May 10th, 2005 - 13:58pm

Back on the Civic front we had our first club Solo of 2005 this past weekend, I have to honestly say I really wasn't looking forward to it though. I just wasn't finding myself very worked up for competition this year. Add to that the event took place at a new lot an hour outside of town and the forecast was calling for torrential rain and cold. Motivational it wasn't. We dragged outselves out of bed at 6:30 though and met up with a convoy to make the trek up with a stop in the middle for breakfast. Stopping at an Irving Big Stop well earlier in the morning that I'm typically aware the world exists gave me major flashbacks to Targa Newfoundland. The drive as far as the restaurant was rather harrowing. I opted to stick to my street tires (Azenis RT-215s) partially out of laziness, partially apathy, partially wanting to save the R-compounds for when there was likely to be a full class. With the distance and weather I was expecting a pretty low turnout. Thankfully the weather improved the closer we go to Debert. By the time we got there the rain had almost stopped, though the high winds continued. I always enjoy events where I don't have to do car setup/change tires before hand. I really hate the process first thing in the morning, especially when I'd rather be relaxing and getting ready for my run. This was doubly the case in the wet and cold. I'm such a baby. :)

The lot is part of the Debert Airfrield, specifically belonging to the Orenda Aerospace company. Its a little rough but has a good sized usable surface of hard concrete. Probably a bit bigger area-wise than our regular Home Depot haunt. There's a fair number of ruts and potholes that need to be worked around but overall the course that was setup was a good distance with some good challenges, specifically a bus-stop into a TIGHT left turn which opened into a decreasing-interval slalom that was quite challenging. Throw in some sweepers and offset gates and you had a fun course that wasn't too fast for the conditions, although I did manage to do a complete 180 in my third run. I ended the day a little lower in the overall standings than I usually do, placing 16 out of 28, but it was good enough for a class win in DSP which I'm happy with, granted this was more due to a lack of attendance by the stiff DSP competition. I'll take the 20 points though. :)

Another new facet of this event was runnning in two-run heats which I was a little leery of at first. The cars were broken up into two run groups which would do two runs a piece. The first big advantage of this format was the separation of myself and Daph's runs making for much less rushing-stress. Another aspect I found I quite liked was the fact that you did a run and then simply queued at the end of the line for your next one. I used this time to decompress after my first run, which was rather miserable and prepare for my next which went much better. This was pretty much the same for the second heat where my firt run I missed a gate and over-corrected, ending up spinning and stalling the car. My last run of the day was much more on-par and I finished the day with a 54.xx plus 1 cone with FTD being in the 49.xx range. Overall I'm pretty happy with the way the car performed considering its still on the winter SIR-II struts which are mild at best and the Azenis tires which are good but not great. The Teins are currently in the hands of another club member with the ITR bushings being fixed in place with a crazy industrial expoxy that will hopefully do the job nicely.

Daph's day went pretty well too with a couple of off-courses in her early runs that were common among many competitors. She ended the day with a 59.xx plus one cone which she's pretty pleased with. She was definitely working the cobwebs out by the end of the day though it was her first event in the wet so that took some serious adjustment.

The next event is on May 22nd which we'll be missing while we're on vacation.

As for the Miata its really coming together now. I installed the KYB GR2's on a nice weekend several weeks ago and it immediately changed the car. Its still not smooth due to its lack of bracing that I'm in the process of correcting but it handles uneven road surfaces MUCH more pleasantly now. Installation wasn't too bad using Keith Tanner's Performance Handbook as a guide. It took 7.5 hours total thanks to a couple of impressively boneheaded mistakes on my part and taking it fairly slow. I also took the opportunity to remove the front 'baby teeth' towhooks cleaning up the front end. The ride height seems to have been unaffected which is a good thing. I also installed the Axxis Ultimate pads and Brembo Rotors that I received from TRAC Racing which made a pleasant difference. The Ultimates have very good cold bite and replacing the rotors got rid of the wobbling/wandering I was getting under braking before.

