Sivic Duty

End Game

2011-04-15T12:13:00.004-06:00

I'm two months out from paying off the Civic. I had to make a decision to either put the car back to stock and trade it for a Mazdaspeed 3, or stick to my original plan to drive it into the dirt.

I've got some digging to do.

Intake designs, in order to stay competitive, tend to fall into two categories. First is the short ram that sucks hot air from above the exhaust manifold. 180°+ intake air temps are the result. The other is cold air intakes that snake a tube down to the bumper and often require cutting of the fender well and risk sucking up water.

The IDEAL setup is a short ram that picks up air from or near the fender well right where the... uh oh, battery is located.

So, with my 5 year old stock battery about to take a crap, my stock air filter needing to be replaced, and a befouled MAF sensor to boot, I decided to go ape shit and put something like this together:

It goes something like this: CR-V intake tube, on a MAF housing dremmeled from a stock airbox lid, coupled to a cone filter. All this resides in the space where the stock battery was. The new battery is a tiny Odyssey dry cell unit than can be relocated here or where the stock airbox was. Everything is on order or in hand including the battery!

Happy BirthSiday

2008-07-15T07:28:00.007-06:00

Well. Today is the Si's birthday. It's been two years since I drove it back from Dallas.

I've been driving it a lot recently, and I have given up on the no-rain policy. For almost 2 years, it only got rained on a handful of times.

The Sumitomo HTRZ II's are almost toast. So toast I'm afraid that I'll fail inspection. They only lasted about 10k miles, but never needed balancing. They never seemed to really hook up, and always felt a little greasy, but they were consistent. I might get another set since they are so cheap, but I'll see.

I recently took the Vibrant off. It was just too damn noisy.

Driveway pic because shitty blogs are supposed to have shitty pictures.

Milquetoast

2008-01-22T09:18:00.000-06:00

It's been over a year since I promised pretty pictures of my wonder-whip. Sadness.

Lately I've been on a quest to make a cadre of nearly useless shift knobs. So far I have two 1.375" red spherical phenolic knobs, two 1.375" brushed aluminum spherical knobs, a 1" diameter, 4.5" long precision ceramic coated aluminum shift lever, and a red anodized aluminum robot claw with a M10x1.5 tap in the bottom. Pics to follow.

Also lately, I bought a Nighthawk Black Pearl Honda Civic LX coupe, manual transmission. After basking in the glory of the all-mighty habby death sled, my wife succumbed to the beauty of of the FG and had to have one for herself. COUPE FLEET FTW.

The Exhaust bypass project is still on hold until I find a welder.

The wagon. I am on it.

2007-12-06T08:29:00.000-06:00

After what seems like an eternity, I am slowly executing the exhaust cutout plan. The Vibrant performance catback, though it's rambunctious monster truck like sound is entertaining, is just too loud. I genuinely feel bad for people I pass, even at part throttle.

The solution goes like this:
Chop up the stock exhaust AND the Vibrant. Weld the front side of the vibrant to the back end of the stock. Close couple splice in an exhaust flange about 12" past the header.

Someone's already done it, and they have videos up too.

Last night I tested out the timer circuit, controller and the valve. I used a magnetic reed switch to trigger the timer relay. It worked great.

I still don't have anyone to weld my pipes though.

Just Another Crappy Update.

2007-08-17T14:31:00.000-06:00

Here's whats been happening:

I ran into my garage door backing up.

After taking the car back to the body shop three times, they were still unable to get the swirl marks out. I have since given up on having the paint as good as it was.

After sending the exaust cutout back to QTP and waiting over a month for them to repair the defective unit, I realized there is not enough room under the car to mount the damn thing anyway.

The Vibrant Performance cat-back that I bought, which I intended to put the cut-out on, is a piece of ill-fitting crap that A: melted my bumper and B: is earsplitting loud. I've since banged on it enough to get it away from the bumper and since it's so loud, there was little point in putting the QTP cutout on it, even if there were room for it. Seriously, you can hear it from a mile away. I'm not kidding.

So effectively, the Si is done. There are no more pending projects for it. It does however, seem to get better and better the more I drive it. After about 4 hours of time with it, it becomes less of a bumpy, loud, darty, jerky mess and more like a precision guided weapon of mass destruction. I guess thats worth having to keep a stash of earplugs in the car for passengers that are not used to being strapped in a missile.

