Dilbones

I would bet it would help a lot in all of those sections!

Were you there at D-Day Dog Fight in June? I must have missed you.

The LSD would probably help in a lot of corners at my local track as well-- NJMP Thunder.

Kaan

iTrader: (3)

i dusted off the car in april, popped the HG, and have struggled with grown up problems since. I need a second track (summit is my home track) to move up to group 3... its what i want to do before the season is over and i get a cage in the car (if grown up problems dont take all my money!). I showed up to the dog fight to swap some parts and buy some parts but other than that i've been on the side line this year :-/

Dilbones

Wednesday I took off from work a little early and I headed out to mecca-- NJMP.

It was my first time back on the track in a month, so I was very sloppy. I had some silly moments where I learned that I needed to practice driving offline. If you look at the video below at 2:50, you'll see what I'm talking about.

I also went two off two times after that on low-speed corners, again, because I need to learn to drive offline. You can see that at 6:00.

I was giving point-bys in awkward spots when I thought I could, but really couldn't.

I talked to an instructor friend at work later and showed him the videos and he told me what I could have done better to avoid situations like that. Particularly in the first instance, he said to stay to the left in high traffic, instead of getting right on the car's bumper in front of you. He said it doesn't matter anyway because you'll be behind the car for Turn 5.


I finally put down my fastest lap there and broke 1:46 in my car though-- this on heat-cycled NT-05s. I know I think I'm hot stuff, but I can probably lose even more time. I'm currently working with my boss and some co-workers to go back to Thunder for one last hoo-rah with NASA NE.


I picked up most of my time in T4 in that video. I learned that I could be flat all the way from the exit of T1 to T4, then briefly hit the brakes at the "1" marker, and get RIGHT back on the gas for the right-hander. I was drifting through that corner.

I need to learn how to left-foot brake though. My friend also told me this will help me to keep my momentum up.

And on Friday, I left early to head up to New York Safety Track:

I met up with my buddy Alex in his black M3 again at a Panera. We grabbed some food and began our drive. Here's the trip we took:



The Civic took the 282 mile trip like a champ, never skipping a beat. And of course, my favorite part about heading north to track days is I get to see my beautiful home state's mountains (PA is very beautiful):









When we finally got there, we hung out with my NASA NE buddies, Kallie and Greg! We also hung out with some of Alex's Subaru friends and we drank lots of beer and talked about cars all night. It was amazing.

I forgot my blanket and couldn't sleep in the tent that we brought without dying. So, instead, I turned on my Civic and let it run with the heat on all night and passed out in the back seat. Every time I got hot, I'd wake up and turn the car off and every time I got cold I'd wake up and turn the car on. It went really well until I woke up in the morning to ULTRA black oil because of that experience combined with like 4 track days and no oil changes.

So what did I do? I added oil and hit the track! #DSERIESLYFE

The track was amazing. It was not quite as good as Palmer, I must say, but it was technical and truly fun. My favorite part of the track is the "esses," which take place from Turn 8 all the way through Turn 10. The elevation changes and track surface inconsistencies are challenging to say the least:



While going through the "esses," I had a really gnarly spin in between Turn 9 and 10. Again, I was going too fast into the corner and instead of going offline like I should have to remedy the situation, I tried to save the car to stay online. The result was what you see at 10:30 in the video below:


During heat 4, my friend Yuko, also from NASA NE, decided she would participate in a little lead-follow action. So, we headed out and started to kick some butt! You can see me give her the point-by to commence the "follow" portion of our exercise :p. I have to say, Yuko has gotten REALLY fast since I first met her. It's amazing what good instruction can do to a driver. Fast forward to 3:55 in the video below:


By the fourth session, my tires were nearly bald and I was worried I was going to cord them. So, I took them off and rotated them as if they were non-directional and got back on the track. All-in-all it was an amazing track day where I got the most out of my tires, my car, my friends, and the whole experience in general. Here's my buddy Alex (the short, black-haired one), and some Subaru guys I met hanging out and "beering" before going to a restaurant:



When we got finished with our shenanigans (and drinking lightly, of course) we headed to this BBQ restaurant near Oneonta, NY. They had chickens on their wallpaper and they also had an amazing view which you'll see below:



This is a picture of the inside of the restaurant and also my friend Steve and his head:





With some flat-spotted tires and a full belly, I began the ~260 mile trek back from New York to Philly. Anything between 60 and 75 mph was just vibrations for nearly 4 hours. Feelsbadman.jpg.

