I bought this car to be my daily driver my senior year of college after I wrecked a '96 DX. When I bought it, it looked like this. Illegal as E36 M3 window tint and big ugly 17" wheels. It had a header, a custom exhaust (that isn't a big fart cannon), sub in the trunk and intake. The engine had been blowing lots of smoke when the PO had bought it so he replaced the motor with a lower mileage JDM Z6. The wheels went right away and on went some free bottlecaps I got from a GRM member and I painted white. It was like this for a long time.
I decided to lower it and begin running it as my autocross car instead of the '84 Scirroco I had been running for a while. It was lowered with Koni STR.T shocks and Eibach springs. This will be changed at some point. At the same time, it received BMW basketweaves with Azenis RT615K. First time I autocrossed it was at the GRM $2013 Challenge. I ran it for all of 2014 in FSP. Unfortunately life and problems with it got in the way for 2015. The car was either broken or I was out of town for every local autocross this last year.
I replaced the injectors with aftermarket ones as the old ones were leaking. I have blanked on were the injectors were from but they are the same flow rate but different nozzles. It has got an eBay aluminum radiator after the stock plastic tanks split. The tint went too after a cop finally decided to give me fix it ticket. Fenders were rolled as there was some rubbing.
Over the last season, it has received new plugs, wires, distributor and Walbro fuel pump. The ECU had died so I bought a used one of eBay which also died. So the electrical engineer at work is repairing the first one. Also all the grounds in the engine bay were cleaned.
My plans for this coming season and next offseason is to autocross it a lot more, get a Del Sol seat to replace the stock one, do the front brakes and rebuild the suspension. I have a HardRace bushing kit, lower rear control arms and front upper adjustable control arms. I have a set of rear adjustable toe links as well and new front rotors and Hawk HP Plus brake pads. I am planning on getting a set of Integra Type-R swaybars, ASR rear subframe reinforcement kit, front strut bar and HardRace rear camber kit. I may also swap to a D16Y8 intake manifold with B-series throttle body and chip the ECU.
Eventually, I want to replace the shocks and springs with a better setup and rebuild the motor and add a lighter flywheel and ITBs. Also one day, remove the sunroof. Also probably next season go to slicks.
I ditched the A/C system last weekend as removing is allowed in FSP and the compressor leaked all the freon out anyway. Hole in firewall filled with Honda gasket. I also pulled some brackets for the long gone HIDs that were in the car when I bought it as well as the wiring for the long gone sub and amp.
The electrical engineer at my work replaced all the caps on the ECU since they go out. A couple of the caps were coming apart inside. You can see the corrosion on the bottom of this cap. So the car is running again. I also put a Password JDM battery holddown and radiator stay in the car this weekend. Hopefully going autocrossing next weekend.
This weekend put some rubber gasket maker around the taillights to hopefully fix the leak in the trunk. Here is how the car looks now.
Got to run my first autocross in a year. I have really missed it. One thing I learned this weekend is I need to replace the wiper stalk. It falls down over heavy bumps and turns the wipers on. I had gone to turn them back off during the run and the windshield wiper fluid sprayers got stuck on so I had to finish the run with fluid spray all over the windshield...
I'm such a sucker for green wheels, I wish I knew where that unhealthy addiction comes from. How'd the car do in auto-x?
Acme Lab Rat wrote:
I'm such a sucker for green wheels, I wish I knew where that unhealthy addiction comes from. How'd the car do in auto-x?
The car did fine. The tires are nearing the end of their life though I think. They have been on the car 2.5 years and have a season a bit of autocross on them...
The driver kept finding cones though. 
It needs new bushings for sure (plan is for the end of this season) and a limited slip diff would be awesome. I am constantly coming out of a corner and feeling the wheel lose grip under acceleration.
So life has been in the way of anything getting done on this. 
Here is how it sits now. The green numbers and wheels are gone and I have painted the original white bottlecaps bronze. It has a EK Civic Si factory front strut bar installed and all the audio is gone (minus the XM antenna) which needs to go. Also replaced el-cheapo Amazon front corner lights with Password:JDM lights.
I am in the middle of gathering parts for the suspension rebuild just need to figure out what swaybars I want to use.
