controllability materialization of all desires. So that the commands are performed instantly, but without unnecessary nervousness. So that he holds a straight car on the top five and draws the turns like a pattern without demanding any steering. So that by changing the effort on the steering wheel it is possible to judge the speed on the turn, and its steepness, and the reliability of the contact of tires with the canvas. All this is. I liked the behavior of the car in wet
turns, namely its predictability: adding gas to the demolition of the front axle, discharge of a logical skid's skid. Both processes arise and develop smoothly and understandably, so fear does not arise. On dry asphalt, it is almost impossible to cause a skid with frankly provoking methods. Such cloudless prosperity makes the nuances look. Not disadvantages, but nuances. And they are available. The reactive effect created by an electric power, sometimes seems to be some kind of rubber, a little artificial. Perhaps it is a different feature of Type-R. At high speeds, a car from a row in a row is rebuilt, like a map. And the setting of the electric power is adjusted in order to provide the driver with the proper feedback level at small angles of rotation of the steering wheel. Balance Management smoothness is clearly shifted in the direction of controllability. Type-R car is hard, very hard. The suspension reacts to each crack, each fossa, projecting a map of the condition of the road to the body. Literally any flaw of asphalt is worked out, which, on the other hand, is very important for the efficiency of braking. Low-profile tires are sensitive to the ruts of the coating, which is why the machine is cutting right and left. However, the car does not exhaust the soul with its hypersensitivity: all its rigidity does not turn out to be crazy shaking. Honda engineers managed to lay the minimum level of comfort in the suspension design. Solomon decision!
Now you are roughly representing which weapon falls into the hands of the owner of Type-R. Of course, this weapon must be learned to use. And only then, having become the lord of longitudinal and lateral accelerations, will you get the right to sign sentences in such a hot business as street raiding.
The car is provided by Motors Card
Text: Leonid Klyuyev
Photo: Roman Ostanin
Source: Wheel magazine [No. 69/2003]