The OMP Quadro Racing wheel went on last week which was a semi-success. The OMP hub that I ordered was similar to the Momo hub which requires modification of the steering column to install. During this process I managed to sever the wires for the airbag and horn connections. This probably isn't a big deal for the airbag but I definitely miss the horn. I'll definitely have to find a corrective measure for this issue in the future. Particularly before my safety check. :) The wheel makes yet another big difference in the car, its a bit smaller than I was expecting but I've gotten quite used to it. It definitely enhances the 'go-kart' feel. I may still replace it with a nice proper leather Momo or Sparco down the line though, we'll see.

Lastly I had the OEM 1994 Resonated exhaust installed last week which improved things yet again. The former exhaust was physically intact but over the car's 15.5 year life the interior baffles had come loose leaving the exhaust loud and droning. Not obnoxiously so but definitely not ideal for cruise-driving. The 1994 exhaust has a pleasant low-end note thats very similar to the original but when opened up doesn't roar so much as purr. Its definitely a great tone and I'm very happy with it. I'm very glad I managed to get a hold of it.

Next modifications/additions for the car will be the Hella driving lights, rear subframe brace and hopefully some sort of front subframe brace, though what kind is still to be determined, I still might make my own. New tires are also in the cars future as the Kumho 712's I put on it were worn out when I first put them on in October, they're downright bald now. Bad Gord. :)

I still eventually plan to break all this Miata talk off into another page but in the meantime I wanted to add up what I've put into the Miata so far so I might as well do that here. I've been feeling pretty good about the deals and bargains I've found for the car so far and I'm vaguely curious to see what I've put into it so far. Lets see...

Installed:
1994 Resonated Exhaust: $50
BSP Window Protector: $25
Bosch Euro-spec H4 bulbs: $50
Frenzy TT Bar with windscreen: $300
KYB GR2 struts: $315
Dan Pendroza aluminium vent trim: $46
Moss Motors shift knob: $32
OMP Quadro Racing steering wheel: $145
OMP steering wheel hub: $85
Knobmeister visor plugs: $12
Brembo front rotors: $65
Axxis Ultimate front pads: $36
Total: $1161

Not installed:
Cannon-clone rear subframe brace: $86
Axxis Ultimate rear pads: $30
Hella Optilux 1500 driving lights: $35
Reverse Indiglo gauge faces: $85
Total: $236

So all in all not too bad considering the significant changes that I've added. The fact that I do 98% of the labor myself makes a big difference of course. The car is absolutely night and day from when it started though and its only going to get better. The next major purchase is likely to be a timing belt/oil seal/water pump kit so I can check out my keyway later this summer. That'll run another $350 for the parts and I'll do that job myself as well. The car is so nice to work on, I haven't run into a seized bolt yet. Excuse me, I have to go find some wood to knock on...

April 15th, 2005 - 12:09pm

I had half an entry written up here from about two months ago but I scrapped it. It was terribly written and I forget what I was going to put in to finish it anyway.

The Miata came out of storage on April 6th, that was kind of cool. I was expecting it to be there until later in the month. Having never stored a car before I wasn't paying attention to when the weather got decent. Unfortunately the warehouse where I store the car isn't going to be available anymore so I'll have to find a new spot. I've got a line on an unheated garage for a few bucks a month. We'll have to see.

Work has begun in bolting on some of the shiny bits to the car though, some of it is waiting for warmer weather still...

Dan Pendroza Aluminium gauge rings, Moss Motors shift knob. A new steering wheel is on its way.
Frenzy TT style bar and Brainstorm Performance window protector
Knobmeister visor delete plugs

Also gave the car a good wash last week. I'm going to do a thorough clay/polish/wax job in the next couple of weeks. Still to be installed are the rear subframe brace, 1994 OEM resonated exhaust, reverse-EL gauge faces, Hella Optilux 1500 driving lights, Yokohama AVS ES-100 tires, 2003 Protege CD player and last but definitely not least the KYB GR2 struts. The struts are sorely needed as the car bounces and heaves over every slight road imperfection. Its hard to really enjoy the car when you're afraid of every rut in the pavement. Hopefully they'll go in either this weekend or next. There's more odds and ends (Full brake replacement particularly) to be installed but this page is already starting to turn into a Miata diary. I should probably split it off into its own entry soon.

