Keef's Car Thread | Wheels on the Bus | 09/08/23

[YSSMAN]

You aren't missing much. I can't really think of anything in downtown Detroit worth seeing, especially in the winter.

The RenCen looks kinda cool this time of year, but other than that, there isn't much "cool" stuff downtown. I haven't been around since they finished the MGM, how'd that turn out?

 

[Slicks]

Good thread, Keef. Makes me want to ressurrect mine.

(Mabye Azure and I can run circles around each other out here on the Wet Coast. Seriously, take the damn ferry to the Island and come autocrossing.)

 

[Keef]

Snow!​

From very early Tuesday morning (I got up at 3 AM to test it out) to midday on Wednesday we gathered quite a bit of wintry stuff. Tuesday morning our initial hit of about 3 inches came and went. I drove around all day. It wasn't all that bad:

Not even enough to cover the grass...

Anyway, the weatherman's timing was a little off and the sleet we were expecting didn't come until Tuesday evening and night. It left about a half inch of ice on everything and pretty much ruined the roads that had been completely cleared and black in some places. But that was good news in my eyes, because I love adverse conditions.

Civic - 1
Snow - 0

That's why I got out on the road Wednesday morning at 9 AM to try out the big snow which started at 7 that morning.

A try at pretty pictures:

So, off I went to test the roads and highways on my way to my buddy's house. We were going for a cruise.

At this point I'm passing people one after another on the highway. The snow it packed down, and I'm doing about 50 mph trying to keep the wiggle to a minimum. But really, it's not that bad. Keep aware of your surroundings, predict how far people without proper tires are going to slide into the intersection right in front of you, and so on. No biggie. More than a few light flashes and horn honks later I got to my friend's house, and we went for some Bob Evans and roamed around all day, looking for the worst of it. We never even had to question whether we were going to get stuck; the Blizzaks just kept going.

In the early afternoon I was back home to clear the driveway and use the friend's snow blower. The snow stopped, and the sun came out to ruin everything:

That night I went out again. I wasn't done yet. I had to get this thing stuck the point where we needed man power to push it out. So we found a pool parking lot and went for it.

Somebody else got to it before us, and left 4 wheel drive tire marks all over. I avoided the ruts; I had my own trail to blaze.

There were times all day when the going was rough, especially in parking lots and the like where I would break through the ice if I spun my wheels too much. There were times when we had to change direction, but we never had to step a foot outside and never even had to rock it back and forth. The Blizzaks performed amazingly well. Snow tires are officially going on all my winter driven vehicles every snowy season from now on.

So the final score ended up being:

Civic - 2
Snow - 0

Come on, Mother Nature. You're making yourself look really stupid right now. Give me a reason to buy something AWD.

 

[TheBook]

I already figured out how to get mine stuck. A ditch and a foot of snow is about all that'll stop it.

I never did say, but nice car.👍 What you've done modification-wise is along the lines of what I want to do to my own vehicle (mine isn't really "mine" right now, and I want to get something like this of my own).

 

[Azuremen]

That isn't much snow at all Keef.

Though all our snow is gone Sadness. It is just balls off cold now.

 

[CDailey]

Sounds like fun Keef. I wish it would snow here. I want to see how horrible my Riken Raptors are in the snow.

 

[Keef]

That isn't much snow at all Keef.

Though all our snow is gone Sadness. It is just balls off cold now.

We never get snow anything like you got! That would be frickin' amazing though. The only thing I have to say is that my car is sitting on top of ice on top of three more inches of snow in that parking lot. That's why it sucked to break through the ice.

 

[YSSMAN]

You can have ours. We're getting the big chunk stuff for the next day or two... The kind that will cover your car when its sitting at the stop light. What drives me crazy is having a little car like mine, and having people in SUVs pull away from a stop in a flash, only to drive about 10 MPH slower than me down the road.

 

[Perfect Balance]

Snow tires are officially going on all my winter driven vehicles every snowy season from now on.

Same here, snow tires make everything more fun, but also more safe. I could still slide the car around if I wanted to (and I did, a lot, for hours and hours), but I could also stop, turn and accelerate if I wanted to.

Although I'm usually having too much fun to go outside every few minutes to take pictures.

 

[-Fred-]

You call that snow? That reminds me of early november over here...

 

[UnoMOTO]

Hey...don't be too bummed out about not getting snow. That looks like about the equivalent of our biggest snow storm in Denver this year. We haven’t had one storm that has given us more then five inches or so at my house. Sucks really…

Looks like you had fun anyway. Thanks for the pics.