I forgot what stage I'm on

2007-04-10T07:37:00.000-06:00

...must...stop...buying...crap....

Just when I'm on the cusp of getting the car finished, I pull the trigger on an idea that I previously had but gave up on.

I until recently I settled on a mature sounding Tanabe Medalion Touring cat back exhaust and was just seconds away from buying it. Then I saw this Youtube video.

In import car world we have a name for cheap straight-through exhausts that are designed for maximum power gains with little regard for the awful noise they make: Fartcans. They sound like farts, or a bee buzzing. The car in the video is just a straight open exhaust, no muffler, no cat and it sounds amazing. That is the sound that fartcans try to capture, but fail miserably.

Unfortunately, running an open exhaust on the street is tee-minus-ten-minutes-to-ticket-time, even though those bastard Harley swine (sworn enemy of the import driver) get away with it.

Lucky for me, being an engineer and having experience in the lighting industry, I've come up with a solution that I think might just work.

#1: The exhaust cutout.

An exhaust cutout is basically a muffler bypass. Now that my catalytic converter is gone, the most restrictive portion of the exhaust is the muffler. Solution? Weld in this puppy before the muffler. ...but wait there's more.

#2: The cutout controller

This device replaces the momentary toggle switch control with a self calibrating 0-100% device. Most important is the trigger wire that when energized will open the valve to 100% then turn off the motor.

#3: The timer relay

This has a trigger wire too. A momentary or continuous input on the trigger input will start an adjustable timer. During the countdown, a relay contact is closed. This relay will be wired to the trigger on the controller.

The idea is to trigger the timer with the vtec solenoid signal, which will open up the cutout when vtec kicks and for a set amount of time afterwards.

Why? To scare children of course!

Disaster Plan

2007-04-05T09:21:00.000-06:00

The stock header has been removed. Glorious victory over my mechanical foes, tube socks and all.

For those of you attempting this feat of endurance, remove everything that can be removed that can possibly come into contact with the header as you remove it. Keep track of your nuts and bolts - there is going to be a lot of them.

I actually ended up using a pet leash around one of the primaries as I removed the last nut from the header so it would not fall. I held the header up with my teethses.

DC race header shows up on Monday. Still no word from any of the local Hondata dealers about sending the ECU off for the reflash. The good news is that I'm going ahead with the reflash too. What does the reflash do, you ask? well:

Notice the massive amount of midrange power increase, and this is in addition to the 8-12hp gains already realized from the intake and header combo. Before, if you shifted before the rev limiter at 8300, you would fall off the big cam and end up in the rut, shown in green @ 6000 rpm. After, not only is the rev limiter increased to 8600, but shifting at 7000 rpm puts you back down into meat city around 5200.

Theoretically, the stock 5800 rpm Vtec engagement and gearing will allow you to always be on the big cam. In the real world, you are not going to downshift from 5800 rpm, to 8000 rpm, decel to 7500, accel to 8300 rpm and then have to upshift again. By making the big cam range wider, you downshift less, saving time and making the car faster than if you had just increased the HP. Blah Blah Blah...I know, but seriously: A stock WRX puts about 160-170hp to the ground. By the end of next week I'll be putting at least 210 to the ground in a car that weighs 400lbs less than a WRX, and will out slalom a Viper all for what I would have paid for a WRX. The bang-for-buck ratio would have been great if I hadn't also had to sell my soul to make it happen.

Here we go again.

2007-04-02T07:21:00.000-06:00

It does not seem like 3 months since I started this whole take-apart-put-back-together mess, but then again I started planning the whole operation over a year ago when the first technical specs for the 2006 Si came out.

Anyway, my plan was to pull off the catalitic converter section and have an approximate replacement made without the cat elements. Turns out the header and the cat section are a 4-2-1 header and are designed to work together. I've decided to go with the crappy DC race header instead.

So...I'm flying the jackstands again in the process of taking off my header. So far, I've got two cuts and have broken a $50 plastic piece and still can't get the header heat shield out from the engine. Things are not going so well, but I'm determined to make this work.

The moment I get the stock header out, I'm ordering the DC.

Corner

2007-02-08T08:41:00.000-06:00

At one point I had a huge post with a heat transfer physics lesson and everything, but it somehow got nuked when I was trying to format the color. I guess its my fault for not learning HTML.

