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Period materials that are unobtainable?


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#101 Lee Nicolle

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Posted 12 August 2014 - 10:25

The Honda S600 engine springs to mind.

And often replaced with far more traditional engines. In my experience everything from pushrod Fords, 2 litre Fords to Holden and Chev v8s!



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#102 Ray Bell

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Posted 12 August 2014 - 12:14

Only after they reversed the direction of rear end rotation...

#103 PZR

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Posted 12 August 2014 - 12:48

And often replaced with far more traditional engines. In my experience everything from pushrod Fords, 2 litre Fords to Holden and Chev v8s!

 

Shortage of metric spanners in Australia, I guess.

 

Peugeot owners hogging them all?



#104 Ray Bell

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Posted 12 August 2014 - 14:24

Well, I do have a good supply...

But Dowidat made plenty, Sidchrome are still in business and the imports are doing very well.

You seem to have an abundance of Honda knowledge.

#105 Siddley

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Posted 12 August 2014 - 21:12


As an aside with Ford 6s over the 80s until 01 they were an abomination of bolts and spanner heads. All imperial threads but many had metric heads.

I used to work as an engine rebuilder, for a really dubious recon engine company ( is there any other kind ? ) - I was just obeying orders, honest :D

Everything that came from BL had threadforms and spanner sizes which were a bit weird to say the least. The newer the engine, the greater the variety of fasteners. Which I guess is what happens when the bosses are clueless and the workforce are lazy bad tempered communists...

My favourite were the Mercedes engines, instead of the sump being a nasty piece of pressed tin held on with about 6 bolts they were an aluminium casting fastened by about a million allen screws.You knew where you were with those things and I don't think I ever saw one that had less than 250,000 miles on it. Ford and Vauxhall motors went to about 80k and BL motors seemed to expire about 5 seconds after the warranty ran out.



#106 Lee Nicolle

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Posted 12 August 2014 - 22:53

Only after they reversed the direction of rear end rotation...

I guess he could have used a reverse rotation Chev engine,,, though the Honda diff was fragile with the big block 800! yet alone a 283 Chev. I think that one had a Jag rear end.



#107 stephenS800

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Posted 02 September 2014 - 22:11

Even ignoring Honda's S360 prototype, and the very limited production of S500 sports cars, the first Honda cars exported to Australia arrived in 1965 and at least the earliest were probably manufactured in 1964.  

 

The S800 were sold in Australia from Autumn ’67. This is still 2 years before the arrival of the CB750 motorcycle, now regarded as one of the most significant motorcycles ever produced. It was an air-cooled inline four with SOHC. The S serries car engines were water cooled, needle bearing crankshafts, DOHC, four carburettors, tuned exhaust, alloy construction with wet steel sleeves and in the case of the S600 produced nearly 100 BHP/L. The S800 was less highly strung than the S600 but comfortably revs to 10,000 rpm. (Which the owner’s manual stated was OK for short periods.) I have had a S600 to around 13,000 rpm. Racing experience in NSW suggests that clutches were more likely to explode before the engine, at revs higher than 12,000. In the day, a German university put an S800 engine on a dyno and tried to rev it to destruction. The dyno rig failed at 14,000, not the engine.

 

If these engines were influenced by motorcycle design, so what. Honda produced (reputably at a loss) and exported the S600 and S800 cars to tell the world, look out, we are now in the car market. And, as they say, the rest is history.



#108 Lee Nicolle

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Posted 03 September 2014 - 00:47

 

Even ignoring Honda's S360 prototype, and the very limited production of S500 sports cars, the first Honda cars exported to Australia arrived in 1965 and at least the earliest were probably manufactured in 1964.  

 

The S800 were sold in Australia from Autumn ’67. This is still 2 years before the arrival of the CB750 motorcycle, now regarded as one of the most significant motorcycles ever produced. It was an air-cooled inline four with SOHC. The S serries car engines were water cooled, needle bearing crankshafts, DOHC, four carburettors, tuned exhaust, alloy construction with wet steel sleeves and in the case of the S600 produced nearly 100 BHP/L. The S800 was less highly strung than the S600 but comfortably revs to 10,000 rpm. (Which the owner’s manual stated was OK for short periods.) I have had a S600 to around 13,000 rpm. Racing experience in NSW suggests that clutches were more likely to explode before the engine, at revs higher than 12,000. In the day, a German university put an S800 engine on a dyno and tried to rev it to destruction. The dyno rig failed at 14,000, not the engine.

