FG2 Civic Si Race Car - 2 Mutch Racing

I enjoy reading through race car build threads, and the time has come to create one of my own.

After racing a Toyota Echo for a couple seasons I decided I wanted to move on to something else. The Echo was a great little car, but there are fewer classes where it fits well. I was looking for something a little bit faster. I considered plenty of platforms, but ended up with an '06 Civic Si coupe (FG2 for Honda fans). I have a habit of searching Facebook, Kijiji, etc.. continually and came across this car. The price was very good and I managed to be the first person to show up and see the car. Negotiated the deal and away we go.

Picture after loading it onto the trailer for the trip to it's new home.

Background on the car:

The car was built as a race car from the beginning. I was told that Honda Canada had a few cars built when the 8th Gen Civic was released and this was one of them. The original listed owner is Honda so this story seems to line-up. The car was raced in both SCCA and CASC (Canada) and I found log books for both in the glove box. In SCCA competition it ran Showroom Stock B. Based on dates in the logbook I was able to find the YouTube video of the 2008 Runoffs with the car! (Driven by John Sherk #88)

https://youtu.be/MWj82jGH1sw?si=NP3xIsHkn2srinY9

The racing history that I've found has been earlier in the car's life. At some point I think it was driven on the road occasionally, perhaps back and forth to the track. More recently it went through a couple owners who used it for hdpe driving. The owner before me had owned the car for 6 years but only made it to the track a handful of times.

More details on the car to follow.

Wow, cool. Thanks for sharing. Good color, too.

This is so much better than buying last years championship winning Anycar which is used up.

Nice, looks super clean. Some of the ones that I have been looking at, are fairly rusted.

Very nice. Great platform, in my experience. 
 

I've got an 8th gen coupe, non SI with the 1.8 and five speed as a daily. A friend sold me some koni yellows and a rear sway bar, plus some lightweight wheels.  I drive it in H street occasionally. It's very competitive on some autocross courses, as long as the open differential and low horsepower aren't too much of a disadvantage. 

David S. Wallens said:

Wow, cool. Thanks for sharing. Good color, too.

I think it's called Habanero Red Pearl. The whole car needs a good polishing for the paint to really look good. Right now the clearcoat feels a bit rough but clearcoat fading was common for these cars. I'm debating what colors would work well with the red when it comes time to add some sort of livery.

trigun7469 said:

Nice, looks super clean. Some of the ones that I have been looking at, are fairly rusted.

Here in Ontario rust is definitely a concern. Road salt kills too many cars. Fortunately this one wasn't frequently driven on the street so it's in better shape than most. Not perfect (especially by southern climate standards), but pretty good.

So, more details on the car.

Basically, it is a completely stock Civic Si with the necessary race car safety items added. Completely stock motor, stock suspension, stock eveything! Sunroof and headliner still in place, power windows still work. I assume this was due to the rules of Showroom Stock from it's early racing life. The only "performance" mods are racing brake pads and RT660 tires 215/45-17 (on the stock 7" wheels).

It's sort of the perfect combination for me. I was originally looking at buying a stock car and converting to a race car. This would have required roll cage fabrication. Although I like the thought of fabricating my own cage, if I'm being honest it would be very hard to find the time. So this car gets perhaps the most labor intensive part out of the way. I have a caged car and a clean slate to make my own modifications.

The roll cage is 1.75", nicely built, and includes anti intrusion bars for both front wheels. Interior could use some cleaning and paint touch-up s but the cage should be good to go.

A few more pictures from the sale ad:

First order of business was a couple repairs.

The windshield was cracked, so I had a new one installed. Quick and easy fix.

The second repair was more problematic. The car had an oil leak. Closer inspection indicated that the leak wasn't coming from common locations like the oil filter housing or VTEC solenoid. Pulling the crank pulley revealed the problem. At some point the crank pulley failed and rubbed on the timing cover. It had worn through the cover at the crank position sensor, so oil would constantly seep out the crack. Thorough cleaning, sanding, and JB Weld has stopped the leak, but a new timing cover will be needed for a more permanent fix.

