Project Car: Honda Civic Racecar

[ChuckPayne]

The car is coming along nicely. Here’s how it looked when I picked it up:
[img]http://www.turningpointracing.com/images/whitehb2.jpg[/img]

And here it is now:

[img]http://www.turningpointracing.com/images/P1010006.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.turningpointracing.com/images/P1010005.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.turningpointracing.com/images/P1010004.jpg[/img]

Work done so far:
-Gutted the interior
-Put in the Energy Suspension Hyperflex bushing kit…wow, that was a big job.
-Replaced the front lower control arms with ones from an SI so we could mount the factory sway bar.
-Installed the race springs and adjustable shocks
-Removed the aftermarket rear sway bar, stabilizer bars and intake from my daily driver and installed them on the racecar. Strange considering I originally bought the racecar as a parts car for my daily driver. Word to the wise; never buy a racecar that’s the same as your streetcar.
-Gave the car a $5 Tremclad paintjob…it actually looks good!
-Applied some of the vinyl graphics.
-Had mounting brackets for the race seat fabricated and welded to the car
-Had mounting brackets for the tow bar fabricated and welded to the car so we can flat tow it.

Big thanks to Greg K, Jeff G, Rob M, Ian O, Pat L, Mark D, Greg P and Guy P for all the help getting the car together!

I decided it would be best to use the car in the MCO Solo II series to work out the bugs. Here’s a pic of the car in action:

[img]http://www.cadl.qc.ca/Photos/06_06_04_mco/images/cadl2mco_lr07.jpg[/img]

[rmicroys]

Looks great Chuck. A couple things. Please tell me you're going to get a harness bar made/installed and you no longer have the shoulder belts mounted to the rear strut tower brace. Also, the harness is not installed properly around the bar, the belt is not going through the loop properly. Looking at the photo, you can see that the belt goes over the top of the harness bar, then loops under and through (and under) the metal loop, and hangs down. The proper way, the harness loops through the buckle three times. Undo those belts, leave the buckle where it is, then start by going under the bar, loop back over top, back to the buckle, run the belt through the buckle, and then flip the belt over, and run it back through the buckle again. The loose end of the belt should then be on the top, and heading towards the back of the car. Hope that makes sense, unfortunately, the pictures are no longer in the road racing rule book on how to do this. I'll look for some proper photos on the 'net... can't seem to find any photos for somebody who does it right.

[vwgolf2L]

Chuck,

I agree with Rob regarding the harness.

What's the word on the Brake issue?

Any progress?

[Brian]

I agree with reagrds to the rollbar/cage. At least get an autopower 4 point bolt-in if your ever planning on even lapping in the car with a fixed seat.

I can also recommend the SRR rear toe and camber kits. They are fairly beefy and offer great adjustability when it comes to suspension setup -- also they are fairly inexpensive and a snap to install.

If you need some help with the brakes I've already converted the brakes on my '94 Civic CX hatch to '98 GSR brakes -- front and rear. It's made a huge difference in the braking capacity of the car. The stock 9" front rotors just don't cut it. I went with a 10" front rotor from a GSR and replaced the stock rear drum brakes with the discs also from a GSR. I have a 15/16th master cylinder from a '91 Civic EX sedan (bolt on -- no new hard lines required) instead of the slightly better 1" GSR/ITR one. Also a 40/40 proportioning vavle from a GSR was also used to give great pedal feel and response. Let me know and we can talk. If I were to do it again (or sometime in the future and for the track) I think I'd use 11" rotors from a CRV up front.

It's looking great! [:))]

[ChuckPayne]

Thanks for the advice guys.

I hope to have a half cage in the car by the middle of the summer so I can take it lapping. Until then, the car will only see the autocross course. Once the cage is installed I’ll move the shoulder harness mount location.

The breaks – The plan is to go to a 4 disk Integra system like Brian is using but I don’t think I’ll be able to afford to do it until next year. Brian, I’m sure I’ll have a few questions for you when I get around to doing the job.
This weekend we’re changing the rear cylinder on the other side just to make sure it’s not a problem (we changed one of the rear cylinders a few weeks ago). I’ve purchased two front calipers and upper control arm from the wreckers. Got new slider pins too. The plan is to disassemble and inspect the front breaking system and try to track down the problem. If we don’t find anything obvious, we’ll change everything. Then bleed the breaks…again. The new pads should be in soon from Williams so I’ll replace that later in the week.

[vwgolf2L]

Hey Chuck,

It's good practice to replace things like wheel cylinders and calipers in pairs to ensure even braking.

[rmicroys]

Okay... since I couldn't find it on the 'net anywhere, I had to draw the darned thing myself... this is how harness belts should be routed in wrap around applications.

[img]http://members.rogers.com/jettaracer/images/harness.jpg[/img]

[vwgolf2L]

Hey Rob, nice drawing !!

[ChuckPayne]

Thanks Rob, I’ll correct that tomorrow when I’m working on the car. Nice drawing BTW [:))]

[Brian]

It's not that expensive to start picking up used parts for the brake conversion... but it takes some time. It took me at least 6 months to collect everything I needed. It just takes patience and some scouring of the local junk yards. Rear trailing arms with spindles and calipers, front knuckles, rotors, pads, SS braided lines.

The absolutely beautiful part about the 5th gen Civic is that it shares it's platform with the Integra -- so parts can be taken out of pratically brand new cars and there's millions of them.

Nice drawing Rob! I have to check my belts now!