 

If these engines were influenced by motorcycle design, so what. Honda produced (reputably at a loss) and exported the S600 and S800 cars to tell the world, look out, we are now in the car market. And, as they say, the rest is history.

 

The problem with those Hondas is that they were peaky horrid little engines in what was a fairly pretty little car. Those engines were very expensive to repair. The reason for the repowering by more conservative, reliable and cheaper to repair engines. Pushrod Fords seemed popular.



#109 Ray Bell

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Posted 03 September 2014 - 03:31

But what a dreadful thing to do!

And it took away that fantastic sound they had, too.

#110 2Bob

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Posted 03 September 2014 - 06:29

But what a dreadful thing to do!

And it took away that fantastic sound they had, too.

 

Hear hear to both comments.  

 

Lee, I assume that the 800 diff you are talking about is the one from the Honda S800.  I don't know whether the diff insides from the S600 and S800 are the same or not but the S600 had what looked like an ordinary 'live' axle but mounted solidly (maybe with rubber mounts) with an enclosed chain drive at each end which acted like a motorbike rear suspension.  The S800 had a conventional live rear axle.  I never got to drive an S800 so can't really comment on differences in handling.  I have driven an S600 in anger (well fairly hard anyway - look up autopics and search Honda S600, driver Collinson, cant figure out how to include web address here) and they seemed to handle pretty well, bit of understeer I reckon (looking at the photo).

 

To keep on track for this thread, parts for these engines must be pretty unobtainable now, as, I guess, are engines to put back into bastidised ones.


Edited by 2Bob, 03 September 2014 - 06:33.


#111 Lee Nicolle

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Posted 03 September 2014 - 09:31

The fantastic sound never attracted me. It sounded like a highly stressed bike engine. Complete with blue smoke!

The 600s with their chain drive? What were they thinking. This is a car not a motorcycle!

The 800s were a little more 'normal' . Generally for the better.

The original 750 4 bike engine just a couple of years later was  a far more user friendly deal. 

I have seen those Hondas in action, I used to do a lot of dirt sprints, motorkhanas, circuit sprints hillclimbs etc with the Honda Club and at that time none were Honda powered! Which says a lot for the cars.

The only one I ever saw competing [in period] was on TV. Mike Drewer of F2 fame, and  Adelaide GP/ Supercar office. when he was a budding ABC reporter.

A couple of those same gents do have Honda powered road S600/800 restored  cars [and one has a Vette!,,, and one a 34 Chev hotrod]

The Hondas ride on a trailer to the start of a club run, do the run then go home on a trailer.

There is quite a few modern engines that would be great in one. Even some Honda engines! Modern, small light and gutsy Toyota, Nissan 1.6 would be the go.


Edited by Lee Nicolle, 03 September 2014 - 09:33.


#112 Ray Bell

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Posted 03 September 2014 - 12:00

Lee, please leave your personal bias behind and accept something...

There are many people who don't think like you. There are many people who see these cars as little jewels to be treasured.

If people want a little sports car to butcher they should just get one of the more common Sprites and go their hardest... from a Datsun 1200 unit on up.

Personally I don't recall ever seeing smoke coming from the S600s or S800s, but then I'm older than you and they were newer then. But I do recall that distinctive sound coming from afar, revs that were uncommon in their day, a tidy appearance in every respect.

#113 RogerFrench

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Posted 03 September 2014 - 18:06

I had one of the rare 1965 S600s that were imported to the UK, and also an S800 Mk2.
The S600 was geared at around 10mph/10rpm, the S800 at 12mph/1000rpm. A pushrod Ford would surely be horribly undergeared! I suppose people changed the final drive - easier on an S800 I'd have thought as you could replace the axle.
If you kept the Honda gearbox though you wouldn't have a problem with direction of rotation. The Honda engines rotated clockwise, there were step-down gears behind the gearbox that reversed the direction of the propshaft.
The engines were a bit fragile though. An S600 engine dropped a valve at about 8,000rpm on the A54, not far from Oulton Park, on my way home to the Wirral from Silverstone. The resultant internal engine carnage was dreadful. Fortunately my father worked for Honda and acquired an L700 van they had surplus to requirements, and its engine, rebuilt with s600 camshafts and carburetters, proved to be wonderful. I also got through him some surplus sport kit and other bits, including a 5-speed gearbox, that made it quite potent and more than a match for a Spridget. I ran that car for 10 years and it was really worn out by then. I still wish I could have kept it though.

