You snooze, you lose!

Yesterday, an acquaintance asked me I'd like to drive a 600 hp Audi TT on my home track for a magazine shootout. I told him to check if they needed me for he full day, as it was the weekend. When asked if my friend Will would be qualified to drive the car, I said that he would too.

I thought about it yesterday evening and figured the opportunity was too good to pass up. I contacted the guy to tell him I was in, but he had already offered it to Will. In fact, Will jumped at the chance (as I should have). I snoozed, I loozed.

I'll be picking up the Civic from the alignment shop later on. Hopefully, it will feel more stable. It was darting all over the place when I last drove it, so I hope it was just a question of excessive toe out. We'll see.

I'm off for the weekend to Ogunquit, but I'll be taking the 323, as I don't know enough about the Civic's reliability yet.

Cool car spotted:
E30 M3

Thanksgiving

I had a great Thanksgiving. It didn't start out great. I awoke to rain clouds, thinking that my lapping day at St-Eustache might be cancelled. It wasn't. I went to the track to get the race car ready for some lapping. I threw on some 2-year-old Kumho V710's that were near the end of their lifespan.

I headed out onto the track for the first time in a few weeks (it had been even longer since I'd had a fully functional car). Three of the Honda's that had done really well at the last Solo 1 event were there too. At that event, I had been over 2 seconds off the pace due to power loss from the engine. The engine had since been fixed and I had full power.

There were quite a few wet spots on the track in my first session and I was quite cautious out there. The car felt a bit squirelly. For the second session, I bumped up the tire pressures by 4 psi to take into account the cold weather. Indeed, the pressures barely went up 5 psi in a 20-minute session.

The effect of the pressure increase was dramatic and the car felt great. I had a couple of slides and a spin in the esses, but nothing too hairy. After the session, I checked the tires and one of the fronts had a small chunk missing from the tread. When I removed the rear to swap it to the front, I saw that it had also chunked. I did a 3-way rotation to have the best 2 tires in the front. In the following session, the steering wheel began to vibrate and the grip was falling off. This culminated in me going straight off at the Caroussel when the brakes locked up. I drove a bit on the grass and rejoined the track. I pitted at the end of that lap to go get some different tires. When removing the front left, I saw that it had pretty much delaminated. The tread was gone over 2/3 of the tire, showing nothing but cord in most areas. That's what the end of the season is for: killing almost dead tires.

Changing wheels at the track

I threw on some used Hankook Z214's and the car felt fantastic again. I had the confidence to go flat out through the oval-in (where I totalled my 91 Civic in 2004) on one occasion, but the car understeered and it ruined the entry into the dogleg. In my last session of the day, I decided on a particular lap that I would not lift through that corner. I realized that when you decide early and commit to not lifting, you can focus on other aspects of the corner. I went through flat out, making small corrections with the steering, and it felt safe. I don't know if it was faster than part throttle, but it was quite satisfying. In that last session, I easily caught and passed one of the three Honda's that had crushed me at the Solo 1, so I feel that I must have been putting in some pretty good laps by that point.

I left the car at Trac and headed to my parents' to meet Alex and the family for Thanksgiving dinner. On the way, I called Pat and he told me that the blue Civic was already ready to be picked up. I convinced Alex to make a detour after the dinner for that purpose. We went to get the car around 10 pm. I was excited. Pat told me about a couple of issues and that he thought the car felt a bit slow. When I drove it, it felt as expected. The original exhaust system is probably a bit restrictive, but the car feels responsive and makes decent power. Things to fix: the exhaust rattles at a certain rpm (Pat admitted he forgot to put on two exhaust rubbers though), the driver side headlight still only works intermittently and the alignment is quite scary. Also, the rear tires sometimes rub when I go over bumps. There is a grind on the upshift to 3rd at high RPM, but I guess that it was unrealistic to expect perfect mechanicals for 800$. Hopefully, I can have most these items fixed in the next few days so that I can make this Civic my primary car. I'll start with the headlight and by changing the faulty speakers (the seemingly easy stuff).