On the Civic front things have been fairly low key. Its quietly been rusting away through the winter as my daily driver. I suspect by last year I'm going to need to throw some fresh body work at it. I think the days of trying to keep it cosmetically appealing are over though. A shame really, I still love the car but its just a losing battle. Mechanically things have been better save for some minor hitches. Around early February I started noticing some clicking/grinding noises in low speed turns. I figured it was an axle going but I've never heard a bad one before so it took me a while before I was sure. New axles from Honda are ~$350 for the Drivers side and $260 for the passenger which is pretty pricy. With the type of abuse the Civic gets, especially with being lowered I don't really trust rebuilt axles so I went to Civic Pride (A local Honda junkyard scouring shop) with the intention of buying a pair of used OEM axles. The drivers side unit was easy enough to source at a reasonable price but the passenger side was going to be harder to source. In the meantime I swapped in the drivers side to discover it wasn't the one going bad. (Its nearly impossible to tell from inside the car as the sound resonates through the entire cabin) After another two weeks of waiting and calling I finally ended up settling for a rebuilt passenger side axle with the understanding that I keep my OEM one for rebuilding. I hope to have both rebuilt to proper OEM spec later. Hopefully the rebuild won't give me too many problems. One issue thats surfaced now however is some leaking transmission fluid which I noticed Wednesday. It appears the passenger side axle isn't quite fully seated. I'll have to deal with that this weekend.

The Teins have become problematic yet again. After pooching the bushings last year and then squeezing yet another year out of them (luckily without any further deterioration or damage) it was time to replace them. They APPEARED to be the same measurements as OEM Integra Type-R bushings however when I finally unseated them from the struts (which is just a miserable job I must say) it turns out the OEM ITR bushings are 1 3/8" in diameter while the strut shackle is 1.5". *sigh* Another contact with Tein confirms that they don't sell the bushings to the end user at all insisting that they be sent to them for a $170/ea overall. No thanks. I'm currently investigating using some 1/8" metal sheeting as a sleeve for the bushings to rest in. It should be dooable I hope, otherwise its solo on the SIR-II suspension and/or the Miata I guess. Good thing my race rims fit on both cars.

Which brings us to motorsports. My current goal for the cars is to run this season as the Civic's last for competition. That gives me a year to sort out the Miata and give the old hatch a good sendoff, hopefully with a good DSP placement. Most of that is just going to be from attendance, none of this missing 4 events in a year like I've done for the last two. The season starts off on May 10th and we'll see how things go from there. Daph will probably continue running the Civic as well so it'll get its workout. I'll probably stop offering rides out except in specific circumstances though. Its just too hard/busy a day to run 3 drivers.

So there we are, now that the season is close I'll probably try and update a bit more often. There's a lot of things on my plate for this year including some work with ASCC on the club's 50th anniversary. Several club members and myself are trying to put together an archive of materials for a club DVD and possibly web site refresh. Ought to be an interesting challenge.

January 1st, 2005 - 6:04pm

I should have my eBay privledges taken away from me. That is all.

Oh yeah, Happy New year. :)

November 29th, 2004 - 1:10pm

Okay, so later really was later. :)

So where was I...

October 8th I went a bit off my rocker and bought another car. Someone I know from ASCC knew someone who had recently brought up a 1990 Miata from Georgia and was planning to sell it. The price was certainly reasonable for around here and the car sounded to be in decent shape so after some major phone tag (I was actually working on this from early September) I finally got a chance to have a look at the car and take it for a test drive. Its not the dream Miata I've always wanted but the condition seemed to be fairly decent. It had a few warts but the car had never seen salt which was a big selling point to me. I can deal with most mechanical repairs but rust is a deal breaker. On quick inspection it appeared to need a new steering wheel (Cracked and peeled leather), brake pads/rotors and probably a new muffler. Unfortunately I later learned that the exhausts on 90-97 Miatas is actually a single piece from the cat-back so this was starting to look a bit more painful but luckily I hooked up with a Miata owner in New Brunswick who was selling his lightly used OEM exhaust for $50. Cha-ching! Although I really wanted a 94-97 Miata with all of its revised bracing, 1.8L engine and bigger brakes the reality was I simply wasn't going to find one for under $10k unless I waited another 5 years. When all is said and done the price on the 1990 was good but not outstanding and the car was in reasonable enough condition that I went ahead and bought it.

