Do I have anything nice to say about the Honda CR-V? No, not really. If you want to announce to the world that you don’t care one ounce about the vehicle you are driving, so long as it will start and run no matter what you do, drive a CR-V. They are safe, they get reasonably good gas mileage. Ok, that’s nice enough. They rode in on the premise of the name, a “compact recreational vehicle”. And compared to the actual RV that I see them being towed behind, it’s almost fitting. The CR-V is another cute-ute that is clogging up roadways, designed for youth but bought in droves by older folk as a second or third car. And somehow, for the last twenty years, it has sold and sold well enough to keep around.
This is Daniel’s CR-V. Daniel ripped the stock motor out and jammed in the 1.8L engine from a Honda Integra Type R into the engine bay. Since the stock rearend would actively try to escape the power upgrade, the rear driveline was removed, making this cute-ute a front-only driver. Making 310 horsepower at the front tires, this would be a stoplight moneymaker if you could quiet down the exhaust. Picture a guy in a ten-year-old Mustang getting the shock of his life as the Micro Machine lays him to waste. I still don’t like the CR-V, but I can appreciate the warped vision it took for Daniel to look at a cute-ute and envision a street sweeper. Hopefully he strengthens up the rear drive system, because with all-wheel-drive this Honda could be a riot.
Weird that he tossed the B20Z, as the VTEC head off a B18C/B16A can be made to fit those and then you get the added low end torque from the bigger bottom. Also, the AWD system in these are fairly robust (I’ve seen guys pushing 500hp on this system) so odd that he tossed that