 

[Keef]

Snow wore out its welcome about two weeks ago for me when I put my summer tires back on. And this week its been pretty warm, actually, so yesterday I decided to install the new short-throw shifter I bought. The goal was slightly different than what resulted, especially now that I galled the threads of the two pieces together. Not a clue how that happened. They went together fine, but absolutely refused to come back apart.

Anyways, the process.

The shifter. It wasn't bent quite as far as I'd hoped. I'll explain how I plan to tackle that problem later.

Honda obviously designed the jack points of these cars to fit on a car lift. That's a problem when you're using a jack and jack stands. Luckily it turns out my front lower control arm is sturdy enough to not only place my suspension well, but also hold up half the front end.

This is the assembly as seen from the bottom. The rod going through the huge bushing at the left (rear) is simply to place the linkage longitudinally so it won't wobble freely; it also goes all the way up to the transmission and mounts solidly there. The other rod, hooked to the bottom of the stock shifter here, is what goes to the transmission. The shifter simply pivots on a ball which is inside that rubber seal there in the middle.

This is what the interior looks like before I take it apart...

...and this is what's underneath. A dust shield to seal the hole.

To be funny I painted the shifter a satin purple, which I later decided I don't like. Flat black it is, then.

This is the stock shifter assembly all taken apart. That small thin bracket on the left is one pain in the ass. The two bolts laying next to it, as you can see, aren't made to be held from the top. They have a small square shape on the bottom of them that's meant to fit into squares in the bracket so they don't turn. But that only works if those bolts are held in place by other means, like a couple tack welds (my cousin's was held like this, but my buddy with the same car wasn't). I recently discovered that J-B Weld is nothing to screw around with, so I plastered those bolts with it and squished it down.

The hole.

This is the bottom of the new shifter, all buttoned down. You can see those two stubborn bolts I mentioned. Speaking of that, I plastered all the bolts I took off with a nice bit of anti-seize so I'll be able to take them off again if need be. Stuff works magic. You can also see the real-man's bearing grease that I used to fill up that socket that the shifter fits into and the bearing at the base, which the bolt goes through. Smooth operation and longevity FTW. I also cleaned the lithium grease off that big bushing (you can see the mess above) and put a coat of bearing grease on that too. I've had squeaking problems with the lithium once it gets cold.

Here are all three shifters that got replaced. Tyler's aluminum one, with about 10,000 miles; Josh's aluminum one, with at least ~30,000 miles; and my stock steel one, with ~145,000 miles. We were absolutely appalled by how the aluminum ones were worn by the RUBBER socket. That right there is the main cause of shifter slop. Tyler's wobbled. You could hardly tell the difference between 1st and 5th gears on Josh's car. Mine always felt pretty solid. It tuns out the only slop in my system is actually inside the transmission.

I don't have any pics of it inside the car because we ran out of light. And I'm not going to have any for a while, because like I mentioned earlier I ruined my custom knob and Tyler's extension. Today I drew up plans similar to Tyler's piece, but once my dad has some free time at work he's going to turn them up out of steel or stainless. Or plastic. Or copper, or bronze, or more aluminum, or titanium...

But that'll be a week or two we think. So for now I'm just going to have to put my synchronizers though some premature wear and I'm going to have to bend over to reach my 4-speed shift knob.

Also, tomorrow's plans. I'm going to disassemble my stuff like I did yesterday and I'm taking the shifter to my buddy Marty's house. He's got an acetylene torch. The plan is to heat up the bottom bend, the one bent backwards, until it's glowing red or whatever, and then we'll grab it with a long pipe and bend it a further 15 or 20 degrees. We've got no way to measure it precisely, of course, but we don't need one. I want the top of the threads to be about an inch and a half further back from where they are now. Then I'll be able to double-stack my extensions without punching the dashboard like I did today when I tried and failed.

Somebody say custom parts? YUP.

EDIT: I just thought of a good way to gauge how far to bend it. I'll take my stock shifter also. If we can band the Fidanza's top to the same point as the stock shifter's top, it still will be pointed more vertical than the stock stick, but it'll be moved back to where I want it. I think that's a good idea.

 

[hemisport15]

How much of a throw reduction does it have?

 

[Keef]

A lot. Probably cut it in half.

EDIT: I finished taking it out a bit ago. My J-B Weld worked perfectly so I could take it out the way it's supposed to come out. Only took about 15 minutes from beginning to end.

Here it is sitting in the car. I don't like it. It's too far away.

Here you can tell that I managed to get those stupid nuts loose and the J-B held up like man-glue should.

