zel05
26-08-2010, 07:41 PM
Hi.
I don’t post much here, but thought I would take the plunge and share my Car World with the rest of this Honda community.
Before I go to far, I just want to say that the reasoning behind not sharing my experiences in the past are due to two small things:
- Security; and
- Negativity.
If I feel either of the above are being compromised, I will not hesitate in closing this thread. My intentions for this thread are simple. To share my experiences, learn from those around me, build on an already strong interest in Motorsport and Hondas and maybe even make some friends along the way. Sure, I can learn all I need to through visiting the numerous amount of Honda forums available on the internet, but I relish the interaction and knowledge I can gain from likeminded people.
Just to give a brief intro into myself...
I am 24, live in Brisbane, married and work as a Tiler. I have owned many cars over my time ranging from Audi’s to Datsuns, a spiffy Mirage and now Hondas. I have owned the Civic for almost 4 years now...In that time I haven’t really developed the car as much as I would have liked. Visually it is drastically different, however, this is not where my original aspirations lay.
Originally, my goal for the car was to have a quick little street driven track car...Funnily enough, that is still my goal, less the street driven part. As of now, the Civic will no longer be road registered. This will allow me to go a little more crazy on a few ideas without concern for the legal implications. That aside, I still have to respect that fact that money does not grow on trees, so my goals must stay realistic.
Here is just a pic to show how the Civic came to me, and what it roughly looks like at present .
http://www.forghani.net/forum/files/img_2100__medium__644.jpg
http://www.forghani.net/forum/files/img_5017edit__medium__102.jpg
I should briefly mention the Civic’s specs.
It has been courteously treated to an engine conversion. I would suspect a 98spec ITR was the donor. I say suspect, as I bought the car with the conversion already performed.
Along with the powerplant, the brakes were also transferred across. It has some nice Mugen Headers, with what looks like a walk in walk out exhaust job. Coupled with a modified ITR airbox, custom intake pipe and “tune” with an Apexi AVC-R, it made 114kw.
Currently, the Civic is running a staggered SSR RS-8 wheel setup. This is comprised of the following specs:
Fronts – 15x7 +27
Rears – 15x6.5 +34
Obviously, I realise the rear is a little “weak” in terms of offset, however, 205/50 Kumho KU36’s fit nicely without the headache of scrubbing at whatever height I choose to run. Suspension wise, the car was originally equipped with Tanabe Sustec Pro coilovers. These are the height adjustable only ones. Now I know that this will ultimately be the thorn in my side when it comes to getting serious about laptimes etc but for the time being, they will have to do. Unfortunately my budget and circumstances don’t exactly allow for an upgrade in the near future.
Now comes the juicy bits.
I have long been in contact with Jeff from Special Project Motorsports in the States. He is a supplier of Hardrace and PCi suspension products. Over the last few years I have made myself a stockpile of various parts through Jeff. Replacing the front upper control arms are the adjustable Hardrace items, retrofitted with Jeffs special concoction of Bronze offset bushings. Once final alignment settings are worked out, it will be interesting to see the total castor given through the offset configuration. Staying up the front, the two control arm bushes have bronze bushings waiting to be fitted, along with the spherical compliance bushing. Other parts awaiting their time are Hardrace roll centre adjusters, a 24mm Whiteline Sway Bar and ETD Racing Traction Bars.
Out the back, Camber and Toe are fully adjustable thanks to some spherical units from MFactory, PCi Spherical Rear Trailing Arm Bushes replace the factory rubber, while a Whiteline 22/24mm Sway bar keeps things flat. Obviously the ITR rear lower control arms are used to compliment the rest of the build.
In terms of suspension, I will obviously have the traction bars fitted at the best opportunity, along with the front control arm bushes. The one part that I am not 100% sure on is the Roll Centre Adjusters. This is obviously a part I could still use, but is not something I am going to fit without proper calculations taking place. I have found a local suspension business that will be able to perform a thorough tune of the suspension. Once the corner weighting is done, it will be on their advice as to whether or not the RCA’s get fitted or not. More on this as time goes on.
Now to the interior.
I had the “sad pleasure” (if you could fathom a weirder oxymoron) where I sold my longstanding Recaro sr3’s for a Sparco Circuit. To go with the new arrival I ordered in an EG Base mount, Steel Sparco side mounts and slider bar. Unfortunately, when fully assembled, the seating position was unsatisfactory. Stressing about the height issue, I decided I would try the configuration without the slider. Obviously the risk with this is there is no scope for back and forth adjustment and one would pray that the seating position is ideal. Well luckily for me, it could not have worked out any better! In terms of distance from the wheel, it is basically where I would position myself regardless. Height wise, I would like to be a touch lower. I have read however, that reversing the side mounts allows you to obtain a slightly lower configuration again.
