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What's up everyone, so its been a busy 2 months since the Atlanta trip but let me fill you in. After Road Atlanta we got back and had 1 month to prepare for the next event at Gingerman Raceway in Michigan and this time my teammates Rob and Marc were racing with me so i was extremely excited.
For Robs car we got it running and checked over the suspension. We uploaded a stock b20 basemap and played around a little with the parameters to get it running smoother. Then we installed his autopower cage, painted his interior, lowered the car more, rolled his rear 1/4 panels and did another overall check on everything. My car didnt need much work; just a brake pad swap, sway bar adjustment and an overall look at the suspension components to make sure they were tight still.
We just installed Marcs motor and needed to test it to make sure it would run ok on the track so we ended up going to an HPDE at Pocono Raceway 2 weeks before the Michigan event. His car ran well but then out of no where he noticed that his oil pressure was dropping while he made turns so he pulled in and we saw that his oil cap came off and he dumped oil all in his engine bay. From running a lap or 2 on lower oil the motor suffered some damage so we checked 1 of the main caps and noticed the bearing was scored and with only 2 weeks left before the next event we decided to add some thicker oil, new bearings and risk it at gingerman raceway. The motor held up fine with a slight break up of vtec engagement due to the oil pressure issue.
Once we got back from Michigan the next move was to drop the motor and get another one from jdm engine depot. We transferred all the good parts from the old engine and the motor now ran perfectly fine. The next stop for us was again Pocono Raceway for an Import Expo event. This time only me and Marc were racing with some other track friends that we met there.
Marcs car ran fine the entire day and had no oil pressure issues. My car ran well also but then in my 3rd session things got interesting. Closer towards the end of the session i came off the back straight and noticed a slight vibration when i was turning. I took the next corner a bit easier and still felt the same thing and then the following corner while i came through the apex in 3rd gear the vibration intensified and next thing i know the front left of my car just drops towards the ground and i loose all steering. I thought a blew a tire but then saw my rim bounce right next to me and over the tire wall. As i slide i just held the steering wheel as straight as i could to try and guide the car in a line. When i came to a stop i made sure my passenger was ok and waited for the track staff to get to me. When i got out of the car and saw that my rim broke and couldn't believe that this happened but i was happy it happened in this turn instead of the end of the straight where i was going much faster and would have hit the wall. Luckily when the rim broke the cars spindel dropped into the rim and rode it until we went over the curb and then the hub area dug into the grass and we slide on that instead of straight track. I called my friend Sam and he brought over the jack, another wheel, and the impact gun so we were able to swap rims and then i drove off the track and back to our garage. I checked the car over and noticed there wasn't a lot of damage so i was happy to see that. Pretty much i need a new fender, and driver side rotor. My oil pan bent slightly and so did the bottom of my rad support but not enough to hurt the block or radiator. The car actually had no leaks and when i turned it on oil pressure was normal. I revved the motor and watched the oil pressure and everything looks fine.
Here's a few videos and pictures from both the Gingerman and Pocono Raceway events. Sadly i don't have the footage of the accident, for some reason the go pro died the lap right before.
yeah those 1st and 2nd gen wheels cant be powdercoated because of the metal they used.. baking the wheels at high temps makes the wheel break down and brittle.
If you guys come back out next year and I'm there, let me help you guys around there. The huge one is Marc, tell him to get to the apex of T2; one of the two inside curbs. Don't pick throttle up until you're there or the car is rotated.
yeah those 1st and 2nd gen wheels cant be powdercoated because of the metal they used.. baking the wheels at high temps makes the wheel break down and brittle.
Lesson learned lol.
Originally Posted by Egezzy
[url]https://youtu.be/4SnhVqNancM[url]
If you guys come back out next year and I'm there, let me help you guys around there. The huge one is Marc, tell him to get to the apex of T2; one of the two inside curbs. Don't pick throttle up until you're there or the car is rotated.
Yeah man that would be great, and yeah he mentioned that T2 was giving him some difficulty. Did you notice anything about my driving or did I at least seem to have the right idea around the track?
