#1997 SMG CK100 - KHT Eivissa
In 1997 KHT was doing well and so was their tuner program. Having demonstrated their abilities a few years prior in the world Time Attack challenge the influx of new customers allowed to open workshops in numerous countries, including Japan, USA and Spain. The Spanish division mostly did tune ups and upgrades for existing KHT models, until they saw the influx of extremely cheap and very popular 1997 SMG CK100. The 3 cylinder fwd dull box was popular due to it’s pricetag, not for it’s flair, so after a quick talk with the headquarters 10 of the CK100 were bought and sent to Germany, where the engineering team would develop the performance kit for the car.
The engine department took apart the 3 cylinder power (???) plant, and started working on it. As engineers later commented this felt more like a job for a motorcycle upgrade, so motorcycle outputs were first in mind, but sadly a lot of the parts in the original design did not agree with revving to 14,000 rpm. A few solutions did, however arise, as the car got an extremely thin head gasket to up the compression ratio, and a custom tubular exhaust manifold was created. The fuelling and ignition timing were changed drastically, and custom spacers for VVL were introduced to allow the car to rev higher, which was complimented by a raised redline, with a sporty intake finishing the job on the engine itself. The team finished it off with a custom sports exhaust system allowing the power to rise to 100hp.
The gearbox turned out to be a problem, since the car only came with an automatic slushbox, which was left intact, since it was quite expensive to do a complete transmission swap. The self locking mechanism for the differential was introduced to help with wheelspin and torque steer. The suspension received new springs, dampers, antiroll bars and complete setup overhaul, as well as wider and lighter wheels were installed along with 215mm tires, now riding on 16" instead of stock 15.
The body received new bumpers and new quarterpanels made of cheap to produce plastic, this allowed for new taillights, which made the design more memorable. The interior saw a change from 5 seat basic interior to 4 seat sporty one, by using seats similar to ones found in the KHT Tsukuba in the front and differently profiled lower part of the rear seat, along with a sportier steering wheel. The whole conversion cost $3,200 and was only available for installation at a KHT certified workshop after a detailed inspection of the car to be worked on. This was done to make sure that the car could take the extra power without being terminally damaged very soon and coming back for warranty repairs.
Interestingly enough, of all cars receiving this treatment only 24 had less than 50,000km on the odometer, and only 13 of those were brand new. Most of the cars were second hand bought for cheap by responsible parents for their child as their first car. This called for another marketing ploy to get brand loyalty, with some of the cars receiving the free option of “My first KHT” edition, which included a list of checkable options of black painted wheels, black tinted windows, 3 spoke black aluminium steering wheel, and seatbelts to match the colour of the exterior. The youngsters felt like they were custom ordering their build from Kraft Haus Technik, while it did not cost KHT any extra to install a different kind of wheel or paint the seatbelts a different colour. This worked to an extent, as many KHT forum users state that they eventually bought a KHT car after owning the CK100 Eivissa, most of which went with second hand Tsukubas, while some managing more rare examples like the Keimola/Imola or Parabolica.
There are rumours of a special version of the Eivissa, most likely one of the original 10 car batch that underwent the initial experiements. They are all painted different colours but sport wings on the roof and semi-slick tires. They were sometimes seen cruising at high speeds through the city streets at night, spitting flames from the exhaust and sounding a lot more like a superbike, rather than a car. The local cafe racer crowd called them the “jokers”, but sadly nobody ever could find out more, since they never visited any meets or races. In 2014 during an AMA session at Car Throttle the topic was brought up and the reply was finally given. These were the early prototypes pushing the very max out of the car and the engine, of 6 cars 4 were converted to manual gearboxes, and 2 were completely stripped out. 1 was turbocharged, 1 was swapped to a tsukuba spec 2.2 liter engine and the 4 of the rest were in N/A trim. The turbo car burned the engine within a week, however, and 1 of the NA cars suffered a crash. It was also confirmed that the NA cars are still hidden somewhere in the KHT garage, producing from 135 to 155hp depending on select car, with the tsukuba version pushing nearly 200 from it’s 2.2 liter i4.
##Stats (Old / New)
0-100kph
16.5s / 10.3
Top Speed
145km / 177.7
Weight
900kg / 915kg
Max G
0.85 / 1.13
##Engine
Max power
60hp / 100hp
Max torque
81.0nm / 100nm
Responsiveness
34.3 / 43.1
Loudness
27 / 42
Smoothness
50.5 / 50.5
Reliability
61.9 / 38.3
##Misc
Comfort
34.8 / 24
Driveability
68.8 / 62.3
Sportiness
0 / 13.9
Economy
6l 100km / 7l 100km
TG track time
1:53.63 / 1:38.21