The Civic is back!... kind of...

One advantage of the pandemic, for me, is that Pat had to close his shop and had a lot of free time to work on my Civic. He rebuilt the transmission and installed the engine. I thought that I would have to take the car to Synoptic to make a chip for the ECU, but then Pat and I had a brilliant idea: why not just ask Sajan to burn us a new chip just like the one he made for my old car in 2014? It had the same engine and the same injectors... the next day, the chip was burned and installed and we were ready for a test drive. 

The real test drive happened today. Pat put in some cheap oil in the engine and tranny so that we could see if everything worked. The car pulls strong and smoothly, and there is a lot of torque that the old smoky engine did not have. Unfortunately, a problem with the transmission manifested itself: it has a tendancy to pop out of gear in 5th under load. I will have to bring the car back to Pat to check it out. He has some theories about what could be causing this. Still, it was nice to drive the car a bit. I will bring it back to Pat's in the next few days, although there is no rush, since there are no events coming up any time soon...

Back home

  

 

Cool Defender pickup

Surprising spot: an AMG GTR-Pro!

Cool yellow Aventador

 

Fuchs-style wheels on a 996... not bad

 

Pandemic time

If you think that during the pandemic, I would have more time to write in my blog, you would be wrong... I still have to work, and so does Alex, and we have to occupy and educate the boys. There is not much time left over after all this! Still, we are spending almost all our time together as a family, and that is really nice. It's interesting to note that there are still some pretty cool cars on the road... we are still allowed to work on cars and drive around in them!

The Legos are getting a lot of use these days

Saabaru in winter conditions

These wheels look better than the earlier ones for the i8

Saab near the office

Cool R-Gruppe style 70's 911

The Saab before I had to swap steel wheels onto the front

Cool colour for the WRX

Not my favourite Ferrari, but still a good-looking car

What about the Civic? Well, the fact that Pat had to close his shop due to the virus means that he has enough time to work on the engine swap. Carl's store is en essential provider, so it was open as well and I was able to get the last batch of parts that we needed, mostly gaskets and stuff. 

Yesterday, Pat installed the engine and he might start it up today if all goes well... hoping for the best! The car will also get new brakes, with 11-inch discs for the first time. My pads should last longer with this new setup. I just need some events to attend! While I'm waiting, I can still enjoy the car on the street, since it's quite drivable (and still has a radio!). 

My new engine, upside down

Pat found a lot of problems with my transmission... parts have been ordered

The Civic is waiting for its new engine... the old one is already sold

The car at the beginning of the day yesterday

The engine mostly installed!