Anyway.

I went and spanked through a couple of corners after work yesterday and pushed the car to it's limits. The results are far beyond what I imagined possible. Even as I could feel the grip giving out, the car held it's line with just a little bit of understeer. This was on line textured fresh cement, so I think some of the astronomical grip comes from that. I'll never buy race tires for this car, but I'm sure that the grip they would afford would be far beyond what my meager driving skills could utilize.

Tight corners result in a LOT of understeer. Brake then turn into a sharp 90 and the fronts just grease out. Anything more than 270° of input without loading up the suspension first is just asking for a plow share.

Stage II.5 complete

2007-01-30T16:14:00.000-06:00

I have installed the Hondata intake manifold gasket, the K&N short ram intake and have gotten an alignment for the Si.

First of all, there are a couple of good DIY's for what I have done here and here.

Driving Impressions:

The combination of 1.2° of negative camber up front, the HFP suspension and the Progress rear sway bar result in induceable oversteer. Stable unless provoked. A.K.A. - Perfect.

The short ram intake, well, the wave of evil that leaps forth from just above your knees and into your ears at 6000 rpm is worth every penny. It makes children cry. It may suck a little hot air when your are not moving, but for the most part it's Satan screaming after Vtec kicks in.

A few pointers for the noobies:

Clean the area above the IM BEFORE your start. Use a vacuum cleaner and a toothbrush to get all the grit out of there. You WILL be struggling to get this damn thing off, and shit WILL drop into your head. By the time I got done, there were aluminum shavings on the head from where the stud threads gouged the IM.

The Hondata instructions say to remove the LH stud. Don't. There is not enough stud sticking out after the IMG install to get the stud all the way in using the two nut method. You CAN use the 2 nut method to get it out, but then you will be totally clueless on how to tilt the IM back on with both studs in place.

The bracket under the IM, the one that does not go to the bar, does not need to be removed from the IM if you unclip the wire harness that is attached to it about half way up. It can be removed from under the car.

Push hoses, don't pull them. There are 8 trillion hose ends you have to push off. You will be an expert by the end of this project and will be taking them off and putting them on as easily as plugging in a hair drier.

I tried to cheap out and half drain my coolant. I was holding the IM up with one hand, and pushing off the pink hose with the other when I discovered that there was quite a bit of coolant left in my engine. So here I was on the cusp of FINALLY getting it off and my shoes were getting soaked.

Use a vacuum cleaner to suck up any bits of crap that fall onto or into the head. DON'T SUCK GASOLINE YOUR VACUUM WILL EXPLODE.

Extensions extensions extensions. Be sure you have plenty of extensions for your ratchet. I was able to get to the bracket bolt on the underside of the IM from under the car using a stack of extensions. A universal joint and extensions are required for this job, as are a 8,10,12mm sockets and a 8,10,12 mm wrench. Here's a pic of extension being used for getting under the IM.

Also note the copious use of 3m blue masking tape. Basically, if it lead to somewhere after the intake filter, it got covered with tape if I was leaving it overnight. I also covered the fuel rail with a plastic bag to keep dust off the injectors.

Camber Bolts

2007-01-22T09:07:00.000-06:00

Camber Bolts went on without much trouble. A few tips for any DIY'ers out there:

Use a bright colored paint marker to clearly mark the head of the bolt. Once you get it in there, no telling where the lobe is.
The lobe on the bolt is forged, and therefore has a rough surface. Turning the lobe inside of the knuckle is easy, getting it into the knuckle, not so easy. Use the nut to pull the lobe through once you are sure you have it started in the knuckle hole.
The socket sizes for the nut and bolt are different than the stock nut and bolt. The camber bolt is a 15mm and the camber nut is 18mm. Be prepared.
For maximum camber, point the lobe perpendicular to the line between the two spindle pinch bolts.
The provided directions, though correct, are misleading. Install the bolt with the small tab lined up with the lobe, but ultimately the big handle needs to be pointed in the direction you want the knuckle to go, and perpendicular to the line between the two spindle pinch bolts.
Before tightening the bolts, load the suspension to take out any slop in the bolt holes. I did this by putting a piece of wood on my jack and carefully lifting the suspension by pressing up on the brake rotor. BE CAREFUL! Don't put the entire weight of the car, or lift the car off the jack stands. Why? The front hubs will turn and the car will either roll off , or eject your jack into your leg. You only want to lift enough to compress the spring about an inch.