A couple of basic safety updates were made. Installed a new 6 point harness from GT2i so the belts are now valid for a number of years.

The old window net and net mount had been lost by a previous owner. Ordered a new mount, GM buckle style, and bent and welded the upper mounting rod. Pretty happy with how it came out. Installed the new window net, so two safety items checked off the list.

So far the work on the car has been either repairs or safety related. It's a front wheel drive race car so of course the first modification needs to be a rear sway bar.

I chose the Progress 24mm adjustable rear bar. This is the stiffest bolt-on bar that I could find. It also has the benefit of being adjustable with 3 locations for the end link connection. Here is everything laid out on the floor:

The mounting tabs on the lower trailing arm are relatively thin. Stiff sway bars can tear out the hole. The Progress bar comes with reinforcement plates to avoid this problem. The instructions call for bolting the plates in position but that seemed like a cluttered solution. Out came the welder and the reinforcement plates are on. I also got some weld from the plates to the trailing arm, so the whole tab should be a bit stronger than original.

Before (driver side)

After (passenger side):

Bar installed:

When I originally bought the car the seller hadn't pulled the spare parts out of storage. Unfortunately, this meant I had to go back a couple weeks later. Picked up some spare rotors and brake pads, but the most valuable part (and the main reason I made the trip) was the extra transmission. The car has 52,000 km on the odometer, and this spare was actually the original transmission (tag matches VIN #) so it must be relatively low mileage. Looks almost new from the outside.

I was told the transmission currently in the car is a modified unit that has been strengthened but no specifics as to what that includes.

This looks like a real score sir!  Great chassis and very nicely caged. 

I picked up the car in late August, and the work summarized so far all took place prior to getting the car on track for the first time. 

My home track (Shannonville) had an evening lapping event during the second week of September. This would be my first opportunity to try drive the car. Overall, I was quite pleased with how the car drove. I hadn't drove a K series powered car before, and although it's not particularly fast in stock configuration it revs happily to the 8000+ RPM limiter. Transmission and shifter are nice (bear in mind that last season's car was a Toyota Echo which doesn't have a precise shifter!). 

I had a target lap time in mind but came up a bit short of my goal. However, track conditions were wet for my first session and still damp for my last session. I think my target was achievable under better conditions.

Overall a success and the car feels like a good platform for future improvements.

I did have one minor problem during my first time on track. When loading the car we noticed the rear bumper cover and inner fender were unusually warm. A rusty muffler seemed to be blowing more hot exhaust out the sides than out the back.

I cut of the rotten muffler. Turns out the insides had completely come apart and were just rattling around inside the rusty shell. Shining a light inside the exit:

I plan on replacing the exhaust but until that happens I coupled together a replacement with a couple pieces of pipe welded to the hanger cut from the old muffler. Noise level only slightly increased as the rest of the stock resonators and muffler are still in place.

I had my second track day with the car in early October. Only a few minor changes were made since the first time on track:

- muffler "fix" as previously described 

- installed braided brake lines

- added a set of camber bolts on the front struts. This gave about 1.8° of front camber. Still need more, but hopefully this helps traction and tire life until a full suspension upgrade takes place.

- replaced front left ball joint after finding a torn rubber boot and bit of slop during the alignment check. Of course this was found the evening prior to the track day...

Weather was better than the first event so I anticipated a lap time improvement. Pleasantly surprised to drop a full 4 seconds in the first session of the day. Second session yielded another 1 sec improvement so finished the day with an overall 5 second reduction in lap time vs the first event. This was well under my original goal so it was a successful day.

Driving on a fully dry track also gave me a better feeling for the handling characteristics. Car definitely understeers more than I thought compared to the first day on the wet track. The good news on that this means there is room for improvement.