To go with the new seating arrangements, I splurged a little and picked up a Status Racing 5 point racing harness. One thing I never realised was that there aren’t 5 spots to mount the new harness. I was able to use three of the stock seat belt mount points, however, needed to buy and install two more mounting points. I can go into this in further detail for anyone that may need assistance or advice in this area.
To finish that seat/harness combo, I will need to either get a harness bar, or do it properly and just get the cage done. Cage is in the pipeline so that will definitely come up again in this thread in the future...glad my brother in law is a boiler maker.
To go with the track preparations, the interior has also been completely stripped. Also, if you can call it an interior modification, the air conditioning was removed (You don’t expect that compressor to be that heavy!).
I do have a few more parts at home waiting in the wings I suppose. There are a set of Innovative Billet Engine mounts with 85A spec bushes. An oil cooler with remote filter using braided line. A PLX wideband o2 sensor and I guess the biggest upgrade, a Jackson racing M62 Supercharger.
At this point in time, I do ask that any negativity be withheld. I am pretty sick and tired of reading comments along the lines of “why don’t you just turbo it” etc. I had a goal in mind, a supercharger was my way of achieving it within the budget I had allowed...therefore, that’s the route I took.
With the kit came RC 440cc Injectors ,Walbro fuel pump, 68mm bored out Edelbrock throttlebody, along with all the necessary hardware bits to fit it. Obviously supercharging isn’t a hugely popular avenue to take here in Australia. I was therefore ushered onto the American forums to learn and investigate the workings of such a setup. I quickly learnt that the Roots Style Blower, although delivering boost on tap, rises Intake Air Temperatures dramatically, to the point where damage can be caused, due mostly to the fact that the system in not intercooled in any way.
However, what you will learn very quickly when researching Supercharged Hondas and a name synonymous with Jackson Racing; LHT. LHT offer an intercooled option for the JR Supercharger Kits. The only problem is that the process is rather expensive and living in Australia would only exacerbate the costs. I had read that if you use pulleys that maintain a boost level of around 6psi, you would tend not to run into too many issues with respect to higher IAT’s. For me, I was willing to learn the craft of the supercharger at 6psi while I saved the $2000 required to “LHT” my system. This was until someone from the states was selling their second hand LHT unit for basically half price. Not only was I lucky that the guy was willing to go through all the hassle of sending the whole unit halfway across the world, I was also the first one to jump in and “bags” it. Given how sought after these systems are for anyone with an unintercooled JR S/C setup, especially at half the retail cost, I was mightly chuffed.
This now allows me to run a pulley configuration that will obtain 12psi and hold it without concern for my IAT’s. My only concern now would be how long the engine will hold up under the pressure.
So that’s it.
Although I have had the Civic for a very long time now, I would really prefer to declare this the start of my build. I have most of the parts required now to have a good go at getting everything ready for the track. In terms of a timeline...I would like to be racing sometime next year. In terms of what type of racing, first off it will only be Sprints, to get a feel for the car. It might even only stay at sprints, as I don’t know how my budget will allow for something more serious. I would like to just get track time and really develop the car. I would like to see how my times get better with certain changes and obvious gains in experience. Just to set the record, I actually have never even tracked the Civic...so I will never have a benchmark to base my upgrades on. I guess thats the way I am...Always striving for the best, whilst never actually getting to enjoy what I had. When the time comes, I will be making the most of what I have.
Yesterday marked the official start of the build. Everything was hinged upon de-gassing the air con, as once that was done, there was then no other reason to drive the car. Having not found a DIY on how to remove the air con, I thought 2hrs to remove the whole system was a pretty good effort. If someone needs something from the oem air con system, let me know.
Plans now are to go about removing the engine. I figure that there are quite a few things I want to do in the engine bay ie, tidy up the subframe, replace a suspected leaking prop valve, rebuild the cv’s, bit of a wire tuck, install the engine mounts, replace the clutch/flywheel, loop the powersteering, install the supercharger and relocate the battery. I suspect all these things would be 100% easier to do without the engine in the way. Along the way, I will need to order little things to finalise the new setup (ie, an block adapter for the oil cooler). Obviously I need to look at replacement brake rotors and pads, the clutch/flywheel as mentioned earlier and ECU. These are all issues that will arise and be discussed through this thread.
Well anyway, that was enough chat...hope you guys enjoy the build and keep it all friendly. If there are any questions, please feel free to ask them, as that is the point of this thread.
