'Mcluvin's' Project Racecar - 05/03/15 Update.

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United States
Michigan
mcluvin93hatch
Because Racecar.

No but seriously, here's a brief version/story/lifetime of how I, with help from family and friends, turned this...



Into this...


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First, I bought a bunch of parts,




A lot of parts.


And that's all only about a 1/3 of everything I had at that time, you don't want to know how much I spent in total :scared:

After getting all the parts, I stopped over at my Uncle's place (his Challenger in the background)

This guy is a MASTER at all things automotive, he built the majority of my cage for my car from scratch, in a day, which you can see below in its raw-form.


Once the parts were unloaded and pics were taken, we proceeded to strip it down for a full chassis rebuild, suspension/bushings/brakes/body/etc, the engine had been taken care of earlier.




End of the day, it was up on jackstands, no brakes, suspension, etc, from here on it would be bodywork, lots of bodywork.


It was needed, bumpers would be prepped...

Moldings were filled-in, a custom-touch, and rust would be addressed as needed...

As suspension-components were prepped for new bushings and a fresh coat of rattle-can black.

A lot of elbow-grease and hard work later, things were looking-up


And then my car, good ol' 'No-name', gave me a sign...


Yeah, I chose the right car :D

After a lot of work, the car was taped-up and ready for a coat of primer (the driver door was mock-up, hence no filled molding)

Old parts were piled up in my Uncle's beater grand-am and recycled,


First coat.

Couple coats later, No-name was placed back on the ground

And brought to a special place...



Like I said, 'special', my Uncle knows a lot of the right people :sly:

No-name was prepped,

A batch of Honda's "Milano Red" was prepared,

Equipment was readied,

And the blood-bath began.


While that was going on, I got noseyArtistic with the big snake.


Then before I knew it, paint was done !



Got it back to my Uncle's, then 'cut' & washed No-name, and after we tore it back apart to finish the suspension upgrades and change some fluids for future track-use.


New Hypercoil springs and Redline MTF fluid


Coils installed, little fun fact, those purple knuckles almost gave this car the nickname "Barney" :ouch:

Then I ordered some new wheels,


And some slightly stickier tires,


Mounted and Balanced myself, and installed them on a slow day at work (GM tech)


No-name looked so good it got a fan the first day with new wheels :rolleyes:


(Some months later, my Uncle moved to a bigger house) I stopped by and saw my Cousin's S-10 'Crawler' Truck


How's that for opposites ? :lol:

Then I went to the track for the first time, signed 'my name' (not sure why I used an 'o' instead of the 'u', high off brake fumes :P)

Saw the 'evolution' of the Lovefab NSX later that year at WMHM12


Couple months later I went to 'Wangfest' (Honda Track Day, get your mind out' the gutter), got a T-shirt,

Learned to race in the rain,

Watched the Wangfest-owner Mikey go-off with his TSX,

Got a lot of experience,

Didn't get No-name too dirty and had fun.


Then I ordered more parts, and probably one of the best improvements to the car too


Eibach 25mm Rear sway-bar kit & ASR Subframe brace, last years X-mas gift to myself.

As soon as winter passed and I had a Sat. off from work, I set to installing it

Once on, Holy-Hell Batman, I pity those who still allow their cars to carry stock-bars :mischievous:


After a bit more time, car went back to the capable hands of my Uncle for finishing touches on the roll-cage, a.k.a door-bars.



I am in debt to that man, I don't think I'll ever be able to re-pay him for everything he's done for this project of mine, financially & otherwise, lol.

Recently, the cage was painted and I plasti-dip'd the wheels so I could stop cleaning the brake dust off 'em every week.





And I went to WMHM13 (WestMichiganHondaMeet)

(there were a lot of honda's, more than pictured, lol)




(3-wheelin' :scared:, need MOAR FRONT SPRING!)

Someone had dropped some dirt onto the track, #aintcare
















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3 years of hard-work, dedication, friendships, failures and success, and I don't regret any of it. 👍

Any questions/comments welcome, there's a lot more photo's & story than what's above, so if you didn't see something you wanted to look at or have a question, just ask, I'll probably have a pic of it somewhere or could take one.
 
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Awesome Civic, Mcluvin; I love EGs. Good to see some modded with taste as well. 👍
 
Good to see you made a thread for... uh, No-name! :lol:

Really nice to see a Civic that isn't sitting with outrageous camber and sticker-bombed within an inch of it's life. As much as I like stanced cars, there's only so many stanced Civics I can look at. Very nicely done, and I'll be keeping a close eye on this thread. 👍
 
Awesome Civic, Mcluvin; I love EGs. Good to see some modded with taste as well. 👍

You and I both, they've become classics in their own right.

Good to see you made a thread for... uh, No-name! :lol:

Yes, No-name came up when I originally bought the car as a rolling-chassis (no eng/trans/etc), I figured "No Eng, no trans, no brakes..., well I guess it doesn't need No-name *pause* well shoot."

Agreed with both of these statements. Really nice Civic! :D
:drool: I love projects, especially when the turn out as nice as this one! :drool: One of my new favorite threads. :sly:👍
Nice project 👍
Love it!!


Thanks!

