Honda tuners who want an AWD setup often have to deal with the weakest link in their setup, the transfer case. Drag Cartel is doing something about that.
Good news for Honda tuners who want to boost their K-series motors to 500 HP and beyond and want to get every single horsepower to the ground as efficiently as possible. As per Drag Cartel and their Instagram post earlier today (Oct. 26,2018) they are currently prototyping a transfer case for the K-series which should be good enough and then some for repeated abuse down the quarter-mile in high-horsepower applications.
In addition, they’re also making an as equally robust rear diff, one that can presumably handle aftermarket axles that can handle power that would otherwise break the stock axles that are thin as pencils and not meant to handle the power aftermarket tuners put through the stock system.
Real-Time 4WD is a robust system in its own right, one that’s been around since the 80’s, which, as far as I know, is even found on the lowly EF Civic Wagovan. With the ability to send up to 70 percent of an engine’s torque to the rear wheels if the front wheels detects any spin, it’s more than enough for mall crawlers who take their CR-V’s off the beaten path every so often.
But, in the world of drag racing, it’s the lack of a center differential, where you can lock all four wheels to spin at the same time, important for drag racing, which handicaps people who swap over the RT-AWD system from CR-V’s into boosted Civics. This leads to people welding their rear differential clutch packs together, which is great for drag racing, but doesn’t really work for everyday driving. People will also come up with all sorts of custom setups with rear diffs from DSM’s lineup and utilizing the axles from a Suzuki Samuari etc.
So, why would anyone want to swap an AWD system into their Civic? For races like this!
I’m not going to pretend I know how Drag Cartel will address these issues but I’m fairly confident their transfer case and rear diff will get the job done. Count me intrigued and I’ll definitely be following how well these transfer cases and rear diff’s turn out.
