New parts

Another order from Demon Tweeks of goodies:

• Sabelt SW-733 Flat Bottom Steering Wheel
• B-G Racing Bolt On Quick Release Steering Boss
• Keeper Technology FIA - MSA Approved Rectangular Rain Light
• AeroCatch Panel Fasteners
• B-G Racing Tyre Pressure Gauge - 2.5 Inch

I've wanted the flat bottom steering wheel for the longest time, and the Sabelt seems to be the best one on the market in my opinion. I've forever needed a quick release as it's quite hard to get in and out the car as is, especially with going to a full cage hopefully at the end of this year.

Bonnet latches and rain light will be required for door to door, the latches is probably a good thing to do anyways. I tossed up whether to get the old school pins or the aero ones, but with watching a lot of GT3/4 racing world wide, there must be a reason they all use aero latches.

My old tyre gauge disappeared at Honda Nationals last year it seemed, maybe I left it somewhere, maybe someone liked it too much. Might as well add another B-G Racing product to the collection (same as string alignment kit).

I've had the Momo in the Civic since the 2nd week of owning it. The plan will be to move it into the EF9 to get a better feel in that, after putting in an OEM wheel and losing the nice feel to the car.

I had some trouble fitting the new quick release kit to my current boss. The boss inner side tapers in slightly which resulted in the quick release kit portion that bolts to the boss hitting in, and I couldn't do the allen keys up completely. With plenty of material being on the boss around this area, I decided to slowly grind away enough to seat the quick release piece into the boss.

Wheel looks great, it feels great. Very easy to remove, and can easily get in and out. I'll need to get a steering wheel hanger for the passenger side sunvisor until I get the full cage with the bar across the top.

Rear wheel bearings/hubs

After doing the custom drive shafts, I took the car to my dads warehouse to drive it around and confirm the noise was gone, which it was! However I could hear the rear wheel bearings were quite noisey. Inspecting them at home with the in the air, you could move the wheel around a lot. I've actually booked a Marulan Raceway event in a weeks time, so best to get these bearings sorted.

You can't replace the bearing itself on these rear hubs I'm told, so we had to order new aftermarket ones. The slight issue was the hole for the wheel studs in on the new hubs were slightly bigger than OEM, so my extended studs were lose. Not being able to find a stud to suit at JDM Yard, I had to buy oversized extended studs and drill out the hubs.

OEM hub extended stud

Aftermarket stud

New extended stud

Anyone whose done studs knows they secure on splines, however thats what I'm drilling out. With the new extended studs being just over 14mm, I'll use a 14mm drill then force the stud in with the press, hoping that this cuts some new splines

Easy work for the press

And done! They seem to be secure but I'll need to keep an eye on them, especially between sessions

Fitted everything back up and thats a job jobed. Photos of the spindle in case I ever need to reference it

Marulan Raceway - D Series Cup

A track I have yet to go to is Marulan Raceway, down south 1.5hrs from Sydney. It's a small twisty track, which has been fully revamped. The D Series Cup guys were hosting one of their days and I filled in as an extra, with the plan to use this as a testing day (essentially what I wanted SMSP GP to be back in March). I wanted to already have had the initial test done, with 1 or 2 more events under my belt but here we are.

Overall, it was a very successful day, but I did end early with a ongoing engine light for the Intake Air Temp sensor, it would come on and disable vtec..

To start with, it was amazing to do laps without the loud rotational noise, finally! I was having some trouble getting temp into the rear, resulting in some tokyo drift action on the first turn. It felt like the car had too much power for this track as I was wheel spinning 2nd for various points. But as I did more laps I got my eye in and the times dropped, I wasn't going for a super fast lap as I was simply having fun, but it is a good reference.

One interesting thing was getting wheel hop under heavy braking on the straight, the car skipped along. Not sure on this one. In addii I was finding under heavy braking on the straight into T1 I'd get a lot of wheel hop, not really sure on this. Maybe the track surface? In additon to this, I found myself having trouble downshifting into 2nd throughout the day, usually stuffing a fast lap. It seemed I really had to follow the gated pattern and push the shifter out sideways before going down into 2nd, when coming from 3rd.

After lunch during a fast lap coming out of the last corner, the car started going slow and I could feel there was no vtec. I then realised my telemetry dash was covering the check engine light on the cluster, and when raising my head I could just see the CEL on. Had to borrow the laptop cord from someome else as I managed to forget mine, with the Hondata showing a IAT error code. This is the same thing I experienced at the end of Morgan Park and start of Honda Nationals last year. The top clip of the plug has always been broken off, so I tried some cable tie magic, cleared the code and went back out. After a few laps it came back on. It didn't seem like I could push the plug down anymore so I was quite unsure.

Unfortunately this ended the day early afternoon as there was no point in going back out with the light to come back on. I did also depin the connector to inspect the terminals but they look fine, also the guy with the data cable left. Chatted for a bit then packed up to head home. Thanks to Jono from D Series Cup and Marulan Raceway staff for a seamless day!

Finally have the car run in, few things to address which are noted below. The relaxing drive home had the brainstorming on full blast with everything I really want to do to the car. Lets get this minor issues resolved and head to SMSP GP again. I also didn't get to test my telemetry dash due to an internal error, which I've since resolved. So still have a whole bunch of testing to do on track with that.

Issues to address:

• Steering felt light at different points, although this could just be alignment
• Steering column inside the car seems to move around under force
• Telemetry dash blocking the check engine light on cluster
• IAT issue

PB - 1.02.91

319 Will Mitchell Lap -Sector#1--Sector#2--Sector#3--Lap.Time -Sector#1--Sector#2--Sector#3--Lap.Time -Sector#1--Sector#2--Sector#3--Lap.Time 1 0:31.0730 0:21.9660 0:29.9380 1:22.9770 0:31.5730 0:20.1050 0:22.2860 1:13.9640 0:28.0060 0:18.1930 0:20.9290 1:07.1280
4 0:26.5230 0:17.5030 0:20.24501:04.2710 0:26.0850 0:20.1860 0:20.6790 1:06.9500 0:35.7070 0:32.4090 -:--.---- -:--.----
6 0:31.3370 0:20.6050 0:21.2490 1:13.1910 0:28.0100 0:18.2280 0:20.7700 1:07.0080 0:25.8250 0:18.6660 0:21.3690 1:05.8600
9 0:25.26700:16.89500:20.7480 1:02.9100