How did I get started in Hondas?
Originally, I was a big VW fan. My desire to go faster brought on numerous drivetrain failures, and that led me to my first Honda, a 1988 CRX. I bought it with the sole intention of going faster, and before I knew it I had sold the VW Corrado SLC and I had a B18C in the engine bay of the CRX. Up here in the mile high city, the VW would get through the quarter in 16.0 seconds – but the CRX could do it in 15.1. This was a start, but not exactly what I had in mind. Previously, I had experimented with the LS VTEC turbo setup, and reached a 13.2. Wanting a nicer ride than the HF provided, I picked up my 1995 Civic EX. As purchased, it had a B16A2 swapped in along with a modest turbo setup. After a bit of tuning, it made 283hp to the wheels and that got me into the 13 second range. I made a decision to start building the GSR motor, but needed to figure out what car I wanted to put it into when it was ready. At first I thought that I would use the coupe, as it has a longer wheelbase, but in the end I picked up the 1992 hatchback that I now race with, and the CRX was sold.
How did I get the car?
When I first saw the car, I really didn’t think that I would ever race it at all. It had been involved in atleast two different accidents, and both were major. Whoever was driving it had smashed up the front of the car very hard, buckling the front frame rails in and destroying the radiator support. The hood had a major overbite. As if that wasn’t enough, then it was involved in another accident where the right side was smashed in just in front of the rear tire. The car was delivered from Denver on a flat bed because the rear wheel had approximately 15 degrees camber combined with another 10 degrees of toe in. That would make for a scary ride indeed. This thing was a wreck. To make things worse, it still had the original CX motor installed, so it wasn’t even quick. A previous owner had attempted to fill in the rain gutters with household calking, and it was full of trash. It had cut springs on it, tucking wheel at the fender line. BUT, it was only $100.
How did I get into 10s?
I never would have thought this would be the car to get me there, considering the abuse that I put it through. There was a large snowstorm here not long after I picked it up. Naturally, I took my beater out and played around in the snow. I managed to rip off the front bumper cover in the process.
The performance bug started hitting me with this car. It’s a disease; I can’t seem to have a car and leave it alone. Right now, I have four Civics! Anyhow, the first engine related modification that I did to the hatch was to put in a D16Z6 and transmission. Combined with a generic short ram intake and a Apex WS system, the car now made 118hp at the wheel – up from the CX motor’s 52hp. In this form, it would do 16.7 at Bandimere. That didn’t last too long, and before I knew it I had put together a Junkyard Wars machine. I used a CX/HF upper manifold, Saab T3 turbo, Deltagate, and a 2g DSM intercooler (it was modified to mount up front, just like the radiator) to get a turbo kit on the ride. On 8psi, the car made 184hp and 185 ft-lbs. The stock clutch didn’t like this a whole lot, but, I still dropped a full two seconds at the track running 14.7 times.
On to the next engine for the car. I pulled the B16 out of my coupe, and tore it down before it’s next duty in the hatch. Brent and I came up with a crazy plan; we wanted to see how far stock parts could go and we wanted to further the Junkyard Wars theme. We found a used set of stock LS pistons on one of the shelves and had them pressed onto the stock B16 rods. I did a little more “work” on the top of the pistons, and we installed a fresh set of factory rings along with a healthy dose of ring gap. A factory head gasket and a set of ARP studs got it back together, and it was installed into the hatch’s bay. Combined with a T3/4 Turbonetics charger, Trust front mount cooler, Drag manifold, Apex VAFC, 36lb injectors, an exhaust cutout, and a Clutch Masters clutch, the B16 produced 410hp to the front wheels on 20psi with a stock P61 computer – on 91 octane fuel. I drove the piss out of this setup, and although it had some blowby as result of the ring gap, it lasted a full season of racing for me. In the end, one of the pistons had the ring landing fail. Not to the point that anything was hurt, but enough to puke out oil on a regular basis from the tailpipe. This setup got the car into the 13s at the track on street tires (my Falken Azenis’) at 118mph. Although the B16 didn’t have much bottom end to it, this setup could run down most cars once we were moving along – a buddy of mine watched once as I tore up a sport bike down the middle of town (not that I suggest doing this sort of thing!!).
