Vince's Stuff: Another setback with the yellow Civic

Since my weekend at Tremblant, when the car was losing coolant and eventually overheated, I changed the radiator cap and flushed the cooling system with a special product. When I bled the system and came back later, I noticed that some coolant had been sucked back into the system from the overflow tank, which led me to believe the problem was solved. Sadly, it wasn't.

I went to ICAR on Tuesday to make sure the car was reliable before committing to go to Mosport for Carl's Thanksgiving weekend. The first session was quite satisfying. It was taking me a while to match my best lap of 1:22.1, but I did it on lap 9. A couple of laps later, I had a really nice clean lap and managed a 1:21.22, almost a second quicker than my best with this car. I was pretty happy at that point.

In the second session, when the sun had just set but it was still quite light out, I managed a 1:22.1 but by the seventh lap, the car was beginning to overheat again. The problem was clearly not fixed. When I checked under the hood, the little cap had popped off the overflow tank again. I topped up the system with water and went out for the third session, now fully dark. The cooler weather was helping and I managed a new personal best with this car, a 1:20.65. I was also having fun trying to keep JS behind me with his Civic EK, also a SOHC vtec. The car did not overheat and the cap stayed on. I decided not to add any coolant and see if I could do another session without overheating. In the fourth session, the temperature began to climb after three laps. I decided to call it a night and head home. Some of JS's friends said I might have an issue with my thermostat, but I decided to use my combustion leak detector (I had bought this kit when I was starting to look at used Subarus) as soon as I got home. Sure enough, the test showed there are hydrocarbons in the coolant... there is a leak somewhere.

This is really disappointing. After spending money on a much fresher engine, I never thought this could happen again. There is no cheap and fast way to fix this before Mosport. JS told me he and his friends can do it after the end of the season, so the labour will not be expensive. The gasket itself is 80$ at the dealership. I did not expect this kind of issue with a low-mileage, unmodified Honda engine. I was hoping to have a choice of two Civics for Mosport, but I have none.

The only consolation is that the season doesn't have to be over. I can still head to ICAR for Carl's Friends and Family Day on October 25th and get some laps at ICAR (as long as I keep topping up the coolant between sessions). It should not be that difficult to put the car away for winter in a condition where it's ready for 2026.

The season was not a disaster... I got a nice evening at Sanair, two great days at Tremblant, and two evenings at ICAR (shaving off 1.5 seconds between the first and second). It was enough to get pretty comfortable pushing the car on track and keep my driving relatively sharp. I will save money by not going to Mosport. The car should be easy to fix before 2026. Not terrible, not great.

Should I have bought a different Civic? It's hard to say. If I had bought a 2500 $ Acura RSX or a 3000 $ CSX, would they have been reliable? How much quicker would they have been? There is no way to know. I still like the car, I like seeing it in the driveway. I just wish it had been as reliable as every other Honda I've owned in the past.