The Traccord - 2003 Honda Accord Coupe

I still need to measure my front, but putting the 17mm from the TL on mine balanced the car nicely. It's still too soft, but I need to get springs and geometry figured out before I go hog wild with bars. Somewhere out there is a good list of the possible Accord bars from the TL and TSX. I think the TL-S had the largest ones. 

Edit: Found it. The TL Non S had a hollow 27.2 front and a 17mm rear. The TL-S 6mt has a solid 27.2 front and a 20mm rear. I haven't seen a manual TL in the junkyard yet, though I have been looking. 

mazdeuce - Seth said:

I still need to measure my front, but putting the 17mm from the TL on mine balanced the car nicely. It's still too soft, but I need to get springs and geometry figured out before I go hog wild with bars. Somewhere out there is a good list of the possible Accord bars from the TL and TSX. I think the TL-S had the largest ones. 

Edit: Found it. The TL Non S had a hollow 27.2 front and a 17mm rear. The TL-S 6mt has a solid 27.2 front and a 20mm rear. I haven't seen a manual TL in the junkyard yet, though I have been looking. 

I think the TL's 'factory aftermarket' A-spec suspension is getting thin on the ground... and it might have been only shocks/springs (maybe it was a way for honda to sell off TL-S suspension overstock?)... but there might have been bars in it too?  Worth looking at, if you haven't heard of that before.

In reply to sleepyhead :

I have not, off to Google!

Inspiration.....

wow! never have I so badly wanted an Accord for a track car.

In reply to N7Prime :

More? Please? 

mazdeuce - Seth said:

In reply to N7Prime :

More? Please? 

This looks like the best info in one place?  Looks like its campaigning stopped after 2014?

mazdeuce - Seth said:

In reply to Woody :

Same size car, one has struts and one has A arms. The Civic is  technically a generation ahead at that point. The Civic Si Sedan from thst period is the most "complete" out of the box. The One Lap car is an '09 sedan and just needs pads to be a proper competent track car.

This paragraph has got me thinking...

Obviously, A arms are the preferred choice for optimizing camber angles on lowered track cars. But I live in Connecticut, where the roads are fairly good in the summer and fall, but riddled with potholes in the winter and spring. I have lowered cars in the past: three Miatas and two Civics ('79 and '99). I respect the advantages on the track, but I have very little tolerance for a punishing ride on a day to day basis, and I don't care about how my car looks on the street. Fender gaps don't really bother me.

So for my purposes, a car that would see daily use on a 50 mile round trip commute and maybe five track days per year, would I really be giving up much by choosing a car with struts (with stiffer inserts and stiffer but not necessarily lower springs, running at approximately original ride height) versus a car with A arms in front? Especially when that strut car would already come equipped with the K engine, six speed and a limited slip from the factory?

This is what I wrote up after doing some comparison laps between the '09 Si and my '05 TL at the end of OneLap last year:

sleepyhead said:

~ TL compared to Si ~

So we’ve alluded to some open laps that we ran back-to-back between the TL and the Civic after the last timed session on Friday at Gingerman. Mazdeuce’s co-driver is the faster driver, and once the Civic had equivalent pads, could easily take a 4-sec chunk out of the TL’s lap time. I haven’t done very much autocross, and the brake overheating I was experiencing made me more cautious, so I was braking around the ‘3.5 pole’ at Gingerman (and the 5 off the back straight); while the Civic was braking around the ‘1.5 pole’ (~3 pole off the back straight).

Our mid-corner speeds were within 5mph of each other... if I had to guess. Which seems a little surprising given the 500lb penalty the TL was carrying in weight with only 235/45R17 compared the the 225/40?R17’s on the Civic.

The Civic took a set quickly, and you could feel the inside of the car twist in response and the outside tire feel like it was rolling over... thanks (we think) to the limited camber gain of its McPherson strut suspension. The TL, on the other hand, need more time and a more gentle touch to transition and let the softer springs compress and take a set. However, the TL’s double wishbones kept the tires planted… and while the body was rolling more, the inside wheel was clearly in touch with the pavement (although I did lift the inside tire slightly when I overcooked the first left-hand lap of the dry-skid pad).