Of course buying a convertible in October is always a bit of a pain. Over the next weeks the weather wasn't exactly cooperative with temperatures averaging in the single digits. Some more mechanical issues appeared that had to be dealt with. First and firemost oil leaks around the valve cover and Cam Angle Sensor assembly. I was aware of these beforehand though and they are common problems on Miatas of all generations, and quite easily fixed to boot. A $30 gasket and some wrench time later and the problem is all fixed. Other issues that cropped up are some issues with cold starts that could be several different things. The car is now in storage though so they'll have to wait until spring for debugging,

My plans for it are to keep the car 90% stock. I'm really tired of the inherant paranoia that goes along with a modified car. Between worrying about insurance, worrying about breakins (A particular concern in a convertible), worrying about questionable aftermarket parts, the rough ride of a stiff suspension... I just want a car I can drive and enjoy. So my planned upgrade list is pretty simple. Some chassis stiffening through subframe braces (Which became standard on all Miatas a few years into their production) and a 'style-bar' (Think roll bar without any real rollover protection) as well as some fresh OEM-equivalent struts and fresh brakes. Once I get the cold-start gremlins worked out I think I'll be pretty happy with the car.

So anyways, in other news Daph and I participated in our second rally in mid-October. This time a smaller non-Regional rally run by Bluenoese Autosport called the CD-Rally which involved some of the same roads as our previous outing. We were a bit more sure-footed this time with only one major mistake that cost us fairly big. We ended up coming 3rd in Novice out of 4 with one team dropping out. Not stellar but we ended up scoring a better time than the 3rd place expired crew. Once we get more rallies in and stop making the big obvious mistakes I think we'll be better. Its fun regardless. I picked up a front skidplate and differential protector for the Impreza which we'll install in the spring to give us a little more piece of mind when doing some of the crazy back roads excursions.

We also competed in the last Solo of the year at Home Depot. Another 3 driver event with a friend from Wired Motorsports visiting and abusing the poor Civic. This was yet another event where I really wasn't in my groove. I don't recall the blow-by-blow specifics at this point since it was over a month ago but my performance was not amazing. I'm not blaming the hardware but I think this is the last time I'll allow the car to go with 3 drivers. Its just too hard on the vehicle, too rushed between runs and I just never seem to be able to get myself centered. Daph did okay but I don't think either of us will remember this event fondly.

So we're now well into the colder season. We had our first major snow on November 14th, luckily after I'd already removed the Teins from the Civic and mounted the snow tires. Phew. So thats about it. Winter/spring plans mostly involve picking up odds and ends for the Miata for when it comes out of hibernation. The Civic is pretty much as far along as I plan to take it unless I go completely off the deep end and race-prep it, which isn't something I can see happening in the near future.

November 3rd, 2004 - 5:16pm

End of season update!

Another motorsports season over. There were a couple more not-too exciting autocross events later in the year. I just really lost my drive this season for some reason. While I still had fun and enjoyed myself there wasn't the same fire I used to have... Hopefully thats something that will be back next year.

The next Club event scheduled after my last post took place on September 12th. We weren't there however because Daph and I were in Newfoundland, volounteering as part of one of the timing crews for the 2005 Targa Newfoundland Tarmac Rally. What an experience that was. After many false starts and frustration in making arrangements with the organizers we finally got everything set in stone and off we went. The event is a full week of various competition stages run by competitor teams from all over the world. We spent most of the week managing the Arrival Time Control (ATC) station which generally involved a lot of grumpy drivers who didn't quite understand the rules structure. Made for some entertaining stages. Later in the week Daph abandoned me and worked the flying finish where she got to see the cars in full competition mode. Lots of pictures can be found on my cars photo page.