And... I found a screw in the shoulder of one of my tires. Funny how even the best plans can fall apart as a result of the smallest circumstances. So rather than driving my car to the alignment shop, it remains on the jackstands.

Stage II begins

2007-01-18T11:38:00.000-06:00

After some reading I have found that other Si owners have had good results with adding some camber to the front wheels. Supposedly this helps dial out some of the understeer that I have experienced with the HFP setup. Though the overall cornering abilty and turn in are much improved, the car still pushes worse now even with the 22mm sway bar.

I have purchased a set of 1.75° camber bolts for this purpose.

While I was e-shopping I also bought a small 12v compressor to replace the spare tire. This, along with a quality plug kit should get me back rolling full speed in the event of a puncture. This will not, however, get me back rolling in the event of a blowout or a failed safari expedition. Risk vs weight.

In an attempt to smooth out the 1-2 and 2-3 shifts, I also orderd some Amsoil Syncromesh transmission fluid. I HIGHLY doubt that this is going to eliminate the problems, but it's worth a try.

And just for jollies I also bought a K&N short ram intake. The stock intake is very good in that it pulls air from the fenderwell. It's bad in that it has about 8 miles of tube and resonator chambers. With the SRI, I will get a less restrictive intake at the expense of gulping down hot air at low speeds. After some hard runs, I've put my hand on the stock air box and found it cool to the touch so I'm confident that there is plenty of cool air in there when underway. Since I am looking for more power coming out of corners, rather than coming out of a stoplight, I think that a heat shielded SRI is an acceptable compromise.

The Si has been sitting in the garage for about two weeks undriven due to weather. In that time I have wiped down just about every plastic or rubber surface in the car with 303 Aerospace protectant and vacuumed out the interior. I need to jack it up to keep the tires from flat spotting and trickle charge the battery for a night.

2007-01-03T16:43:00.000-06:00

Driving Impressions

The ride is noticeably rougher. Not in an unbearable, holy-crap-something-is-about-to-break kind of way, but in a locked-down purposefulness. When going over bumps it's as if the suspension is in a mad rush to stop moving. It is impossible to tell which contributed to this the most: suspension or light wheels. The ride height difference in the car is unnoticeable.
With the back seats and trunk trim out, it's louder. Road noise is up, wind noise is up, and the exhaust has more of a rushing air sound. I've removed the seats before and hated how loud it was. This time it seems to complement the new immediacy of the suspension. Plus, it has already saved me from having to carry a backseat passenger.
Steering response is much quicker. It was quick to begin with.
It drives straight now. (I was having problems with it pulling to the right, which was likely tire related) It also seems to have a larger dead center which from what I understand is a trait that all the Si's have. I've never noticed mine because I was always fighting left to keep the car on the road. This dead center might be toe related or because of the wider tires. I'm running 48psi in the front and 45psi in the back. I still need to get the alignment checked.
I've tried every trick I can to get the car to upset. I've gotten nothing but mild understeer and fraction of a second of mild oversteer in the most extreme cases.
In turn confidence has improved greatly due to the above.
They feel just like stock when they are cold, which is until about 3.6 seconds after you fist press the pedal.
After they warm up a little, they feel just like the stock when light pressure is applied. - At medium pressure, at highway speeds, the friction increases over time, requiring pressure to be removed from the pedal to maintain steady deceleration. I think this has to do more with the first point beacuase the rotors have cooled back off.
At high speed heavy deceleration, they perform with no fade after broken in (but they do smoke the first few times 8P )
At low speed light to medium pressure, they grab really well, and often surprise me.
At low speed, when coming to a complete stop using light pressure, they squeak just a wee bit.
My rotors keep changing colors. Blue, brown, silver, black, and I imagine they were orange there for a few minutes too.
The matt black wheels don't show brake dust, and there is a LOT of brake dust on them now.

And now for a few more random pictures:

Eventually I will get some outside pretty just-been-washed pictures, or maybe some action shots!!

DONE!

2006-12-31T08:54:00.000-06:00

After 11.5 hours of solo non-stop action I have replaced the stock suspension, added a stiffer sway bar, and replaced the stock brake pads.