All in all, it was a very satisfying day. The race car is running strong. The street car is running (period). I can't complain.

Cool cars spotted:
Nissan Pulsar GTI-R
2008 Subaru WRX

The Swap

Yesterday I spent the day at my mechanic's shop "helping" with the engine swap for the blue Civic. It was a fantastic experience for me as I had never participated in such a big job as this. When I arrived at Pat's shop (well, his dad's shop that we were allowed to borrow), he had already been working for a couple of hours and was ready to hoist the almost dead engine out of the car. I realized that doing a swap when you have an experienced mechanic who has done this type of thing many times before, as well as the proper tools (including a big engine hoist) and a spacious shop, is not terribly difficult.

I don't think I contributed much, as I was asking a lot of questions and was only assigned simple tasks, but I got to witness the rebirth of my Civic. I wanted to put on the 15" wheels so that there was a visual change to hint at the change under the hood.

Ready for a 1.8!

I got to help with the extremely satisfying step of lowering the new engine into the engine bay. It's not anywhere near as hard to do as I thought it would be.

When the engine was mostly installed, it wouldn't start. When it did start, it sounded like a lawnmower and was clearly not running on all cylinders.

Pat traced the problem down to a faulty ground wire (my fault) and the engine began to run properly. There were a couple of things left to hook up (throttle cable, exhaust system, air filter and housing), but the car was running, with only a day's labour.

Pat's lightweight flat red Civic

One of Pat's four Honda's. This is the flat red drag project. Pat and his dad operate a bodyshop and they do great work He also has a Del Sol, an Integra and a Coupe like mine.

We were not too sure about the condition of our mystery engine, but so far it seems pretty good: no knocking and not too much smoke. Pat hopes to have the job finished in a couple of days. I can't wait!

Almost road-worthy

This is how the car looked at the end of the day. Even though the throttle cable was not connected, the car exited the shop under its own power (using the idle).

Project Blue Civic

I drove the blue Civic to Pat's place last night and might head over to his shop tomorrow night to help him with the swap (not that he needs help, but I would like to learn a bit about swaps). The car drives nicely on the highway. Although I will miss the 323, the Civic feels like a much more modern car, even though it was built in 1994, just like the Mazda.

I know that I should not be too optimistic, but it would be great if the Civic could be ready to try on the track on Monday at St-Eustache. Of course, this would depend on many factors, one of them being that the new exhaust manifold can be bolted directly to the original exhaust system.

One thing is for sure: at least one of my Civics will be driven on the track Monday (if it doesn't rain, as I have no rain tires). I called Trac to make sure that the red Civic would be accessible to me (and not locked away in the garage). It has been a while since I've driven it.

The Summit Point enduro project is coming closer to reality. There were four main conditions that had to be met for me to go:
1- Make sure it was OK with Alex
2- Find a 3rd driver
3- Get medical insurance
4- Finish 40 pages of my Master's thesis.

Number 1 is covered. Number 2 is still uncertain. I made good progress on both 3 and 4 in the past 24 hours. A racing friend told me to contact a certain broker about insurance. He found me a product that will cover 80% of medical expenses for 24$ per 50 000$ of coverage per 8-day trip. This seems to be the type of product I was looking for.

As for my Master's thesis, I manage to bring the total pages from 4 to 14 in the last day, so I'm pretty psyched about that. I have to hand it in in December.

So things are looking up for the Summit Point race. Let's see how things develop.

One more race?

Circumstances seem to be favourable to do one more race this year. There is a four-hour enduro at Summit Point on November 17th. Every year I've thought about doing this event and every year there's always been a good excuse, usually involving a lack of money or a race car in poor condition. This year is different. I've only done one real race this year so the budget is OK. My race buddy Carl is pretty much in. We have a willing crewmember with a truck and trailer. All we need is a third driver. I also need travel medical insurance. I promised Alex I wouldn't race in the USA anymore unless I had insurance. A client of mine broke his wrist in the States without insurance and it cost him 14 000$. I called a broker today for a quote and he said he'd get back to me.

