Vince's Stuff: June 2020

Last week, Pat told me the Civic was ready for the track so I headed over to his shop for a test drive. Sure enough, the transmission was no longer popping out of fifth gear. This meant I could take the car to ICAR the very next day for Tuesday night lapping. On the drive home, I was passed by a Lamborghini Huracan, and I realized that now that I had my Civic back (with the new, better engine), I wasn't even jealous. I was just happy to have my own track car.

The Civic when I had just brought it home.

I was quite nervous and excited, as this would be my first time on track in 2020 and also because the ICAR track configuration had been slightly modified for 2020.

I got all my stuff ready and headed north through minimal traffic. Since Pat has his trailer up in Mirabel, he agreed to meet me at the track. There was a long line to register and buy lap tickets, so I missed the 6:00 pm session. I was ready for the 6:40 session. As usual at ICAR, no one was getting in line even 1 minute before the beginning of the session (what a difference from St-Eustache, where people started lining up 15 minutes early!). Again, I ended up being first in line, which I did not really want since it was my first time on the "new" track and since I wanted to take it easy to make sure all was well with the car: new engine, rebuilt transmission, new brake system.

All seemed fine. The new configuration was not that tricky, although the way they rounded off the corner after the esses was off-putting, because you can get on the gas so early, and hit 160 km/h before the braking zone of the hairpin. The car was working well. My cell phone mount fell and I could not see my lap times, but it landed between the seats and was not in the way. I didn't really care about seeing my lap times live anyway. I got passed by a few cars (including a Maclaren), but most of the group stayed behind me. At the end of the session, all seemed well. I saw that my best lap was in the 1:51's, but for some reason, the phone did not record the session into memory. I had a chat with Pat and he said that all seemed ok from his point of view. He told me not to lift after the esses as it was completely unnecessary.

I decided to use a 2nd phone to record laps in the next session and tape the phone mount in place. Again, I wound up first in line! I was no longer lifting completely off throttle after the esses, and it felt much faster. A BMW M4 entered the track ahead of me and I thought I would catch it, but it pulled away. I hit a couple of laps in the 1:50's, but the engine began to make an ominous sound after a few laps and I began to lose power. A couple of cars passed me and I could tell that this was bad news. I pulled into the pits and could clearly hear a loud knocking from the engine. When I put it in neutral it stalled. Luckily, I was already in the paddock by then and someone pushed me into my parking spot. The engine would not restart, and the radiator overflow tank was steaming. I had checked the temperature while on track and it was OK. Pat came over and we theorized that there had been oil starvation at the crank and that the engine had seized. Bad news then. I called a tow truck and waited. When the truck arrived, it was not allowed on the premises (some towing exclusivity deal) and we had to use Pat's truck and a tow strap to get the car to the road so it could be loaded onto the truck there.

Pat drove me to the metro station in Laval and I headed home without the car. We needed to figure out a bunch of things: was it faster and cheaper to fix the engine, or replace it? This was a 500 $ engine, but similar ones cost 1 500 $ at the Japanese importers. Should we install a cheaper 2.2 liter engine? What would we do to avoid oil pressure drops in the future?

The evening had been a bust, but I had been having such a good time before the engine failure. I just hope that there is some way to get the car running again, and reliably, so that I can continue to enjoy it. I was totally satisfied with the performance before the car broke. The lap times were decent and I'm quite sure I would have joined the quicker drivers lapping under 1:50.

We were supposed to be going to Calabogie with our club next week, but that won't be happening now. I hope we can make it to the second Calabogie date in August. Time will tell. In the meantime, I have found a Civic very similar to mine in the Assetto Corsa simulator. I will have to enjoy virtual driving until the car is fixed. I also have another project I'm working on, but it's a 150-year-old house, not a car...