1998 Honda Civic - The Long And Winding Road - Project Civic

When I had the oil pan off, I discovered a very unsettling problem, which made me even more happy I had decided to upgrade the oil department. My oil pickup had a massive dent in it, which significantly hinders the amount of oil the engine can draw from the pan. No bueno! Obviously, this inexpensive OEM part was replaced at this point, and I took the opportunity to fill my motor with Redline 5W30 synthetic motor oil.

With the Civic all sorted out and ready for another session, I contacted Aaron Bitterman at Speed Ventures. A track day and event organizing body, Speed Ventures offers a wide variety of track driving experiences, ranging from typical open track days to specialized challenge series. There happened to be a weekend at Buttonwillow Raceway Park coming up, so I signed up and headed north on Interstate 5 late one Friday night. Aaron and his right-hand man, Dave Lach, were kind enough to set me up for seat time with an instructor, which (not surprisingly) proved to be very valuable. Having a person who knows his way around the track is very helpful as a new driver, and I managed to drop more than 10 seconds from my lap times throughout the course of the weekend after my in-car instruction session. However, lap times aren’t the most important thing for a driver of my experience level. The increased confidence and comfort of knowing the person sitting next to you recognizes the best line is what makes in-car instruction extremely helpful.

This weekend would play host to a Honda FF Challenge event as well, so I decided “What the heck?” and entered my Civic. With slightly less than ideal weather, and due mostly to my lack of experience, I didn’t place in the competition. Two off-track excursions left the car a bit muddy and my ego a bit bruised, but I took a lot of valuable experience away from the event (namely, don’t ever lift off throttle when entering the corner before Lost Hill if you’re in a FWD car — yikes!). We were all very pleased with our experience with Speed Ventures, and we highly recommend looking to them for enthusiast-level track events in California and Nevada.

I turned to Redline Oil for its 5W30 synthetic motor oil; this is some of the best stuff you can put in your motor to ensure a long life, peak efficiency and optimum performance.

I turned to Redline Oil for its 5W30 synthetic motor oil; this is some of the best stuff y

Toward the end of the second day, the car was hiccupping a bit more than usual and I experienced a drop in power (and a nice plume of white smoke out the tailpipe) when I had the car under heavy load. Knowing these were bad signs, I eased up and pulled over. After checking the oil and discovering a milky consistency to it, I knew it was most likely a case of “bye-bye, head gasket.” Thankfully, the car was still in reasonably decent running condition at low rpm, so I hung my head, put in my Journey: Greatest Hits album and limped home at low speeds.

Luckily, replacing the head gasket is a fairly simple repair on a Honda B-series motor. One thing to make sure and do is have a machine shop give the head a once over, both for a pressure cleaning and to check the tolerances (and ensure the head isn’t warped). Along with all the gaskets and small incidentals involved with removing and reinstalling a head, I wanted to replace a few parts while we had the motor open.