My 1991 Honda Acty Attack
I picked up this 1991 Honda Acty Mini Truck (Known as the “Kei” class of small trucks/cars in Japan) from Nat at Georgia JDM RHD on November 9 of last year with roughly 40k miles on the odometer. I had always wanted one of these little trucks. It just seemed fitting that my first one is a Honda from the 90’s which I consider being from the pinnacle era and manufacturer when it comes to automotive reliability. These trucks historically have had to be 25 years old prior to importation but the laws are continuously fluid both on the import side and the use laws depending on the state. My state, unfortunately, does not allow these to be street legal, while EVERY SINGLE surrounding state does allow it. Go figure.
My use case for this type of vehicle is work around the property/farm, hunting, and short trips on low-speed roads utilizing a farm triangle, just as you would a golf cart, ATV or side-by-side. At my age and with my rapidly degrading risk tolerance level, this seemed to be a smarter decision than something I would be tempted to wind out at max speed, jump dirt mounds with, and just overall act like an idiot on, which I am prone to do from time to time. Additionally, these have a MUCH larger and more usable bed than something like a side-by-side, a larger load capacity, an enclosed cab, heat, and more general utility. It doesn’t hurt that a used imported mini-truck costs roughly 1/3rd the price of a brand new side-by-side. This made the choice a no-brainer for me.
This particular model is the harder to find “Attack” version. It utilizes a full “real-time” AWD system with a push-button locking differential and also has separate granny-low and granny-reverse gears. The powerplant is a mid-mounted (under the bed) 660cc 3-cylinder motorcycle engine mated to a 4-speed manual transmission. The gearing is fairly tight in the first couple of cogs with a nice enough spread between 3 and 4 to cruise comfortably at highway speeds. These are supposed to run somewhere in the mid 60 mph range and I personally have had mine at 100 km/hr (62 mph) and it felt like I had a fair amount more to give if I wanted. They have much less NVH (noise-vibration-harshness) than you would expect of a vehicle of this year and utility.
I was very happy to receive an example with a well-cared-for cab, as it looks like this Acty may have been stored in a garage most of its life. While its bed is a bit more worn, that’s OK, I didn’t buy the truck for a showpiece, but to be used as intended. The truck has proved to be one of the best purchases I have ever made. I routinely use it when cutting up wood around the property, hauling corn, taking trash to the dump, hauling game and any other chores I can make up in order to get in this thing and drive. It’s an absolute blast and has been dead reliable over the 9 months I have owned it. I have never had a carburetated vehicle that is less finicky about temperature than this one. It fires up on the first half turn of the key, below freezing or over 90 degrees, it doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t be surprised. Its a Honda. The fact that all bedsides fold down to be a flat bad is invaluable, you can put almost anything in the bed of this truck and it will hold nearly two full size pallets with the bedsides up. I have had over 1,000 lbs of firewood in it and the truck just hums along without breaking a sweat.
The truck needed nothing, but as Aaron Kaufman from GMG used to say “wheels, tires, brakes, stance” can do wonders for the look of a vehicle so I did want to make a change to the factory rolling stock. Kei Trucks come with very skinny, 12” wheels/tires. This keeps the unsprung weight down and allows the lower powered 3 cylinder motor to hustle along at speed, but really does not do enough for the surefootedness offroad when dealing with larger rocks and such. It just lacked the stability that I liked when off the beaten path. Finding alternatives in 12” diameter to properly perform both roles is difficult. There are very few options and those options typically must be imported as well. Additionally, off-road 12” alternatives lack the crossover appeal of being able to comfortably cruise on the street and all of them lack the width I truly desired, mostly for function but admittedly for looks as well.
In order to keep the un-sprung weight as low as possible I wanted to go with a wheel/tire combo that would come very close to matching the overall diameter of the original 12” wheel/tire combo. This would mean going up only 1” to a 13 inch wheel. I used a wheel/tire calculator to arrive at a few tire sizes that would keep overall diameter similar while giving a touch more width. The trick was not too much width as clearence to the front coil spring was already very tight. After several measurements I had a rough estimate of what backspacing range the wheels would need to have as well as the best aspect ratio on the tires for a proper fit.
