Project Hazmat '09 Honda Civic Si

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

yeeeeep. 

this is the view when I got the driver seat cleared out this morning to pull it off the trailer

and this is what I pulled out of the driver seat

home sweet home! 

congrats man!  glad the trip went smoothly.  going full Sansford & Sons on that packing job, I like your style.

1hen I came back from lunch today I got a good look at hazmat from my favorite angle.

the front 3/4 view on this car looks awesome. 

I went and took the trash out and snapped this photo even with the poor lighting to remind myself.. this is when the car looks really good on these wheels... 

when I drove past the car today.. there was a pang of guilt.. when it's sitting nosed in against the garage at the old place... easy to not think about.. but now... hard to not see the good angles.. bad paint and all. 

one of my good buddies said to me one 

"maaaaannnn... Pete you love a good hooptie!" and I do.. and I'm starting to form a plan in my head on how to make Hazmat a triple threat car just like Ronald... 

almost 4 months later.. and hazmat hasn't moved thanks to a variety of things..

but plans are forming on getting another K20 to get the car back on the road sooner than later..

 

Do tell....

In reply to clutchsmoke :

a K24 long block is cheaper than a used K20z3 long block.... but will set me back enough in tuning, extra needed parts and additional work.. that I realized I need to park that idea if I'm going to get this car back on the road in a reasonable amount of time.... I'm just not working with enough extra cash right now for that to make sense.

I've got some stuff going on at work.. so I'm not going to start making moves overnight.. but wheels are turning..

to that point... I  spoke with some friends who have an 8th gen and have done the swap themselves and they're willing to let me use their lift for 2 days to do the swap. which has been a hurdle I've been trying to overcome...
 

so i guess the evidence is still pointing to a blown HG?  might be interesting to see an autopsy when it gets yanked.

In reply to ScottyB :

I will have had to blown the NEW head gasket... which i don't believe it has..

could be a cracked block.. who knows.. i don't have the space to tear it apart..

spacecadet (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to ScottyB :

I will have had to blown the NEW head gasket... which i don't believe it has..

could be a cracked block.. who knows.. i don't have the space to tear it apart..

Cracked block is still my guess. 

Hazmat... has officially left the building.

I've had the battery on the charger for 2 weeks to make sure it was ready to go. Fired right up and drove the 2 blocks to where the truck was waiting for me.

It's headed off to a new owner in the northeast to become a wheel to wheel car in GLTC with #Gridlife

 

Hi all.

I am the fourth owner. I got the car pretty much as it came from Texas. The third owner and I made a deal because he had other priorities going on and projects tend to end up on my property like lost kittens. I have a whole 06 that's dead I pulled the interior out of and put in this.

I can go into detail if you all wish but I wanted to post and show that it is indeed alive and running. I have my own motor in it from my done for junkyard 06 civic, I believe the stock motor did crack, I found gouges in the water pump housing.

I plan to have it at mid Ohio this year and summit point maybe once I get it dialed in and tuned up. Lots of work ahead of me but I'm glad it found it's way to me

Here are some pics, please excuse the crown royal, I did that purely out of spite. You may notice some irregularities, such as the modified VSA/cruise switch from an Acura TL and the Navi wheel and Navi head unit. I did rewire everything to make it work,I do that for a living in aircraft. Eventually I'm going to an aftermarket wheel so I had to relocate the cruise control. 

Nice! Welcome! I almost bought this car but I'm glad it fell into capable hands.

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

Thanks. the car is in good shape however the infamous Honda EDP primer and clear coat failure is rearing its ugly head. I wanted to redo it in sonic grey like the 10th gens but I can't paint here in maryland without hassle.

It's my hope that getting involved in this community will keep me the drive to get on track more, I haven't done much since 2019. I'll make a more detailed post when I get some time and try to give this thread a happy ending.

So heres the story:

I had an 06 civic I pulled form a junkyard back in 2016. it was mostly clean, but it was rusty up under because detroit car.
The front end was damaged from a deer impact and totaled, so it became a salvage/repair title car. A new core support, rad, hood, headlight, and fender and it was ready to go (plus a few wiring repairs to the ABS unit.) I also had to repaint it, but I'm good with that kind of work. This was probably one of the best cars I ever owned, and the community it came with was great, I made a lot of friends through the 8g community.

