Vince's Stuff: First track outing for the gold Civic

In the paddock at Calabogie

Until the last minute, I was pretty sure the gold Civic (aka the 800$ Civic) would not be ready to take to the Calabogie race school where I instruct every year. I had dropped the at the B.G. Auto with plenty of time for him to align the car, but the lift that went with his alignment machine was broken and they were waiting for a part to repair it. The mechanic finally called on the Wednesday before the school weekend to say the car would be ready Thursday. I was not available to pick the car up until Friday morning, the same Friday I was supposed to leave for Calabogie. There were several little jobs to do before taking the car on track, some of them very important, like making a bar to hold the battery in place. I decided to give it a shot. I got the car home by 9:30 am and wanted to leave before 3:00 pm. The car drove nicely on the way home, but the brake pedal was a bit low, probably because B.G. did not have time to replace my brake hoses and so the brakes were not bled. Otherwise all seemed in order. After changing the winter tires that came with the car for some all-season tires that I had in the basement (already mounted on wheels), I drove around a bit to try to make sure the car was ready for a 600 km road trip, and a few laps of Calabogie. All seemed in order, so I decided to load up the car with a spare wheel and a bunch of tools. I thought the 12v power socket was dead but it was in fact my USB adapter that was broken. I still could not get the cruise control to work, but everything else on the car was functional.

The drive to the track was uneventful, except that I somehow lost the front lip on the highway... that was quite a surprise, as it actually broke off, judging by the piece still screwed into the bumper. The acceleration isn't great, but the handling is excellent and the exhaust is very quiet. The driver's seat comfort level is average, but better than on a 1992 to 2000 Civic.

When I arrived at the track, it was still daylight and I parked with my friend Stephane and his co-driver Martin, who have built a nice Civic EK hatch track car. I had lent them an old Schroth 4-point harness that came with the black Civic coupe I bought last summer (a car that is still very far from being ready) and they had brought it for me. They helped me install it in the gold Civic. The adjustment of the harness is really a bit of a pain, but you only really need to adjust in once for any given driver.

On Saturday morning, I emptied out the car and set up my GoPro camera using an old headrest mount. The resulting camera position turned out to be surprisingly good. At the lunch break, the instructors can drive on the empty track for about 25 minutes. I was wondering what the lap times would be like... I had run a 1:30 flat with the M3 on street tires and a 1:27 with the old Civic on very old race tires. From the beginning, the car felt planted and safe. I forgot to wear my driving gloves and I wasn't loving the rubber-coated OEM steering wheel (or shift knb), but I have a spare leather Acura wheel I can install (and a metal shift knob as well). The Goodyear Eagle tires did not communicate much, as there was no squeal when they were about to let go... only a rumble as they lost grip. It didn't really matter, as I wasn't pushnig that hard. After a couple of laps, I managed a 1:39.1. I was a half-second faster part way into the next lap, but I caught my buddy Pascal driving a Hyundai Accent and got stuck behind him for a few corners. The harness was keeping me pressed into the seat, but I still had to brace myself on the dead pedal to keep my legs in the right place. When I started my next "hot" lap, I noticed the temperature was near the top of the gauge, so I slowed down a lot. I was losing coolant (some went on my rear tire and I had a short slide).

I pulled in and popped the hood: there was coolant all over the engine. It turns out the little hose near the rad cap leading to the overflow had popped off (it had no clamp on it). I had a mini clamp in my track tool bag and re-attached it. As I refilled the rad with water, I could not eliminate all the air bubbles. Steph said just put on the cap and let it pressurize. We did that and we could hear the hiss of a small leak near the top of the rad. That would be the end of track action for this car for the weekend. I hoped it would be OK to drive home (memories of driving hom from Watkins Glen in 2004 with a tiny head gasket leak... and no issues while street driving).

I drove home on Sunday after the school with zero overheating issues and made it home by 8:30 pm. I ordered a replacement radiator (126$) on Monday and on Tuesday, I dropped the car off at B.G. so he could do the brake lines. I checked out my video and was pleasantly surprised with how the headrest clamp placed the camera.

So what's the verdict? Is a slow, sporty car with only coilovers fun to drive on the track? I think it is, and the experiment is a success so far. If the car is reliable and running performance tires, I think it will actually be quite a lot of fun. If all goes well at B.G. and my radiator arrives soon enough, I should be able to hit the track again in 10 days or so, either at Tremblant, Sanair or ICAR. To be continued!

Here is the video:

At home, when I still had my beautiful lip...

I made a patch for the huge hole in the rocker panel near the rear wheel and painted it "Caterpillar" yellow, the closest match to my colour I could find at Canadian Tire