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| END OF PROJECT.
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Well, it
has been a great last week of my WISE project, It was quite busy but quite well
worth it. On my trip to Cal Poly Pomona, another life lesson popped up again.
Drive defensively. A lot of the truck drivers I passed were not paying
attention on highway 5, a lot of them either reading books or some falling
asleep on the wheel. Most truckers trying to pass each other caused random “slow-downs”
which was very dangerous at some times. On the way back, after climbing the
grapevine, there was a huge pipe about a whole car lane wide which almost
caused an accident. Although drivers may think they are safe, its not all about
you, your surroundings may be dangerous, so drive cautiously.
On Tuesday,
I got my new Yokohama AVS ES100 tires mounted. Running the wider 205mm tire
really made a difference of planting the car to the car to the floor during
launches. As people may think 10mm may not be much to make a difference, each
mm adds to the total surface area that catches the ground.
I also
stripped my whole interior for Wednesday’s drag, to cut off around 100lbs from
the interior.
On Wednesday
I brought my car to the drag strip at Infineon Raceway one last time. This will
prove if this whole car has been improved in the performance field, and or my
driving skills.
Run 1, I pulled
a 15.986, against a Camaro 327 block, which ran a 15.646. I was really happy
that I was not that much slower than a muscle car, but I felt my new tires
could be taken a whole level higher while launching. Feathering the clutch at 2500rpm, the tires
caught right away with a reaction time of .350 sec. It was really hot when I ran
this first run, the time slip says 87 degrees.
Run 2, was
quite embarrassing. Almost a perfect reaction time, I actually false started
.040 before the green light. As I pulled a perfect launch at 4500rpm, the cars
power jumped right to VTEC screaming through first gear. I was quite nervous,
my hands were sweating, I slipped into 2nd gear TWO times. Yes, embarrassing,
two times, consecutively. Horrible run ended at a 17.509 quarter mile. Still it
was quite hot at 78 degrees.
Finally it
cooled down, and I was able check my tire pressure. Apparently the technician
who mounted and balanced my new tires put in 36psi in each tire. 36 psi of air
is pretty firm for a low speed grip, higher the psi is better for a high speed
stability. I began to lower the front tires tire pressure to 27 psi. Since me
and my friends from Acalanes arrived pretty late, we only ran 2 practice runs
and then forced to dial in. A dial in time is your qualifying time, if you meet
your own time, you bump up to the next round of qualifying. I decided to push
my goals to a 15.9. As it was time to run, it finally cooled down to 69
degrees. This time I had my fingers bolted down to the shift knob, so I would
not slip into 2nd gear. Launching the car at 4000rpm, I pulled an
amazing .046 reaction time, and a quarter mile finishing at 15.901! only .001
away from my dial in time! I could have not guessed better. I was then bumped
up to the next qualifying stage, but I decided to leave because it was getting
pretty late.
Although my
car ran a 15.72 second quarter mile stock, I would think that after all these
modifications that it would run faster. I am not upset, because I am now
slower, but I actually improved my reaction time by over ½ a second. When I started
the Wise program, I was getting .6XX second reaction times, and now hitting
.04XX and lower!
Sorry I can not get pictures up at this moment, Photobucket
is currently having “scheduled maintence”
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| So lately I’ve just been trying to think of creative ideas for my Wise presentation. I’m pretty sure I will create a power point presentation and bring in some items/and props from my project. I went to Mr. Henderson for some advice on how he’d like the presentation to go. He said the best way is to go chronologically, explain details, elaborate my experiences and challenges, and leave some time for question and answers.
On Friday night, after hanging out with friends I went down to the Concord drags just to explore the night racing scene one more time. As I did not expect, when I drove into the parking lot 6 Civic Si EP3 hatchbacks were just parked! I recognized some of them, one was Omar’s, Eric’s and Aaron’s. Aaron Paule is the guy who sold me rear sway bar. He’s also sponsored by Weapon R and Progress Suspension, so he gives me tips here and there for my car. I haven’t seen Eric in about a month, but this time he was back with a turbocharger kit in his civic EP3. Me and Aaron jumped into a car for a ride, and lets just say…that turbo PULLS. Using a stock Greddy Turbocharger kit which is 50-state CARB legal and smog legal, the car boosted at around 4,000rpm and I really felt a performance increase. As many people call the EP3 civics “slow eggs” or “slow slug” Eric’s car really gave me hope into my car. $2600 down the road, now his car can run swift high 13 low 14 second ¼ miles. The whole meet, drove down to Port Costa, we watched 2- turbo RSX’s run, a Mr2 and a few mustangs. There were at least 40 cars there, I just sat and watched.
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| After a 4 day trip down to Southern California, I learned a lot about professional racing off of RC racing. It is quite similar. To be a pro, you must have a huge support team behind you. Without support where can you go? In RC racing, you would think that you would only need to carry your little car and fuel and a few parts around. That’s not true. All the sponsored guys have huge trailers carry backup cars, radios, engines, everything you could think of. They even bring a few pit guys just for backup.
I see many teenagers my age, almost gone pro, like Jared Tebo, Mike Sherwin, and Tyler Vik. They all have their parents with them every time, as their pit man. They have support behind them all the way. They are most likely loaded with money, because I see them at national races, they show up with new fancy RV’s and all new equipment.