Despite the extra weight of the TL, the extra torque of the J32 was able to really push the car down a straight and muscle on after we cleared 100mph. The Si would race up to about 100mph, and then would struggle a bit to continue accelerating at the same pace. The TL doesn’t have a wing, and the Si was missing a bunch of flow-conditioning plastic right-behind the front bumper (#rallycross). So, those might be the more likely culprits behind this mismatch.

I’m really glad to have been able to perform this exercise and compare notes with mazdeuce and the co-driver. It’s given me a bunch to think about, both in the development of the TL, and track cars in general. This is probably more common in some autocross programs, but is missing from most HPDE/Track environments I’ve experienced… and as we’ve noted there’s a distinct difference in the test given to a car in autocross compared to the track.

I should note that my TL was rolling on stock suspension, I thought the Si was on springs last year?

You might-should check out '05-09 (?) TSX's, Woody.  It's like an Si in an Accord body (i.e. K24 200hp, 6spd, factory lsd, with double A-arm).

In reply to Woody :

The Civic is better. The easiest way to describe it is the Civic Si is eager, and the Accord is lazy. That might be different with the V6 car, I haven't hammered on one of those, and there is a LOT more power with those. I'm doing this because it's fun but I have no illusions that I would have been better off spending $1k more and getting a Civic Si. Four wheel disks with pads readily available and the LSD and the 6spd are worth it alone. At stock ride height with no camber bolts you'll feel the fronts fall over on track. It's not a huge problem, it's just what strut cars do, and I'm 99% certain they're as fast or faster than a Miata stock for stock. My suggestion for the car we're running on One Lap was to throw some good shocks and camber bolts at it and call it good for this year. The owner went a little hog wild but I still think that would have worked and solved about all the issues we had last year. 

Go drive both of them. They feel different from the drivers seat. Even though I have the Accord, I'd recommend the Civic Si every day and twice on Sunday. 

In reply to sleepyhead :

We were on stock 130k mile suspension. I agree though, the TSX is another good option depending on what their price point is, I haven't shopped them in a while. 

Did the TSX get the LSD?

Woody said:

Did the TSX get the LSD?

sonnofa... sorry to get you excited.  I had a memory that it did... but quick googles seem to indicate it doesn't.  I don't know how I got it wrong there.

I consider this my best day of junkyarding ever. Front and rear aluminum crash beams and aluminum hood from a 2005 Accord Hybrid. 

Initial weights are Front: 7.5 lbs, Rear: 11 lbs, Hood: 20.5 lbs. 

These are VERY preliminary as this is the low end of what my bathroom scale is any good at. No idea what the stock pieces weigh, but there were a couple of steel hoods sitting around and they are quite a lot heavier. All in it was $150 for the three pieces, and if I'm lucky they're 1/2 the weight of what they will replace, so $150 to save 39 lbs. Right now, on an otherwise stock car, that's a dumb way to spend money. There is MUCH lower hanging fruit from a $ standpoint. The idea behind grabbing this was twofold. 
First, these are factory lightweight pieces, and they're cool. Deucekid#2 is getting all excited about getting his permit and learning to drive a proper manual transmission after the summer. It would be nice to have him (and me, and my wife) in a car that still has all the important bits working and strapped to it. Neither bumper cover attaches to the crash structure at all, so it would save even more weight to just take them off. I'm not going to be ready for that for a while.
Second, spending $150 to save 30-40lbs is eventually going to seem cheap. I'm going to pluck the low hanging fruit eventually, and when that's gone, saving weight will start costing $$$. 

I was talking to Mrs. Deuce before I headed out this morning, noting that I was well aware of how it seemed insane to be going to the junkyard to grab parts in the rain because once I knew they existed I NEEDED them. She says "a factory aluminum hood would be cool, and God knows the Accord needs all the help it can get being cool." I love her so much. 

What did Mrs. Duece drive in high school? Cuz any gal that understands the value of lighter equals faster musta had something screamin'?

In reply to 759NRNG :

She started driving a four speed Chevette. 