Thanks
Michael
I don’t post much here, but thought I would take the plunge and share my Car World with the rest of this Honda community.
Before I go to far, I just want to say that the reasoning behind not sharing my experiences in the past are due to two small things:
- Security; and
- Negativity.
If I feel either of the above are being compromised, I will not hesitate in closing this thread. My intentions for this thread are simple. To share my experiences, learn from those around me, build on an already strong interest in Motorsport and Hondas and maybe even make some friends along the way. Sure, I can learn all I need to through visiting the numerous amount of Honda forums available on the internet, but I relish the interaction and knowledge I can gain from likeminded people.
Just to give a brief intro into myself...
I am 24, live in Brisbane, married and work as a Tiler. I have owned many cars over my time ranging from Audi’s to Datsuns, a spiffy Mirage and now Hondas. I have owned the Civic for almost 4 years now...In that time I haven’t really developed the car as much as I would have liked. Visually it is drastically different, however, this is not where my original aspirations lay.
Originally, my goal for the car was to have a quick little street driven track car...Funnily enough, that is still my goal, less the street driven part. As of now, the Civic will no longer be road registered. This will allow me to go a little more crazy on a few ideas without concern for the legal implications. That aside, I still have to respect that fact that money does not grow on trees, so my goals must stay realistic.
Here is just a pic to show how the Civic came to me, and what it roughly looks like at present .
http://www.forghani.net/forum/files/img_2100__medium__644.jpg
http://www.forghani.net/forum/files/img_5017edit__medium__102.jpg
I should briefly mention the Civic’s specs.
It has been courteously treated to an engine conversion. I would suspect a 98spec ITR was the donor. I say suspect, as I bought the car with the conversion already performed.
Along with the powerplant, the brakes were also transferred across. It has some nice Mugen Headers, with what looks like a walk in walk out exhaust job. Coupled with a modified ITR airbox, custom intake pipe and “tune” with an Apexi AVC-R, it made 114kw.
Currently, the Civic is running a staggered SSR RS-8 wheel setup. This is comprised of the following specs:
Fronts – 15x7 +27
Rears – 15x6.5 +34
Obviously, I realise the rear is a little “weak” in terms of offset, however, 205/50 Kumho KU36’s fit nicely without the headache of scrubbing at whatever height I choose to run. Suspension wise, the car was originally equipped with Tanabe Sustec Pro coilovers. These are the height adjustable only ones. Now I know that this will ultimately be the thorn in my side when it comes to getting serious about laptimes etc but for the time being, they will have to do. Unfortunately my budget and circumstances don’t exactly allow for an upgrade in the near future.
Now comes the juicy bits.
I have long been in contact with Jeff from Special Project Motorsports in the States. He is a supplier of Hardrace and PCi suspension products. Over the last few years I have made myself a stockpile of various parts through Jeff. Replacing the front upper control arms are the adjustable Hardrace items, retrofitted with Jeffs special concoction of Bronze offset bushings. Once final alignment settings are worked out, it will be interesting to see the total castor given through the offset configuration. Staying up the front, the two control arm bushes have bronze bushings waiting to be fitted, along with the spherical compliance bushing. Other parts awaiting their time are Hardrace roll centre adjusters, a 24mm Whiteline Sway Bar and ETD Racing Traction Bars.
Out the back, Camber and Toe are fully adjustable thanks to some spherical units from MFactory, PCi Spherical Rear Trailing Arm Bushes replace the factory rubber, while a Whiteline 22/24mm Sway bar keeps things flat. Obviously the ITR rear lower control arms are used to compliment the rest of the build.
In terms of suspension, I will obviously have the traction bars fitted at the best opportunity, along with the front control arm bushes. The one part that I am not 100% sure on is the Roll Centre Adjusters. This is obviously a part I could still use, but is not something I am going to fit without proper calculations taking place. I have found a local suspension business that will be able to perform a thorough tune of the suspension. Once the corner weighting is done, it will be on their advice as to whether or not the RCA’s get fitted or not. More on this as time goes on.
Now to the interior.
I had the “sad pleasure” (if you could fathom a weirder oxymoron) where I sold my longstanding Recaro sr3’s for a Sparco Circuit. To go with the new arrival I ordered in an EG Base mount, Steel Sparco side mounts and slider bar. Unfortunately, when fully assembled, the seating position was unsatisfactory. Stressing about the height issue, I decided I would try the configuration without the slider. Obviously the risk with this is there is no scope for back and forth adjustment and one would pray that the seating position is ideal. Well luckily for me, it could not have worked out any better! In terms of distance from the wheel, it is basically where I would position myself regardless. Height wise, I would like to be a touch lower. I have read however, that reversing the side mounts allows you to obtain a slightly lower configuration again.