This is the EDP failure of the paint, it makes it a nightmare to try and respray as it boils up in random spots once the fresh paint hits it.

Anyway, 6 great years later with two tracks and numerous road trips through the mountains the car finally gave up. That detroit rust I mentioned was hiding inside the front frail rail where I couldn't see it, or rather, didn't know where to look. it finally split the A pillar union gussets in half and the drivers side of the car sank an inch with nothing holding the frame to the A pillar. Normally I would fix that, I dont give up easily, but it was happening on the passenger side too and the rear control arm mounting points were completely rotten. The car was done, it had its second wind... and it was time for a new car. (it is now supporting racers in GLTC, the front end, dashboard, and a few frame peices that were good were sold off to a few people who are racing 8Gs in champ and GLTC. I try to save as many parts as I can for those guys.)

Enter Hazmat...
My friend, Victor, knew the second owner and third owner of this civic and put me in touch with the third owner. after some negotiation I drove up and picked it up from PA and took it back to MD with me. Unfortunately I work a 20 day on 10 day off schedule so repairs have been slow. but For the most part its almost ready to go. I put the engine from my blue civic in, swapped the interior over and rust proofed as much as I could with lanolin wax.
Theres a couple upgrades to the motor, we did the type S pump, replaced the tensioners and chain with new OEM stuff, and it has drag cartel drop in cams. The car came with a hasport torque mount, and I installed a hasport lower rear mount. I have a PLM header and an invidia Q300 exhaust I put on it as well which is a nice quiet combo, especially with a silencer installed for road trips... im getting old.
I had OEM axles from the old civic, as well as a couple previous part outs so some nice OE axles went in, as well as a hybrid racing clutch master and slave kit and an exedy light flywheel and stage 2 clutch.. i learned by experience that the stage 1 is less stiff than OEM.
There is also a redshift racing suspension from Chris in it now along with adjustable control arms and aerogenics roll center spacers. I have yet to go throughly through the ball joints but everything seems tight.

Theres still a lot to do. I dont know anyone that rents dyno time around here (i used to use a friends back in WV) so I might be highway tuning it when I get a chance. I also have to hunt down a vibration in the firewall and get it corner balanced and ready to alignment.

Ill grab some pictures when I get home and update this until its back on the road and tuned.

Update: its mostly all together. The rattling was a damage pax fender liner oscillating against the fender panel, with the counter shafts deleted this car vibrates a lot more so you need to make sure everything is secure.

The brake system still needs work, I've put 2 quarts through it and I'm still hearing a moan from the pedal, and it still goes right to the floor when you turn the car on. Air is likely in the ABS system, without a Honda symphony (or whatever you call that computer) you have to bleed it the old fashioned way, which is illegal for being too fun, so I won't share it here.

There's some interior work to do, I still have to repin the overhead light connector to a Navi style voice recognition box, and the trunk still needs to go together.i also need to disassemble the HUD and desolder the annoying TPMS light. Clearly that system was an after thought since the NHTSA mandated it in 2008. I don't need it, so I don't need the light.

I also got it tuned up. It doesn't like having a lighter flywheel on it so a few idle timing adjustments made it a lot happier. 

So here it sits, test drive this evening once I get the brakes figured out and things secured inside. Lots of little things to finish but it's moving again. Next week I plan to get it up to a shop in mt airy and have them corner balance and align it.

Final update for a while unless anyone has any questions about progess (im super ADD so i may have missed glaring details.)

bleed the brakes in the Honda recommended pattern, as opposed to furthest from cylinder to closest, which is a seemingly counterintuitive FL, FR, RR, RL pattern, and boy that worked well. I got all kinds of air out of the rear left. I can't find any schematics on how the ABS in these units work, but from what i read that pattern has something to do with how the fluid travels through the ABS manifolds, so good information to know.

the tune is solid, almost zero correction in cruise, and holds a healthy AFR under load.