The rest of the weekend was spent going to Tyler State Park in Newtown, PA and hanging out with some PA friends to catch up. Here are some pics of me hanging with my friends:





And lastly, here's a pic of me at Tyler State with my beloved Chelsea:



I have an autocross in Poopono this weekend, so we'll see how I do in STS again with NT-05s that are heat-cycled and out-of-round....whatever.

#WHEELIT.

Thanks for reading, fam.

Calif_Kid

Lots of good pictures and videos. For the on track videos, could you change from the over the car view to in car? If you could have the camera located just behind where the front seats are, then you might be able to give a view of the steering wheel, shifter, pedals, plus the windshield so people can see your steering wheel inputs etc. - Jim

Dilbones

Thanks man. Yeah I have to figure a mounting location out. On the rear window is too far back. I don't have a sunroof. I don't have a roll bar either. I also don't like the helmet view, but that may be my only choice.

Calif_Kid

I'm not sure how heavy your camera is, but maybe you could use a 'headrest camera mount' that would mount to the passenger side headrest if your seats have headrests. I'm not sure how stable the mounts are, and how much vibration there would be, but might be an option. One other possibility I was thinking of, is sometimes they have 'tie or harness bars' that bolt just behind the front seats and that people sometimes then use (unwisely) for their racing harness. I'm not sure how the tie/harness bar would mount, but you probably could attach a camera mount to it. - Jim

Update - I just looked at your car pictures again, and it looks like the headrest on the passenger seat just has one support with the support being next to the door, so not sure how the headrest mount would attach to it.

Dilbones

I got flamed like crazy because I made some janky-*** headrest mount out of some steel and everyone was like-- bruh you gonna impale an instructor lol.

It's all good. I'll figure something out.

I got some sweet in-car video in my RSX because it has a sunroof I could suction-cup to. But that's about it.

Also, I have updates on more seat-time. Work has been crazy and will be crazy this week. After this week I hope to give y'all an update.

Matt_EH3

I have a roll bar mount myself, and I think that even that is too far back. I am filming more of the car's interior than outside.

The newer GoPros have a zoom feature, and the view window with that is just perfect. Maybe I should get one, but I prefer spending my money elsewhere

Dilbones

Yeah, like consumables, seat time, and bills...

and beer

patrEK9

I've seen cameras mounted on the inside of the passenger rear window with the passenger seat folded down and it's a decent view of the inside/outside.

Dilbones

So, after my track weekend at NYST and NJMP I signed up for a two-day autocross at Poopono Raceway. The event is run by the Northeastern PA SCCA and it is a minimum of six runs on the racetrack itself with cones laid out. It's one of the "must-go" autocross events during the year. I only go to autocross events that make working worth it. This is one of them.



The NEPA SCCA is one of my favorite regions. The further you get from "money" (a.k.a. NNJR or Philly Regions), the closer you get to good times, in my opinion. NEPA takes me back to the days when I first got into driving while I lived in Wisconsin. Out there, people drove WHAT EVER they had and they drove their cars quick. They didn't rely on money or fancy setups to go fast and that's what I admired about them....again, NEPA is similar.