Upon our eventual return to Nova Scotia (Delayed due to dying hurricanes which caused ferry cancellations and an unplanned 1000km trek across Newfoundland) we had just gotten settled when it was time to give rallying a try ourselves. We picked a great event to start off with, the Cobequid Confusion rally run by the Bluenose Autosport Club. This was a TSD (Time Speed Distance) rally which essentially works like the Touring class of the Targa Newfoundland. One minute before you leave you're given a book of directions represented in various creative ways. Those directions are given with average speeds and sometimes travel times that are your targets. When you come across unannounced checkpoints your time is checked against your target and penalties are assigned for every minute early or late you arrive. With Daph driving and myself navigating we had a great time at this event although it was definitely a challenge. Being a regional event it was about twice as long as the typical rally for the area. Pushing 400kms of mostly dirt and gravel roads. When the smoke and gravel dust cleared we ended up 4th out of 7 in the novice classes. Not too bad. Most of our lateness was due to one really bad direction miss that took us a while to get sorted around. Beyond the maximum late time of 30 minutes actually. (And some bloodpressure issues with myself. Gotta work on that.) Without that we would have done quite well. We definitely plan to (And have) keep up with these events.

October 2nd came around and our second last club autocross of the year with it. This would mark my first return (driving anyway) to Atlantic Motorsport Park in over a year, even though after the last time I said I would make it out as much as possible. D'ooh! This event was what our club likes to call a Solo 1.5, a very fast autocross course laid out on the track. Due to the nature of the layout and available pavement its pretty much just creative slaloming with stretches oh high speed in between. Definitely an event that rewards a good driver and cars with good brakes. Good brakes as it runs out are something the Civic was definitely lacking in. The car didn't feel right all day and Daph and I were both increasingly frustrated. Two factors that really didn't help with our runs, firstly the braking system just not being up to the task of back to back runs on a very high speed course. The event was run in two heats such that there was maybe 5 minutes between Daphs run and mine and then less than 10 before she was back out again. The brakes got progressively worse with each lap and when I was in the car such a short time after her they were practically non-existent, as evidenced by my first run where I ended up 30' on the wrong side of the stop box. The situation didn't improve as the day went on and they were punished more and more. The second factor, and one that makes me the most angry at myself, was one that I didn't notice until packing the car up at the end of the day. When setting the stiffness on my Teins I inadvertantly set the rear struts to full soft. ARGH! I knew the car didn't feel right all day but I'm not familliar enough with the suspension yet to really know if its just the difference courses or not. And with our runs so close together I didn't have time to adjust anything at all throughout the day. Oh well, we won't talk about the results from that event. :)

Got sidetracked, I'll finish up the entry later

August 24th, 2004 - 4:27pm

Mid season update!

I haven't been updating this page as much this season. (Obviously!) Not sure why. Changes of focus I guess. At any rate I've dome some pretty significant changes to the car and had a pretty good season so far which I'll summarize.

My first event of 2004 was on July 1st. ASCC's annual Canada Day event. This event is held at a Walmart lot we can't typically use at any other time of the year. Its a fairly large and open area that usually makes for very fast courses. I missed the event last year so I was looking forward to running it this time around. I didn't do too badly overall, I ended up 6th out of 9 in DSP class and 36 out of 64 overall. Better than my previous years rusty starts. At this point I was running on my SiR-II struts, GSR sway bar and old BFG R1 R-Compounds.

Daph ran this event also for the first time in her new 2002 Impreza 2.5 TS which is a much better car than her previous 97 Impreza. It handles much better and she had better tires to work with. She came in 8th out of 9 in HS but she looked like she was definitely showing signs of being a lot more aggressive on-course.

