Reason for counterclockwise engine rotation
Posted: Sat May 17, 2014 10:23 pm
This may have been discussed before, but I was wondering why it is that the Prelude engines, along with various other Honda engines, spin counterclockwise. For a two-shaft (plus final drive) transmission the engine will rotate the same way as the front wheels so the question becomes why did they put the engine on the left? Does this go all the way back to the original Civic? The packaging is slightly neater for a RHD car, with room above the transmission for brake master cylinder, clutch cable, etc, but surely even in the 1960s Honda would have had ambitions to sell a lot of cars in LHD markets. Running the engine in reverse would have brought the risk of confusion among mechanics, difficulty in adapting existing automatic transmissions and changes to minor components such as oil seals and clutches. Does anyone know why they took that route?