Building a car that's a popular rally car but not in US

Aaron Neumann does well with his Civic, waaaaaay up here above the 49th.

http://www.pacificforestrally.net/archives/2007/bio/bio_Neumann.htm

4th overall at the 2006 Pacific Forest Rally in his Civic :

http://www.pacificforestrally.net/results/2006/event1/summaries/overall.html

Seriously, it's not hard to find stuff overseas. I just spent maybe ten minutes between Google and a rally forum and Ireland to find this vendor.
So, what more do you really need other than what you can buy direct from here.
http://www.dmrr.net/civic.htm
You have cages, upgraded radiators, good brake setups, dual masters, Sellholm and Profles dampers, skid plates, roll cage kits, lexan windows, gear kits, LSDs, etc.

I mean if you want to know things like, "Do I need to put 2000 lbs of additional steel to keep my rear beam from bending every two stages like people seem to need to do on a Golf" you're probably best off with making a few phone calls to people that have rallied Civics and pushed them hard. Aaron Neumann and whoever owns that car that Havas keeps killing OT with. Think it was Derek something or other.

But this same methodology could apply to building a BMW E30 or E36, Nissan Versa (same shell as Renault Clio as I understand), old Toyotas, etc.

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Grant Hughes

Damn it. Now you got me going... Here's another one.
http://www.eurom-sport.com/

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Grant Hughes

www.couperallye.com (everything is in French, but it's the Quebec 2WD championship website).

The 2008 championship was won Civic in both the G2 and Production classes.

if you look at the teams : http://couperallye.com/equipes.html

you can see 7 Civic vs 5 Golf in the John Nichols Cup (Gr2) and 1 Civic vs 2 Golf in the "Coupe du Quebec" (production).

The civic is a popular plateform here. Parts are available everywhere, but the main problem is that most civic owner thinks his car is made of gold and want some ridiculous amount for it.

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Francois

NW:
Havas's rental was built by Derik Nelson
he's an amazing fabricator and his car shows it (don't believe the hype, the car is built).
http://www.day3creations.com/
he bent the tubing for my cage while he was working at Cascade autosport.

stephen perett rallied a similar honda - rolled it hard while rallying out east.

that shell and his spare was sold to kris dahl who has rallied a green integra in the past.
www.fatboyraceworks.com
(check out their stage time/results page, and handy gear calculator.

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"I put the hurt on dirt" - adam crane
http://CraneRallyCrew.com
corolla gt-s "Patches"
Op: S.S.

damn, that Mk2 those DMRR guys have is freakin bass ass. they are probably going to car hell for that motor swap, but shit that is a nice ride.

Yeah. It's just I bought the STI once I came out of school. Ralyl was more or less a dream at that point (that was October of 2006). Then after watching the 2007 LSPR, I said to myself, "Fuck it, I'm doing LSPR in 2008". And here I am.

I still enjoy the STI, and right now I'm on the 2-3 year rally schedule. However, I do want to do full seasons eventually. I figure run the VW, build up my Honda on the side. Once the Honda is in top shape I'll start doing full seasons. At that time I'll sell the STI to fund the 2WD car or cage the car itself.

I've had my fix with the high HP street car. I can get my kicks with the rally car and still take it to autocross/rallycross/trackdays and have fun.

Truth on the Honda kids thinking their cars are made of gold. But the nice thing about it, is Honda kids spend lots of money and then get into financial hiccups. They unload the cars/parts for dirt cheap.

But most people who aren't in a rush to sell their cars charge way to much for them. Especially ones that don't have cancer in the wheel wells.

Guess which car i've listed above is going to be driven by Nate tennis himself at the olympus next weekend.

LOOK out subaru crew.

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"I put the hurt on dirt" - adam crane
http://CraneRallyCrew.com
corolla gt-s "Patches"
Op: S.S.

I feel like the theoretical STI/Civic guy you guys are talking about it me!

I rally a Civic and an Integra. I have an STI (bought it after the rally cars, so didn't need to sell it to finance the builds). Too many funny coincidences.