The Friday night before the event I ended up drinking too much and so I missed that Saturday out of conservatism. But, to be honest...driving up for 1.5 hours to autocross while hungover isn't really the best of times, so it's okay that I skipped it. However, Sunday, I went up and met up with my friend Damien who usually does track days with NASA Northeast. We're both trying to do Honda Challenge one day. Here's his car:



Also, I forgot to mention, but my clutch slave cylinder bleeding screw stripped out on my Civic. So I decided to take the daily:



As usual, it was a rainy, overcast, cold day. Poopono weather is always garbage. Here are some pics from the event:







For my first runs, I was having a total blast. The daily has these crappy all-season tires on it, so all it did was oversteer when I was muscling it through slaloms and such. Then, on my third run, I figured out how to get a good interior view of my driving. I made a quick, edited video to show all of my runs. Run 7 was my fastest, and I feel Run 8 would have been faster if I didn't cone-- so I decided to finish off the day by driving like an idiot:


At the end of the day, Damien and I got packed up and I began my trek back through the beautiful mountains of PA to my parents' house near Philly:

Dilbones

On the weekend of September 24th, I took the Friday off at work after a stressful and busy week to head up to Watkins Glen International to volunteer with NASA NE for Eastern State Championships. I cleaned my house on Friday morning and then I left to go pick up my buddy Jim, who instructs with NASA. This is a picture of his old TTE Miata with a Viper ACR at Home Depot, because he's the plug:



The drive up was beautiful (as is usually the case with racecations in the Northeast). Watkins Glen is in the middle of nowhere, as most racetracks are, so there were mountains and windy roads for days. Was a really good time listening to music and driving up with my buddy.

NASA NE had arranged for motels for us, so that when we got there we could have a place to sleep. It was very cold, so this was much appreciated.

On my first day of volunteering, I didn't snap many pictures, but I did get these few:



After Saturday's races, a few of the volunteers, Jim, and myself went around paddock on our golf cart and checked out some of the Spec Miatas since Jim just bought a Spec Miata and will, hopefully, be racing next season. While trolling, we found these guys who were sitting around, drinking some whiskey and bourbon, and listening to some cool jazz, or something:



At the end of the night, we corralled up in the garage and headed back to the motels to drink some beers and fall asleep.



The next day, I snapped a lot more pictures. When I woke up, I checked out, left the motel, got some coffee, and looked at some of the views at the beautiful Glen.



Once at the track, Jim debriefed us on our duties for the hectic last day of Championships. I was in charge of giving the drivers their grid positions and ensuring they were accurate. I had to deal with on-track incidents that would cause backups and at times I was running up and down the line of cars trying to enter the track.





When the cars would get off the track, I was helping Jim handle impound, where we would pick and choose cars that needed to be inspected to ensure they were abiding by the rules. For example, when the "top dogs" for their respective classes get off the track, we have to make sure they are weighed, dyno'd, and disassembled. By keeping them in impound, we can make sure they don't change tire pressures to affect dyno readings. We make sure they aren't tampering with anything in their engine or putting weights in their trunk as well. It takes a lot of attention and discipline to ensure that all drivers comply with the rules of impound.

One of the other duties we all had to attend to was ensuring that the Mazda opening ceremony went smoothly. For the opening ceremony of Championships, we had to line up all of the Spec Miatas for pictures on the track and off the track.



For the rest of the day, while completing my duties as a volunteer, I also got some good videos of the races. I put them all together and edited them for you guys to watch. Enjoy!

Tarmac Junkie

Wow, great build so far. Doing all the things a lot of people overlook. Cant wait to see more.


John

Dilbones

Thanks bud. I have more updates coming soon. Basic maintenance with a nice touch is what I call this one.

I also did a two-day weekend with NASA I still have to write about. I've been busy with work.

Dilbones

So on October 15th and 16th I had an event with NASA Northeast at NJMP Thunderbolt. This is the first time I ran the chicane. At first I was apprehensive, but then I realized it would be a good opportunity for me to catch some of the faster cars-- and it was.

When I got there, I lined up with the JV Honda Challenge crew. We probably had about seven to nine Hondas all in DE 3 after I was bumped up from DE 2 on that day. Here's a photo of Marc's, Anthony's, Spencer's, and my own car:



Here's a pic of most of the JVHC cars in our crew. Kallie didn't have her Integra, my buddy Jeff wasn't there in his old TTE hatch, and my buddy Ilya wasn't there in the green machine (to name a few):



Open passing was a hell of a time with NASA as most of the drivers are highly skilled racers or time trialers that can handle themselves in high-traffic situations.



