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Teaming up Feb 1, 2002

Rolling stock for the Civic is a set of BFGoodrich g-Force T/A KD tires. They are wrapped around Volk TE37 forged wheels. The Honda Civic Si: Breadvan or Racer? Comptech's Shad Huntley helped us get another 11 horsepower out of the 2.0 liter Honda Peak power rose to 154 Hp on Comptech's dyno. This new anti-rollbar design is adjustable, but moving the bolt from hole to hole, you can increase the bar's rate. The bar is set at "full soft" in this picture.

We've teamed up a bunch of major players in the automotive aftermarket for this cutting-edge Street Touring contender. BFGoodrich and Honda have lent us their SEMA show car for the 2002 Solo II season. We've enlisted the help of Stillen, Comptech, Koni, Mackin Industries and Eibach to create the ultimate in street-tired autocross cars.

The new Civic Si in stock form is a fun car (see our June 2002 issue), but it lacks the bite needed for serious autocross fun. Luckily, everything that this car needs is legal in the SCCA's Street Touring class. More grip, less body roll and a smidge more power from the 2.0-liter i-VTEC motor is just what the doctor ordered

Starting with BFGoodrich g-Force T/A KD tires, the car rides on super light and strong Volk TE-37 wheels. From there, we added a set of Koni adjustable shocks, Comptech springs (spec'd for the normal Civic and will be revised by Comptech for the new Si) and a new Comptech adjustable rear anti-roll bar. Using ST-legal camber adjusters, we dialed in 2.5 degrees of negative camber in the front and 1.5 degrees in the rear to start. Toe was set at zero front and rear. We will need to revise the suspension somewhat in the months to come as the current set-up doesn't have much suspension travel and the car winds up cornering on its bumpstops.

On the horsepower side of things, we spent some time on Comptech's dynamometer developing the car's engine. A prototype cat-back exhaust from Comptech boosted the Civic from 143 hp at the wheels to 147, while a CARB-legal header upped the ante to 154. Further development will include a cold-air intake system.

The car's debut was at the San Diego National Tour on March 16-17, 2002. Since the new Civic was not yet available in the dealers, we ran as exhibition only. Our times, however, were in the trophies in this tough 15-car class. With some additional chassis development, the car will be an excellent showcase for what can be done with current street tire technology. 

Continuing Street Touring Prep May 30, 2002

Some of the BFGoodrich livery has been replaced with our Grassroots Motorsports logos. This minor change has highlighted the conversion from show car to race car. A significant portion of our Civic's 2000 miles have now been spent either on the dyno or on the test track. So far, we've had zero mechanical issues with this project, despite it's extensive hardcore usage.

Our Civic recently took its trip from sunny SoCal to sunny Florida with the help of an auto transport company. Now that it is at our workshop, we can continue its preparation for SCCA's Street Touring.

Our editor David Wallens drove the Civic to our Dyno Day in Sugar Hill, GA (Near Atlanta). Besides giving our readers a chance to eyeball the new project, we ran the car on their dyno as well. While the numbers didn't change much from our testing at Comptech, it gave one of our consultants on this project (Ed Senf with Dynotuner.net) a chance to look at our curves and numbers.

We are planning on enlisting the help of Ed to revise the fuel and ignition mapping with the help of a piggy back controller, which is legal under Street Touring rules. We hope to increase the redline to make the power band more usable under racing conditions.

Jay Morris at Ground Control has suggested, based upon our feedback and testing, that we replace the springs, perches and upper strut mounts a coil over system. This has been ordered and will be installed by second week in June.

From there, we will be taking the Civic to National Autosport Association's Hyperfest, a car show and NASA driving event at Summit Point Raceway in West Virginia on June 29th. The following weekend, July 6-7, we will be racing at the Solo II National Tour event in Peru, Indiana. Later in the summer, we will back in Peru for the ProSolo event on Aug 17-18. Between these events, and nearly every weekend leading up to the Solo II Nationals, we will be testing, autocrossing and improving the Civic.

Our Civic may be set up for autocross, but it's no one-trick pony: it spent Saturday night drag racing at Orlando Speed World. To try to get racing off the streets, the track hosted midnight drag racing: pro tree, no time slips, no burnout box and no score boards. Cars couldn't be trailered in, and mufflers and DOT tires were required. Pick your competition, line up and race for bragging rights. Racing started at 10:30, and lanes closed at 2 am. We're told the official car count was 310, while the stands were packed. Several news crews were there covering the action.

