Dilbones

Yeah, I definitely have my lazy moments and my moments of super attentive, ultra detailed track prep. I usually do the latter when I'm going to a far away track like Pitt International or New York Safety Track or The Glen or Palmer.

I think I'll only be tinkering with the halo for those long drives.

Thank you buddy

prjct92eh2

looking good! make sure to scuff the roll bar and hit it with some paint. it only comes with primer.

Hondahead46

great build man, gives motivation to save the single cams lol. My brother has a 98 EK with my old D16 in it that he wants to start Auto Crossing so I will definitely have to show him your thread.

His rear trailing arm bushings are shot and need to be replaced, I saw you replaced yours do you have any suggestions on new ones?

Dilbones

Yes! I have like five cans of paint I bought just for this reason. Primer then gloss.

Yes, driving slow cars teaches you speed, contrary to what non-track-guys think

I suggest going with the Hard Race rear trailing arm hard rubber bushing. It's cheaper than OEM and it's not shotty eBay quality either.

I went with PIC Bushings for my rear trailing arms, but PIC didn't make perfectly fitting Type-R LCA bushings-- so that's why I recommend Hard Race.

Matt_EH3

Ah, safety items. Spending a bunch of money on stuff you hope/wish you will never use. If it is a track day car, you may want to go for a used harness with known history. They tend to be more expensive than they need to be new. I understand that certifications, etc. draw that price up for racing series.

I like the seat's option to remove the halo. Having a halo seat myself, I have had a few situations where I have cut people off in traffic (going to the track) simply because I could not see them. It is never an issue on track, because you don't really have to merge, and you are aware of the traffic before it makes it to that blind spot. I am planning on getting a mirror solution for this.

Halos tend to draw unwanted police attention too, even though there is no actual law against having them.

Question for you, which version of the HANS did you get? I like the fact that you got a carry bag for it. My Sport II had not come with one.

Dilbones

That idea on the harness is a good one-- I really don't need a cert, so long as the harness looks like it's in good condition. I'm not racing-- only HPDE and eventually time trial with NASA.

Wow, this is good info on the halo. I'm definitely getting a wink mirror for the track-- five panel.

I don't know which HANS I got . I just got it for cheap and that's all I know hahah.

Calif_Kid

I've never used a wink multi panel mirror, but I have used a Longacre panoramic mirror like is carried by IO Port Racing at I/O Port Racing Supplies. I liked the mirror as I could see to the left, center, and right side of the car by just looking at the one mirror. I've actually broken a few of the mirrors as something needing adjusting in the car, and in the pit area, I leaned forward enough with my helmet on and contacted the mirror and broke it. Anyway, main point I'm making is that with the panoramic mirror, you may be able to see everything behind and to the side of you with less head or eye movement than with the wink mirror. There may also be panoramic mirrors that clip onto the OEM mirror.

PS - on my Longacre panoramic mirror, I ended up mounting it fairly close to my head due to the brackets I ended up using, but I just cut some custom brackets from 1/8" aluminum to move the mirror father forward to minimize how much I need to raise my head/eyes to view the mirror.
- Jim

Dilbones

I have always liked the panoramic mirrors more than I liked the wink mirrors, but all of the Honda Challenge guys swear by the wink mirrors.

In my older age I've learned to sort of accept without questioning because there are others more experienced than myself, but I will definitely consider it.

Matt_EH3

If you get around to installing the wink mirror before me, please post up pictures on how you mounted it. It is a great unknown to me, but it may be simpler than I think.

They are forecasting a foot of snow in my area, so the car will stay in storage and will be inaccessible for a while still.

Dilbones

Alright fam. I have the car totally stripped and awaiting its roll bar install scheduled to occur next week. I'll upload pix when I can.

Dilbones

So with all of my parts ordered, the first step was to install a new battery and to get the car inspected so I could begin stripping out the interior and installing the roll bar so I wouldn't have to deal with any flack from the inspection pace due to "grey areas" of car modification for safety equipment. Within a year I'm hoping to be sharing a tow vehicle with my friend, so it shouldn't be a big deal.

Apparently my old battery was a motorcycle battery from 2009. That could explain why the car had some trouble starting.

On my way to the inspection place, the car took a crap. Fuel completely cut out and the car wouldn't move. I was thinking fuel pump.


So, I went to AutoZone, got a new fuel pump, and installed it. The car wouldn't start. So I started looking at the fuses and found a burned 15-amp ACG fuse. I pulled it, replaced it, and the car started up like a charm. The old fuel pump was the original unit and it was toast as you could hear by the dying sound it made when it primed the injectors.