Funny, the thing that gave me the most grief was the left rear brake pads. For some reason, I just could not get the outer pad to compress the springs AND slip into the tab slots. (If you have ever done this, you know what I'm talking about.) After an hour of trying, I finally got it in then discovered that you have to put the inner pad in first. The right side pads took something around 45 seconds to switch out, apparently I had the technique down at that point.

And now for some random pictures with descriptions:

Front HFP

Note that nowhere does it say "HFP", and that it looks just like the stockers.

Rear HFP

Note the FG2's separation of the shock from the spring.

This seems to surprise DC5, EP3 and EG owners. Also note the trailing arm where it bolts to the frame in the right of the picture. These bolts are difficult to get to on the left hand side and require bending a piece of the plastic under the car. The holes are also rather sloppy and may contribute to alignment.

Rear shock top.
Note the extra long threaded stud. Not only is the nylon insert nut a pain to turn, but you have to sit in the trunk, use a hex key to keep the rod from spinning, and turn it 8000 times. If you do this install, buy a 14 mm ratchet wrench. After the first one, I almost went and bought one to do the second shock.

This is the back side of the front hub, with the brake caliper removed.

Me, furiously trying to finish torquing the wheels so I can go test my stuff out.

I'll have driving impressions and more picutres soon.

2006-12-29T08:30:00.000-06:00

Last night I test fit one of my 17x8 Motegi's. I still have not received my centering rings from The Tire Rack, but I have faith that they will arrive today. If not, no biggie. I didn't want to drive around on my new tires without an alignment anyway.

The Tire Rack and I were worried about clearances, so I checked those. There is about a finger's width between the tire and the strut. Plenty of room for tire squirm! It still needs to be tested dynamically, but word on the street is that 17x8's with 235/40's fit just fine. After test fitting, I threw her up on stands in preparation for Saturday's happy fun time. The tires are about 6" off the ground.

To this point

2006-12-27T14:39:00.000-06:00

So far, this is what I've got:

A 2006 Civic Si.
It got lots of awards, yada yada yada, it's fun to drive, yada yada yada. My take is: it's costing me a ton, let's screw it up.

This is not my car, but it looks just like it.

Five 17x8 +45mm Motegi Traklites, flat black.
Lightwieght, strong, cheap. Pick two. These are the first two. ZING!

Four Sumitomo HTR Z II's.
Quality, grippy, cheap. Pick two. These are not the first two. BEEeewwww. :(

Sumitomo's on Traklites. Mmmm - yummy

Why 5 rims and 4 tires? These aren't exactly in stock at the local NTW. Dent one and you are bumming rides for a month on backorder.

Also to arrive this week are:

Axxis ULT brake pads.
These come reccomended. Ceramic carbon high performance pads. Supposedly they don't fade when hot, but also are manageable when cold.

Honda HFP suspension.
There are already 4 or 5 3rd party suspension kits for the Si. Most of them are over $1k. Sure they are adjustable, and come in fancy colors, and are more likely to score you chicks than the plain black Honda stuff, but when it comes to reliability and compatibility I'll take OEM. I get the tighter ride without having to cough up another $600 in aftermarket camber products, and it will probably slip by the warranty harpies too. Less than $700 shipped.

Progress rear sway bar.
The Si understeers at limit. This is fine for 16 year olds looking to re-write the laws of physics, but at 31 years old it's time to start driving like a man and accept that misjudging a turn will cost 15-20 thousand dollars.

These parts combined with either make my car a cobbled-up undriveable mess, held together by hope and Loctite, or Satan's rail car, mysteriously held to the ground by unholy forces.

The begining of the end

2006-12-27T14:21:00.000-06:00

Since 1998 I have wanted to dabble in "modding". "Modding" is the American tradition of taking a perfectly good vehicle, spending a metric crap-ton of cash on parts, and creating something that is less reliable, less valuable, more dangerous, and more uncomfortable for the sake of speed, style and uniqueness.

Until now I have had neither the time, money or facilities to undertake this noble task of Americana.

Through careful planning, frugal saving, and plain luck I have amassed a small fleet of cars, secured a house with a two car garage, and obtained some go-fast goodies of my own. In less than a week I will become a member of the ever growing community of idiots that think that a few parts off of EBay will make their lowly stock automobile into a real racecar.

This blog is to chronicle the catastrophic collapse of one man's idealism, and the frustration of insurmountable truth.

2006-12-27T14:14:00.000-06:00

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