Project Hazmat '09 Honda Civic Si

You took the pickles off?  What kinda person are you?  I still don't know what a vtec is either, my v8 kicks in off idle.  

Patrick said:

You took the pickles off?  What kinda person are you?  I still don't know what a vtec is either, my v8 kicks in off idle.  

Their pickles were terrible, they're barely a pickle. Sandwich was otherwise fantastic and that wasn't a spicy one. 

Patrick said:

You took the pickles off?  What kinda person are you?  I still don't know what a vtec is either, my v8 kicks in off idle.  

pickles are the fermented remains of what used to be food and should be swiftly disposed of 

a VTEC is an event where your Honda engine is imbued with the sacred JDM dragon battle spirit and for a short time has the ability to make power and sound threatening.  the effect can often cause increased testosterone level in young men, unwanted pregnancies, gastrointestinal distress, and erections lasting for over 4 hours.

We will get it sorted out Sunday. We'll probably have the heaters going because sometime this weekend I think Texas is going full on Alaska 

MazdaFace said:

We will get it sorted out Sunday. We'll probably have the heaters going because sometime this weekend I think Texas is going full on Alaska 

you are not berkeleying wrong. It got cold the last 2 weeks. I woke up sunday morning at 2am last weekend at the F1 race and the temp was 38 degrees. I prepared for it so I was fine. but lord it made for a rough morning. 

Big thanks to Mazdaface for his gracious offer to get me into the family shop and onto the lift! 

our original plan was to work on Hazmat tomorrow, but life determined that we'd just work on it this evening. So I opted to just work on the axle. which went in and out super easy with 2 exceptions. 

Mazdaface's family tool set did not have a large enough socket for the axle nut. google and youtube said 32mm on the base model. I had no reason to believe the Si would be different.... 

OH HOW WRONG I WAS. 

ran 30 minutes to oreilly's and back to grab the 32mm socket and get back to realize it was too small. Further googling turned up that the Si uses a 36mm axle nut. berkeley

So ran to Lowes instead to get that one, and continued the axle swap. 

Old axle came out no issue, new one went in without issue. 

In this shot you can see where grease got slung and where oil spilled down from the oil change last week and the oil that came out of the head when I swapped the VTEC solenoid on Thursday night. 

Old vs New axles. 

Once we had the proper socket... It took maybe 20 minutes of work to swap the axle

Verdict after repairs..... 

My highway vibration seems better, but I'm still hearing clunking type noises at low speed. I need to look at the mounts for the rack and toss the energy bushings on and see if that improves it. The axle intermediate shaft seemed fine when I put the new axle on but that's also a item I'm keeping an eye on. As I add power and heavy use situations(track days and TT). I'm going to be keen to replace items that are unknown for new units. And a new intermediate shaft assembly is less than $250. not exactly cheap.... But not much more than a set of front track brake pads and rotors. 

Glad we were able to get it done this weekend. Always happy to help a friend and taco bribes certainly don't hurt. Any time getting the required tools takes longer than the repairs, I'd consider it a win. 

MazdaFace said:

Glad we were able to get it done this weekend. Always happy to help a friend and taco bribes certainly don't hurt. Any time getting the required tools takes longer than the repairs, I'd consider it a win. 

Amen to that man! It was fun, I'd like to have gotten the rack bushings done.. But I'll take getting a new axle in. I feel much better knowing a good one is in. I'll disect the old one tomorrow. 

Definitely send me some pictures of it I'm curious of any internal damage to it

So a tool I have not had and would like is a Honda MVCI tool to talk to all the vehicle specific items. 

My buddy found the tool on ali express for less than $20. So I am rolling the dice on it because if it works it's hugely beneficial if  I get VSA issues and other type of codes in the future. 

If it doesn't work.. So be it. 

In reply to spacecadet :

What is up with the giant connect four game?

In reply to akylekoz :

My dad built it. We had it and cornhole outside to play at the wedding reception

Another fun turn of events today. I thought i was feeling a pull at freeway speeds lately. But wasn't sure

I have been, Front right pads are waaaaaayyy more worn down than the left side. 

My rotors also have huge lips on them as well. I hadn't noticed the right side was so much worse than the left

So I've got new pads and rotors on the way. And I'll evaluate the caliper once I've got new hardware on. It was coming from a different warehouse than the pads and rotors. So I opted to not get one just yet. 

I still think a lot of your clunking and weirdness is related to motor mounts. Also, it may be the side that isn't wearing the pads that is the bad side, though they usually stick the way you're thinking. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

The car pulls to the right. The right side is my issue on the brakes. And all the hardware is nasty. I learned a lot on these brakes and pads. 

The car make noise as the steering is turned. The rack bushings are a known issue. I will continue to work my way down the list and then we can condemn more items. At the moment motor mounts are all in good order and I'm not going to spend money till I buy hasport mounts. And thats below brakes on the list now

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

Also, if I wasn't clear. Even if the motor mounts aren't bad and are just old, they are coming out and Hasport mounts are going in cause I don't want to think about the motor rocking. 

I could probably also just get away with a hasport Rear Motor mount. But I'd really like to lock it in place... we'll see what that means for Hazmat's interior from the resulting vibrations.. LoL

In reply to spacecadet :

I've daily driven a truck with a 12 valve cummins and no interior. The weird buzzing noises and sounds of rocks hitting the floor grow on you after a while. 

In reply to Daylan C :

If there's no dash left.. It can't rattle. 

In reply to spacecadet :

Something will rattle. Trust me. If it doesn't I'll come down there and hide some loose washers somewhere.

In reply to Daylan C :

Edit: This now removed video was Jeff Dunham's Akmed the dead terrorist. "I KILL YOU!" 

I did the solid rear mount thing on my Mazda2. I had to swap it a few time to stay legal for national level rallycross. It never bothered me to go from the stock mount to the solid mount. A little buzzy at idle, but no big deal. Swapping back to the stock mount however made the car feel soooooo smooth. Like it was off at idle. I'm a huge fan of whatever motor mounts are barely stiff enough to get the job done. 

hazmat's new brakes are in. A standard centric semi metallic pad with some raybestos rotors. 

While doing the passenger side i was able to reach in and get a hand on the inside of the CV axle attached to the half shaft assembly. There's play, so i can only assume I'm going to have to replace the half shaft assembly... JOY. 

Well. We knew this coming in, that some things were doing to be broken or worn out and show themselves over time.And I've put miles on this car. As of last night, It's seen 8000 miles since I brought it home in August. 

Remember when Mazdeuce talked about how nice it was to return to normal brakes? Yeah.. Normal brakes are pretty rad. 

Its taken me a few days to fully adjust to a normal pedal again compared to the weird characteristics of the DTC60's. But the lack of noise is awesome. The hawks made a lot less noise than the powerstops on the Traccord. But the noise was there. 

My clicking/clunking front right is also now much less. 

I did fail to mention in my last post that I found out one of the slides on that caliper has off axis play, which i thought at the time might be contributing to the noise as the pads wear and things have more freedom to move around as that pin moved further out of the mount. 

So after a few days that does seem to be the case. 

Hazmat's new sticker arrived today.

Accepting the project is stupid, tempers all expectations.

I've always bought and owned cars for the past 5 years with autox classing in mind.

Hazmat is a departure to do what I think is fun and everything else be dammed.