After installing the fuse, I set off to the inspection shop yet again...this time, however, the car died once more-- but on the highway.


I decided to call AAA and have them tow it to my friend's shop, rather than fixing it myself. I don't have a lot of time these days and my patience was wearing thin.

After my buddy looked at the car, he found out that the EFI Main Relay was toast and also that the ECU was fried. I had to spend somewhere around $500 to fix the car, but it was worth it since I didn't have to do any of the troubleshooting and that cost also covered parts and inspection and other labor.

With the car inspected, I drove it to my parents' house where I started stripping the interior. I ripped the carpet out and found out that the sound insulation and the foam insulation on the firewall were both soaked. This could explain why my ECU failed in the way it did. I imagine that a blocked AC condenser caused the damage and with my removal of the AC, there was no accumulation of new water, only the old, moldy water.

After removing the carpet, I was easily able to remove the sound insulation on the floor in the front of the car because of the AC condenser soaking the carpet. However, the sound insulation in the rear was a bit more challenging. With all stores selling dry ice closed on a Sunday and with this Spring being extra chilly-- I came up with a new solution.




For those hard-to-get-to spots of sound insulation, I just picked up some snow, formed it to the area, then let it chill the sound insulation. Once cold, I removed the snow and tapped the sound insulation out with a hammer. Was it as clean and easy as dry ice with isopropyl alcohol? No. Did it work? Well, you be the judge:




I left some amenities in the car for easy and somewhat relaxing trips to the track (please don't take that statement seriously). Obviously my steering wheel still has an airbag. The passenger seat will most likely be a reclining Recaro SRD so that my passenger (girlfriend) can sleep on the way to the track while also being safe in harnesses-- since the seat is designed for use with harnesses. I also left in the hanger in the back of the car so I could take my dress clothes with me on trips for work, my oh-**** handle up front for scared passengers, and my compartment light.



This Friday (tomorrow) I will be alone again and during that time, I will see if my roll bar fits. If it does, I will take it out, sand it, and paint it. While it is drying, I will mock up my PCI seat mount and install my five-panel wink mirror. I also have HANS Posts waiting for me when I get home, so I can install those on my helmet as well.

'Tis crunch time! First event is April 24th at the Glen with NASA NE.

KoRn_vIRuZ

Great update. The use of snow was very creative!

I am always entertained by the small differences between Japan and NA-built cars. Your car was painted after the sound insulation was applied. In the Japan-built cars it was the other way around: the insulation was added after paint.

Dilbones

thanks for the compliment man.

what else have u noticed between Japan and north American cars?

KoRn_vIRuZ

Off the top of my head I remember:
- The front seatbelts' lower anchor point. On JP cars the belt slides in a metal bar, on NA cars it rotates around a fixed point.
- The bumper crash bars. JP cars have none.
- The wiper/headlight stalks. They have different connectors for no apparent reason (JP EGs and EKs use the same stalks and NA "EKs" use them as well, only NA "EGs" differ). Also the symbols on them are different.

I'm sure there are more.

sup3rd

I hope the next update is a big one. I need more reading material at work.

Matt_EH3

Just letting you know... for the reclining passenger seat...

Your GF won't be able to recline very far if your roll bar has a harness bar. That's why I went with a Sparco Sprint (the cheapest bucket I could find) for the passenger. I had a Recaro recliner before and the reclining functionality was useless. I know I have yet to install a passenger harness, but it is low on the priority list, as I never drive really aggressively when I have someone on board with me.

Dilbones

Word man-- I figured that the reclining seat was more comfortable even with the limited reclining-- but I may invest in a corbeau since they're pretty wide and are still fixed-back like the sparco which means that I can seat-brace it to the roll bar if tech really ever wants to hastle me over instructors.

As for the next update, I'm gonna try man!

Dilbones

also, did not know the french canadians accented the "E" in competition!

Matt_EH3

I never noticed the banner was in French. Pretty funny :D

It's not just a French Canadian thing. It is how you spell the word in French.

sup3rd

Work is slow.. updates please!

rockit11

Cool to see the progress here, especially seeing you're out at summit point!

Dilbones

Wow, holy crap, so much has happened since then. So sorry for the wait guys. I've been focusing all of my time on my girlfriend, my car, and my job. As a result, I didn't have time to fix my broken laptop and I don't want to post personal stuff using my work computer.

Anyway, the weekend after I stripped the interior of sound deadening, I began to sand the metal.

