[Aussie V-Tec nut]

About a year ago I bought an insurance write-off '94 Civic for $1,200 to use as a backup general purpose club car whilst my serious EG clubby was waiting on parts for it's conversion. It was a 1.6 SOHC V-Tec with a hit in one rear tailight. The previous owner had tried to repair it from a mild front end smash. The car had a new front end, new bonnet and bar... and I do mean NEW. These parts weren't painted - but who cared? It was my "disposable" race car.

It wouldn't start because some young tyro had buggered up the wiring when he put in an amp guage, resulting in a minor electrical melt down to the battery. I simple hacked out every non standard wire I could find (including the after market burglar alarm/immoboliser), turned the key and away she went.

I had a ball racing it throughout 2010, competing mainly in dirt motorkhanas, khanacrosses at club and State level. This involved travelling to other NSW tracks outside the pair we have here in Newcastle, and the car was very successful, an absolute joy to drive, 100% reliable, and nearly ALWAYS won it's class (typical Honda, eh?)

As I had moulds to make my own fibreglass panels I spat out a set of flared guards, roof spoiler, and a duck billed front bar and tail gate I'd sculpted for my serious race car. I was able to get the gel coat colour close to the Honda red, so there was no need to paint anything.I also had a spare blue fibrelass bonnet for that car with an EVO scoop incorporated into it, so I screwed that on as well.


This was a very rough track and I smashed most of my front bar off over a yump.


To save towing two EG's a long way, I shared my car with one of my mate's sons, who came back with lights hanging off. The poor car was being shaken to pieces!







I pulled the front end off over the Christmas/New Year break and did some suspension maintenance and cleared out all the year's accumulated mud.

By March I could see the end in sight of the conversion of my proper racing Civic. Soon I would no longer need this car. I was just about to strip it for parts at the end of the racing season or sell it to a mate for parts. He has 2 Juniors with EG racers I'd worked on.

Then another statutory write off the same colour came up at auction - and the body was as straight as a die. It had been stolen & recovered. The ignition lock was busted out, the battery dead & buried, and the burglar alarm was going off when I connected up fresh power. My guess was the would be thief ended up just being that. In NSW any car that's stolen & recovered HAS to be made a stat write off. It looked like an immaculate ladies car in the photos, so I bought it via the on-line only auction for a mere A$300. The price of wrecks had plummetted over the last 12 months!

Not a bad buy for 300 pesos, and with only 181,000km on it!


You can see the immaculate interior and the ripped out column lock


Untouched by dude modifier hands - and obviously well serviced.


By the time I trailered the car home a third son of my mate decided he wanted to race an EG just like his other two younger brothers, and was happy to get my old red hatch for $500. This meant I had two Civics in my driveway, a frustrated but resigned wife, and parts I had to swap from one car to the other.


My neighbours are just about threatening violence if I build any more EG racers in my driveway


I swapped over the rear suspension arms, putting the adjustable ones I'd made into the new car. I run 4 degrees neg camber all round to make the car drift like a rwd on the dirt (trust me rwd guys - this is not a wet dream).


Then I pulled the exhaust system out of each car. The old car had a fairly new set of headers on it and a cannon, so I wanted to keep all this good stuff.


I decided to clean up and paint the extractors with a $20 can of aerosol VHT ceramic paint.








Next I swapped over the front struts. Although the springs and shocks were stock on both cars, I'd lengthened the studs on the strut tops so I could raise the car for rallying with spacers - and I wanted to transfer all that across to the newbie.













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[SlzzyDzzy]

Thats so cool man! Inspiration i tell you!

[Raid3n]

Wow....

[Samsneez]

Kinda funny, every who owns Honda spend all their time lowering them. And here you go raising yours. But I give props! Looks like a lot of fun.

[Aussie V-Tec nut]

Thanks for the encouragement guys. I've had this problem getting it up before.... er with my rally Civic I mean! I've bought "height adjustable" suspension - only to find all it does is wind DOWN when I wanna go up.

Uh Oh. Look what's coming up at the salvage auctions in Sydney next week. A perfect donor car for parts. With our 2 red Civic racers my friend & I can use: bonnet, front bar (no painting), petrol tank (his brother's has a leak), rear brakes (his OTHER brother's drums are over machined), complete spare engine & box, extra tyres on rims (to wear out on motorkhanas), a new ignition lock for me with a key, plus a heap of other spares. I can feel a winning bid coming on!
You blokes in the States into RHD JDM stuff must be crying over the parts I get and then throw away.

