Eric.'s Car Thread | FF and MR | NEW: Cruise/Exhaust + AutoX Post 60

[Eric.]

-> Congrats on the new Si, Eric! 👍

Thanks...Not sure if you noticed or not but I got it back in September.

 

[Eric.]

As posted in the "What have you done to your car today?" thread:

I went and took a ton of pictures of my car while its still stock. After owning it for about nine months and 11k miles, I hadn't taken anything more than an iPhone photo of her. Its a little dirty but doesn't show too bad. Thursday I get window tint and will wash it really good after that for some new photos. Instead of dealing with imageshack or whoever, I'm just using Flickr now, so here's the link to both this particular shoot and to my general Flickr page to see my older ones.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericbiggs/sets/72157620604061451/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericbiggs/sets/

 

[JCE]

Old topic yes, but through another thread brings me here. Any updated pics and or video? Oh and when are you going to ditch those mud guards?

 

[Eric.]

Replied once more in the other thread. The mudguards are staying, actually. I think they look good on it and they're pretty functional. I don't have a nasty spray on my front doors that much.

I have some photos I took the other day after getting the Star Specs put on. I might get them uploaded tomorrow.


Come to think of it, the mudguards might disappear whenever (read: if I decide I even want it) I do the HFP lip kit. I'm not particularly fond of the front piece, but the rear has kind of a diffuser look to it and the center of that piece is blacked out. I don't know really.

The ultimate plan for this car is to retire it from daily driver status maybe a year once its paid off (I'll be done with college and hopefully making real money with a career by then) and turn it into a track beast while picking up something faster and newer as the new daily. Today's short list would be something like an STI/Evo X, 335i (very high on the list actually), or 370Z (lowered after the catastrophe that was the Car and Driver crash). Fingers crossed for a 4.5L V8 450Z by that time with 400hp, but who knows. I've also tossed around the idea of a used Duramax truck and putting down 800+hp with it and still driving it day to day.

AJP or SRT would be happy to slap a turbo on the Civic and have 400whp in a safe daily driver tune. I believe I'd prefer a turbo over a ~300hp supercharger.

 

[Azuremen]

Update your first posts for the love of god... all those broken link things are scary.

As for a track car, get an M3, it only does everything

Bleh, Turbo Civics = come on power, come on boost, come on... OMFG I NEED TO SHIFT WOOSH rev limiter.

 

[Eric.]

Update your first posts for the love of god... all those broken link things are scary.

As for a track car, get an M3, it only does everything

Bleh, Turbo Civics = come on power, come on boost, come on... OMFG I NEED TO SHIFT WOOSH rev limiter.

What the ****. Why are those there...Ugh. Maybe tomorrow. I don't feel like dragging through Imageshack to redo it...and apparently these get fixed in 24hrs? Last time I use xs.to if that's not the case.

And the turbo Si's don't really have an issue with that...its a small turbo, and VTEC changeover is set to something around 3500rpm.

 

[JCE]

Replied once more in the other thread. The mudguards are staying, actually. I think they look good on it and they're pretty functional. I don't have a nasty spray on my front doors that much.

I have some photos I took the other day after getting the Star Specs put on. I might get them uploaded tomorrow.


Come to think of it, the mudguards might disappear whenever (read: if I decide I even want it) I do the HFP lip kit. I'm not particularly fond of the front piece, but the rear has kind of a diffuser look to it and the center of that piece is blacked out. I don't know really.

The ultimate plan for this car is to retire it from daily driver status maybe a year once its paid off (I'll be done with college and hopefully making real money with a career by then) and turn it into a track beast while picking up something faster and newer as the new daily. Today's short list would be something like an STI/Evo X, 335i (very high on the list actually), or 370Z (lowered after the catastrophe that was the Car and Driver crash). Fingers crossed for a 4.5L V8 450Z by that time with 400hp, but who knows. I've also tossed around the idea of a used Duramax truck and putting down 800+hp with it and still driving it day to day.

AJP or SRT would be happy to slap a turbo on the Civic and have 400whp in a safe daily driver tune. I believe I'd prefer a turbo over a ~300hp supercharger.

Bleh, not a fan of mug guards but to each their own. But I can tell you that I'd prefer a supercharger (I'll be getting one of my SVT) because I'd want that extra off-the-line acceleration that we both miss a bit unless we do a decent amount of RPM drop.

I'll wait patiently on those pics. Got video yet?

 

[Eric.]

This thread needs some work...

So, the Civic now has the following mods:

Power:
Hondata Flashpro
Skunk2 race header
Vibrant catback
K&N drop-in filter

Handling:
Koni yellows (well, almost - I have the rears sitting in my room, waiting on the fronts to arrive, then install)
Eibach Sportlines
225/45/17 Dunlop Star Specs on 17x7 +42 MB Weapons (summer/autocross duty)
215/45/17 Michelin Pilot MXM4 on stock wheels (winter duty)

Other stuff:
Valentine One radar/laser detector
Broadway convex mirror (270mm?)