Ive done some intensive research on brakes. On the stock OEM Honda brakes on this car, the slotted and drilled rotors do not really help in stopping distance. The main purpose is to cool the brakes down from high temperatures, by letting hot gasses flow through the holes. The only real way to stop the car faster is to use a larger rotor, and a brake caliper that has variable pistons. Mine only has one piston, pretty typical for an everyday car. Sports cars can consist from 2 piston calipers all the way up to 8 piston calipers. More pressure applied on the brake pad will stop the rotor from spinning. Imagine if there was a truck you would have to push up a hill. Wouldn’t it be easier to have more than 1 person to push it up the hill? Same idea.
One thing that can really help braking performance is changing the brake lines. Since the stock brake lines are rubber, under pressure the brake lines can widen or get “fat” on its sides. Stainless steel braided brake lines have a thicker wall, and as we all know metals flex less than rubbers. I sketched a picture on Microsoft paint to show the comparison. #1 shows a rubber brake line under no pressure, #2 shows a rubber brake line under heavy braking.
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This week has been ridiculously crazy for me. I’m trying to put my
car back together as fast as I can. I realized that this project is no
where from being completed. It was a great challenge to face, but what
really held me down was delay of parts, and what happened at the
beginning of the WISE program.
Waiting around for a month for the insurance company to clear up the
paper work, wait for the check, and shopping for a car in the mean
time.
By the time I bought my EP3 in mid march, I did a lot of
intensive research to find parts that would fit on this car. I realized
not much was out for this car. I spent a great deal of time doing drag
racing with the EP3 civic, when I first bought it, but drag racing
really faded on me. I ran a quick 15.72 ¼ mile, which was faster than
claimed for a stock car. I learned a lot about drag racing during the
month of March and April. How to launch, power shift, and how to read
out time slips. I met a quite of a lot of people who helped me in this
process, and id like to thank everyone out there.
When I realized there was a deal of money left over from the insurance
claim, I finished off the air flow system with Intake, Headers, and
Exhaust. It cost nearly $1,000 and did not do much. Just made it
louder, ricey and made me look like a fool. I really can’t say much
from looking at it, ill have to prove my parts by bringing it to the
track and comparing the ¼ mile times.
At the beginning of the
project, my goal was to join a autocross club, but my car was not
nearly ready. I soon played around with the suspension, brakes and
other suspension factors that would help me out. Even getting down to
tire pressure helped me grip the floor better. Installing the brakes
took a while, measuring and figuring out how they would fit, took a lot
of calculation.
I just realized my car is missing
a rear sway bar. A rear sway bar will help me keep the rear end intact
to the floor, keeping the center of gravity lower. I met up with a
friend of mine from EPhatch.com and he sold me his rear sway bar. I
bought it off of his 2004 EP3, which the sway bar is 1mm thicker for
stiffer turns. The install was quite easy, but finding the hardware to
bolt it on was a quite a mystery. I finally figured out it needed 4-
Flanged 8mm screws, and 2 flanged 10mm nuts. I had to make my own
bushings for the mounts with some rubber, which eventually worked out
great.
I put the sway bar reversed the first time around. Darn, Im dumb.
I’ve learned a lot, just from this whole semester. I
set my goals way too high. Car modification takes a lot of time and
research. It’s a big mistake when things are rushed; eventually I’ll
have to go back and re assemble the conflict. A lot of these parts take
time to install. I still haven’t reached my goals to install the rear
brake rotors, all4 brake pads, sound system, alarm system, tires,
shocks and strut bars. Not only time, but money is a great factor. This
past week I worked 42 hours just to pay off some parts I needed. I
don’t mind working longer hours, I usually work 30-35hr weeks on a
normal week.
I finally bought some emblems back, installing the
rear emblem was an ease, but for the fronts I will need to take off the
front bumper and grill and do some drilling. I’ll have to think about
this one, I don’t want to mess up my front bumper. I also got around
changing the spark plugs. The stock spark plugs were pretty old, so I
went with some newer Bosch Platinum 4+ spark plugs. Honda made this
process an ease, since my spark plug wires are all lined up on a rail.
Used NGK R's left, New on left.
The stock handbrake on this car is horrible, my car has slid a few
times on slopes due to bad setup. I finally got around to it and
tightened it up, its quite hard to find the right spot to tighten it,
if you tighten it too much your brake pads will drag on your rotors.
I find that mechanic work really is not my type of job that I would
like. Mechanics make around $35-40k a year, not much for the deal of
work that they have to go through. It’s the owner who makes all the
money. For example , my boss Kevin owns a mechanic shop, labor is $89
an hr plus parts. Mr. Henderson told me his car needed to be serviced
after it broke down last week, I would have given him a helping hand if
he would have not already given the “OK” to the dealership. Dealerships
can charge up to $100 an hour for simple labor, just because they
specialize and are certified. Mr. Henderson told me his 90k milage
maintenance was around $1,400 (???) which I think is outrageous. Brake
rotors, timing belts, brake pads, spark plugs, filters, and such don’t
cost much. I find that aftermarket parts cost less than factory OEM
parts sometimes.
I will be gone for the
rest of the week, my RC sponsor is sending me down to Southern
California for a national race, like the one I went down in February.
Hopefully ill see or meet some cool car tuners down there.
Went driving around with my dad today, took some pics at a lookout point
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