[Shanook]

good job buddy, its looking good. crazy beatin on the car lol

[Aussie V-Tec nut]

Originally Posted by Shanook

good job buddy, its looking good. crazy beatin on the car lol

Yeah Shanook - in local dirt rallying we call them "love bites".

[Aussie V-Tec nut]

I took Dave Grant to Sydney where he bought this Red Civic for multiple spares needed for his son's 3 Civic clubbies: Dylan damaged his petrol tank with his 2 wheeled antics over the KEP Pinch wall; Beau needs back brakes (watch out for this young tyro in m/k's once he gets them fitted; Shaun gets a painted red bonnet and front ba; plus they get a perfect "backup" motor & gearbox and endless other spares.

As bargain priced as the one I bought last week. The prices were incredibly low. For example a Peugot 504? 2001 Cabriolet with no body damage & stat write off went for $400, and they were lucky to get that bid. Talk about a cheap club car!







To get this car off the trailer at Toronto today we had to cut out the usual added on burglar alarm - taped joints not soldered - the normal crap installation. We put on the jumpers and it started first time. After only a few minutes running I accidently turned it off, but it started again ok - so the battery's obviously fine now. We removed the whole rear p/side suspension, put copper logs under the sill, and slowly motored it off the trailer under it's own power.

Now the Grant's driveway is REALLY steep. After I left how'd they get it up to it's wrecking location? The boys put two planks under the rear quarter with a skateboard between them and just DROVE it up the drive! :no:

We figure it'll take Dave & the 3 boys 2 weeks to strip this latest Redline purchase. Yeah I know - slow aren't they. I'd have it done in 1 day.

So maybe this thread should now be re-titled to "2 1/2 Red Civics" ???

[Aussie V-Tec nut]

I didn't think I'd be able to find engine enamel to match the bright orange of the headers, but I got lucky.





I also fitted three LED driving lights that have been given to me to test under race conditions at a local day/night khanacross Saturday week. They don't look anything special, but make my old Cibie Super Oscars look like yellow candles. I was very sceptical when I first saw LED driving lights at our last twilight race through the trees. The guy with them had no low beam on his Polaris quad and when he followed me on the familiarisation run after dark I had so much glare in my mirrors I had to pull over and let him pass. Following him I was then amazed to see the spread and blue brightness he was pumping out. So when I was offered these to try I jumped at the chance. I can't wait to try them out



I hope to record a video comparison test of both sets of lights at our next race to put on You Tube and will put the link here when it's done. More light hopefully = more speed!

[Aussie V-Tec nut]

How fast can a dad and his 3 sons completely dismantle a car for racing spares? Well here's what my mate Dave & his team of boys did in 24 hours



Every nut & bolt removed!



Methinks there's $300 worth of parts here, including a perfectly good engine & gearbox - although Dylan is beginning to wonder where it all goes - and remember his EG Civic racer is not even in this shot. There's four petrol head sons in this family. Will the backyard take a quartet of Hondas?

[Aussie V-Tec nut]

Tomorrow both the red Civics debut - my new one, and my previous one I sold to Shaun Grant. His brothers Dylan (B20A6 DOHC 2 litre swap), and Beau (stock 1.6SOHC) will be competing too, as will my son in law in his EK (another B20A6 swap I did). So there's gonna be FIVE Civic hatches hitting the dirt tomorrow. We run the two rally special stages in the afternoon and then in the opposite direction after dark. Gonna be a blast!

[Aussie V-Tec nut]

Here's my You Tube video of the two red Civics racing with their three other Redline team mates.

YouTube - FIVE EG Civics Rally Special Stage Time Attack

PS THIS VIDEO CONTAINS A TEST OF AUTOMOTIVE DRIVING LIGHTS. ANYONE DOING ANY NIGHT TIME RACING CANNOT AFFORD TO MISS THIS.

[Aussie V-Tec nut]

Today we attacked an interclub dirt motorkhana with 3 of our EG Civics.





It turned out to be a reasonably successful day. Shaun Grant scored ftd on one event and 3rd outright in my old red Civic... a fantastic effort given this was his first motorkhana in a fwd:


His brother Dylan gave me a real battle all day in the EG I swapped a 2 litre A20A6 into. We were literally only tenths of seconds apart on most events:



Compared to my old car (which is SOHC V-Tec), I found I had to give my new NON V-Tec 1.6 more throttle to keep it on the boil as I did handbrake turns, but ended up getting the upper hand over my two fierce rivals - scoring first outright.


So that was 1st, 2nd and 3rd outright to the EG's. Not a bad day's work - given that we had to change Dylan's gearbox last night!