Just above 36k miles now, with three years of ownership.


================================================================


And the new addition:

1987 Toyota MR2:

Its a five speed, sunroof car with 160k miles. Its a little rusty at the rear fenders, but nowhere near what it could be. Extremely clean interior, minor cracks on the dash. Body all appears to be straight, and it runs like a champ (nearly all the time...tends to idle funny after a lot of rain or being washed - water in the dizzy I guess).

It needs some TLC. Fifth gear suffers from popout like most of these cars will, though I just picked up a trans to swap in. Its actually geared well enough to be a five speed when you're staying under 60mph. Rotors have some major warpage going on that makes braking above 50mph a bit "shaky", so to speak. Shocks are blown, as expected. Besides those few maintenance items, it seems like a good car. Bodywork will be pretty high on the list to get taken care of. It has been repainted at one point, and that's flaking off at the passenger rear quarter. The front bumper looks like hell altogether, and the rear bumpers's got a nice car-wide scratch that happened after being at the dealership.

Its supposed to be nice next week, if I've got the time, I'll see about getting new pictures of everything up. The MR2 would have more pictures if the clutch master cylinder hadn't gone out a week after buying it, leaving it to set for a week and a half after that before I could get around to fixing it.

 

[Eric.]

Working on getting the rotors off to be turned as a short term fix to the warping. I wasn't able to get the rear rotors off yet, going to require more beating and PB Blaster.

 

[Keef]

I hope the weather is nice where you are. Working outside is nice when it's nice, but otherwise it's terrible.

Also, looks like you might want to take the ol' wire brush to those suspenders. Looks a little brown underneath there.

 

[Eric.]

Got the rotors back yesterday. Looking kinda pretty for a day.

Got one brake assembly back together and it started raining. So no, Keef, its terrible. We went from 75 degrees to 40 degrees overnight and it has stayed in the 30s-40s with rain off and on. Its supposed to be dry tomorrow, so hopefully my work schedule has a nice chunk of daylight reserved for me to finish this up.

Found that the toe adjuster for the right rear corner has been bent. Assuming it hasn't had an alignment since that happened, that should be giving it some toe out at that corner, which explains why I have to steer to the right a little bit. Gonna see if I can adjust it a little to compensate. Alignments are too damn expensive to bother with it right now.

 

[Time_Attack]

Poor idle after rain/wash is usually water in the spark plug cylinders. I can't take mine through an automatic car wash otherwise I will have to use a shop vac to suck out all the water.

 

[Eric.]

I haven't decide if that's the issue. I don't get an immediate problem after washing it, but a day or two later it may have the idling problem. It almost always seems to occur during a certain period of warming up, so I think it may be something else. The needle on my temp gauge is more or less vertical when its warmed up. It hunts for idle when its about halfway up to that point. It'll usually disappear within a few minutes of driving once it begins to act up.

There doesn't seem to be a lack of power when its doing that. Its funny because when I test drove it, it was definitely missing below 1500rpm. It got better during the drive, almost disappearing totally when I was finished, so I decided it was probably moisture since it had been raining that day. It hasn't done that ever again. It wanted a home.

 

[eSZee]

The small holes in the rotors are there to help you get the rotors off if they are rusted on, in case you didn't know. I'm surprised the rears don't have them.

 

[Eric.]

Yeah I knew that. However you also have to be able to know the size and thread pitch of those holes, and happen to have that size of bolt laying around. Sledgehammer it was.

Edit: My factory Toyota repair manual even said "use appropriate sized bolts". Gee, thanks for the help!

 

[Keef]

My car has a stupid up-and-down idle in the process of warming up. Even after it's warmed up, I noticed on the dyno that if I held it at a certain rpm (maybe it was 2500, iono) the engine simply refused to stay there. There's something about that rpm that it doesn't like.

 

[Jim Prower]

Sounds like a vacuum problem to me. I'm sorry...time to delve into a couple miles of hose.

 

[Punknoodle]

Could do a smoke test on it see where it's getting sucked up

 

[Eric.]

Little preview of the autocross on Sunday. First time running the MR2. This is my first run (therefore, slow AND sloppy).

 

[Keef]

More like gymkhana, holy crap! How you ever made sense of that course I have no idea.

 

[Eric.]

We had one novice in a WRX wagon doing e-brake turns around those two pivot cones. You could legally make an oval out of them, a figure 8, or something like what I was doing. Just loop them in some way. Very fun course. They actually cut off a big fast section at the other end of the runway when a mostly stock GTI hit 75mph...

Those first few cars were turning 3 minutes runs anyway. We would have been there all night.

 

[Eric.]

WKSCCA Test 'n' Tune Autocross - April 10, 2011

Perfect weather out at the Paducah International Raceway Airstrip last Sunday. I autocrossed the MR2 for the first time. It's still totally stock, with new KYB GR-2 shocks, and on some generic "Treva Touring" tires, that still have too much tread to consider replacing them anytime soon.