Edited by RogerFrench, 03 September 2014 - 18:08.


#114 Lee Nicolle

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Posted 03 September 2014 - 23:22

Lee, please leave your personal bias behind and accept something...

There are many people who don't think like you. There are many people who see these cars as little jewels to be treasured.

If people want a little sports car to butcher they should just get one of the more common Sprites and go their hardest... from a Datsun 1200 unit on up.

Personally I don't recall ever seeing smoke coming from the S600s or S800s, but then I'm older than you and they were newer then. But I do recall that distinctive sound coming from afar, revs that were uncommon in their day, a tidy appearance in every respect.

Ray, why were they not sold in the US market? That answers most valid criticism. Very high RPM engine with no torque. Poor reliability, very poor resale when new.

As for smoke,,, they did that brand new. The bit I mentioned about Drewer at Collingrove was then a brand new car. Which smoked like a 2 stroke. 2 Bob may remember it too, he drove one in the day!

Honda 360s, later Honda Zots, all lemons. The first remotely decent Honda was the Civic. A car I avoided like the plague as a car dealer! But they drove ok, were comfortable but a disaster with warranty

 

That is why Honda Club members did not use Honda power in the 80s and 90s. These days there would be some decent Hondas to repower them, but still the same change everything. 

 

As for repowering, the whole lot was changed, motor trans and diff. Keep the pretty bits and replace the functional bits.



#115 Charlieman

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Posted 04 September 2014 - 17:06

There is good stuff in this thread about the old Honda four wheelers, but it is 100 miles off topic.

 

Returning to topic slightly, Japanese enthusiasts are fond of their small historic cars. I would not be surprised if they had remanufactured essential parts, existence of which might not turn up on general web searches owing to distance of language.

 

Coverage of this year's Isle of Man Classic TT is still available on ITV4's catch-up service in the the UK. Many of the bikes are "honest replicas" -- the originals were raced to pieces and many survivors are fragile. The replicas exist because enthusiasts copied the creations of Honda and others. How accurate they are, with regard to materials and construction, intrigues me.



#116 GMACKIE

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Posted 04 September 2014 - 21:25

In some cases, the problem would be finding material as good as the original.



#117 DanTra2858

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Posted 05 September 2014 - 02:00

Do Drivers also come into this conversation, lol, lol

#118 DavidI

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Posted 05 September 2014 - 02:53

There is good stuff in this thread about the old Honda four wheelers, but it is 100 miles off topic.

 

Returning to topic slightly, Japanese enthusiasts are fond of their small historic cars. I would not be surprised if they had remanufactured essential parts, existence of which might not turn up on general web searches owing to distance of language.

 

Coverage of this year's Isle of Man Classic TT is still available on ITV4's catch-up service in the the UK. Many of the bikes are "honest replicas" -- the originals were raced to pieces and many survivors are fragile. The replicas exist because enthusiasts copied the creations of Honda and others. How accurate they are, with regard to materials and construction, intrigues me.

Having seen Historic racing Manx Nortons and the like pulling what sounds like 10,000rpm I think they might be a bit fancier inside.......



#119 Lee Nicolle

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Posted 05 September 2014 - 08:42

Having seen Historic racing Manx Nortons and the like pulling what sounds like 10,000rpm I think they might be a bit fancier inside.......

The traditional Brit bikes are easier to build engines for. Crankcases are simple [in comparison] and quite a few people world wide have made replacement barrells, cranks and heads for them. Often with better materials and casting and machining methods too. [For the thread!]

The higher tech Jap bikes may be more of a challenge.

And for mine a big highly tunes single or V twin sounds oh so lovely!  Even a normal twin sounds ok. Ring a dings? Yeah they are fast but to me no soul. And they do require a lot of maintenance too.


Edited by Lee Nicolle, 05 September 2014 - 08:43.