Pretty basic stuff that you'd expect to see. The Yokohama's have actually served as my autocrossing tires since December 6th, and at least in Phoenix, they've performed extremely well for me. Now on to the good stuff.

The Need for Speed

Well, things were all find and happy for the whole last season that I've been autocrossing my basically stock Civic HX. I was winning events here in Phoenix on my Yokohamas and have been having a lot of fun at it. To make my car look the part as a racing car though, I had to do something about the appearance, hence the magnetic stickers you see on a few of the pictures here. I'm still in the process of adding more and will eventually maybe even have something that makes me look like I have some clue as to what I'm doing.

Ok, well I really should just sit down and add it all up some time, but after the June 5th autocross, I believe that I will have completed around 100 laps at various events, driver's schools, and practice days. So maybe I'm starting to get the hang of this after all.

Well, things were about to change around mid-March or so. I went to an import drag race with a racing buddy of mine, Tage Evanson who drives a moderately modified Integra GS-R. Well, after he was done racing, we were walking around the pits, and he ran into some guy he knew who runs a BMW M3 at open track events here in Phoenix. Suddenly, my whole world was altered. I was actually speaking to someone who was just an ordinary guy and races his daily driver on the track.

The hook was set now. At the time, I thought that it sounded pretty cool, but I only have a Honda Civic, not a BMW. I tried to put the sensations to the back of my mind for preservation of my sanity and checking account. Then I watched the NSX-Files again. I have all three of Doug Hayashi's racing videos, but before actually talking to someone who'd done the events, it seemed so far off and unreal. Now it was real and it was time to start living my dreams.

Upgrade Time

Since this is still going to be my only car, and I really like the ability to actually win races in the H Stock class for SCCA Solo2 events, I decided against doing anything that would bump me into a higher class. This was to be my version of a spending cap. Well, it sort of worked.

The first thing I really needed in order to get race ready would be some real racing tires. Not fancy street tires, but real racing tires. The available choices are Yokohama A032R, Kumho V700, BFG R1, and the Hoosier R3S03 in order of approximate grippiness. While the Kumho isn't the stickiest tire available, it is the cheapest, and they're supposed to actually offer very good grip, high predictability, and long life compared to the other R tires. What more could I ask for? So I made my call to The Tire Rack and put 4 Kumho tires on order, size 195/55-14, pre-heat cycled. Total price: $482.

Now, this decision was actually made after I'd made arrangements with Tage to buy his old HX wheels. His wife also has a Civic HX, and they got some really nice 17" wheels, so they still had the 14" wheels with nearly new Firestone tires on them. So, I picked up 4 nearly new wheels and tires for $330. Since the tires alone are worth at least $140 or so, that brings my per wheel price down to about $47.50/ea. Not bad, considering new wheels start around 2-3 times that. The only downside is that when my Yoko's wear out, I'll be downgrading to those Firestone tires. Oh well.

Next on the list was an in-car camera mount. Besides the "cool" factor in having my racing on tape, I figure this may help me actually drive better by being able to spot possible places where I should be starting my turn-in, braking points, and stuff like that. Also, if I ever get a new computer, like one that doesn't lock up all the time, I'll get a video capture device so I can put MPEG clips of my time trials on my web site.

The mount was a two part ordeal. First, I needed to get a harness guide bar, which I shall have pictures of soon. I ordered one from I/O Port Racing for about $100 and I got their camera mount for the bar as well, which was also about $100. Total with shipping was $205. It's a bit of a pain to install, and picks up more vibration than I wanted, but otherwise is a fine piece of work. I'll put up a more complete review of all my equipment later.

Next, I decided that the stock brake pads were really not going to be up to the task of road track usage. I ordered some Porterfield R-4S street/track pads directly from Porterfield for about $100 and had Tage help me install them. They feel a bit stronger than the stock brakes, and the real advantage should be in their heat and fade resistance.

So that basically covered all the stuff for the car itself, but I still needed some more gear to be ready. I got a jack and some folding wheel chocks for $40, a torque wrench and 3/4" deep socket for tightening lugs for $70, a helmet for about $90, gloves for $20, and a portable 7 gallon air tank for $20. Lastly, getting the tires actually mounted on the wheels was $50. Total for above stuff: $290.

So all tallied up, it's taken about $1400 to get my car ready to take on the road course. Considering it's possible to spend $1400 and just get some fancy 17" wheels and expensive tires, I think I did pretty well to get a whole bunch of racing stuff for the money. About the only other upgrade I'm considering is getting some adjustable struts so I can limit the body roll of the car and have greater tuning ability as far as eliminating understeer.

I'll soon be creating another page where I will review all of my performance stuff as far as how easy it is to install/use, if it helped me go faster, and by how much, and if I think it's worth what it costs. I'll likely have that page ready to roll out by late June, so keep checking back here for all the latest news and info.

A few of the first pictures
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Page last updated: 6-8-99