It is finally time to take the Civic to the track for the first time in 2023. With all the work I've recently done, I'm very excited to test the car's new Honed suspension setup, manual brakes and hydro clutch.

Dad got to mine about 6am, we pulled the trailer out, loaded it up and off we went. From Sydney its a 9.5-10hr drive to Morgan Park Raceway in Warwick QLD, so we definitely got some ground to cover.

The drive up

The drive there was smooth sailing except for some a hot bearing issue on the front right. The trailer was serviced before I bought it, and received new wheel bearings. My brother is a forklift mechanic and was saying the wheel bearings would need to be checked, so we re-torqued and greased them in the previous week. It seems like the front left brake was catching without braking, so we left it off a bit and it seemed to fix the issue.

Few pitstops along the way, we took the New England highway the whole way. Definitely not the best road to cruise down, some bits as shown below were being completely resurfaced, you definitely wouldn't want to drive through here at night.

Here safe and sound, staying at some nice modern cabins with some of the fellow club members. Into town we went for dinner and a few beers. Great to catch up with everyone as always! Trailer towed an absolute dream, the Futura's have independent suspension on each corner, mine being a V2 its leaf styled suspension. Super comfy, we barely felt it behind us.

Day 1

It was my first time at Morgan Park Raceway. Our club MWSCC had booked out the whole track to ourselves for today (Monday) and tomorrow. About 15-20 cars and open pit formation meant we were going to get a bunch of seat time. The staff are really friendly and happy to change anything to make the day better for us.

I knew the first day would be a lot of getting used to the Civic's new suspension, manual brakes and clutch, also not to mention now running the Intima RR full circuit pads. Unfortunately straight into the first lap the loud rotational noise was still there, which just absolutely confused me as I've now replaced everything and rewelded that chassis mount. For the next 2 days I just carried on with thise noise, it got a bit louder and a few times was so loud it was hurting my ears, but after being so long since driving the car I just wanted to enjoy it.

The suspension feels great, feels quite sturdy but I could feel the suspension travel a lot more it seemed, as if we were now using more of the shock. I hadn't touched the compression or rebound settings yet as I just wanted to drive the car as is. If anything we were spending more time when I came in trying to figure out what this rotational noise could be. In addition to this noise, I was getting a very loud squeaking noise from the rear left, sounded like when I had worn out trailing arm bushings after my very first track day. Upon inspection it seemed to be the Honed camber arm. It was so stiff I couldn't even move it. We pulled it apart and worked some WD-40 into it to free it up and this actually stopped the noise. I spoke with Honed and we will investigate once back home.

The track itself is bloody great, it's a really fun layout with some technical bits, and fast turns like the back right hand sweeper which I was hitting at 180km or so, matching my speed on the straight. As the day went on I was gaining more confidence in the car and adjusting the line I was taking, along with brake markers.

The brakes! I know a lot of people say it's hard to get used to the manual brakes, but for me I genuinely felt like I was used to them on the 2nd time out, probably because the first outting I was just making sure nothing would fall off of the car. I started pushing my brake marker as I learnt the manual feel more, and gained trust in the new pad too. A few times it did catch me out where I didn't brake hard enough, but it's all part of the learning curve.

Over I ended up with a PB of 1.30.28 . This loud rotational noise is really annoying me. We cracked the beers once we finished for the day, then headed into town later on for dinner and some more beers. Time to think what this noise could be.. Overall a very sucessful day.

Day 2

Last night once we got back to the cabins, I was chatting with my dad and club member Chris about what the noise could be as it really is a mystery that needs to be solved. I was able to pull up the GoPro footage to show off this random noise.

Then randomly my dad was like, is it the alternator? Holy crap, maybe this is it? We discussed it would make sense as it's rpm based, not wheel speed. Is the alternator rubbing on the chassis? We have to smack in the chassis leg to do a B swap on an ED. Maybe 3 track days ago when it started is when the mount tore off the chassis, which with the torque of the motor allowed the alternator to rub on the chassis. This has been repaired since, but I did notice when tensioning the alternator belt before we came up it did feel like it stretched a bit, and it's a really old belt.

Once we got to the track in the morning, I popped the bonnet straight away and we could see a mark on the chassis. I don't recall seeing any before I resprayed the bay, but as I have resprayed it since it would be easy to see any marks. Lo and behold, a mark in the chassis leg right next to the alternator pulley! Upon removing the belt we also found some small rocks inside it annoyingly. The belt is a 4pk735, so dad headed into town to try find a 730 or 725. Unfortunately he was unable to find anything close across 4 different part stores..

We know what the issue should be, so decided to throw the belt back on and essentially just send it for the rest of the day. However whilst refitting the belt I noticed the alternator wasn't sitting straight, and in fact the lower bolt had sheered off the special square head, and the nut had disappeared (I did later on find the nut in front of my pit).

This is the second time this special alternator bolt has snapped off. Speaking with some of the other guys in the club, one has said the same issue a few times on his Honda. Annoyingly, since the first one snapped many years ago I used a normal bolt and nut up until all the recent work, where I decided I'd refit the alternator with the correct bolt.. As I wanted to get started with the day on the track, I decided to throw on the old normal bolt and nut and just get on the with day.

Throughout the day I improved on various on the usual stuff trying to improve my lap time. Mid morning I decided to check the compression/rebound settings and found they were all over the shop, and I had been driving on this all yesterday and all this morning.

• Front left: C: 0 | R: 16
• Front right: C: 16 | R: 16
• Rear left: C: 0 | R: 16
• Rear right: C: 0 | R: 16

With that I set everything to 18 all round and went back out. Car felt a bit better and I managed my new PB of 1.29.39 which is the video below. I wasn't sure what I wanted, but it seemed everyone else was well into the 1.20s as they are mostly K series, so I was happy to get there. I mounted my GoPro in a different position for Morgan Park and I definitely don't like it there. Can't see the speedo or timing phone for reference.

Overall, and keeping in mind everything I've just done to the car this year, it performed extremely well. We do still have the rotational noise, although it seems to now be figured out. Alternator belt and squeaky rear camber arm were easy fixes. I'm really happy with how it went, and think this will be a great new base line for the future of the car, I just need to dial in the suspension a bit more it feels.

Thanks to the MWSCC family for hosting an awesome double day here at Morgan Park Raceway, I really hope this becomes a yearly trip. Great to all chat at the end of the day over some beers.

Back at the accommodation, again into town but to the RSL for dinner which was really good, some drinks then back to the cabin to finish off the reset of the beers and talk nonsense.

The drive back

Smooth sailing on the way back home, great time to evaluate the car and plan ahead whats to come next. Still have a few big ticket items like the oil cooler, floor mounted seats etc. The next booked day is Honda Nationals at Winton in the first week of October, I won't bother booking anything before then as I need a bit of rest. I'd like to do atleast 1 or 2 SMSP events by the end of the year to try out the GP circuit.

Data logging will commence at Honda Nationals as thats how I'd like to dive into some data driven improvements on the car.

Home

Finally back home, the Civic easily drove off the trailer and out the back. What a bloody great car! Thanks to my dad and brother for coming as always and helping! So happy I bought this trailer as well, an awesome rig that makes loading so much easier, not that ramps are hard, but lowering trailers are just way cooler!

Photographer photos