Anyway, yeah Steve Perret had a great time in an orange EF Civic that got all messed up at 100AW about 5 years ago. Nothing fancy, just lightweight and reliable, and Steve knows how to drive it.

Derik's EF Civic is quite a bit more trick, also very very lightweight, I think he just put a B20 into it, is quite fast with lot of custom fabrication.

Aaron Neumann from BC though is really quick, very impressive to watch. If I recall he has a Type R motor in his EG Civic. Seriously fast car and driver. I just read that the car got totaled though, so that is a bummer.

I bought Steve's orange civic wrecked car and the new caged chassis he had Derik build. We're campaigning it now, planning on being at Idaho, possibly Oregon this year.

The Civics are great because they are light, have a good wheelbase, parts are plenty, but they have some shortcomings too. Some of the suspension stuff (like the aforementioned rear trailing arms, front lower control arms) ten to take a beating. The motors are great--start with a non VTEC B-series (B18 or B20), get good reliable torque.

Good shocks/springs can be had for not a lot of money.

Eventually when you need more power, you can go with a VTEC setup, which also has downsides. Mainly due to the fact that they rev pretty high--oiling has been a problem for us. We're now setup with accusump systems on the cars which I think will solve that issue. ARP rod bolts are also a good idea.

I wouldn't really recommend a LS/VTEC or B20VTEC unless you spend some money doing it right. Aftermarket rods & rod bolts at a minimum. We're using VTEC blocks because frankly they don't cost much more and you get to eliminate the LS/VTEC oiling rerouting silliness.

K series motors would be really interesting, except they are very tall. Too tall to rally, really. Might be able to fabricate a shallow oil pan, but really I think a dry sump is needed to give the required clearance. Man do the K series motors rip. Insanity.

If anyone is interested in pictures of a Civic rally car build (more all the time):
http://fatboyraceworks.com/gallery/v/Civic/
Integra build:
http://fatboyraceworks.com/gallery/v/Integra/

so jealous of that civic. very nicely built. it looks really nice from the front too.

Installed the steering quickener in a very similar manner to what Kris Dahl shows on his site(thanks Kris!). Coleman 1.5:1 modified so it interchanges with the stock column(strg wheel is 1/2 inch closer to the driver). The turnsignals, ignition switch, height adjustment are mounted on it and the stock splines/universal joint were welded to it.

The only issue is that it has a small amount of play(3 degrees or so). Has anyone else experienced this issue with strg qcknrs?

I will machine a delrin bushing to support the cantilevered shaft(towards strg whl). The unsupported length from the quickener to the steering wheel is about 8-10 inches - it makes sense to me that a little more support would not be a bad thing.

Cage is done. Working on belt mounts. Driver' seat is in and pedal pads were moved back almost 5 inches. Block is being sleeved now. Fiberglass hatch is on-what a pain- hinge bolt holes were off and so were the latch, lock, etc. Hood was installed too.

George

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Civic Rally Car

Yeah I ended up with a bit of play as well in mine. I thought it was actually in the rack (amplified by the quickener). I was going to adjust the rack preload on the gears which I was hoping would remove the slop.

I also found that we could use with a bit more support. We also found that getting the right length on the shaft down to the U-Joint is critical. We're a bit short or long (forget which) so it is a bit harder to turn than it should be.

Did you put in power steering?

-k

We also found that getting the right
> length on the shaft down to the U-Joint is
> critical. We're a bit short or long (forget
> which) so it is a bit harder to turn than it
> should be.

Just to clarify my own thoughts...

Do you mean it's harder to turn because the shaft is pulling or pushing causing thrust on the bearings inside the quickener making it harder to turn?

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Michael LeCompte

Kris,
-PS is going in when the motor is swapped. Have a 99 SI rack(supposed to be 3.3 LTL) and a 98 EX rack that is 3.6 LTL. One trick I am going to try is swapping an Integra pinion into the EX rack. Supposedly it works and ends up having 3.0 LTL
-Thankfully from the steering column mounts to the bottom U joint my modified quickener is identical to stock in length.

George

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Civic Rally Car