This is another picture of why these Civics have such awesome shift actions. Solid linkage (man stuff) not cables and all that girlie stuff.

And this is what it looks like going into the transmission. The one on the left is the solid mounted brace and the one on the right is the shifty one.

And this is the aftermath. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was.

Now to get my lazy-ass friend over here to take me to Marty's house so we can torch this sucker.

 

[Azuremen]

That doesn't seem any different placement than my EG. I dunno, maybe I just have monkey arms.

I've become much to use to MR2 shifter locations. The AW11 was basically at the end of the armrest height center console, and the MR-S' is just about as high, (will feel the same when I put a Momo seat in the car) so all these "normal" position shifters through me off. Like reaching to the floor or something.

 

[homeforsummer]

I've become much to use to MR2 shifter locations. The AW11 was basically at the end of the armrest height center console, and the MR-S' is just about as high, (will feel the same when I put a Momo seat in the car) so all these "normal" position shifters through me off. Like reaching to the floor or something.

In contrast, it feels odd to me driving anything with a high transmission tunnel (BMWs, MX5s etc) because I'm used to a low-mounted lever. Suppose it's something you can get used to.

Keef, what were you thinking with the lilac?

 

[Keef]

Keef, what were you thinking with the lilac?

Lilac? Satin purple . I don't know it sounded like a goofy color to paint it.

But now my newly bent shifter has some pretty awesome heat coloration to it, so I'm just going to show off that.

 

[Keef]

We accomplished the bending yesterday, and it worked exactly as I had figured it would. And for kicks I retapped the threads because their quality was horrible.

This time I'm going to keep it bare to show off the custom-ness of it. Aftermarket, shaftermarket.

 

[homeforsummer]

Hope you're replacing the knob. The one in the bottom pic looks... out of place.

 

[Keef]

It is out of place, actually. It's from a late 80s EF hatch 4-speed!

 

[Prosthetic]

It is out of place, actually. It's from a late 80s EF hatch 4-speed!

Sounds super fast... you should keep it. It might give you like 500 hp at the wheelz.

 

[homeforsummer]

It is out of place, actually. It's from a late 80s EF hatch 4-speed!

Gerr'it changed then.

 

[Keef]

Sounds super fast... you should keep it. It might give you like 500 hp at the wheelz.

Hey, it's heritage. Us Honda guys get off on that sort of stuff. In fact one of the guys at our meet last night said he'd been looking all over for one and wanted it buy it off me. I never even knew Honda offered 4 speed sticks in Civics until I found that car. It was clean too, sitting in a junk yard. All it needed was a new engine.

 

[Keef]

Soooo, I had a little mishap.

Looks like the ball managed to rust away after 145,000 miles and popped out of the socket. It also looks like the thread are stripped on the bottom bolt which I tried to take off:

To keep that end link from dangling I folded it up and taped it to the lower control arm. I'll handle it later. So now my rear sway bar is not functioning. Soon it'll be off altogether and eventually I'll replace the end links. I've got other stuff to worry about right now though.

 

[buickgnx88]

Borked? Stop making up words!

 

[Keef]

I'm bored and anxious, so I'm making a list.

May 17 is the end of their 10% sale, so apparently I'm having a set in the mail by then. Some people on Honda-Tech have mentioned they got these PICs with Swift springs, which are lighter because they use about half as many coils, and apparently are more linear, or something like that. I'll have to ask about that.

Also on my list, and hopefully getting scratched out sooner or later:

Possibly those end links to replace my busted stockers. I've got more questions to ask about their lack of dust covers. I don't want to have to wash them and lube them up every week.

Rear camber-adjustable upper control arms, those.

Okay, so the header isn't perfect, and it's not beautiful, but it performs better than a DC and is priced similarly to their stainless pieces. That is, not a ridiculous $700+.

Those are seats from a DA ('89-'93) Integra, like the pair that a friend of mine has in his '95 Civic, which recently got crashed into. If he ends up buying his car back from insurance to part it out I might just get myself a free pair of decent seats. Better than my EK park benches anyway.

Besides that stuff which may come fairly soon, other things I've put on the back burner:

+

Meh. I just ran out of post-pics-of-stuff energy.

 

[homeforsummer]

Re: The end links sans dust covers - I'm presuming the stock items have dust covers? Simple solution would be to remove the covers off the stock ones and fit them to the new ones. Not the prettiest solution but you can do it with dust covers on dampers so I assume you can do the same on smaller items.

