Learn me: Easiness to setup a Honda Civic as Track Car

I am wanting to buy/build a dedicated track/fun driver someday... I keep finding actual running and driving mid 90s Honda Civics for just a few hundred dollars. I keep buying projects that are crazy expensive to build in comparison so this time I want something that is considered cheap and fun to build.

So what would it take and how much money am I looking at to build a lets say 1995 Honda Civic EX coupe? I am looking for something that runs but could look like ass due to me wanting to learn body/paint work as well. I can find better motors to possibly swap into the car to make it faster over time for less than $500. I am thinking less than $2k including buying a car I could have something quite fun to drive and be relatively fast on the track. Any Honda owners want to add input???

Very easy, those are cheap to run, have plenty of potential, and nothing from the factory that needs to be fixed before doing some laps.

The d16z6 from those make good power. Used them in my crx, but kept popping them for some reason. The civic should be good enough for a track car.

Look for non rusty and non riced, beat on it stock for a while.

Easy to turn into track cars. See if any forum members live near you and wouldn't mind letting you wrench at their place since.

The $500 Honda cars that I have found are riced beyond recognition, food cans holding the exhaust, huge mufflers duct taped, it always takes way more money that it is worth to get something like that running on the track. I would spend the $2k buying the car rather then fixing.

It might e worthwhile to talk to the local NASA Honda Challenge dir or some of your local Honda racers. I know down here in the SE NASA has a pretty strong following for Honda track cars. The 89 Civic I have could easily be replicated for less than 3k with careful shopping and wrenching. To echo what others said yes they can be built cheap and are plenty of fun on track.

All of the Honda guys tell me that the regular (non Si) cars don't have baffled pans and that is the primary source of dead engines.
My 91 came already set up, but there's nothing even remotely complicated about it. Get it as low as you can stand, appropriate shocks for the spring rate, bits and baubles to correct alignment if needed (and they work fine even on the street with 3+ degrees of camber as long as you get toe sorted) Put a HUGE sway bar on the rear. And.....that's about it.

mazdeuce pretty much covered it … cold air intake and a header is about all you need to do for the engine

One good but bad thing is, there are a lot of parts out there. A lot of knock offs, a lot of amazing quality parts. Some of the knock offs are good quality, while others are just as generic as they sound.

A friend of mine who's been helping me source parts for my GSR build (same thing you want to do, a over all fun car to drive that can be tracked easily), has given me some insight. A brand named TruHart and Blox are commonly the exact same as Skunk2. Sometimes only cosmetics are different.

And something I learned a long time ago about building Honda's (this is only the 2nd time I've gone Honda. The first was a 90 EX Hatch) is when it comes to electronics and engine internals, go with OEM Honda parts or high quality aftermarket. I learned the hard way with trying a cheap distributor for my old EX. It lasted about a week before I returned it and had to pony up for better one.

lots of folk complain about parts house distributors … but I've had excellent service from my O'Reilly's parts … I DO get the new as opposed to the re-maned … just a few $ more with the same lifetime warranty

YMMV

Depending on how far you go, you may need to close up the sunroof. That would have me avoiding an EX. I would be searching for a DX model anyway if it was heading for the track.

Don't automatically rule out a limited slip diff eventually. I autocrossed an 84 civic with one, and it handles great with it.

no on track speed potential in the platform at all

Don't worry about swaps. the d series makes as much torque as the b series. Don't bother with I/H/E, unless your opening the engine up. Honda engines have incredible volumetric Efficiency. Making it hard to improve unless boosted. (A HMT kit can be had from a yard for less than a grand. You'll put down a solid 160whp depending on boost. 7psi. No more.) Learn to solder well and you can hack your own p28 ecu and use CHROME. It's an ecu editing program. Literally, it's free megasquirt. Four doors have stiffer chassis. So look for a ferio civic. (That's what they call four door civics in Japan, I'm showing off here) a STD EF hatch is light, obviously the HF crx too. Hf tranny will be good for high speed tracks. Si tranny for short tight courses.

One of our LeMons cars is an '89 Civic Si...prior to that it was a Civic wagovan. The car is now a mash up of Civic and Integra parts, but it can corner with pretty much any other car on the track. Turn in is incredibly fast, it's super predictable and easy to control at the limits. I wish it had more power, but the handling and braking are amazing. It's also incredibly reliable. Sure, it breaks things, but all race cars do.