Event #2 for us this year was July 11th at Leon's Furniture. Typically I really don't like this lot, usually because we use it for the first few events of every year (Which I missed this year) and I do terribly. This time that wasn't the case though. One thing working strongly in my favor was I decided to give the Teins another shot and I'm glad I did. The perches weren't nearly as bad as I thought and with some proper motivation I got all 4 to seat properly, this time on the TOPMOST perch. :) The car sits comfortably now with about a 2" drop, of course I forgot to measure before and after. I used this event as a test of sorts to feel how the new setup, I started off with the struts set about halfway stiff front and rear and worked my way up to almost full stiff at the rear and half stiff at the front. The car felt very good around this particularly challenging course layout. Since Leon's is such a small lot we typically always have some form of figure-eight design, this time however there was a skidpad in the middle that had to be navigated on the way out before the turnaround. It was quite challenging to accomplish and would have been particularly difficult with my softer SiR-II struts. The Tein's handled the job quite nicely though and I ended up 4th out of 6th in DSP and 19 out of 36 overall. If I'd had the time in with the struts then that I do now I'm sure I would have increased that several notches.

Daph ran this event as well and came in with a 2nd out of 2 in HS and 36th placement overall, but her performance relative to the fastest time of the day improved.

Event #3 was the big one, Slalom at Slemon. Last year at Slemon I had a pretty frustrating event fighting with a car that had bad suspension, bad brakes, bad tires, bad bushings and co-driving with someone who was vastly better than I am. It lead to a less than pleasant overall experience. This year all of that was resolved and while I didn't rock the casbah in overall placement I had a really good time.

Of special note for this event I finally got my tire situation straightened around! Thanks in absolutely no small part to Steve Quigley of Valley Tire who really saved my bacon. He got all four tires mounted up and ready to go just when I'd almost given up hope of ever getting use from them! Huge thanks!

Day 'Zero' of the weekend started off with a Nova Scotia -> PEI convoy of about 7 or 8 cars. Its quite a pleasant drive through western Nova Scotia, Northern New Brunswick and across the Confederation Bridge really, even when you have to get up at 7 in the morning to do it. :) When we arrived at Slemon Park we found the usual Test and Tune day waiting for us. A short 30 second (or less) course involving a slalom, a sweeping turn and some offset gates. I used this time as much as I could to get a feel for the Teins and the new R-Compounds, eventually finding the best balance from the Tein's appeared to be 10-12 clicks soft on the front and full firm on the rear and the tires somewhere around 38psi cold. Over the course of the afternoon I worked my times on the short course down from 36 seconds to just over 31.

Day 1 started the main-event. Extremely strong winds made the course difficult to marshal as cones were blowing over and sometimes even away. Marshalling required a very keen eye and lots of running to keep the course laid out as it should be, lots of re-runs were in store. 9 competitors showed up for DSP class making it the largest of the event. The competition was way out of my league as usual but made doubly so with the attendance of Mike Shields and his impeccably setup BMW 328i and Mell Walsh in a fully prepped Neon ACR. The battle ended up between myself, Steve Manley in his 2000 Prelude and Mitch Doucet and his 98 Tiburon. My runs generally felt good with only one wasted to a bad off-course inducing mistake. The car was feeling very good, however. The A032RSes were providing wonderful grip and I didn't find their limits even by the end of the day, the Teins completely transformed the car and even allowed me to start trail braking, a first for me. When all was said and done I had my time worked down to a 104.281 after consistent 2-3 second improvements each run. Unfortunately Steve Manley through the forces of nature and... other causes got two additional runs, the last one netting him a final time of 103.928 leaving me with a 6th out of 9 placement for the day.

Day 2 would turn out to be less fun from a competition standpoint. Less wind but lots of cloud and promise of rain for the day. The first run group got away more or less unscathed but the second group, ours of course, got intermittently rained on. To make matters worse the strip had been sprayed down just days before with defoliant which seeped out of the concrete and made conditions very slippery. My best time ended up being a 104.872 plus a cone which was only good enough for 6th out of the 7 competitors for day 2. Oh well... at the end of the day fun-runs were available which I took advantage of, by this point the sun was out and the tarmac was dry and my runs felt great. Unfortunately they weren't timed and I have no idea what kind of times I was running.