Re: The Momo wheel - you don't wanna do that. Especially as that particular pic looks like quite a small diameter wheel and I always think they look stupid in cars with relatively big interiors (as in, passenger cars. Small diameter steering wheels look good in Caterhams and Lotus cars, not so good in hot hatches, coupes, sedans). What you really want is a pretty Nardi one:

I know the pic above shows one in an EP Civic, but I've seen them in EMs/EKs and I reckon they look great. Size wise I think they're a little smaller than the stock airbag'd wheel (which seems quite large from the Civics I've driven) but big enough to not make the interior look stupid.

Re: Seat swaps from Honda to Honda - Have you considered Del Sol ones too? They look more supportive than the normal seats and by virtue of them looking quite thin, there might even be a small weight reduction. Obviously, if you found the ones in your old Del Sol uncomfortable, then just ignore me...

 

[Keef]

I just went looking for end links, and there's some similar to stock sold at Autozone and whatnot. But now I'm thinking I won't even put the bar back on. It's only 13mm and my spring rates are going to be about 560 lb/in in the front and 450 lb/in out back. Not too stiff, but still it's stiff enough that a 13mm sway bar won't hardly do anything.

I think I just decided to take the whole thing off for now.

And about the wheel, I've got a buddy with a different type of Momo in an old Integra. I'll have to get a feel for it and ask the diameter. The most popular sizes are 350mm and 320mm, both of which are way smaller than stock. I'm leaning toward the 320, mainly wanting more room for my legs.

And on the seats, I used to have a Sol, so yeah I've considered them. They hold well enough, because I can remember never really complaining about the bolsters. Pretty nice. But they're terribly uncomfortable. My god. After just a couple hours of driving my legs and back and everything hurt. They're awful. The DA seats however seem to be hold even better while being way more comfy.

 

[Perfect Balance]

That particular wheel is actually a 360mm, even bigger than everything else out there, the thing looks huge in person, especially since it's thin spoked unlike the stock bulky wheels. It looks huge in the pic too if you stare long enough.

Either way those are more popular with drift cars because of it's size (think leverage) and the fact that it's simply round, letting you place your hands anywhere you need to, unlike the Momo wheel, which has indentations designed to fit your hands perfectly. (and it does, very well. 👍 )

 

[homeforsummer]

And about the wheel, I've got a buddy with a different type of Momo in an old Integra. I'll have to get a feel for it and ask the diameter. The most popular sizes are 350mm and 320mm, both of which are way smaller than stock. I'm leaning toward the 320, mainly wanting more room for my legs.

Ah, well if you're wanting more space then I can understand going for a smaller wheel, but I do warn you that it might look a little odd - for whatever reason, the interior on Civics like yours seems to dwarf many aftermarket steering wheels. Incidentally, I've found the pic on my hard drive I was originally going to include with my previous post - a small diameter wheel in the Civic interior:

It just looks... wrong, somehow. Contrast that to those below - two EK9 Civic R wheels and the Nardi I mentioned in a Civic (though it looks like a smaller Nardi than that in the EP3 I posted last time):

That particular wheel is actually a 360mm, even bigger than everything else out there, the thing looks huge in person, especially since it's thin spoked unlike the stock bulky wheels. It looks huge in the pic too if you stare long enough.

Either way those are more popular with drift cars because of it's size (think leverage) and the fact that it's simply round, letting you place your hands anywhere you need to, unlike the Momo wheel, which has indentations designed to fit your hands perfectly. (and it does, very well. 👍 )

Yeah, the wheel I posted is pretty big but they don't all come in that size (they don't all come with a dish that deep either, though most are dished). I've seen plenty in Miatas which look great and don't fill the whole cabin. Personally though on the road I'd rather have a wheel with a consistant feel rather than a heavily sculpted one. Very few cars have a short enough ratio steering rack that you don't need to take your hands off and put them in diffrent places for at least some manoeuvres, and grabbing a lump instead of a normal rounded section would feel odd to me.

I've used a sculpted Momo wheel in a race-spec MX-5 and for that application it was great - I never needed to take my hands from quarter-to-three, but I expect those indentations and lumps would annoy me on the road. I've driven a road MX-5 with a Momo wheel, but the one they fitted standard to that car wasn't too heavily sculpted (pic here of the car I drove).

But yeah, personal taste of course!

And on the seats, I used to have a Sol, so yeah I've considered them. They hold well enough, because I can remember never really complaining about the bolsters. Pretty nice. But they're terribly uncomfortable. My god. After just a couple hours of driving my legs and back and everything hurt. They're awful. The DA seats however seem to be hold even better while being way more comfy.

Really? Are they quite uncomfortable? Fair enough then, though of course the driving position in the Civic is probably different to that in the lower-mountings in the Del Sol.