My GSR motor was finally ready. I had a local machinist install iron press-in sleeves, weld in a block guard, and bore the motor out to accept the new Arias pistons & Pauter rods. I had Crower parts installed in the head to allow for higher revving, and was just itching to install my brand new Turbonetics ball bearing turbo. Before I really knew it, all of the parts started coming together. The fuel system was there, ignition was handled, Ray’s S&C made the exhaust for me, and then we strapped it down to our dyno. With Paul and Brent’s help, the three of us made 418hp and almost 330 ft-lbs of torque with the AEM system. This car just ripped. The first pass that I made with the new setup was at the IRDC event at Bandimere last September. Using a friend’s 22x8x15 slicks, I knew I was going to have my work cutout for me running against a 700+ hp Civic in the qualifying session for the Quick class. I think that I held my own; I posted a 10.6 at 133 with my street car. I think the other guy was pretty pissed off; he didn’t even bother to pick up his time slip – he just hammered it down the return road back to his pits. Funny thing, however, it was his fastest time ever (10.0). Not long after this, unfortunately, the event was called off due to rain.
Word spread on local internet forums of the times that my street car was pulling, and then arguments began as to what a street car is or isn’t. People complained that if you bring the car to the track on a trailer, don’t have exhaust connected, are missing parts of your interior, or run the car on slicks, that it isn’t a street car. Apparently, doing these things to your car at the track in attempt to go faster just isn’t okay with some, and the keyboard heroes had to discredit a fantastic run. I didn’t really care all that much, and kept driving the car about three times a week (between my other Civics!). I was able to get much more comfortable with the power delivery and dialed in the features of the AEM. Remember, it comes with 2 step and traction control right out of the box! I was invited to attend a Pepsi-sponsored event at Bandimere about six weeks after the IDRC event. To shut these internet fools up about the whole street car vs race car thing, my friends and I did the following – The car was driven down to the track (70 miles) with the drag radials already on the car. The exhaust was completely connected, and exited at the rear bumper. Both front seats were left in the car, and the rear lower seat was thrown in as well. I would have installed the upper parts but the roll bar kickers prevent that. I added a few gallons of C16 once there, and ran with a completely full gas tank. The first pass was a “relatively disappointing” 11.5 at 128. Then I realized that the boost knob was still setup for street use at 17psi. I turned it back where it should have been, and on 24psi I pulled a 10.89 with a 1.85 time at the 60’ mark. Bandimere definitely prepped the track awesome and it was a perfect day.
Hardships & brokens
All wasn’t necessarily that great. The car was overheating badly, so I decided against any more runs – I still needed to drive 70 miles to get home. As it turned out, the thermostat was stuck shut and the car began to smoke very badly. I stopped at a nearby gas station and removed the thermostat from the cooling system. That allowed the car to run at a more normal temperature and get me home. It wasn’t more than a week or so later that I pulled the head off of the motor to determine what else was going on. I expected to find a blown head gasket and perhaps some wrecked pistons. After all, the datalog showed that coolant temperature had reached 260 degrees (the maximum available for a stock Honda sensor). When the head came off, there was both joy and sorrow at the same time. The pistons looked great, the head gasket had some issues, and all four of my iron sleeves were cracked atleast an inch down. After removing the engine from the car and tearing it down, to my surprise I found both the bearings and the pistons to be perfect in every way. The block was then shipped to Golden Eagle in CA for Vince to perform his “Godzilla” sleeve job to. I also asked for the cylinders to be prepped for o-rings. A month later, the block came back to me looking very tough. After sending it down to the machinist for final bore & hone, we re-assembled everything and threw it back into the car.