First thing was first, locating the wheels. Not only am I a fan of using OEM wheels when possible from the same manufacture, I also wanted to use period correct wheels. With overall wheel/tire weight at the forefront of my mind, I set out to find the lightest 13” Honda wheels I could. This led me the the 1992 Honda Civic VX. The 92’ VX trim was Honda’s most fuel-sipping Civic model, complete with a very lean burning 92 hp engine, its first CVT transmission, taller gear ratios and of course, it was stripped down to be as light as possible. Honda commission renowned wheel manufacture Enkei to create the OEM wheels specifically for this model and it resulted in the lightest factory wheels Honda has produced to date for a production car at roughly 9 lbs each.
Finding the wheels were a lot harder than I expected as it turns out Honda Civic enthusiasts value them for varying purposes and being 30 years old doesn’t help either. After searching everywhere with a willingness to pay more than they are worth if I could just locate a set, someone suggested I try Facebook marketplace. I borrowed my wife’s FB account to look around and couldn’t believe not only were they there, several sets were there, all at half the price I had seen anywhere else. I actually picked up 8 total wheels just to ensure I had 5 that weren’t bent (I wanted a full size spare).
I expected the tire search to be much easier, but in fact, it proved to be much more difficult. Try finding a good all-terrain tire in 13”, and well, I will just go ahead and save you time…it doesn’t exist. There were a few years where one or two manufactures produced a tire in this size but they are no more and the entire category is absent in the 13” size. I started looking at other types of tires and ran across tires in my size in the rally “tyre” category. The gravel rally tires really piqued my interest as they had a tread design that was suited for both off-road as well as some pavement use. What really got my gears turning was the discovery however that these tires have very stiff, very reinforced sidewalls and have the ability to thwart off punctures and cuts. They even have ribbed sidewalls that help deflect debris away from the tire. Perfect for a truck that will spend a lot of its time up and down rocks and rolling around in generally less traveled places.
Embedded Red RFID tag for tracking racers through timing points. Not needed in this application.
You would think, after locating the size (165/65/13) and type (Yokohama Advan A035) of tire and verifying the actual existence of said combo, that obtaining them would be easy. Well, it’s not. Apparently, we don’t really import gravel rally tires here in the U.S. Maybe it’s because the sport doesn’t have much demand over here, or because the tires are not actually DOT legal (no issue in my case, neither is the truck according to GA!). The only place I could find the tires was in Ireland. The tires, given their specific intent, were not cheap, and now, neither would be the shipping. Regardless, I located a company that agreed to send them across the drink, paid the necessary fees, and waited. After a surprisingly short wait, the tires arrived.
Wanting to complete the look, and because one of my favorite cars of all time is the 1997 Acura ITR, I knew I needed to color match the wheels for that white-on-white boy-racer look. I mean, after all, they are getting “racing” tires to some extent. I took the wheels down to a local paint shop and gave him the Tafetta White paint code on the truck and had him spray the wheels. I then went and had the tires carefully mounted at my local tire shop and balanced from the inside using sticky weights to keep those ugly rim-ridding weights from distracting from the overall look of the combo. It might seem crazy to spend so much time and effort, and money, on something you are going to beat up, in and out of the woods, but if you have to get anything right about your outfit…it needs to be the shoes.
I brought home the newly completed tire/wheel combo and was excited to get them mounted up on the truck. I was hoping, praying, that all my calculations and measurements were correct and sure enough the rear sets went on with perfect fitment. However, when I got to the front, I had miss-measured by an 1/8th of an inch…or less than 4mm. The tire, not the wheel, was just barely touching the front coil spring. Rather than utilize a wheel spacer, which I do not like to do, I decided to simply notch out about 4mm in the front springs. The project took about 5 min per side with a grinder and I was on my way.
The new combo proved to be heavier than the original 12” combo, but there was no way to avoid that with a larger wheel, more tire and much stiffer sidewalls to boot. The weight increase is noticeable in acceleration, but not enough to detract from the overall purpose of the vehicle. Remember the 100 km/hr I achieved? I did that on the new tire/wheel combo, so there is plenty of power in the motor to overcome the additional weight. On-road ride is a bit stiffer, mostly due to the reinforced sidewall and the tires have a roar to them on pavement that is expected given the compound. Off-road, the difference is significant. The tires just feel much more stable, much more robust and provide confidence to the driver, something the factory tires could never match.
I am very pleased with the overall result and the truck continues to impress. There are a few modifications I would like to make in the future, but I am in no rush. I use the truck nearly every day and when I do, I can’t help but feel 25 years younger. You will never believe how much fun you can have with a whopping 39 horsepower. You will also never believe how much work you can accomplish with one of these as your sidekick. If you are on the fence for one of these vehicles, don’t be. They are worth every penny you will spend, half of that in utility, the other half in smiles.
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