And having more friends within NASA makes being at the track feel more like being with your family.



After my first day of hanging out and driving hard, I decided to set up the camera. All day on my second day I could not beat my fastest time of about 1:47.01 with the second chicane. However, despite that, I was running really consistent times when not caught up in traffic. Typically I was about 0.10 to 0.20 off on each lap until I would get caught in traffic. On the second day, my fast laps averaged about 1:47.5 seconds.

I also managed to figure out my hot pressures on the NT-05's. My buddy Anthony lent me his high quality tire pressure gauge and with it I discovered that 37 PSI hot changed everything. The car came to life. Braking, static cornering grip, and turn-in were all improved.



I was giving it my all while in traffic to pass faster cars. I was using all of the track-- and by all of the track, I mean ALL of the track. This line through the chicane was my ideal line until another instructor/Honda Challenge driver came for a ride-along and changed my mind. Regardless, the smoke screen of dirt helped slow down the faster cars:



You can see me battling it out with some of my friends in Heat 3 on Day 2. This was the best heat I ran all weekend because we were all fighting it out together:


Damien (silver Civic), Ken (white Integra), and I, particularly, had a blast battling it out with our lower-powered Hondas. Here's a pic of us doing so below:



On the way home, I noticed a humming noise at the front of my car and when I got it up in the air, I found out that my driver-side bearing was on its way out.

So, for the next event, which is on November 5th, I am replacing all bearings and my wheel studs with ARP Studs.

Until then, I will be working on data analysis and being smoother. My friend Jan, who races HC2, said that I need to be smoother with the car despite my good car control. He said that if I were to smoothen my inputs out, I could get 0.5 to 1.0 seconds back. I'm looking forward to making improvements without making modifications!

Thanks for reading guys. here's a video from Heat 4 on Day 2:

sjg88

are you running a cat in this car? if not..how did you get it to pass inspection?

killerpenguin21

i think i may have talked to you briefly at the october event. I was driving this:



integra

mx621

Man, what a cool thread!! question.. you still running stock radiator and oil pan? oil cooler?

I just picked up a 97 LS integra for this exact purpose. 177k miles, bone stock, no compression cyl #4. for a cool 200 bucks!!
if its major it will be getting a jdm B20B. I decided to look for a cheap track car to build/play with after I had a very close call at NJMP thunder bolt in my C5 zo6. coming into turn 1 at roughly 125 mph I hit the brakes in the brake zone and hit ABS instantly. car was all over the place, I was positive I was going off course, which in that area of the track is almost certain tire barrier/wall hit.. someone had dropped coolant.. I really like my Z and even with track insurance I would be really bummed if I were to crash it.. so here I am, back where it all started.. a Honda

Matt_EH3

I agree. I keep thinking about buying a better/faster track car, then I get into my Civic and have no wish to change it. It is just fun to drive, and should something bad happen, well at least my bank account will not hurt too much. Running costs are awesome too.

I drive my car to the track still, and being almost 40 driving around in a 20+ year old econobox is the part where it feels weird though.

I am sure you will enjoy going back to the roots of driving with this car.

dwchkypmp

Awesome build, car, and thread, I haven't been on HT in over 8 years, this is the first thread I came across and read the entire thing.

sup3rd

Great thread, what an awesome way to waste time at work! I'm taking a similar path to the both of you. My friend had an LS that was down for a year due to a bad clutch and not starting. So we made a deal that I can have the car for free if I track it! I'll feel much better putting less abuse on my e39.

Dilbones

Sorry for not looking at this thread in a long time guys. I've been really busy. I switched to a new job in early January and I've been super busy with that and my new girlfriend. The good news is that I love my new job (for now) and I am happy in my new relationship.

So, after getting into that bit of personal information, I guess it'd be good to get things going again-- even if it's a little late in the "off-season."

