91 Wagon build for 24 Hours Of LeMons
Sonic
Band Wagon
Greetings Wagoneers
I'm glad to be able to share as I build this faithful old Wagon, which has been in my family for 10 years, into a proper 24 Hours of LeMons racer.
Some background: My family has had one Civic wagon or another since 1985, having an 85, 88, 90, and 91. This 91 RT4wd 6spd was bought in 2001 and promptly received a D16Y8 SOHC VTEC swap, ground control coilovers, Konis, poly bushings, Civic EX brakes, and a variety of other upgrades. It was then drivn by my mother in MA winters for 10 years and completely neglected and has since fallen into such a state of disrepair that it was no longer able to pass inspection for a wide variety of reasons, and parts were literally falling off as it drove. Mom went and got something else to replace it (an e46 BMW 325xi, 5 spd wagon of course), so she gave the old Civic back to me to let it live a proud new life.
This weekend we start the build. This is our second LeMons race. Our first was done in a 1958 Wartburg (don't worry, nobody else knows what that is either), and chronicled the build here: wartburg.misfittoysracing.com. Last year we used the Wartburg, a freakishly frankenstein monster of a car on the BA/BE Rally (a NY to New Orleans wacky road rally for $500 cars), 24 Hours of LeMons event at Summit Point (endurance racing on track for $500 cars) and then in the Grassroots Motorsports $2010 Challenge. It was an amazing year, though extremely tiring. This year our team principal has had to defer his automotive addiction, and as he has the best tools and shop and skills, we had to delay our planned LeMons project, a 5.0 V8
MGB.
Here's the Wartburg, once done with the Subaru 2.2 engine, Porsche suspension and brakes, VW transmission, and lots of other random bits, on track at LeMons:
And by the way, we won a few awards with it, including this one: http://jalopnik.com/5568291/and-the-real-winner-is
Enter the Civic.
-We needed something for this year, and it had to be able to be done quickly, so no radical engine swaps. The civic was available, priced right, and crappy enough to participate! Our first event is the April 7th event in NJ, so we only have a few months to get it together.
Here is where we start now:
This weekend we start the work, and the plan for the first workday is to gut the interior, remove the cyl head, and take apart the front suspension, as new wheel bearings and tie rods are needed. From there we add the replacement bits including a cometic head gasket and ARP studs, remove anything we don't need, add the roll cage, decorate it, and go racing!
I'll keep this thread updated as we make progress.
I'm glad to be able to share as I build this faithful old Wagon, which has been in my family for 10 years, into a proper 24 Hours of LeMons racer.
Some background: My family has had one Civic wagon or another since 1985, having an 85, 88, 90, and 91. This 91 RT4wd 6spd was bought in 2001 and promptly received a D16Y8 SOHC VTEC swap, ground control coilovers, Konis, poly bushings, Civic EX brakes, and a variety of other upgrades. It was then drivn by my mother in MA winters for 10 years and completely neglected and has since fallen into such a state of disrepair that it was no longer able to pass inspection for a wide variety of reasons, and parts were literally falling off as it drove. Mom went and got something else to replace it (an e46 BMW 325xi, 5 spd wagon of course), so she gave the old Civic back to me to let it live a proud new life.
This weekend we start the build. This is our second LeMons race. Our first was done in a 1958 Wartburg (don't worry, nobody else knows what that is either), and chronicled the build here: wartburg.misfittoysracing.com. Last year we used the Wartburg, a freakishly frankenstein monster of a car on the BA/BE Rally (a NY to New Orleans wacky road rally for $500 cars), 24 Hours of LeMons event at Summit Point (endurance racing on track for $500 cars) and then in the Grassroots Motorsports $2010 Challenge. It was an amazing year, though extremely tiring. This year our team principal has had to defer his automotive addiction, and as he has the best tools and shop and skills, we had to delay our planned LeMons project, a 5.0 V8
MGB.
Here's the Wartburg, once done with the Subaru 2.2 engine, Porsche suspension and brakes, VW transmission, and lots of other random bits, on track at LeMons:
And by the way, we won a few awards with it, including this one: http://jalopnik.com/5568291/and-the-real-winner-is
Enter the Civic.