All the brake parts finally came in, so it's time to put them on. The way I did things is probably not the best, and I know that. I did it this way because, try as I might, I can't quite shake class rules, and swapping to disks means swapping rear knuckles and that blows me out of any normal reasonable autocross or rallycross class anywhere. For the time being, I'm going to stick with drums and see if they work on a stock powered car. My black Civic had rear drums and they were great. Let's start at the back. 

Carbotech makes brake pads. Pretty darn good ones too. On top of that they came to our rescue last year on One Lap when we melted lesser brake pads to goo and they saved the event for us. When I'm looking for pads now, I always start with Carbotech. I looked up the Accord on their web site and they had rear shoes listed, but only in their street compound. A phone call to them taught me about the modern world of "yes we can make that" brake manufacturers. Nobody would be crazy enough to make a run of shoes for drum brake Accords, but if you want them, you can get them. You either send them an old set of shoes, or they run down to the auto parts store and get a set to use as a core. They strip off the old material, sand blast the blanks, and apply their track compound. They can also do this with pads as well, so if you're having trouble finding a proper track compound for your weird GRM approved ride, give them a call. The price for a set of Carbotech XP-8 shoes? $400. I still get a little light headed thinking about it, but hopefully they'll last as long as I'm running drums. Rip off the bandaid kind of pain. I'm also using new Centric drums. The part number for them is 12240012 and this is mostly so I remember in the future. 

Installation went how drum brakes always go. The first one takes an hour and a half of cursing and threatening to light car car on fire, the second one took ten minutes. 

Moving on to the front we have more Centric rotors, part 12040036. These are supposed to be the "good" blanks that have the better surface finishing and a bit more corrosion protection on the parts that aren't swept by the pads. The pads themselves are Carbotech XP-10 and these were a very reasonable $200 for the set. 

I bled everything with Valvoline DOT4 and took it for a drive. I remember how much I love proper brakes. The car has way way way more brake than chassis with the old shocks can really handle. Right about the time the ABS comes on the car is standing on it's nose wiggling all around. It's a blast, but it does highlight how much I need to work on the suspension. I really like this car. 

Edit: Just saw my notes from today, the rear shoes have 4mm of friction material and the front pads have 11mm. I learned that I suck at eyeballing pad wear, but I'm ok at measuring. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

$400 for custom brake shoes? You sir, are a hero to the downtrodden...

*runs off to google carbotech brakes*

Oh good, now I know who I need to call next time I want to race an 80s Dodge dually.

Recon1342 said:

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

$400 for custom brake shoes? You sir, are a hero to the downtrodden...

 

*runs off to google carbotech brakes*

Completely idiotic, and I know that. Carbotech is awesome though.

In reply to Daylan C :

I've talked to crusty old car guys and I've heard things like "send the shoes out to get relined" and always thought that was crusty old car guy witchcraft, which is the other half of why I did this. It's kind of fun. Now I'm thinking about things like doing One Lap in a Model A, or a '38 Dodge or something completely weird. I've got the brakes locked down. It's cool. 

On a similar topic....a trick used by ???? was to drill holes in the backing plate for cooling. Don't know if this is 'legal' in the classes you're pursuing..... RWD Chevettes ROCK!!!! 

I have installed larger drum brakes many times in my life to improve braking. Can't say i've ever even thought about putting better linings in the ones i had.. I like drums just fine, since i've never actually overheated any. I'll be curious to see if you run into any issues on track that make you pine for discs, but i seriously doubt it. I'm in it for the learning so whatever happens that teaches me something i didn't already know is the best thing i can hope for. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

Those cars are time attack cars. 

Here's a V6 one.

http://globaltimeattack.com/project-import/

Idk if that link works because I'm on my phone lol. 

(Edit: Sleepy posted it)

Woody said:

Did the TSX get the LSD?

I think the Type S did. I THINK....

Carbotech is awesome and I have been using their pads in my track cars since 2012.

They were noisy on the street but brake pad springs to pull them back as the Malibu is only a one piston system really helped with noise on street.

Watch the heat with them as if they get too hot they wear quick, usually happens when i'm past 50% usage. 

The rears last like 5 times longer then the fronts but thats with stock springs.