This car is completely street legal as it sits right now. In fact, I'm getting it inspected tomorrow at my buddy's shop.

Ah yes! I remember you. How are you friend? What's your name again? Are you doing NASA NE events next year too?

Damn dude no bueno. TBH, if you haven't driven a slow car like an old Civic on the track before you will learn TONS just by DE'ing in one. I am learning about winding out the wheel, being smoother on brakes and gas, not jerking the car around, carrying momentum, and lastly, driving with no fear (because you literally have to be a maniac to catch faster cars in an old, stock power Civic hahah.

Will I be seeing you around events in the Northeast? We should link up bud.

Since my life has been so busy recently, it would be a lie to say I haven't thought about doing the same. I may sell this car as a TT/HPDE car next season and buy the new Civic Si if I get tired enough. The only benefit to having an old, shitty Honda like this is that I can drive it without worrying about trashing it. But now that I'm in HPDE 3 and am a bit more advanced, I think that I could handle a faster, newer car. I am much better at tuning out red mist now.

¡Gracias señor!

I love how all of the comments are about how driving a shitty car is more fun hahahah. I love you guys. That's a great deal bro. Get some cheap coilovers and some tires and brake pads and do some maintenance and hit the track >

I'll update the progress on the car in the next entry.

Dilbones

Alright,

So as I mentioned it's been a while. Let's start it out with what happened in the off-season before now, shall we?

Event one consists of me getting in an accident with my daily driver, my RSX Type-S-- forcing me to get a new car on last-minute notice since my Type-S was undriveable and since I didn't want to drive the Civic on summers in the snow. For this I hopped on Craigslist and I found this green '97 Civic EX with a sunroof and a body in great condition:




With 150,000 on the clock and at $1,700 it was a great deal that I couldn't turn down. I drove this thing to and from work, 120 miles per day, without touching a thing until the exhaust rusted off and I had to replace that. Other than that, it's been a very low-maintenance daily.

......

For this season, my focus was solely on upgrading safety items in the car. I wanted:

1. seats
2. roll bar
3. harnesses
4. and hans

With that being said, I began my journey by ordering an AutoPower Roll Bar. It was a tough ordeal because the shipping company would not deliver the roll bar without a signature and I was having family issues at the time that prevented me from getting any help in delivery reception. Eventually I was able to convince them to deliver without signature. But this was only after paying a missed delivery fee of $50 in addition to the nearly $150 delivery -__-.



The next item I fixed my sight on was a good racing seat. Through my friend, I was able to pick up a Sparco Ergo for $600 brand new.



I decided on a Sparco Ergo because I thought the removable halo would be great for when I want to drive the car to the track. When I get to the track, I'll bolt the halo sides onto the seat and be ready to rock. This seat is also FIA-approved, so if I do end up making this car into a wheel-to-wheel car, I can keep this seat and just support it with a seat brace if the FIA cert. expires.

I also got this seat because I sat in a Sparco Pro Adv and I loved how it felt. I saw the measurements on both seats via the Sparco Website and I decided that this seat would fit me perfectly. Good news is, the large Ergo DOES fit me perfectly. Very happy with the purchase and I can't wait to install it.

The next thing I acquired was a HANS. Through a different friend, at work, I was able to pick up a brand new HANS for $400 bucks.



All I have to acquire now to tie it all together is:

1. HANS posts for my helmet
2. Harnesses
3. PCI seat mount

Firstly though, I will be stripping my interior and installing the roll bar.

The car has its own storage unit now (since I moved out of my house in Delaware). So, all that it needs is to be inspected again, then I can start the process:

SkylineKin

On my 96 coupe I have the same Sparco Ergo seat with PCI fixed mount (I asked for custom "low" side brackets which put the seat on the floor), it has been a great setup!
I end up keeping the halo's on even driving to and from the track, but keep telling yourself you will swap back and forth

Dino92

Sorry to read about your types Glad you're okay and that you found a cheap solution to get you to/from work.