-We needed something for this year, and it had to be able to be done quickly, so no radical engine swaps. The civic was available, priced right, and crappy enough to participate! Our first event is the April 7th event in NJ, so we only have a few months to get it together.
Here is where we start now:
This weekend we start the work, and the plan for the first workday is to gut the interior, remove the cyl head, and take apart the front suspension, as new wheel bearings and tie rods are needed. From there we add the replacement bits including a cometic head gasket and ARP studs, remove anything we don't need, add the roll cage, decorate it, and go racing!
I'll keep this thread updated as we make progress.
Comments
Look forward to updates!
LeMons is really a fantastic time. The car comes into the garage tomorrow and the work begins, so I'll have some good updates tomorrow night
-This weekend the 4 of us completely tore down the car.
We removed:
Entire interior
Front steering knuckles, to replace the balljoints, tie rods, and wheel bearings
Cylinder head, to replace the head gasket. Good visible cross hatching on the cylinder walls
A/C system, power steering system, to reduce weight
Rear LCAs, as I need to get some replacements with the provision for a rear sway bar
Threw out a lot of stuff, but kept a few pieces to sell from the interior, including the rear speaker pods, seats, and door panels, I'll post them in the classifieds soon.
The rear bumper was completely rusted to oblivion. It wasn't even attached really. Everything we worked on dropped massive amounts of rust and dirt onto the floor, it is amazing. Even with all of that rust, we had NO stuck bolts. The extra time I spent putting anti seize on every suspension bolt 20 years ago sure did pay off, and I'm a believer.
Now I'm ordering the parts needed to put it back together, and we are planning our next work day to put the cage in.
Pics:
What is left of the rear bumper
nearly empty engine bay
Suspension apart
Radiator is in poor shape and will be replaced
Gutted interior
Whoops it was 10 years ago, not 20...but still, I'm amazed. The car was just a winter time daily driver for the last 10 years. It had a broken spring and bad shocks, so I upgraded everything, while I was in there.
i do
looks like a fun build!
good job man
I cannot wait to see more progess
Cyl head is back on, though the timing belt I bought is too long, so I need another one. New radiator is in, headlights are out, most bolts have been broken loose and re-tightned. Oil line has been added to a T on the firewall for the oil pressure gauge sender. Suspension is in progress, waiting for new adjusting rings from Ground Control, as the old ones has seized locking screws, so I cut them off. I have replaced all of the wheel bearings and ball joints, and had to replace one upper control arm as well.
I've started to cut up the dash to fit the roll cage. We got the race seats, now I need to fab up some mounts to bolt them to the stock rails, as our drivers height is different enough that they need to adjust.
I mounted the rear bumper back up with some 2x4's that I bolted to the rear body panel, and then screwed the bumper in with drywall screws...remember, this is a $500 crapcan racer!
More work this weekend, hopefully finish getting the motor buttoned up, get the exhaust repaired, and the seats mounted. I can also start working on ghettofabing some extended top hats. I'll have some more meaningful pics after this weekend.
Both race seats are mounted, using the stock rails, but cutting off part of the outboard rails, and welding some 3/4" box tube steel to the seats to weld to the rails, with angle iron on the cutoff rail to make it flat.
Tomorrow I'll make some extended top hats for the suspension, and hopefully wire in the kill switch and oil pressure gauge, along with going to pick up the steel for the roll cage.
Roll cage is being built this weekend! After this weekend, there should be very little left to do. I'll be tired of welding at that point.
We got the car all together for the race, which was this past weekend. Between the two days of racing and testing day, we put about 800 racing miles on the car. It performed very well, with the only issue being some loose nuts on the rear strut hats that caused some odd handling. Overall we came in 38th, the car ran great, nobody hit anything, and everyone had a good time. Now we are preparing for our next race at Summit Point in mid June.
Pics:
After that, it will probably take part in an HPDE or two, and then we are considering hillclimbs or stage rally or a whole variety of things. We will probably use it as a Lemons car again next year, but this winter I'll have the time to turbocharge it and tune it, that should give us a 40hp boost which will make the car an absolute riot.
Here are some build pics of the car