So that brings us to August which didn't turn out to be the best of months for the aging Civic. Event #4 was scheduled for August 8th, the weekend after Slemon. This was to be our first event at Home Depot and I was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately the Civic had other plans and as Thursday came along the distributor bearing decided it was dime to give up the ghost. So most of Friday was spent running around trying to locate a new distributor to have the car ready for Sunday which I did with the help of a local Honda junker. With that installed and ready to go the event was promptly cancelled Friday night due to the Home Depot Garden Centre being open later into the season than usual. D'ooh! The event was to be held the following weekend instead. Well, at least the distributor is fixed, right? Well, Wednesday night I'm driving down the road and that oh so wonderful sickly sweet smell of burning coolant comes wafting through the air vents. To be fair the top of my rad has been leaking slightly for about 6 months now, but it decided the distributor had the right idea and decided it was time for the great landfill in the sky. Augh! You'd think the car didn't want me to abuse it! More running around, another $200 and another emergency Saturday repair. If the event was cancelled this time you would have heard me cursing no matter where you're reading this from.

Luckily Event #4 eventually arrived. This was a pretty standard event, nothing spectacular although the attendance was quite low due to a scheduling conflict with a lapping day at Atlantic Motorsport Park. The course was a bit on the challenging side with a confusion box in the middle that you went through multiple times in different directions. Luckily I seemed to have the course fairly well laid out in my head and I didn't get lost. I ended the day in 4th of 6 DSP entrants and a becoming-typical 13th out of 27 overall. Nearly dead middle of the times. My position relative to FTD seems to be continually improving, however.

Big news for this event is that Daph decided to give the Civic a try. While her new Impreza is a marked improvement over the old she still felt the car was quite a handful and she was interested in trying it out. By the end of the day her driving was becoming much more aggressive and her time relative to FTD improved remarkably by almost 8%. By the end of the day she was 6th out of 6 in DSP and 26 of 27 overall but for her first time ever driving the car hard her times were very impressive.

No rest for the wicked, Event #5 was the following weekend. This was a regional event so attendance was relatively high with 42 drivers. Once again at Home Depot but this time the course was laid out by Nick Laramie and Kevin Partridge in somewhat protest to the highly technical courses we've become used to. As such the layout was very simple and very fast and flowing with a back stretch that had cars in the 80+km/h range and fast sweeping turns. The day would be run in heats and we drew final runs which meant we had to work first. Generally I find that to be a good thing as I get to watch the course closely, spot where people are having problems and generally just get a better feel for things. Times for the first heat appeared to be around the 60 second mark with the fastest drivers just dipping below. My personal goal for the day was to get 60 seconds.

Because of the heat-layout we were really hopping when our runs came up. Daph was once again driving the Civic and I also loaned a drive to Dave English, a driver who commonly set FTDs in his Supercharged Corvette in previous seasons. This probably wasn't the best of ideas, however as the punishment to the car was rather severe. As soon as your run was done you cycled around and the next person was up. The Civic was literally not turned off from the first run to the last.

While the layout was simple the open nature of the course and the high speed/hard braking sections made it a course of courage and faith in your vehicle. Something I'm still working on. On my first run I was feeling okay but got lost in a particularly bad spot for cone visibility resulting in an off course. I knew it right away and didn't bother to collect my time at the end. My second run felt much better and I pulled in with a 61.208 only to be told I went off course AGAIN! I had no idea I'd done it at the time. My goal quickly shifted from getting into the 60.xx range to just getting a clean run PERIOD! My third came up and I was taking it a bit easier than I probably could have to make sure I did everything right resulting in a 62.218 and my fourth run was a bit wild now that I had a clean time at 63.088. Oh well, not my best day. On a later fun run I did a 61.xxx with Daph as a passenger and a screw up early in the run so I think there was a 60.xxx in me, I just had to keep it together to extract it.