Even though the engine may be able to rev to 7500rpm, don't. We shift ours at 6200. The engine now has somewhere around 15-17 race weekends on it, which is after all the miles it had as a street car motor.

Do it, you'll love it.

Trackmouse wrote: Don't worry about swaps. the d series makes as much torque as the b series. Don't bother with I/H/E, unless your opening the engine up. Honda engines have incredible volumetric Efficiency. Making it hard to improve unless boosted. (A HMT kit can be had from a yard for less than a grand. You'll put down a solid 160whp depending on boost. 7psi. No more.) Learn to solder well and you can hack your own p28 ecu and use CHROME. It's an ecu editing program. Literally, it's free megasquirt. Four doors have stiffer chassis. So look for a ferio civic. (That's what they call four door civics in Japan, I'm showing off here) a STD EF hatch is light, obviously the HF crx too. Hf tranny will be good for high speed tracks. Si tranny for short tight courses.

gotta respectfully disagree with you … my B18 Integra LS (factory listing of ~ 140 hp at the crank) jumped to 131 at the wheels with header and CAI

my CRX Si (listed at 108 at the crank) is now 115 at the wheels with header and CAI

They're great cars, but might get run over in modern track day traffic. I don't even see many Miatas at track days any more. Seems like E36 M3s are the new Answer for an entry level trackday platform. Somebody really needs to start a smallbore / vintage run group.

Our crapcan car is an ex-Honda Challenge 95 Civic (although without any of the good bits on it.) It is a solid mid-pack car in those arenas. It's a great platform, easy to drive. We've popped a bunch of used D16s trying to not be cheaty, but the engine in the car now was a 'spare' from its race days. It was a junkyard engine in ~2000 and now has 200+ races and qualifying sessions and has never been opened.

I think if you're building a track toy out of that platform, a J32 swap would be potent. Set it up tight in the back. Turn in, lift, car rotates until you see your track-out vector and then just stomp the gas. Probably 70/30 weight balance, but you can work around that.

Sounds like the Civic is quite a popular platform! I have been finding anything from early 2000s to mid 1990s within price ranges I am considering... Right now is only a true planning stage because I still probably a year out of buying anything else... I used to be a snob against Hondas just because there were so many... They are honestly starting to grow on me :) Coming from a Subaru Impreza 2.5Rs that I used for track days; learning Front wheel drive on the track will be experience to say the least. I find performance parts all the time on craigslist for a really good price. I did find a 1996 Honda Civic EX for $1500 that was already prepped with Koni dampers and was used for track days! I wish I could have talked my wife into that car :)

But honestly I am not completely sold on the Honda Civic; I am also considering the Prelude, or a First or even third gen Mazda Protégé as I did own a '91 LX before. Are there any other platforms I should consider that are easy to get to the track with almost a zero budget? Are 2nd and 3rd gen Volkswagen Golf GTis decent when comes to prepping and maintaining as a track car? I ask this because I found a 1992 Golf GTi that runs well but has a rough body for only $400... Or even at one point I found a Ford Focus SVT for only $650 dollars that actually did run! I run with the Great Lakes Region of NASA so Mid-Ohio is my home track (living in Columbus, Ohio) and I really only plan on running with the HDPE groups...

captdownshift wrote: no on track speed potential in the platform at all

Also a testament to the strength of the car's gearbox.

If it's dedicated DE car, maybe shop used Lemons / Chump cars? Most that have been regularly raced are pretty well-developed. Even if you stay in the shallow end of the horsepower pool at HPDEs, it's going to be far easier and cheaper to get a car that is already prepped. Whatever you buy needs to be in excellent baseline condition as a matter of safety. You don't want something that is going to puke fluids on the line, cook it's brakes halfway through the first session, or toast balljoints and wheel bearings. It's no fun thrashing on a hot car in paddock when the rest of your group is out on track.

Or pick up a set of spare wheels/tires that fit the rental car of your choice?

With honda stick with double wishbone models and avoid the 7th gen civics which have too many issues with the suspension and aren't as solid in general.

Mk2 VWs aren't a bad platform, less theft factor, and there is good information out there on how to set it up.