This is the third (and probably final) iteration of my "I Can't Drive" seemingly yearly threads.

For those unfamiliar with my former, you can view them here:
https://honda-tech.com/forums/drag-racing-36/i-cant-drive-historical-account-failure-me-2674462/ and https://honda-tech.com/forums/drag-racing-36/i-cant-drive-historical-account-failure-me-part-deux-2851568/

This time around, myself, my father, and a small group of friends and customers of mine attended the final Test and Tune event for 2012 at Maple Grove Raceway on Saturday, November 3rd while everyone else on the east coast was out watching much more entertaining cars at World Cup Finals.

The car is my personal toy. Actually, scratch that, the car has been one of the biggest constants in my life for the past decade. I have owned it since 2002, and have been through countless engine setups, appearances, ups and downs alike. It has gone from my only means of transportation as a teenager, to my play toy as a young adult,and always brings a smile to my face. I do not build this car to impress anyone, nor do I really give a crap about hitting an E.T. goal that everyone on the internet thinks it "SHOULD" run. It is a full interior street car with heat, a stereo, leather seats, a sunroof, power locks, and power windows. Sure, the fender-exit exhaust is a touch loud sometimes, but the car is surprisingly pleasant to drive.

In it's current form, the engine is a stock-block K20A2, with SuperTech valve springs and retainers (and when I say stock, I mean stock rods, pistons, head gasket, head bolts, etc). It is turbocharged with an old T3/T67 H.O. sitting atop a classic, long-forgotten Full-Race tubular top mount manifold, through my custom IMW-Spec 2.5" charge piping, chilled by a Full-Race vertical flow intercooler, and finally ingested by an RBC intake manifold. It has a maxed out Walbro 255 in-tank feeding a Bosch 044 and a set of ID2000's for fueling, tuned by myself with Hondata K-Pro. The transmission is a stock EP3 unit (open diff), getting power transferred through to it by a Competition Clutch twin disc. The car weighs 2,750lbs. with me in it, and was tuned on E85. I tested the fuel Friday night when we were packing up, and it seems our local station switched to E70 early this year, resulting in a E76-E77 mixture in the car for race day with the left over E85 from a few weeks before.

Here's a couple pictures, since most people only like to look at pictures, and loathe reading.


(That one is from earlier in the year)


(From this past weekend...)

It was a cloudy, frigid day in Central Pennsylvania, so I assumed the track would be a tad slippery.


Because of these expected conditions, I turned the boost down to wastegate pressure in first and second gears (11psi, 420whp or so), 18ish psi in third (520whp), and finally 23-24psi in fourth (630whp, give or take a couple).

My first pass was pretty much one big abbreviated version of the story of my life. It started off with the best of intentions, but by the time I went to second gear, the car decided it wanted to change lanes and careen towards the left fairly hard, so I decided to just throw it in third in an attempt to straighten it out. Welp, it seems second gear was the car's way of warning me of what was about to happen. As soon as I let the clutch go in third gear, I felt the familiar feeling of an axle breaking, and shooting straight to rev limit. I end up coasting to a 16.4 @ 52mph (which is ironically what the car ran when it had a B16 with 17" wheels when I was in high school, just a little different trap speed).

So, fed up with the car, I sat on the return road, unable to move forward, and wait for a tow back to the pits. I hopped out of the car and defeatedly, I merely glance at the axles, and make sure I didn't instead blow a new vent in my transmission. I sat back in the driver's seat, clicked the upright back a notch and decided to call my wife. I tell her that I give up, as I have been plagued with nothing but axle breaking issues for this season alone for whatever reason. She tells me "You can't just give up because of a couple setbacks." She was right. Personally, I have always set fun goals for myself, and this time around, even though I said that I didn't care what it ran, I did, just a little bit. My father and my group of friends eventually made their way down, just as a call is made for the tow vehicle to taxi me back.

We arrive back at the pits to find that luckily it was the driver's side axle that let go, which I had a perfect spare for, and decided to swap it out and give it one more go before throwing in the towel.

Here was the result:

And the breakdown:


Seeing this motivated me for another pass. I should have turned the boost back up in second and third, as the track hooked better at speed than I expected by a fair margin, but you know what they say about hindsight.

