Project Hazmat '09 Honda Civic Si

In reply to Daylan C :

I hear you. I love your wagon project. 

Spent some more time designing a logo this week. 

Color and location of the logo are correct for a true hazmat warning diamond. The shade of blue is different.. But I digress....

In reply to spacecadet :

In my humble opinion it needs some sort of color in the top and bottom quadrants if that's the look you're going for. Maybe add Red and Yellow for instability and fire hazard?

In reply to Daylan C :

So I'm not trying to draw too much attention. I do want to be able to put this on the rear bumper. I feel any closer to the real deal might attract unwanted attention. 

In reply to spacecadet :

Solid point actually. There is still too much white space in the most recent design but I'm not sure how to fill it.

In reply to Daylan C :

Noted on the whitespace... I'll see what I can do.. 

I was reading this thread on wrapping which got my imagination going... and I wanted to see colors in real life...

i dont have budget for a full car wrap for the challenge... 

but post challenge.. anything is a possibility... 

so I got a VVIVID vinyl sample book shipped so my imagination can run wild.. 

I'm currently sitting in  a Panera in Oklahoma City waiting on my bagel because I woke up and drove straight here this morning. 

Why am I here? Well I learned early on in this hobby that the #1 way to beat the clock is data... at first it's an instructor feeding you information as you haphazardly find your way around a course. Then you start to learn how to walk a course and read it. But ultimately Video and computer data contain the information you need to get faster once you're chasing the final tenths of a second in autox. So imagine my excitement when on Wednesday morning I see a fellow Lap Dog post up a decently high level data system for cheap... how cheap? My first question to him was "what do you actually want out of this thing, you can't actually only want $100?" 

Indeed he did only want $100, and so I drove up this morning to pick it up in person and save him the trouble of Shipping it.

It's a Racecapture Pro MK2 system, a generation behind what Autosport Labs is currently selling... but still a $500+ unit when new... 

The Lap Dog in question was the 2018 One Lap Overall Winner Christopher Lewis. Who is a super nice guy and took a few minutes to show me around his shop and we talked about this year's one lap and he was telling me lots of little stories about driving Robert's Big Bad Wolf S2000 and the hilarity of how insane that car is. 

He explained everything this system can do and how it can send data back to your crew in the pits when setup correctly. 

Yeah.. This is way above what I need, but for the price it couldn't be beat. it will do everything I need and then some! 

ok, got home and got it out of the box.. man it's cool.. Chris mentioned he thought it was a bit fiddly and I guess I can see that. 

I couldn't get it to connect over bluetooth, my phone would find it and then be unable to connect... thought it was my phone.. went online and found out that there's a setup to decide if you connect over Wifi or bluetooth.. well it has the Bluetooth connector on it.. so it has to be enabled right? 

WRONG, plugged it into my computer via USB, downloaded PC software and bluetooth is off, wifi is on. flip wiki off, turn bluetooth on.. run back outside to car and BOOM, bluetooth is asking for a connection the moment i get the app running.....Sweet! 

GPS starts getting great accuracy quickly. this thing has a great external antenna which is magnetic and pops right onto the roof. It pulls power off the OBD2 connection and pulls, TPS, coolant temp and RPM's at whatever rate I want. 1hz..10hz...25....how about 50? 

I'm still learning how to setup local tracks not in the database, autocross and just stuff not in their system. so I'm going to probably take a drive later tonight around downtown ft worth to get the hang of settting it up for autocross. already downloaded a bunch of tracks onto the device including MSRC 3.1 and 1.7, the 1.3 isn't in the device but NBD. Also got MSR Houston downloaded since I already have an invite from my buddies to come be their guest down there later this summer. 

i'm going to try using this app and not running solostorm because I'm not sure I need to with what I'm looking for.. 

I vote wrap it gold or pink chrome.

Data is legit. Also, Chris seems like an incredibly nice approachable guy. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

Most definitely 

So last night I spoke with my buddy in Houston who used to own an 8th gen.. The one I'm getting the flashpro from. 

Turns out he has a bunch of parts he forgot he had... he's prepping to sell his house and found his stock suspension that was pulled off the car at 40k miles in 2011/2012 and he also found his full stock exhaust.. 

So.. That all will be useful... 

It was a pretty awesome weekend. I went over to help my buddy erik prepare his track car for an event we have next weekend.

we started on it about lunchtime yesterday and we realized the subframe side of the trans mount dogbone requires a impact to bust it loose, and even then it's still a PITA. So Erik asked me where to take it since he he didn't want to try and do it lying on the ground and figured he would just punt it for someone else to fix it. 


