1998 Honda Civic - Back From The Dead - Project Civic

Overnight parts from Japan.

A few other small parts needed to go on while we had the car in the shop. In less than five minutes, we had our Skunk2 battery tie-down in place and a Civic Type-R gauge cluster installed. The stock CX trim gauge cluster doesn’t have a tachometer, and instead of going with a very not-subtle external tach, the JDM CTR unit is a great solution. Plus, the CTR unit lights up amber to match my Si dash, and that’s a nice touch.

Now that we had the parts in place, it was time to get our alignment adjusted. We headed out to Evasive Motorsports in La Puente, California, with many years experience tuning street and track cars, Mike and his crew always take good care of us with our various project car needs. We kept things simple and straightforward for our initial setup down the road, we’ll most likely go with a more aggressive alignment but for now, roughly -2.3 degrees camber up front and -1 degree in back (with straight toe settings) is a good place to start. We should experience good tread life and neutral handling with these measurements.

At this point, we also needed to mount a new set of street tires on our 16x7-inch Rays wheels. Continental provided us with a set of Extreme Contact DW Tuned tires, sized at 205/45R16. This is a good tire for street use, with a forgiving feel and low amount of road noise grip levels aren’t race-tire good, but it’s adequate for typical street use, as well as wet driving conditions.

Street use is all relative, however. Almost as soon as I left Evasive to head home, I was reminded of how fun this car is to drive and I knew I had to hit the track as soon as possible. At the recommendation of a few coworkers, I contacted Chris Willard at Extreme Speed Track Events because he had an event at Streets of Willow Springs coming up the perfect venue for me to get out there and try my hand at some real driving.

Streets of Willow is a very fun track; with lots of tight corners and elevation changes, it seems to favor a nimble car as opposed to an outright powerful car that may not handle as well through the turns. This was perfect for me, but after my first session, I knew that I would benefit from some in-car instruction. Chris set me up with his chief driving instructor, Sherman Bahr, who went out for a session of one-on-one instruction. Sherman’s primary job is to ensure that his students have a fun and safe driving experience, and he strongly advocates doing so on a track (not on the street). Having taught for nearly 10 years, Sherman certainly knows how to find the line on any track, and he particularly enjoys Streets for its technical and tight nature.

After riding along for a few laps and then driving while receiving verbal instruction, I felt much better about the track’s layout. Sherman gave many useful tips, like how late to brake for any given corner and when to turn in for the best line. I had to constantly remind myself that smooth is fast. On my next session out, I managed to shave over 4 seconds off my previous best lap time not bad!

At my level, it’s not really about lap times. Learning how to improve your technique and push the limits of both yourself and your car (safely) is much more important. All in all, I was very satisfied with my first ever track experience.

My entire experience with Chris and Sherman at Extreme Speed Track Events was nothing but positive. With a knowledgeable, friendly staff and plenty of certified instructors, I’ll definitely join them again in the future. ESTE runs events across Southern California at various racetracks and caters to everyone from novice to super-advanced with specified run groups.