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Honda 1300 Coupe 9S detailed GT4 road test.
This isnt a race write-up or story as such, but I hope that people will find some worth from it.
I am hoping to try and do some detailed road tests for various classic Japanese cars, the tests I do will be on cars that I deem to be special is some way, and this is the first of them.
Firstly I will give you a little background information on the above car.
The Honda 1300 was first devised in 1968 , Mr Soichiro Honda's design brief was to design a 1.3-litre engined car that was cheap, had the dimensions of a small Japanese sedan, had the performance of a 2-litre engine, and the fuel consumption of a 1-litre engine, anyone with the remotest idea about engines would see that this was a tall order for a such a small engined car.
The result was the Honda 1300, there was a sedan version, but since GT4 only has the Coupe version thats the one I am concentrating on.
The 1300 coupe was produced in 2 variants, the "7" and the "9" , these were basically the same, the fundamental differences being that the "7" had a single Keihin side draft carb and produced around 100hp, which in itself is fairly good for an "old" 1300 engine, the "9" had an increased compression ratio of 9.3-1 and slightly different ignition timing.
The "9"'s engine was a very nice piece of engineering, and the main reason why I believe the 1300 to be worthy of an extended play period in GT4 and this write-up, not only was is a small engine but it had some rather unique features.
Firstly it was air-cooled, this in itself is fairly unique for a front-engined, front wheel drive car, these are usually noisy, but the engineers at Honda made it little or no more noisy than similar water-cooling lump, another of the 1300's unique features was the dry-sump lubrication system, which is usually reserved for race cars, and high performance road cars, this system uses a pressurized oil system rather than the "sloppy" wet sump systems usually found in road cars, and is used to help in the cooling of this air-cooled lump and has a fully finned oil collector tank.
The engine itself had a total displacement of 1298cc, the engine block and cylinder head were both produced from aluminum and alloy, and were fully finned to aid in the cooling, the head houses the single overhead camshaft, on the backside of the engine are the intake manifolds which hold the engines 4 (yes, 4 CARBS!!!) Keihin side draft carbs, all of this engineering produces 116bhp (which is 88bhp per litre!) and 75.9 lb/ft (102.9NM) of torque, this a huge achievement for a reliable 1300 road engine.
The peak power is produced at around 7200rpm, but in GT4 the engine is very free revving and will howl its way through the red-line and up to a heady 8000rpm pulling strongly all the way, it will also pull hard in gear from a very low rpm, but if you are driving it hard you don't really want it to drop lower than 3-4000rpm.
The engine note in the game is quite pleasing, it sounds aggressive and but starts to mute at around 4000rpm, then it gets into its stride and the engine note picks up after 5000rpm and rasps all the way to 8000rpm.
Hondas factory specs state a standing quarter in 17.9 seconds, with N2 tyres the game is very, very close to this, but the top speed is rather more optimistic, Honda states that the car will reach 110mph, but in game on the test track you can hit 128mph.
The gearbox is only a 4 speed unit, and the gearing is pretty tall, for sports/race driving the gearbox would be the first thing to change, as it would benefit from a 5 speed box with closer ratios, the gear change is reasonable quick, but if the gearbox where changed an uprated clutch would help with the gear changing.
Braking performance in the game is very neutral, and are reasonably powerful.
Next its on to the handling, when this car was originally road tested many drivers couldn't believe that the car was infact front-wheel drive, this is down to the great handling characteristics of the 1300 Coupe, it handles just as a well-balanced rear-drive car would.
The game shows this well, and if you didnt know it was front wheel drive you probably wouldnt guess, the handling is very sorted, you can chuck it about without hardly any under-steer or over-steer, and it remains flat and balanced through the corners, it doesnt show any bad manners at all.
So far I have only done testing for the standing quarter, top speed, and some extended testing on the Tsukuba race track, which is my "default" test track, this car really shines on the Tsukuba circuit as it is a fairly small, complex track, its revvy engine can pull out of the corners nicely and its well balanced handling copes very well with the turns of the circuit, so far I have managed times in the low 1.17's , which considering the cars age and small engine is pretty damn good.
The looks are always down to the individual, but I like it, I especially like the front view, the grill and the headlights are very pleasing to the eye for me.
All in all I like this car very much, its a testament to the Honda engineers of the period, as they have produced a very nice little car, with many unique features.
Thankfully GT4 gives us the chance to try out this unique little classic for ourselves, these cars are not for everybody, as many people like the more common or powerful cars, but the 1300 Coupe was a great little car that was very unique for its day.