Dumped the car with my friends at shop in Plano. We got it there but not before i stalled it with a still dead battery and we had left the jump pack at home. so i stayed with the car while erik went back for the jumper.  Afterwards I went to dinner with Erik, his wife and their friend. their friend needs to sell off a car they owe money on so we all went to carmax after dinner and got an appraisal on friends car and roamed the lot. and I found this guy... 


a 2015 Mercedes B250e..... for $20k... i didn't even remember that these were a thing! 

said friend also needs a cash car to drive for the next 9 months before going on a 6 month trip and Erik just took possession of his old 03 Mini Cooper S from his mother in Cali last weekend. so after returning from carmax they were driving the car and noticed the headlight wasn't working on the passenger side. car has the Xenon HID headlights. not a big deal... just needs a new bulb. erik and I will take car of it sunday morning.. 

well... we were wrong.. bought a new bulb and it turns out the bulb wasn't the issue... after troubleshooting and moving ballasts around we determined that the igniter inside the headlamp assembly was bad.. and it runs $800 from the dealer... berkeley.. 

well i got roaming online and found the Pick and Pull in South Dallas has a base mini with standard headlights in inventory and the headlights are a direct plug and play.. so we run down there.. we found the car within 5 minutes.. right were it was supposed  to be and no joy... headlights were gone.. 

So why am I tell ing you all of this?? because of course I found good parts for hazmat.. 

we start roaming at random afterward and I wondered.. I haven't looked to see if they have a civic coupe here i can snag parts from!! I looked on the website and sure enough.. they had a civic coupe.. it had only been there 2 weeks.. and it was listed in the wrong row... with trucks.. SO off we went in search of it and sure enough we found it... hiding at the back of the import section in the middle of a row. lots of good bits already had been taken but one part I wanted had not... 

THE HEADLINER 



The headliner was still intact. now in a total dunce move we had brought minimal tools and got a lot of parts loose but the rotating locking mounts for the sunvisors were eluding me.. Turns out the way that they're installed is that they insert them in 90 degrees off intended position and then turn and lock them into place to secure them at the factory.. so with a piece of chainlink fence as my tool I got the inside locking tab diengaged and then released.. 

so i managed to get theheadliner out without doing visible damage to any of the holes in the headliner. there's some damage to the backer.. but nothing visible.. 

$21 later and it was mine... which is awesome cause they go for $100-200 new online. It's the wrong color and came off a base model with no sunroof.. but I'm planning to delete the sunroof at some point anyway.. so i'll probably just disable the sunroof in the closed position and try to install this headliner as it is.. with a bit of fabric paint on it to match the interior color of hazmat.. 

 

Also, a friend re-made me a Killer offer for Hazmat this week.. 

Offered a 1:1 trade for Hazmat as it is for his 1994 Acura Integra GSR sedan... with a tune and bunch of high quality go fast autox bits under it.. 

I am still considering it.. but I told myself awhile ago that I was done with the older Hondas that had harder to find parts and were pre canbus let alone OBD2. 

 

That trade would be a tough call for me. I understand the desire to stick with a newer platform though.

In reply to Daylan C :

it's a tough call. I'm most likely going to stick with hazmat.. but it's an extremely tempting offer. 

killing the back seats in a coupe is a lot easier to justify than in a sedan

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

it is.. and I really like hazmat. if i didn't love it as much as I do it would have already been swapped. 

How many miles on the integra?  If it is nice and not hacked up they are appreciating.

I sold a 1996 with 120k for $6,500.00 earlier this year.

I haven't put eyes on it yet. I asked my buddy to get me more photos.. 

it definitely sounds like it's could be a worthwhile trade.. could be. 

Still evaluating and honestly the age is a concern.. the cars are out there.. but the parts are getting harder to find. 

hazmat is a fairly known quantity and very capable track wise.. the integra is a great car.. 

it just changes my plans somewhat. 

I would be tempted, but I personally am fairly certain I've got the older Hondas out of my system. This won't be the order in which I owned them, but here's my list: 1987 Honda Accord, 1988 Honda Accord, 1990 CRX Si, 1992 Civic LX sedan, 1992 EG hatch w/ B16 swap, 1994 GSR sedan, 1996 Civic Ex coupe, 1997 Civic hatch w/ B18 swap.

While I love the B18C and double wishbone suspension, I also really enjoy the K20 and am surprisingly ok with the 8th gen macstrut suspension. There's a lot more interior room as well as crash protection in the 8th gen without a huge weight penalty. Pros and cons to both platforms, but grass is always greener etc.

clutchsmoke said:

While I love the B18C and double wishbone suspension, I also really enjoy the K20 and am surprisingly ok with the 8th gen macstrut suspension. There's a lot more interior room as well as crash protection in the 8th gen without a huge weight penalty. Pros and cons to both platforms, but grass is always greener etc.

It's like you're in my head or something.. 

seriously though that is my exact line of thought. 

In reply to spacecadet :

Yeah... I mean I already have an 8th gen and can see it's potential. The thing that brings me back to the older Hondas is I have a fully built skunk2 stage 2 B18 head, a hytech replica header, and an ITR transmission, plus easily tuned ECUs.

In reply to clutchsmoke :

Wait you have these things... But no car for them at the moment??