The past month has been very busy but not very productive. In case you missed Sherman spilling the beans in the “Cars to Hillclimb With” thread of this forum, I had a rear spring snap on the Infiniti and it was in bad shape overall so I decided to sell it. This proved to be much more difficult than I had expected and it took nearly the entire break between Okemo 1 and Okemo 2 to get the G20 out of the driveway. The association where I live only allows 1 car per occupant, plus 1 extra, to be parked in the driveway. This meant that I had to wait until the Infiniti was sold in order to pick up and new “play car”. After literally hundreds of phone calls from interested buyers and numerous no-shows when they said they'd come look at it, the VERY FIRST person to come check it out purchased the car. Go figure.
Lesson Learned #5: Even the best thought out plans don't work out sometimes. It's easy to get frustrated but in the end you have to remember what this all is, a hobby. Yes, I am extremely disappointed to be missing Okemo 2, but I am thankful that I can even have the opportunity to own a play car to wrench on and take to the hill or track. It's not the end of the world and I am positive that there will be many more hillclimbs in the future.
Which brings me to the past week. With only 5 days before the second Okemo race, I picked up my “new” hillclimb car, a 1992 Honda Civic DX hatchback.
Now its no AWD torque monster by any means but its certainly more peppy than the G20 (most likely thanks to almost 1000lbs less weight). It's simple, easy to get parts for, and if something ever breaks on it, I can swap in nearly any part from another Honda or Acura. It may only have 109hp and no VTEC but I think with a little preparation it will make a great hillclimb/autocross/general track day car to learn in. Plus, with only 140,000 miles on it, its barely getting broken in.
Lesson Learned #6: Simple and inexpensive are both good things in a sport that can drain your bank account quickly. I know some will laugh or frown at my choice of a little EG hatchback, but I am willing to give up some speed for a nearly bulletproof car that will start every time I turn the key (see Part 1 for why I love that). Plus, literally thousands of people have built a Civic hatchback (albeit some go for the JDM or “ricer” look, but there are also many who built one for racing) so a quick google search will yield an answer to any question I might ever have about the car and modifying it. The Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) rule applies to cars as well.
Working until the wee hours of this morning (the Saturday morning I was supposed to be at Okemo) I realized I just wasn't going to make it and so I frustratingly packed up the tool box for some shuteye. I had a plan for the car before I even got it home but I simply ran out of time. I will be laying out that plan below.
-The Usual Suspects: Replacing all the fluids and filters and belts, as well as the spark plugs and plug wires. With so few miles on the car, a little preventative maintenance will go a long way. DONE
-Rust Repair: The car has only one spot of rust about the size of a quarter in front of the rear wheel. A little rust converter and a shot of glossy black spray paint should so the trick just fine. DONE
A couple pictures of the car taped off after the repair. Rustoleum glossy black is eerily close to the factory color. Note to self, Lesson Learned #6 above applies to body repairs too. You have to love how easy it is to work on a beater Honda.
-Front Brake Pads and Rotors, and Stainless Brake Lines: With just a hair over 2000lbs and barely 100hp, exotic brakes are not required, but a refresh will work wonders for the bring downs. I never even used the brake going up the hill in the G20, so I don't expect to with this one either. DONE
-Stripping, Cleaning, and Repainting the Interior: The interior on this car is by far the worst part of it. It was full of sand when I picked it up, the dome light doesn't work, the radio doesn't work, every single seat is ripped, and the carpet has oxidized pennies and chips and gum all stuck to it. It's in disgusting condition. Thankfully, you dont need ANY of that for a race car. After some research, losing everything inside should bring me down to roughly 1900lbs and adding in a Kirkey aluminum seat with seat cover mounted on the stock rails should add 10-15 back.
-Wheel and Tires: The car currently has BFG g-Sports on the front and snow tires on the rear, all mounted on 14” steelies. While having snow tires in the back may aid in reducing understeer, I'm going to look for another set of steelies and 4 matching tires for a better setup.
-Rear Sway Bar and Alignment: The shocks, springs, and suspension arms all look great for being 19 years old, so I will run those until they need to be replaced and upgrade them at that point. Some preliminary driving however has shown that the car understeers badly. Having a double-wishbone strut suspension should allow for plenty of camber and toe adjustments for non R-compund tires, and should help dial out some of the terminal understeer, but I think a larger rear sway bar might be in order as well. Nothing too huge as I like my cars set up neutral with just a hint of understeer (must be from my autocrossing, where understeer helps to keep the car settled under all the quick transitions) but I'd like the car to rotate much better than it currently does.
Other than any issues that come up requiring repair and any preventative maintenance, I think the car should serve me very well as I learn. Nothing fancy, but still fun. As I wrap up Part 2 of Project Rookie, I am eagerly looking forward to Ascutney 2, but there is still plenty of work ahead. There's that other issue of trying to explain why I now own two Honda Civics, but it's just the way things worked out (see Lesson Learned #5). Maybe I should write to Honda and ask for a sponsorship or something. Team Civic? C2 Racing? Who knows what will happen between now and September, but for now I will just keep learned as much as I can with all my Honda Power.
Like always, feel free to comment on or question anything I've written. Every bit of advise helps. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you all again on the hill soon.
-Lincoln
Before you start throwing bigger sway bars and the like at it, try a few runs with what it has-you can't tell if something is an improvement if you dont know what it started out with. Someone older+ wiser than me once said " the enemy of good is better" -which has bit me in the ass more than once. If you have it in your mind to change the rear bar, if you do it now, you only know how the new one feels-if you do a weekend with the stocker THEN change it, you know how 2 feel.