I started with the trunk. Using an orbital sander I roughed up the whole trunk for good coat adhesion. I think I used 200 grit. I wasn't after a show car finish, but I did want some gloss and protection for the metal.

For paint I went with flat red rusto cans. This would be my base coat. I ended up using about four of these cans for the whole interior.





With the trunk's base coat:





Next I moved to the interior. The hardest part of all of this was cleaning the floor that had remnants of crushed up sound deadening, dust, sand, pistachio shells, and whatever else the previous owners and myself threw at this car. After sanding and then cleaning the floor, I masked everything up and started painting.







Halfway through the job I decided to mock up the roll bar. It fit pretty well.







Next I finished sanding and cleaning the driver side. After masking up my steering wheel I laid down the base coat. After masking the steering wheel I did my top coat in the trunk. I also did the base and the top coat in the interior after doing all the masking.









After letting the interior dry in the garage, because it started to drizzle, it looked like this:




It's not perfect but this is a track car, so the interior is going to get beat up-- is what I thought when it was all finished. And *spoiler alert* it's true :p

Then I unmasked my pedals, tied up my alarm relay, and installed my stock seat so I could drive my car back to my storage unit.

Dilbones

With the interior all painted, I decided to get to work on the rollbar. I painted it because Autopower sends the bars out with a light coat of paint or no paint at all. Not knowing this, I ordered one with paint and then afterwards, all of my friends told me to repaint it because Autopower has some crappy paint.

So, I took some 200 grit sandpaper, an orbital sander, some masking tape, paper towels, and some zip ties and then got to work installing it.











When the paint dried up, I carried it into the garage to allow the paint to cure. I used a bunch of base coats and a bunch of top coats.

Unfortunately, I got a couple of drips on the top coat on the main hoop and it made the whole job look worse. However, overall it looked pretty good.

While the paint was curing, I picked up harnesses and a passenger seat from a friend getting ready for comp school to join Honda Challenge 2.





And when I found a good weekend, I met up with my friends at my house and started mocking up the roll bar to bolt to the car's monocoque.






On the same day, after making good time while installing the bar, I decided to install the seat and bracket but not the harnesses. It fit guuuud.





And in the same day, I also had to see my girlfriend. So before she came over my house, I started installing my HANS Posts and test fitted my head and neck restraint!

Dilbones

After getting the bar and the seats in, I had to work on getting the harnesses in.

Unfortunately when you spend $250 dollars on seat mounts, you have to cut the centers out when you find out that your eye-bolts will not provide a safe angle for your harness straps to proceed through the bottom of your seat for the submarine belts demanded by most racing seats. My seat was mounded one to three holes above the bottom hold for side-mount seats on this bracket.





Next, I correctly wrapped the belts around the roll bar:



And then I ensured all of the straps were connected properly.



Then I installed my girlfriend/instructor seat! Thanks to my bro Anthony!



And with my passenger seat installed, despite not having belts, I headed back to my storage unit!






With seconds (not literally) left for my first event at the Glen, I searched eBay for locking collars on my rollbar to hold my belts in place. With luck I found a deal. The deal was $30 for ten locking collars. I gave the other two to my friend Ken.




And with the collars correctly installed, i test drove it to work. She drove well until I ran out of gas and discovered that my gas gauge was no reading accurately. Needless to say, I use mileage to determine how much gas I've used now.

Dilbones

Then I set up my car for Watkins Glen with NASA NE. The second event of the season was occurring in late April and I knew I wanted to play on Saturday and Sunday, so I checked all of my suspension and ensured my car was ready to run for two days straight.

To do so, I looked at all of my alignment and suspension bolts.










And the car was good to go for Watkins Glen So I was driving up I-80 in PA and I decided that I would take a break so that my girlfriend and I could get some good, local food. As I was going about 40 MPH on a back road, I hit a huge pothole and popped my tire. As I was messaging Sue Casella of NASA NE to ensure that I wouldn't get charged for a track day that I couldn't attend, some of my NASA NE and JV Honda Challenge Friends helped me out.

They saw my location on Facebook, saw that I couldn't attend via FB chat, and said that they were near me and could help me with some spare RA1s! Thank you so much Ken and Damien!




When we got it to the Glen, we noticed that the passenger-front side of the car had unusual camber. When we got it to the track we realized that I had bent an upper control arm and needed to swap to some spare OEM arms that Ken had in his truck.



At about 3 AM when I finished fixing my car I found my cold-bodied girlfriend in her first track/camping event ever:



And then I started my track day with R Comps in the rear and street tires up front.