To go with the new seating arrangements, I splurged a little and picked up a Status Racing 5 point racing harness. One thing I never realised was that there aren’t 5 spots to mount the new harness. I was able to use three of the stock seat belt mount points, however, needed to buy and install two more mounting points. I can go into this in further detail for anyone that may need assistance or advice in this area.
To finish that seat/harness combo, I will need to either get a harness bar, or do it properly and just get the cage done. Cage is in the pipeline so that will definitely come up again in this thread in the future...glad my brother in law is a boiler maker.
To go with the track preparations, the interior has also been completely stripped. Also, if you can call it an interior modification, the air conditioning was removed (You don’t expect that compressor to be that heavy!).
I do have a few more parts at home waiting in the wings I suppose. There are a set of Innovative Billet Engine mounts with 85A spec bushes. An oil cooler with remote filter using braided line. A PLX wideband o2 sensor and I guess the biggest upgrade, a Jackson racing M62 Supercharger.
At this point in time, I do ask that any negativity be withheld. I am pretty sick and tired of reading comments along the lines of “why don’t you just turbo it” etc. I had a goal in mind, a supercharger was my way of achieving it within the budget I had allowed...therefore, that’s the route I took.
With the kit came RC 440cc Injectors ,Walbro fuel pump, 68mm bored out Edelbrock throttlebody, along with all the necessary hardware bits to fit it. Obviously supercharging isn’t a hugely popular avenue to take here in Australia. I was therefore ushered onto the American forums to learn and investigate the workings of such a setup. I quickly learnt that the Roots Style Blower, although delivering boost on tap, rises Intake Air Temperatures dramatically, to the point where damage can be caused, due mostly to the fact that the system in not intercooled in any way.
However, what you will learn very quickly when researching Supercharged Hondas and a name synonymous with Jackson Racing; LHT. LHT offer an intercooled option for the JR Supercharger Kits. The only problem is that the process is rather expensive and living in Australia would only exacerbate the costs. I had read that if you use pulleys that maintain a boost level of around 6psi, you would tend not to run into too many issues with respect to higher IAT’s. For me, I was willing to learn the craft of the supercharger at 6psi while I saved the $2000 required to “LHT” my system. This was until someone from the states was selling their second hand LHT unit for basically half price. Not only was I lucky that the guy was willing to go through all the hassle of sending the whole unit halfway across the world, I was also the first one to jump in and “bags” it. Given how sought after these systems are for anyone with an unintercooled JR S/C setup, especially at half the retail cost, I was mightly chuffed.
This now allows me to run a pulley configuration that will obtain 12psi and hold it without concern for my IAT’s. My only concern now would be how long the engine will hold up under the pressure.
So that’s it.
Although I have had the Civic for a very long time now, I would really prefer to declare this the start of my build. I have most of the parts required now to have a good go at getting everything ready for the track. In terms of a timeline...I would like to be racing sometime next year. In terms of what type of racing, first off it will only be Sprints, to get a feel for the car. It might even only stay at sprints, as I don’t know how my budget will allow for something more serious. I would like to just get track time and really develop the car. I would like to see how my times get better with certain changes and obvious gains in experience. Just to set the record, I actually have never even tracked the Civic...so I will never have a benchmark to base my upgrades on. I guess thats the way I am...Always striving for the best, whilst never actually getting to enjoy what I had. When the time comes, I will be making the most of what I have.
Yesterday marked the official start of the build. Everything was hinged upon de-gassing the air con, as once that was done, there was then no other reason to drive the car. Having not found a DIY on how to remove the air con, I thought 2hrs to remove the whole system was a pretty good effort. If someone needs something from the oem air con system, let me know.
Plans now are to go about removing the engine. I figure that there are quite a few things I want to do in the engine bay ie, tidy up the subframe, replace a suspected leaking prop valve, rebuild the cv’s, bit of a wire tuck, install the engine mounts, replace the clutch/flywheel, loop the powersteering, install the supercharger and relocate the battery. I suspect all these things would be 100% easier to do without the engine in the way. Along the way, I will need to order little things to finalise the new setup (ie, an block adapter for the oil cooler). Obviously I need to look at replacement brake rotors and pads, the clutch/flywheel as mentioned earlier and ECU. These are all issues that will arise and be discussed through this thread.
Well anyway, that was enough chat...hope you guys enjoy the build and keep it all friendly. If there are any questions, please feel free to ask them, as that is the point of this thread.
Thanks
Michael