Regarding suspension: at the moment I'm leaning towards Redshift Motorsports coilovers. Reviews generally seem good and price is reasonable for track worthy suspension. If anyone has feedback on Redshift or other suggestions let me know.

I picked up a set of Redshift coilovers for my E28 this past winter. I use the car for track (Mosport mostly, still need to hit TMP with this setup), autocross (PITL and Trillium) and drive the car to and from events. I was running Fortune Auto 500's from 2017 and the Redshift was a major improvement. They handle our very bumpy lot at the CAA centre significantly better, they are also better on the street when set on the softer settings. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.

Last year when I ordered around the beginning of December I was told they'd be ready by the end of January but it was right at the beginning of March that they actually shipped. I had them sent to a parcel pick up spot in Niagara Falls NY so the shipping was free (I don't think they ship to Canada).

adam525i said:

I picked up a set of Redshift coilovers for my E28 this past winter. I use the car for track (Mosport mostly, still need to hit TMP with this setup), autocross (PITL and Trillium) and drive the car to and from events. I was running Fortune Auto 500's from 2017 and the Redshift was a major improvement. They handle our very bumpy lot at the CAA centre significantly better, they are also better on the street when set on the softer settings. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.

Last year when I ordered around the beginning of December I was told they'd be ready by the end of January but it was right at the beginning of March that they actually shipped. I had them sent to a parcel pick up spot in Niagara Falls NY so the shipping was free (I don't think they ship to Canada).

That's good feedback, especially with the Fortune Auto 500 comparison as those were one other brand I looked at briefly. A couple of the tracks I raced at the past couple seasons are a bit rough and choppy (icar, GP3R) so I'd like the suspension to work well when the surface isn't perfectly smooth.

super excited for you, what a cool car with a cool backstory.  those 8th gens are great cars and a ton of fun once they're dialed in.  you defintely want all that front camber and a stiff rear end.  Redshift is the THE outfit for track suspension on these cars, don't bother with anyone else.  i'd encourage running 5W-40 on track, the K20's are built for it and it'll give you additional margin on track for high oil temps.  definitely hang on to that extra trans, those are getting tough to find now because they're easy to break once these things are boosted....which is often.....and/or they get swapped into other projects.  i have a feeling the strengthened parts in your current trans are the differential bearings and synchro cones...those were upgraded in 2009+ cars.

i can't confirm at the moment but from what i understand, Honda-specific racing 8th gens were equipped from the get-go with a very aggressive ABS modulator (aka computer module) that allows for more lockup before ABS kicks in.  its apparently very effective at utilizing the extra grip of r-compound tires.  the catch is, this uniquely tuned computer module was only found in 2006 cars.  After that the racing efforts were no longer factory supported and they pulled the part from circulation.  It's VERY difficult to find, so you're most likely a lucky one!

hope it treats you well!  my FA5 did, i sold it in January and it was a tank for 7 years, took me all over the place and i drove it hard.

PS - oh yeah, if you do the facebook, the group called 8th Gen Civic Roadrace/Autocross is your droid.  there is a massive amount of combined 8th gen track knowledge and setup information there.

In reply to ScottyB :

Very interesting info regarding the ABS module. Do you have any further details on the special module vs the standard one? How would I check to see if I might have gotten lucky and the car has the different module?

Purchased a set of wheels for use with 225 wide tires. They are 17x8 +40 which is a fairly conservative size, but should be fine for a modest size increase compared to the current 215 wide tires on stock 7" width wheels. I may end up increasing the fronts to 17x9 with 245 tire depending on where I race. I'm a believer that staggered tire size makes sense on front wheel drive, but I do like the ability to rotate the same wheel & tire around all four corners. 

These are Fast FC04 wheels, flow formed for lighter weight. They're quite affordable. Many teams here in Canada run the same model of Fast wheels on their race cars, so i don't have concerns about the quality.

Have you considered endurance racing it?.

 Seat rentals for the Lucky Dog series will cover costs and then some.

 I think LDRC is at SMP at least twice next yr and CTMP 3 times.