We made five passes in the Civic:

  • Unfamiliarity of the pro tree let an Infiniti I30 beat us first time out.
  • Had a solo run the second time since the other car broke.
  • Got the initial jump, but a mild-looking, early-'90s Accord drove around us during our third run. Nitrous? No, but after the run we found out what was under the hood: H22-spec engine from a Prelude VTEC.
  • We raced (and beat) the same vehicle during our fourth and fifth runs of the evening, a 180-horsepower Toyota Matrix XRS.  

Civic Suspension Work Jul 10, 2002

The front coil over system from Ground Control. The coil over sleeve rests on a machined ring that rests on the Koni lower spring clip. The Ground Control upper suspension mount, or "camber plate" yields an additional 1.5 degrees of camber over stock. This has allowed us to do away with the aftermarket lower control arm bolts with eccentrics. The Ground Control front coil over kit uses the factory wafer-thin upper strut bearing. The upper spring perch is machined to accept this Honda piece. We wound up raising the Civic one inch from its "Show Car" set up. This has yielded better handling and a better ride, even with mega spring rates.

We've gotten a lot of work done on our Civic Si, and it's starting to handle like a race car. We converted the springs to a coil over system from Ground Control with some pretty aggressive rates. How does 550 lbs./in in the front and 900 lbs./in in the rear grab you? We also raised the car approximately 7/8" in an effort to gain back some suspension travel lost when the car was lowered "to look good" The combination of the raised ride height and Ground Control camber plates has effectively doubled our available suspension travel. This, my friends, is noticeable.

During our recent tire test with a Neon ACR prepped to STS rules, our Honda acquitted itself well. We lapped the test track at Michelin 1 second faster in the Civic than the modified ACR Neon on identical tires. It looks like we've rid ourselves of the handling demons!

Per took our Civic to the SCCA Solo II National Tour in Peru, IN this past weekend. The Civic wound up in the last trophy spot in this tough 15 car class. There was some difference in the car's behavior on concrete versus asphalt. What was a neutral car on blacktop became an understeering car on concrete. We'll be addressing this issue before our trip to Solo II Nats (which is on concrete)

We've also ordered a battery relocation kit to get our cornerweights more in line with what they should be, and to move some weight off the left front of the car. The car seemed to turn better to the left than the right, as the car's weight is biased heavily to the left with the driver in the car. 

Civic Duty Sep 5, 2002

The stock lower perches were cut off and a new collar was welded on in their place. This supports the threaded sleeve better and lightens the entire unit. The bottom of the revalved Konis was shortened by approximately .75". A correspondingly shorter bolt was used to secure the strut in the housing. We've found that the car likes some pretty high rear tire pressure, approaching 50 psi. Here's is our parts bin intake system for the Civic. The filter is about where our battery used to be. The tube coming out of the filter ducts down to a pre-existing hole in the chassis..and is a source of fresh air.

Our Civic is just about ready to make the trek to Topeka, KS for the 30th annual Solo II Nationals. We've got the car on the alignment rack today as we've revised the front suspension and needed to reset the toe (0 front and rear).

The rebuilt and revalved Konis have been shortened to allow more suspension travel. We're now approaching 3" of travel. We started this journey with only 1" when we lowered the car initially.

We've been cleaning the car up, changing the oil and making a cold-air intake system for the Civic in preparation for its trip to Topeka. We used ADMAX's 5w/30 synthetic oil in the crankcase.

The Civic will be leaving Sunday, September 8 on it's 1300+ mile journey to the Heartland and the Solo II Nationals. 

Surviving Solo II Sep 25, 2002

Our BIG Civic in a grid full of lightweight earlier cars at Topeka. A fresh set of shaved 225/50/15 KDs were mounted up at Topeka.

We're back from the Solo II Nationals and we all survived the adventure.

Per started out on the North course with mid-pack times, and although he whittled off nine tenths of a second, the rest of the pack likewise improved. This stuck the GRM Civic in ninteenth out of fifty competitors, just a short two tenths out of trophies (the 14th spot was the last for a trophy). The competitition going into the second day was extremely close, with twenty cars lumped in the same second.

The second day of competition was better, with Per moving the Civic up to 10th after the first run. The second run was just a tenth quicker and our final run was no improvement. This led to a slide downwards as other competitors improved. The end result was 15th out of 50, just .18 seconds from a chance to walk across the stage. As an example of how tough this class is, last year's runner-up, Patrick Lipsinic wound up in thirteenth spot.

More details on our Civic's preparation will be in the February issue of Grassroots Motorsports