Cool cars spotted today:
Maserati Quattroporte (x2)
AMG SL65

I got the call from Pat that he's ready to take the blue Civic tomorrow. I can't wait to get it back. I have to resist throwing all my energy and resources into this new car as it could very easily be stolen or worse... I remember my heartbreak when my 88 Civic street car was destroyed last year by a driver who blew a stop sign on my street. Even though my car was just parked there, it was totalled. It was so depressing, especially when I was arguing over the replacement value of the car. The moral was that I shouldn't get too attached to any car because it could so easily be gone, just like that.

The 88 Civic before the accident.

I only had the car a little over one month. I had plans to build a replica Honda Michelin car... I already had the wheels and had found an original roll cage as well. And then...

The Civic after the accident...

Pep

Pep is not enough for good lap times...

I just went to one of my favourite stores, Canadian Tire, and didn't buy anything. I don't really need anything for my cars. I guess I'm getting to the point that I have all the tools that I need (for the limited repairs and maintenance that I know how to do) and that the next step is to replace them with better ones.

The Mazda is still a pleasure to drive through the city. It's just the right size and it has "pep". I don't know how one defines pep (my wife asked me once what it meant). I remember that my Mom used to tell me that she liked her 1981 Civic because it was peppy. I never used to understand that as the car had something like 65 hp. But I understand better now. My 82 hp Mazda has pep. I guess it's a combination of throttle response, gearing and power-to-weight ratio. There are very few new cars that have what I would call pep and that's sad. I bet the original Mini had it (I've never driven one yet). I could go into a rant about how this is due to the increasing weight of modern cars, but that will be the subject of a future rant.

Cool cars spotted today:
Bentley Continental Flying Spur
Skyline GTS-T

Ford GT

Honda hassles...

I talked to my friend Carl today about his experience at the Solo 2 Nationals in Topeka Kansas. He told me how some loser protested him for an illegal aftermarket little hose on his valve cover, resulting in a loss of 9 positions. Unbelievable... He mentioned the Mosport lapping day in one week, but I think I'll have to pass. It's always a 2-day commitment to go to Mosport and it will cost a lot less in time and money to simply go instruct at the lapping day at St-Eustache. He told me that Trac had ordered new fenders, hood and bumpers for my race car, so I hope to soon have a pretty car once again. This is what the car looked like when I first built it:

This is what the car looked like when I first built it

As far as the blue Civic goes, the improper importation saga continues. I received a call from Border Services today. They told me that the car was supposed to be imported temporarily and never to be sold in Canada. They also told me that it never went through a federal inspection. They said that the provincial inspection was irrelevant. They initially wanted me to take the car to a federal inspection at a cost of 222$. I told them that it was not my fault or problem that the car was not inspected (if that was even the case, I told him that the car had clearly been modified to Canadian standards) and that I only paid 550$ for the car in the first place because the engine had a problem. I also told the guy that the car was in no condition to pass a new inspection and that I had no recourse against the seller, as he had moved to Europe. The guy seemed sympathetic and told me he would call back, which he did. When he called back, he told me that Border Services would not force me to send the car for inspection after all and that they were going to emit the document that says the importation of the car was done properly. He said that the importer had been fined and that he could therefore make a certificate of proper importation since all fees had been paid. He sort of said that getting the car inspected or not was none of his business anymore and that I could do what I wanted to. The guy suggested I call Transport Canada once he sends me the certificate of proper importation to see about an inspection. I guess that's what I'll do...

Cool cars spotted today:

RHD Mini Mayfair

Alpine A310 V6

997 Turbo (beautiful in white)