Give it a try, you may like it!!.
Dan.
This isnt a race write-up or story as such, but I hope that people will find some worth from it.
I am hoping to try and do some detailed road tests for various classic Japanese cars, the tests I do will be on cars that I deem to be special is some way, and this is the first of them.
Firstly I will give you a little background information on the above car.
The Honda 1300 was first devised in 1968 , Mr Soichiro Honda's design brief was to design a 1.3-litre engined car that was cheap, had the dimensions of a small Japanese sedan, had the performance of a 2-litre engine, and the fuel consumption of a 1-litre engine, anyone with the remotest idea about engines would see that this was a tall order for a such a small engined car.
The result was the Honda 1300, there was a sedan version, but since GT4 only has the Coupe version thats the one I am concentrating on.
The 1300 coupe was produced in 2 variants, the "7" and the "9" , these were basically the same, the fundamental differences being that the "7" had a single Keihin side draft carb and produced around 100hp, which in itself is fairly good for an "old" 1300 engine, the "9" had an increased compression ratio of 9.3-1 and slightly different ignition timing.
The "9"'s engine was a very nice piece of engineering, and the main reason why I believe the 1300 to be worthy of an extended play period in GT4 and this write-up, not only was is a small engine but it had some rather unique features.
Firstly it was air-cooled, this in itself is fairly unique for a front-engined, front wheel drive car, these are usually noisy, but the engineers at Honda made it little or no more noisy than similar water-cooling lump, another of the 1300's unique features was the dry-sump lubrication system, which is usually reserved for race cars, and high performance road cars, this system uses a pressurized oil system rather than the "sloppy" wet sump systems usually found in road cars, and is used to help in the cooling of this air-cooled lump and has a fully finned oil collector tank.
The engine itself had a total displacement of 1298cc, the engine block and cylinder head were both produced from aluminum and alloy, and were fully finned to aid in the cooling, the head houses the single overhead camshaft, on the backside of the engine are the intake manifolds which hold the engines 4 (yes, 4 CARBS!!!) Keihin side draft carbs, all of this engineering produces 116bhp (which is 88bhp per litre!) and 75.9 lb/ft (102.9NM) of torque, this a huge achievement for a reliable 1300 road engine.
The peak power is produced at around 7200rpm, but in GT4 the engine is very free revving and will howl its way through the red-line and up to a heady 8000rpm pulling strongly all the way, it will also pull hard in gear from a very low rpm, but if you are driving it hard you don't really want it to drop lower than 3-4000rpm.
The engine note in the game is quite pleasing, it sounds aggressive and but starts to mute at around 4000rpm, then it gets into its stride and the engine note picks up after 5000rpm and rasps all the way to 8000rpm.
Hondas factory specs state a standing quarter in 17.9 seconds, with N2 tyres the game is very, very close to this, but the top speed is rather more optimistic, Honda states that the car will reach 110mph, but in game on the test track you can hit 128mph.
The gearbox is only a 4 speed unit, and the gearing is pretty tall, for sports/race driving the gearbox would be the first thing to change, as it would benefit from a 5 speed box with closer ratios, the gear change is reasonable quick, but if the gearbox where changed an uprated clutch would help with the gear changing.
Braking performance in the game is very neutral, and are reasonably powerful.
Next its on to the handling, when this car was originally road tested many drivers couldn't believe that the car was infact front-wheel drive, this is down to the great handling characteristics of the 1300 Coupe, it handles just as a well-balanced rear-drive car would.
The game shows this well, and if you didnt know it was front wheel drive you probably wouldnt guess, the handling is very sorted, you can chuck it about without hardly any under-steer or over-steer, and it remains flat and balanced through the corners, it doesnt show any bad manners at all.
So far I have only done testing for the standing quarter, top speed, and some extended testing on the Tsukuba race track, which is my "default" test track, this car really shines on the Tsukuba circuit as it is a fairly small, complex track, its revvy engine can pull out of the corners nicely and its well balanced handling copes very well with the turns of the circuit, so far I have managed times in the low 1.17's , which considering the cars age and small engine is pretty damn good.
The looks are always down to the individual, but I like it, I especially like the front view, the grill and the headlights are very pleasing to the eye for me.
All in all I like this car very much, its a testament to the Honda engineers of the period, as they have produced a very nice little car, with many unique features.
Thankfully GT4 gives us the chance to try out this unique little classic for ourselves, these cars are not for everybody, as many people like the more common or powerful cars, but the 1300 Coupe was a great little car that was very unique for its day.
Give it a try, you may like it!!.
Dan.