Dave English provided valuable feedback on the car, his goal was in the 58 second range but his runs endded up 60.448, 60.608, 59.050 and 58.814 + 1 cone. His 58 was had but at the price of a pylon. D'ooh! Dave figures the car would top out in the 57 second range with a perfect run. Not too bad.

Daph did spectacularly at this event. Her times showed consistent improvement yet again with a first run of 70.960. After her first run she set a goal for the day of 67.xxx which she soundly beat on her second run with a 67.581. Her third run unfortunately ended rather spectacularly with some twitchiness on the way to the stop box resulting in 3 cones worth of penalty and a total time of 66.124. Subtract the cones howeever and that 66 run was yet another improvement. On her last run she really showed she's learning to wrangle the car with a great run of 65.979. This put her 9th of 9 in DSP but an overall placement of 38th of 42 total drivers. She's going to be beating me in no time.

So that about wraps it up so far. The next event isn't until September 12th and we'll likely miss that one. Daph and I are supposedly helping out with marshalling at the Targa Newfoundland Rally that week although thats looking marginally questionable due to the disorganization of their voulounteer services. After that there's only a Solo event at AMP on October 2nd and a last hurrah at Home Depot on October 10th. Winter comes too soon.

Phew, hope thats enough of an update for you! :)

June 29th, 2004 - 2:53pm

So, time for my first real update of the year.

I've started off rather slowly this year. I haven't been to an event yet for several reasons. First and foremost my car hasn't been up to the task. Its main issue has been TOTALLY shot bushings in my front lower control arms. They didn't give me any problems on the street amazingly, but they were definitely shot. I bought a pair of used Integra arms from a local junker and took far too long in installing them. My paranoia about doing jobs that I've never done before carries through and I wanted to get someone who knew what they were doing to give me a hand. We did one side a few weeks ago and after that the other was a breeze. (Having access to air tools for the second arm didn't hurt at all.:) ) Also replaced at that time was the drivers side lower ball joint. I'm still driving on the JDM SiR-II struts that I picked up last fall. The Teins are sitting in the basement collecting dust. I'm really weary about using them after the abuse they took on the car last October. I'm not 100% sure they're up to the task and I don't want to find out the hard way that they're not. Just having a fresh OEM-quality suspension makes a world of difference though. In the meantime I've also installed the GSR Rear sway bar and new brake rotors and pads as well as a new brake master cylinder. Finally I can stop again! The car feels completely different! I still have the rears to do once I source rotors but thats just about it.

When I installed the front brakes and rotors I did up a simple DIY page to show how simple a job it is. I hear people all the time taking their cars to garages and paying hundreds and hundreds of dollars for something that can be done in their driveway for $150 in parts. Its one of the easiest things to do on a car and one of the most overcharged things at shops.

My last few months have been a total ordeal of rims and tires for various reasons. Last fall I picked up a cheap set of 14x6 rims for use with some new Yokohama A032R-Soft tires that I bought. Over the spring I cleaned them up and painted them a nice blingy gunmetal. I still have to throw a couple layers of clear coat on to keep the brake dust out but they don't look half bad. The Yokohamas have been an INCREDIBLE ordeal to aquire that took over a month to receive and is still ongoing after three months as far as payment goes. But they're here and I have fresh tires to run on!

I may not have run the first few events of the year, but I attended a few of them for photos and video. There was a busy season opener at Leons with a bunch of new faces. A wet and cold followup and a third event, also at Leons that I missed due to prior engagement. Also a very underattended lapping session at Atlantic Motorsport Park that a lucky few drivers had loads of fun with.

This thursday will mark the beginning of my season with the annual Canada Day event at Penhorn mall. I didn't run this event last year for no good reason other than I didn't feel like it so this will be my first time there. Last year it was a very hot and fast course, we'll see how the moderately freshened Civic performs.

In other news my wife bought herself a shiny new (to her) 2002 Subura Impreza 2.5TS which is a much nicer car than her previous 1997 Impreza Brighton. The engine is much nicer and the handling is night and day. I'm hoping she has a lot more fun with it if she decides to autocross this year. Its certainly a much more capable vehicle.

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