Palmer Motorsports Park was a lot of fun last weekend, met some new people and ran into track friends as well. It worked out pretty good, we got there Saturday night at around 7pm and unloaded the cars and got them ready for Sundays HPDE. It rained for 5 minutes and then the sky turned bright orange and pink and with the track in the background it was a nice site. Overall the cars had no issues and the track time was good. I did how ever get black flagged for exceeding the tracks sound limit of 100 dB, my car was caught at 103 dB even with my silencer. I was able to talk to the track officials and get back on track for the 3rd session but they warned me and said if i get black flagged again that I will be kicked off track for the day. I tried my best to drive the car as quiet as I could but once my friend Marc got closer to me I got black flagged again lol. For my 3rd session I shifted the car at 6k and also gave it half throttle going up the up hill (turn 5) and then the back down hill (turn 8), as well as the straightaway. Even though i felt slower in these areas I felt faster in others because maybe now that i was going a bit slower i was able to focus better on getting my lines right. My best time of the day was a 2:00 and my average was 2:01.
Here's a few GoPro videos and some pictures. Looks like the next track day that we are aiming for is Watkins Glen at the end of August.
I don't have any pictures yet from Watkins Glen but I do have a few videos from my GoPro. This was my first time at this track as well as my friend Marc in the white hatch back. Hope you enjoy the videos and if you haven't gone to this track yet you must try too because it was amazing.
Hey guys, it's been a while since I posted anything but I'll fill you in to what I've been up too. So I wanted to try something a little different. I removed my base k20 and I'm looking to go back to a k24a2 or k20a2. I also sold my wheels and brake kit and I'm upgrading to a 6 piston wilwood kit and 17 inch wheels. I'm also converting my front hubs to 5x114.3 which will allow me to run wide rpf1s.
Alot of preparation has been going into getting all the cars ready for Road Atlanta next month with global time attack. From my team including myself we have 4 cars going. On my car I changed my front brake kit, hubs, control arm bushings, changed to 36mm axles, put in a k20a2, mounted the rpf1s, and installed some fender flares. I'm not a huge fan of the job I did but it will have to due until I get some wide fenders. I still need to adjust my ride height a bit more, do an alignment, and put a base map into the ecu. I'm about 90% done with my car and we recently finished my buddy Marcs car. A lot of late nights but all worth it.
For Marcs car once we got it back from getting the cage done, we prepped the interior and sprayed it white. Then we reinstalled the dash, seat etc and my other friend Rob rewired everything and made a custom gauge panel.
Last year my last track date was at njmp. I could feel the car sway when faster cars past me and it felt unstable when I would brake. I knew my front bushings were in bad shape but I didn't expect to see what I did lol. Below are some pics of my front control arm bushings. You could literally move it by hand, that's how bad it got. I'm excited to see what it feels like to race with fresh bushings. My axle boots also both ripped so I have a lot of grease to clean up which was horrible but after it looked better.
Global Time Attack Road Atlanta was a success. Great event and a blast to be back out on track with the team. We all had a fun time and it was nice to get away for a few days. The cars performed the way they were supposed to without any real issues. I got caught up with some traffic on my last session but I knew I could go faster. My best lap was a 1:49.1. I also had to get used to the new setup and my left rear shock was leaking prior to arriving at Road Atlanta. I could feel how in T1 and the Esses the shocks on my car just weren't supporting the speed I was coming into them with.
My next investment is some new coil overs and race pads. The shocks I have now are about at their limit lol, plus i've had them since 2008. The car did feel a lot more sturdy now with new bushings so that was nice.
Also a couple days before the event I was finishing up the car and when I test drove it I noticed a ridiculous amount of bump steer. It was so bad that I almost thought I had to pull out of the race. I ended up switching back to my oem tie rods (from the ktuned ones) and the bump steer went away. I luckily got an alignment done that Monday and we left Tuesday for the track. It was just in time but what a stressful last couple of days.
This weekend my buddy Rob and I installed the ktuned shifter box that I've had for months lol. I originally cut the exhaust tunnel to mount the oem shifter box from underneath so Rob made a mounting plate to cover the hole and install the new shifter box ontop of that. I'm using the oem rsx cables for now but plan on buying the race spec cables.