Results:

Fastest Raw Times:

1:55.981 - Chris Jensen: Blue AP1 S2000
1:59.159 - Dustin Thompson: Gray BMW Z4
2:01.230 - Kim Clark: Yellow Z06
2:01.529 - Richard Mortensen: Red GTI
2:02.982 - Jeff Huppengyver: White Evo VIII
2:03.357 - Jason Bozeman: Red Cobalt SS
2:03.753 - Richard Hall: Green Hardtop Miata
2:03.998 - Scott Hall: Blue CRX
2:04.881 - Andrew Jones: White Civic Si 4d
2:05.069 - Shawn Hayden: Silver AP1 S2000
2:05.410 - Chris Cunningham: Blue BMW M3
2:05.442 - Jeff Novac: Orange Neon SRT-4
2:07.590 - Brian Dixon: Black Firebird Formula
2:08.096 - Corey South: Black Civic Si 4d
2:08.355 - Eric Biggs: White MR2
2:08.619 - Michael McCarthy: White Paseo
2:08.817 - Andy Murrell: Green Hardtop Miata
2:09.709 - Brandon Dodd: Silver AP2 S2000
2:11.347 - Drew Mathis: Gold Civic 2dr
2:11.359 - Seth Byers: Black Impreza STi
2:11.719 - Jack Fares: Silver Porsche Speedster
2:12.278 - Michael Choate: Gray Mazda 3
2:12.669 - Chad Tucker: White Evo X
2:15.302 - Rick Marks: Black Impreza WRX
2:16.212 - Ryan Hollan: White AP1 S2000
2:20.025 - Josh Prather: Black RX7
2:27.972 - Jonathan Hurst: White 240SX
2:35.752 - Sean Brown: Blue Softtop Miata
D. N. F. - Colton Sims: Red Civic Si 2dr

With PAX:

# CLASS DRIVER CAR PEN PAX
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
201 GS Richard Mortensen Red GTI 2 1:30.913
40 BSP Chris Jenson Blue s2000 0 1:39.628
82 ES Richard Hall miata 0 1:41.849
93 BSP Dustin Thompson z4 0 1:42.358
2 DSP Jason Bozeman cobalt 0 1:44.237
1 ASP Kim Clark yellow vette 0 1:44.985
44 DSP andrew jones white civic 0 1:45.524
222 ES Eric Biggs Mr2 2 1:45.636
6 HS Jack . porsche silv 0 1:45.639
182 ES Andy Murrell miata 0 1:46.016
5 HS Micheal Choate Mazda 3 0 1:46.087
8 SM hump inthall evo 0 1:46.625
55 ST Seth Byers black wrx 0 1:47.452
9 SM Scott Hall Blue CRX 0 1:47.506
7 BSP Chris Cunningham blue BMW 0 1:47.727
11 ESP Brian Douchbag Black Bird 0 1:47.941
12 BS Brandon Dodd silver s2000 0 1:48.307
77 ESP Corey South Black civic 0 1:48.369
94 SM Jeff Novak Orange Neon 2 1:48.758
666 FSP Andrew Mathis Honda civic 0 1:49.149
4 DS Rick Marks black wrx 0 1:50.812
153 SM Mike McCarthy deamon 0 1:51.513
34 BSP Chad Tucker white evo 0 1:53.963
14 ST Josh Prather Black rx7 2 1:54.540
71 AS Ryan Holland white s2000 0 1:54.827
16 SM Jonathan Hurst White 240 0 2:04.543
111 ES Mr. Brown Montego miata 2 2:08.184
13 GS Colton Sims red civic No Times


The GTI's PAX time is not correct, by the way. And some cars weren't even classed right.

Pictars:

Video:

My fastest run, which was my only solo run of the day. I wish I had one or two more of those, I know I could have been a few seconds faster.

 

[Eric.]

Paid casey_2005 a visit this afternoon and got a sweet deal on some 15x7 Kosei K1 Racing wheels with Falken RT615 slicks tires.

 

[nobuffalo]

Big pimpin!

You should paint your hub nuts or whatever black. Hub nuts. 👍

Axle nuts.

 

[Eric.]

I'll get to it. The calipers could use paint too.

 

[Perfect Balance]

Do you live at a school?

 

[BryCivicSi]

Keep that Si locked up dude. A friend of a friend has the same generation as yours and thieves stole a bumper off of his car in his driveway.

I have a '99 Civic Si and I've had someone try to steal the car once. They're hot cars. I would install a fuel cutoff switch. I think that's the only thing that saved my car.

 

[Eric.]

I live by a school.

And I'm not concerned with theft...not in this area.

 

[BryCivicSi]

I live by a school.

And I'm not concerned with theft...not in this area.

I lived in a upper middle class neighborhood. But it's your car so gl.

 

[Eric.]

Decided to try my suction cup mount on the Civic this evening.

Ridiculous wind noise and rattles. The rattle is from the lens assembly. I don't know how the wind is getting in unless its through those gaps, the mic is taped up. Anyway I think the exhaust sounds pretty damn good.




My latest autox video is uploading at the moment.