Results:


After that, I decided to quit while I was ahead. Sure, I probably could have finally hit my 10-second goal in another pass, or by making a small change here or there, but at the end of the day, I was happy with a personal best, and only having an axle casualty as the only broken part of the day. I was able to meet a couple new people at the track, and finally got a chance to enjoy myself racing again, which is something I have let the pressure others have bestowed upon my shoulders for the past year hinder.

Without further adieu, here's some video.
http://youtu.be/0H3GkEJh9S8

- Derek

P.S. There is no real point to this thread, other than to remind everyone that if you're not doing this stuff because it makes you happy, then why do it?

 

You should have just (insert comment by someone who hasn't been in your shoes) and it would have run 10's.

For inspiration:

Its your fuel map man, its got a nasty hole...thats why your unloading in third
Just tune the nos timer, leghten the injector pulse another millasecond, you'll run 9's.

The movie we all love to hate, but can't change the channel if its on.

 

You will run 10s all day. You just need seat time :-)

What tire pressure did you make your runs at?
What were you revving to?

 

should have went with a motec system exhaust

 

Congrats man, glad to see you still love the sport even after countless set backs!

 

i like it..good job..keep up the work

my goal is tens full interior..break cert and come back with cage and still have full interior and still hit tens..

 

I started higher at 7psi cold on the first run, and dropped to 6psi cold for the last run. Gun shy of axle breakage.

The rev limit is 8,800 RPM in the program, as I really don't want to take it any higher without something like an ERL S2000 oil pump. Also, I am not quite sure how I feel about the stock rods/bolts much above that engine speed.

I honestly shouldn't complain about a street car with an internally stock engine on fuel from the pump doing almost 140mph in a 2,700+lbs car.

 

Congrats on a new personal best! Keep on having fun with it, that's what really matters!

 

You should care about E.T. Ergo, I'm going to ruin your MPH goal so you look back to E.T. by saying, "You SHOULD be doing 145 MPH." :p

 

Rob, looking at your sig, it looks like you cracked a 10 this past weekend?

Awesome!

 

Thanks! I got it in the I can't index race losers bracket. Backed it next pass .006 slower. Did it at 16psi, I was quite surprised with it. I datalogged all weekend and the tune is working awesome! It weighed in at 2500 with me in it. You need an lsd for that monster you have!!!!

 

wow em1s are so heavy my 98ek coupe only weighs 2200 10 point and no real crazy diet.
you dont need an lsd just get some seat time.ive cut 1.57 with 15/24.5s

keep it up

 

His car is a 96-98 ex, my 99 hatch weighs 2340 (no driver) so you must have done a bit to lighten it up.

 

wax the car you will get that 10 lol. good luck derek

 

Its a solid story to show what committment and real devotation can do. Glad you gave it another go, infact, you owed it to yourself.

Been down that road a few times myself, with this industry, you get busy and forget about the one thing that matters, yourself and your dreams.
Congrats, you'll get there.

 

Congrats on the personal best. I think its awesome that you keep at it and have a great time doing it.

! suggestion that might help (cant watch the video at work so I dont know if your doing this or not already) Stay in first past the 60' mark even if your banging off the limiter to get past it. I have found that will lower 60' times drastically for us anyway.

Good Luck in the future.

 

Keep at it Derek, no driver was born a driver, they were born to be a baby! It all comes in time!

 

Buy a spare trans & more spare axles or aftermarket axles.

Start shifting that car like your life depends on it.
Maybe setup full throttle shift :-)

Get us some 10 second videos!

 

Keep at it, with more practice you can only get faster!

Oh and nice looking car as well, even with the silly fender exit.

 

It was clean! I swear!

Thanks Arnie.

Yeah, I had a stock of spare transmissions last year, but ended up selling through them to help fund my wedding this summer. I need to put out a call for some more tuning trades for transmissions.

As far as axles go, I always had good luck with the OEM RSX-S axles, so I will be upgrading to 36mm hubs this winter, and running those again. The smaller base axles are the ones that seem to keep giving me trouble.

 

+1

 

Glad to see someone having fun, shooting for PBs instead of a record