Fast forward a few months, and it’s time for the NHRA opener in Fontana. In the meantime, I had installed the TCI 500+ axle/hub kit, along with the brand new Quaife differential. The body received a new quarter panel along with front & rear bumpers and a fresh coating of paint. We put in a full copper SCE head gasket, just like the Top Fuel guys use. The STR muffler (3”) was replaced with a larger diameter unit from Magnaflow (4”) to help reduce any flow issues. I replaced the MSD ignition with the more advanced unit from Crane. The braking system was addressed as well, albeit not without its share of difficulties (of course, on the night we wanted to leave for CA!). Paul Hickman kicked down a complete brake upgrade from Fast Brakes that included Wilwood 4 piston calipers, adapters, Ferrodo pads, and 11” Powerslot slotted rotors. Unfortunately, the calipers were stuck and were preventing the car from rolling freely. We found some alternate adapters from another brake kit we had at the shop, and swapped out the Wilwood calipers for factory GSR units along with my previous EBC pads. I hope to determine the issue with the Wilwoods in the near future; they look amazing on the car.
At the track in CA, there wasn’t much we had to do to prepare the car any further. I added some fuel pressure, and installed the Mickey Thompson 22x8x15 slicks. In the first round of qualifying, I did a short burnout and staged the car. Perhaps my own dumb luck, I didn’t bother to test out the TCI units prior to traveling to CA to race on them. Of course, that spelled disaster. Immediately upon launching with the 2 step, the driver side inner CV joint exploded in a fairly major way. Pieces of the joint put a large hole in my alternator housing, broke the half shaft mounting assembly, dented the oil pan, severed the air temperature wires, and put some gashes in the fender/firewall area. Because of the Quaife, I was able to continue on but I shut it down after about a hundred feet. We went to the local parts yard and picked up some stock CRV axles, hoping that they might work with the TCI hubs. They aren’t compatible, but, we took the CRV inner joint and star assembly and installed them onto the TCI axle in order to keep going. Although I didn’t launch on the 2 step again during that race, our “farmer” fix held up. I missed the 2nd round while getting parts. In the third round, I ran an 11.4 or 11.5 (I can’t remember), but experienced more hardship – the SCE head gasket failed, allowing coolant into the cylinder. One of the wrist pins bent and the gasket was shot. After wandering the pits in search of a head gasket, both Horizon and Golden Eagle came up with one first thing in the morning. We put the car back together, and did a compression test. Three cylinders were at 200, and one was down to 160. Screw it, let’s keep racing, bent wrist pin and all! I was able to continue on and made it to the semi-finals before being eliminated by a faster car – not to say I gave him a bit of a run!!
Once we were home, I took it apart to replace the wrist pins with stronger units. Unfortunately, I found that the machine shop did not allow for proper clearance on the pistons when they did the final bore/hone on the new sleeve job. In fact, just one of the holes was done ‘almost’ right. The other three were at almost zero! This caused the sides of the pistons to be chewed up, and I was forced to purchase another set of them in order to race again. Bowers Racing Engines took my motor under their wing; they re-bored the block, clearanced it properly, and set the ring gap. While there, I was able to balance the bottom end almost perfectly. The first rotation of the crank/etc showed an imbalance of approximately 8.5g on one end and 3.2g on the other. After about an hour or so, we got it down to 0.1g and 0.2g. This will help in many ways, especially in the future when I am able to get the nitrous system installed!
Recent changes & Future plans
While the motor was out, we replaced the front clip of the car. It was in extremely poor condition before, and barely passed as being made of metal. Now, everything is straight again. TCI was very helpful in replacing the axles, and I’ve got the twin disc setup to check out from Competition Clutch. It’s crossed my mind to install something other than OEM shocks, and am installing one of our traction bar systems right now. Some of the charge pipes will be reworked as result of the new front clip. Koyo has provided me with one of their aluminum radiators and I purchased a thin FAL fan. The wheels/slicks program was addressed; I ordered a pair of Bogart wheels along with M&H 23x8.5x15 slicks. As time permits, I will install the Nitrous Express system that’s collecting dust J. I plan to make 500-550 wheel hp with the current turbo, and am considering a larger unit in the future. I hope to reach the nines up here at 6000 feet without cutting anything, and will be working towards it!