The car has two weird electrical problems. On cold days, the headlights take forever to turn on after starting the car. You turn on the car, flip on the headlights and corner markers come on right away but the main lights don't come on for at least a minute. Any ideas on what is causing this?
The other is the left turn signal flashes quickly as if a bulb is out but it neither. I replaced both and cleaned the connector with contact cleaner. It has continued to do that. I guess it is the relay but it seems like the relay being out would cause problems with both sides.
Also I am gathering parts for a suspension rebuild. Should I go ahead and replace the wheel bearings with new Honda bearings while I have it apart or should I just leave the stock ones alone as they seem to be find right now?
My bet on the lights is either the switch or the relay my motorcycle has a similar problem where the turn signals take 30 seconds or so to turn on I just take the switch apart every now and then and clean it works like new for a while
After a fight with Photobucket and moving over to Flickr the photos are back up.
Only update on this is still gathering parts for the suspension rebuild. Ordered a Type R rear bar the other day. Still need some parts from Hardrace (bushings and rear camber kit) and ASR rear subframe brace and Revolver rear trailing arm bushings.
Thinking about saying berkeley it and going full in on SMF instead of FSP in 2019. Any reason not to? I want turbo in my life.
I weighed the Civic today. It weighs 2279lbs with a full tank of gas with a 62.6/37.4 front rear split. It is missing part of the A/C and all the stereo minus the wiring.
So if I go turbo D-series, my minimum weight in SMF would be 2205. I need to remove 74lbs at least. I would like to be lower then that and add ballast. I will probably try to hit 1950lbs which would be the weight with a 1.6 and no turbo.
Also can a mod change this thread from FSP to SMF.
Today I removed the passenger sunvisors and rear seat, brackets and middle seat belts.
The total weight from those parts was 1.5lbs for the seatbelts, 1lb for the sun visors and 23.2lbs for the remaining part of the rear seat. So that should put me at ~2224lbs. The bottom part of the seat was already gone from the car.
I still have to remove the rear seatbelts but I didn't feel like pulling that panel yet.
So SMF rules say, "Rear passenger seat(s), including restraints and associated hardware may be removed." Would you interrupt this to mean the rear seat lock could be removed.
Also is the bracket shown in this picture for car seats? If it is can I cut it out? Edit: It is for the spare tire well cover so I can't.
Today I removed the rest of the seatbelts, rear seat lock and rear speaker wires as far as this connector.
And wiring harness wrapped back up
I mainly removed the speaker wire because it is coming out at some point anyway and I was taking the rear parcel shelf off to removing the remaining bits of tint.
I also removed the remains of the speaker cloth over where the rear speakers were from the car.
Finally I cut the XM antenna off and filled the cut with automotive sealant for now.
The speaker wire was 1.6oz. The rear seatbelts were 79oz. The rear seat lock was 9.9oz and the XM antenna was 1oz. So total was ~4.9lbs which puts me at ~30.6lbs removed from the car. Tomorrow I am going to put a new driver's side front seatbelt in the car (current one doesn't retract correctly). Next week the windshield washer system is coming out of the car.
Wow that is light for a loaded coupe. I thought it would be at least another 150lbs heavier. For comparison, my '99 EM1 was 2563 lbs with a half tank of fuel.
Run_Away said:
Wow that is light for a loaded coupe. I thought it would be at least another 150lbs heavier. For comparison, my '99 EM1 was 2563 lbs with a half tank of fuel.
I mean it was already without A/C, speakers, head unit and the bottom part of the rear seat. Also it doesnt have a rear swaybar so that will be some weight added. Also I think the 5th gen is a decent amount lighter then 6th gen. It is a bit smaller and it has a bit less stuff I think.
Woah, I'm surprised we haven't run into each other at TAC before.
red_stapler said:
Woah, I'm surprised we haven't run into each other at TAC before.
I didnt get there really much last year due to various things. I am hoping to be at the one on April 14(?) if i get the suspension put back together.
Pulled the windshield washer system and some A/C components/ wiring on Saturday.
Washer out.
A/C components/ wiring to remove. They were plugged in at the passengers side of the car.
Total weight removed from those components: 6.25lbs. So that puts me at a total of ~36.85lbs removed from the car so far.
Got a new driver's side seatbelt installed since the old one no longer retracted correctly.
Tonight 3D printing parts to fill the holes where the sunvisors used to be.