Pretty cool man. 👍 And it looks like you have a nice uncle.
Indeed, he's earned the nickname "The Magician" over the years because people can't fathom how he's able to do some things, hence 'Magic'

I'll update this thread occasionally when something comes up, I'm planning upgrades over the winter ("what" though I'm not sure) and looking for a Go-Pro to get track footage and twisty-road videos.
 
Can we trade uncles? Please?


Just kidding mate, fantastic work! Looks like a lot of fun to throw around 👍
 
Good stuff, nice looking little car and I bet it's a heap of fun too. Makes me want to find a track car project of my own...

Also, your uncle's silver Challenger has reminded me what handsome cars those are.
 
The 1st pic of the car after it was painted red is one of the best for an EG that I've ever seen.👍
 
You shouldn't have cut the valve cover part that goes over the timing belt & cam gears. Debris (rocks, for instance) can get in there in the event of an off-track excursion and wreak havoc. Don't ask how I know. ;)

Speaking of which, info on that B-Series? Guessing it's a B16A, but it's very difficult to say from these pictures.
 
-Fred-
You shouldn't have cut the valve cover part that goes over the timing belt & cam gears. Debris (rocks, for instance) can get in there in the event of an off-track excursion and wreak havoc. Don't ask how I know. ;)

Speaking of which, info on that B-Series? Guessing it's a B16A, but it's very difficult to say from these pictures.

Yes I know, really just the result of circumstances at the time of assembly. It's survived a few 'offs over the past couple years, so for now, following the 'ain't broke don't fix' mentality with it.
If it does create issues, just an excuse to really 'build' it, speaking of which, the motor is actually a 'LSVTEC' combo of a B16A2 head on a B18B1 block, using a Golden-Eagle kit, ARP bolts, etc-etc. Mated to a GSR trans with Skunk2 intake, GSR cams, beat-up DC headers/exhaust...

And I think that's it, or at least all that comes to mind atm, nothing fancy-pants, just reliable & sturdy, more work in bushings/suspension than anything with the engine really, MAYBE 180-ish HP (via butt-dyno), I'll probably upgrade the exhaust next with something nice, but no plans yet.

As for all the compliments above, Thanks!, and no, he's my uncle! :sly:

(We actually talked this past Labor-day, 'aero' may be in No-name's future, but again - nothing in stone atm)
 
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LSVTEC, that's very nice. They really "wake up" with just a few bolt-ons. :D
 
Leonidae@MFT
So that's why you disappeared from PSN altogether lol

Well I actually didn't have a PSN until about a year ago, GTP however, yeah I pretty much vanished from :lol:. After wearing-out GT4 and acquiring the car, I went MIA.

Now that things have slowed down however, I'm back around GTP and I'm still getting on PSN, waiting out GT6 and its upcoming transition.
 
Well I actually didn't have a PSN until about a year ago, GTP however, yeah I pretty much vanished from :lol:. After wearing-out GT4 and acquiring the car, I went MIA.

Now that things have slowed down however, I'm back around GTP and I'm still getting on PSN, waiting out GT6 and its upcoming transition.

Your just in DBeav Cruise Rooms and speeding 👍
 
Damn that hatch is clean. Nice to see one that hasn't been chewed up for drag racing or stupidly stanced.
 
Damn that hatch is clean. Nice to see one that hasn't been chewed up for drag racing or stupidly stanced.

But stance is pretty to just really not useful. :lol:

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I really like the transition from the beginning. This car came a long way from the first pics. Also nice to see it getting some road track time.
 
I'll update this thread occasionally when something comes up, I'm planning upgrades over the winter ("what" though I'm not sure) and looking for a Go-Pro to get track footage and twisty-road videos.

We have those in this state? WHERE? Hines is the closest thing to twisty I've found on this side of the state and even it requires, erm, doubling the speed limit to approach the limits of your average family sedan. :lol:
 
Your just in DBeav Cruise Rooms and speeding 👍

This.

Damn that hatch is clean. Nice to see one that hasn't been chewed up for drag racing or stupidly stanced.

Thanks, unfortunately there are more of those in my area than clean, track-oriented ones, hella-flush is too easy for highschool kids to achieve with hack-saws these days, I'm honestly out-numbered, lol.

I really like the transition from the beginning. This car came a long way from the first pics. Also nice to see it getting some road track time.

Thanks!, I sneaked a peak at your thread too but haven't had time to properly go through it yet 👍

I didn't realize you lived so close to me. Very nice car, good to see a tastefully-modified one.

Sturgis is a small trip away, I'm actually in Holland, lol

We have those in this state? WHERE? Hines is the closest thing to twisty I've found on this side of the state and even it requires, erm, doubling the speed limit to approach the limits of your average family sedan. :lol:

Catch is you got to be very close to large bodies of water to get twisty and curvy, a road called Lakeshore Drive runs along the edge of Lake Michigan, which on a map looks rather straight, but driving it reveals a different story, elevation changes, sand dunes, forests, beaches, you name it.

I'll get video of it one day, but here's a pic of something I caught one cruise to hold ya' over for now.
 
Once GT6 arrives, both of us will choose a 1.6l econobox, tweak it to certain spec and race until winner is clear. :mischievous:
 
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