By Tim Harding (Timh) (63.161.30.96) on Thursday, June 21, 2001 - 10:24 am:

Okay, you Australians can get a laugh out of this, but I thought I'd bring up the idea of converting a North American car to right hand drive.
I was out in the garage a few minutes ago crawling around under my car (something you should do at-least once a day) and I noticed that a RHD conversion might not be too bad. Here are my thoughts. Please expand on them and give me some suggestions.

Part needed:
RHD dashboard
Pedal assembly ?
Steering rack ?

Modifications needed:
Move bump in firewall for steering stuff to right side.
Modify wire harness to go to gauges, etc now in new location.

Questions:
Are the heater, climate control parts the same on all continents?
What did I miss?

I've always wanted a RHD drive car, and thought I'd run it by the experts. No, it's not likely something in the near future for me, but I thought I'd bring it up. Heck, if a few of us want to do conversions we might be able to split the cost of a big Australian shipment.

By Charles (137.219.16.107) on Thursday, June 21, 2001 - 03:56 pm:

Funnily enough it has been thought of before. Eric B wants to do the same for 2 reasons
1) Unique and different
2) Weight distribution of the car is much much better with the driver not sitting on the same side as the engine.


I have a manual somewhere that shows the different wiring diagrams for different continents. I am not sure about the wiring however the Australian dash would come with all the underdash and guage wiring. It would just be a case of relocating main power to the fusebox in it's new location. Other than that your assumptions would be correct. Remeber the wipers will also be back to front.

Heater controls are the same. Here is a genuine Mugen GT race car that was sacrilegiously converted from RHD to LHD after it got to the states. It is in pretty poor condition. Apparently the owner has been offered over $50000US for it. Hmmmmm not so sure on that one.

By Tim Harding (Timh) (63.161.30.78) on Thursday, June 21, 2001 - 07:54 pm:

Thanks for the info Charles. If I'm not mistaken Eric B is not new to RHD conversions. He recently owned a very cool RHD CRX with a glass roof. Eric, correct me if I'm wrong... (Don't worry, you don't know me, I just saw the car on Katman's site)

By PJ (216.84.148.39) on Thursday, June 21, 2001 - 08:02 pm:

I have been giving the conversion some serious thought for my race car for the reasons given of better weight distribution. Our track is 1.65 miles long with 14 turns in a primarily anticlockwise direction and still the left front tire wears out twice as fast as all others. All I would want would be the pedal arrangement and the steering wheel moved over.

By maxperez (205.188.195.32) on Friday, June 22, 2001 - 01:59 am:

hmmmm. hey charles? (bugformance)??
well i have been looking but i have not got n e info yet on importing a car. i was hoping u could lead me into the right dirrection agian. OK thanx
Max
maxfrommisawa@aol.com