Some of the BFGoodrich livery has been replaced with our Grassroots Motorsports logos. This minor change has highlighted the conversion from show car to race car.
A significant portion of our Civic's 2000 miles have now been spent either on the dyno or on the test track. So far, we've had zero mechanical issues with this project, despite it's extensive hardcore usage.
Our Civic recently took its trip from sunny SoCal to sunny Florida with the help of an auto transport company. Now that it is at our workshop, we can continue its preparation for SCCA’s Street Touring.
Our editor David Wallens drove the Civic to our Dyno Day in Sugar Hill, GA (Near Atlanta). Besides giving our readers a chance to eyeball the new project, we ran the car on their dyno as well. While the numbers didn’t change much from our testing at Comptech, it gave one of our consultants on this project (Ed Senf with Dynotuner.net) a chance to look at our curves and numbers.
We are planning on enlisting the help of Ed to revise the fuel and ignition mapping with the help of a piggy back controller, which is legal under Street Touring rules. We hope to increase the redline to make the power band more usable under racing conditions.
Jay Morris at Ground Control has suggested, based upon our feedback and testing, that we replace the springs, perches and upper strut mounts a coil over system. This has been ordered and will be installed by second week in June.
From there, we will be taking the Civic to National Autosport Association’s Hyperfest, a car show and NASA driving event at Summit Point Raceway in West Virginia on June 29th. The following weekend, July 6-7, we will be racing at the Solo II National Tour event in Peru, Indiana. Later in the summer, we will back in Peru for the ProSolo event on Aug 17-18. Between these events, and nearly every weekend leading up to the Solo II Nationals, we will be testing, autocrossing and improving the Civic.
Our Civic may be set up for autocross, but it’s no one-trick pony: it spent Saturday night drag racing at Orlando Speed World. To try to get racing off the streets, the track hosted midnight drag racing: pro tree, no time slips, no burnout box and no score boards. Cars couldn’t be trailered in, and mufflers and DOT tires were required. Pick your competition, line up and race for bragging rights. Racing started at 10:30, and lanes closed at 2 am. We’re told the official car count was 310, while the stands were packed. Several news crews were there covering the action.
We made five passes in the Civic:
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