OMG! We made the first event

I'm sure I've forgotten some bits that I may come back to add in later, but many many thanks to Jason and Daniel for all the hard work to get the car ready in time to run on the first event. Many thanks to our sponsors for coming through in the short time with parts to help us be ready in time too.

It's been a few days since I've last updated the blog, so let me start with the meeting we had earlier in the week. This is what I brought to Jason. My car was full! I found a set of unused Azenis 215's, which have been discontinued, so I bought them and brought them along for mounting. Many people said they couldn't be found anymore, but we managed to - thanks Craig.



The event was a blast. Not having had any experience with a car that has lots of settings that can be changed, I wanted to start full stiff on the RSB and soft on the shocks, but decided to listen to Dale and run medium on the RSB and soft on the shocks. I'm glad we did this instead.

Jason and I walked the course twice and we discussed lines, braking points and apexes. After watching others run, I'm convinced that we had a better line than many, especially coming in to the finish. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to watch Ken Motonishi run and his lines. I would have liked to see his lines.

Here are some pictures before it was time to run. We were a little busy checking the car in between runs to take any pictures, but we had lots of people around to do that for us :) We also had lots of support and encouragement from the Team BLEW folks.




Here are some of the gang chilling after the event at Fuddruckers.

Jason started out really well, putting in two good times and I put up two DNF's (even though scoring seems to think I only hit cones). We also found that the car was hesitating on full throttle around 5000 RPM in a straight line. Not sure what was causing it, so we will have to look into it. I also failed to listen to my own advice, so.. (wait till you see the video - I'm assuming it will be entertaining).

Anyhow, I managed to listen to myself on the last run (hands and feet actually came close to following what the brain was screaming at me) and moved from 10th spot up to 4th. Not a bad first outing considering that the car has not been tested or tuned at all and the level of competition that we had in our class and the number of Civics we had to run against. We had Steve Ekstrand, Paul Bonaccorsi (World Challenge driver) and other fast drivers to deal with. Jason did very well too, finishing 6th, but I'll let him describe his own experiences... I can't wait to see the video. Jason, when do we get the video????

Sunday progress

I've been waiting for a long time to get started and actually participate in this build and learn more about car 'bits'.

I'm up and leave at 7:30 AM to head out to Jason's house. The drive is approximately one and a half hours, all by myself. Lots of time to daydream.

We start by picking up a CAI from Injen and head back to Jason's house to work on the car. The car is already apart. We start piecing everything together and extracting existing OEM bits that get attached to the shocks.

Jason shows me the part that has the broken bolt. Both the Sparco seats are in on factory sliders and work great. We have lots of other bits that have arrived too. Some photos are shown here.



We have questions about the shocks, cutting the bump stops and whether or not to run the dust covers. After consultation with Dale, we cut the Koni bump stops in half and skip the dust covers on the rear shocks since they don't quite fit. The front OEM bump stops had already disintegrated into nothing.

Daniel and Jason's father comes by to give us a hand and here are some photos of them hard at work.



Jason is also prototyping a top secret product for Koni. Guess it's not so secret any more. Take a look below.



Now lookie here at what we do have done today. Front shocks are in. Rear sway is in. Rear shocks are ready, but waiting to be tack welded. We had to stop with the front rotors because the screws were stripped and we couldn't get them out.

Late night update

Something I forgot to mention.

The Ground Control Coilover Sleeve came-in...

I cant wait to put them on...