Originally Posted by Jafro
Dude, that's just so wrong. Less than 4% of (just) the turbo '95 model Eclipses and Talons crankwalked. Less than 3% of (all) 2g cars ever experienced it. Sure 3% of 864,000 units sold is a lot of cars, but it's not expensive or difficult to fix. It's 5x easier than replacing the timing belt on a 300z, and half as time-consuming. Saying that someone will crankwalk left and right because they have a turbo 2g is just as inacurate as saying Hondas suck or that all Honda owners are ricers.
This FEAR of crankwalk came from people sqeaking their wheels trying to get Mitsubishi to replace their 60k-80k mile old engines for free, and Mitsubishi should have helped them somehow, but didn't at all. So the stink got bigger and louder until people started believing that they ALL do it. It didn't help that many people replaced the bearings in the rotating assembly and then traded them in to used car dealers making someone else have to deal with the problem 1000 miles later because they didn't buy the warranty. You can't fix a crankwalked 7-bolt block by just replacing bearings or it WILL come back. But IT IS easy enough to fix... permanently. Once you 6-bolt swap it, it doesn't come back. The 6-bolt will hold up to over 600whp on a bone-stock rotating assembly, and you can find 4g63's in Galants, Hyundais, Eclipse, Talon, Lasers from over 10 years of production.
My 7-bolt has 138,000 HARD miles on it, and 10,000 miles ago when I pulled it down, I checked the bearings, bores and oil clearances... wish I'd left it all alone. Nothing was even worn, but since I went in that far, might as well replace everything. Now it's making 433bhp/384tq, runs 12.6@109 on V-rated radials and pump gas. If I ever blow this thing up, I'll swap in a 6-bolt shortblock for $450 and move on with my life. Crankwalk might be a very real and discouraging obstacle to some, but those people can just go live in fear and spend 3x as much to run a 13 with something else.
Running a 13.2 is not at all difficult with a stock turbo FWD Eclipse. All it takes is a boost controller ($30), Fuel pump rewire ($30) and a good clutch ($400). That should piss off anyone that's ever had to boost a Civic to beat a 14 second pass. You can buy 2 turbo DSMs now for less than the cost of a new turbo kit for a Honda, and anything pre-95 isn't likely to ever crankwalk.
EDIT: Overall, Hodas have a big weight advantage over DSMs so I fully understand why building a Civic up is so popular. If you must have your 4g63, there are ways around that... but swapping a Colt is not easier than swapping a Civic. I'm not a Honda basher, either.
I respect the Nismo guys for their patience. I can't stand working on Nissan V6's. Just a personal thing. Sorry.