What's going on everyone. Since my car is down right now i've been helping my friends/teammates at their track days. A few weeks ago I got to test drive my buddy Marc's car (white EG hatch from the above pictures) at Watkins glen and I have to say it was nice to experience what a good set up feels like. My car has slowly been getting worse and worse and there's only so much a driver can do to compensate. Marc's car has JRZ suspension in it and spherical bearings on the control arms etc. The suspension is set up nicely and the motor is a B16 with the transmission having a LSD. I took his car out for 1 session and got about 4-5 hot laps in. In that time i already ran 2 seconds faster than my own time and my car was using r comps. Also I was shifting early by accident because I was looking at his OEM tach instead of the 5" fast and furious tach on the dash lol. Somehow I missed this thing and was shifting 1000-1500k lower than I was supposed to which would have definitely helped in the esses since they are uphill.
He's also got a Aim SOLO in the car which was nice to look at actual data instead of just "the feeling" I get going around a track. I usually look back at my videos and compare it to what I remember from my experience and find time around a track that way, but that can only go so far. Using the SOLO i was able to see what G's I was pulling in braking, acceleration and in turns and see what mph I was carrying in certain sections. I was able to hit around 80-85 mph entering the bus stop and 90 mph in turn 10 leading to turn 11 and then the main straight. This helped open my eyes into investing some money into my civic lol. Current plans are to get a new shock set up; I think i'm going to go with Koni race shocks. They are affordable and will do the job until I save up and get JRZ's. I also want to contact Kingpin and get the spherical bearings for my suspension components. As far as tire and wheels, i'm going to try and fit 16x8 rpf1s all around. I did some measuring of the inside barrel on the 17x9 I currently have and a 16x7 that I have in my room and sizing isnt too far apart. My brake kit clearances will be tight but I think I can get a 16x8 wheel with a spacer on the front of my car and then it will allow me to go back to oem fenders since I hate the flares that I got lol (I know I messed up installing them, But it was in a rush lol). I'll keep you guys updated with the progress over the winter.
Progress with the civic has been a little slow lately with the holidays coming up etc but it's still in motion. I also got word that the 2018 honda challenge rules are going to have some changes to the classes so I want to wait for the rule book revision to come out so that I could make sure my build plan is according to spec.
So I've had the chance to be around the w2w environment/racers more this year and finally decided I want to head in that direction with my car, After a lot of going back and forth i've come to realize that this fits my budget more and I'll be able to get the seat time I want. I still think time attack is awesome and will compete in a few events for fun but it won't be my main focus or plan for my car. Plus the TA car i'd like to build involves a lot of time and money and right now I don't have it so I need to be realistic, instead of having a car in pieces for many years I can build my civic to do w2w, race it and continue to develop as a driver. Who knows maybe the team and I will build a team TA car that we can alternate driving sessions.
Reasons why I have the k20a2 in the car now is because I was thinking of running the h1 class in honda challenge since my jdm base model k20a is illegal for h2. This way I could still race and be around the group I currently know but word has it that the h2 class might revise the rule about the jdm base model k20 and actually allow it for 2018. If this is true then i'll throw my base model motor back in and build my car for h2 like I originally wanted too. Hoping this is true since the guys I'd like to race against are all in h2. So for my build i'm putting it on hold until the 2018 HC rule book comes out, I'll keep you guys posted.
Besides that this past weekend I did some go karting with a few nasane and scca racers. We did a qualifying session and then broke everyone into two groups (A,B) with 4 races per group. The race starts were 2 wide and that alone was a thrill since i've never done that in go karting before. I won 2 out of the 4 races with a personal best lap of 38.4. The fastest driver in group A ran a 37.4. This was my first time at On Track Karting in Connecticut so my qualifying session wasn't the best (lap time of 40.4). The break for group A was 39.2 so I was way off lol but after the 1st race I found my pace. I do think I might have been able to touch a 37.9 but I'll have to wait until next time. Here's a few videos from the races.
07-05-2016, 11:41 AM
Re: EG Vera's build/timeline thread
lol.