I think its sold enough to drive up to the shop next week, or when i get back from work, and get it balanced and aligned. then the goodies go on. stainless steel brake lines, G-Loc brakes and centric blank rotors. I currently have DOT3 in it but I have RBF600 on order.

as far as paint, I want to redo it, I've condsidered the OE paint, I've also considered sonic grey since it wouldn't be a hard respray.
Some of you that know me IRL have suggested just leaving it as is given the cars history on this forum. I'm inclined to follow that too. lol

I'll check back in later on down the road once I've had this thing through its paces, I'm hoping to make it to an event in summit point and then down to north carolina for some fun.

Its now novemeber, I didn't once get this thing trackside, between a new job and juggling repairs with the rest of the hoopty fleet I just didn't have time.

did dig into a bunch of upkeep though. I started by moving the stainless brake lines over from the blue civic, which went about as well as you'd imagine. I ended up ordering new lines, and had to fabricate a new pax front line from the ABS to the wheel because at some point someone did a repair that was just... well look at the pics.

The suspension is Redshift Racing's early BC racing based suspension. I believe theres nothing different in Chris's design today as there was then, he just changed production houses. I got it installed and setup, but ran into an issue corner balancing... which is that they dont make adjustable endlinks for this car anymore. everything is backordered.
Godspeed, however, makes generic endlinks out of cheese grade aluminum and off the shelf ball joints. so I bought their smallest set and then shortened them 3/4 inches and installed stainless helicoil inserts to help with strength.

was able to corner balance, set preload, and install a nice progress rear sway bar to help with the rear end around corners.

alignment was the standard agressive street spec, -3 camber all around, 0 toe up front and .04+ on the rear.

Then we took it to tail of the dragon and let it play. I absolutely dont condone beign a jackass on the streets, but I like US129 because its an endless amount of turns you can do the speed limit through and if theres something wrong, that road is going to make it apparent.

results were good. its ready, and rides like its on rails. so next season I plan to get it out on the track and see what I can do.

its a huge relief to experience this thing working rather flawlessly. since I put the suspension on the blue car its been one bad thing after the next and I was afraid this car would let me down too. its been the exact opposite. I know some of my friends have been tagging spacecadet in some of the work I've been doing to it but he's welcome to zip it around a track sometime if hes ever in the area.

Thats it for now. im calling this car done. I have two miatas that need work desparately and a now open garage to start something long term.

I've been off the forum for a long time.

It was really nice to see you come in and show Hazmat's return to the road.

You're using the car for exactly what it was intended for.

Coat the car in fluid film so it doesn't rust and drive it forever.

I could not be more pleased you're the new owner of the car.

absolutely love to see any 8th gen given some love but its especially gratifying to see this old tank still fighting, given the past troubles.  hope it gives you a long run of joy in the twisty bits.  i saw lots and lots of good parts on your wrenching list, many of them i wish i had the guts to throw on my old one, when i had it, if it wasn't a daily highway warrior.

add my vote for keeping the grody stock patina.  any other 8th gen, i'd say spray it but this one feels like it really earned the wear and tear from a long road travelled to get to you.  its like a good pair of quality leather boots that are covered in creases and scratches...they've all got a story.

In reply to spacecadet (Forum Supporter) :

Thanks! I'm glad i came across it. I really love the 8th gen and now even more so with the younger generation of car guys getting into Honda's and giving a thumbs up from their 11th gens.

It's been my daily, and now I'm driving 80 miles a day. It needs a heavy check before winter. The VTC solenoid is leaking and the vtec solenoid is crapping out but it still works.

I got a wrap for it. Haven't put it on yet but it's basically sonic grey. I switched to raybestos element 3 brakes while I'm not racing it. I really can't recommend those enough for street use.

I switched the lower Mount to a hasport 70A medium stiffness bushing. Good Lord that is a big upgrade. Shifter feels a lot more crisp, clutch doesn't lash as badly, and power shifting actually works. However i am slowly going deaf from the vibration. I couldn't imagine a k24 in here with this Mount.