i guess im way far behind on keeping this updated sorry to anyone following along.

engine went in fairly easily with no hassles, really digging the new look. also went ahead and repainted the front bumper and cr lip.



also whipped up a brake mast brace with some scraps i had laying around, came out decent.






did a few pulls to confirm all was running well and the tune looked damn solid, no burning oil and overall was healthy as can be. very happy, so time to pack up and head to gridlife midwest festival and give it hell.





unfortunately track conditions weren't on my side all weekend. threw down a couple flyers to shake off the jitters on thursday and really test the new setup at pace and came a tenth or two off my pb on the first or second lap, was pretty stoked about that having a whole weekend to actually dig in and find time was going to be great. fri and saturday were a struggle and most everyone's fastest time was run on that thursday evening session as the track was just greasy and not all there for the rest of the weekend. not instructing let me have tons more time making small changes to try to go faster and reviewing data to see where things were going wrong. talking to some folks saturday it was the general consensus that everyone was facing the same struggles. my ability to remain pretty close all weekend to my pb shows that there was time on the table still and even still there is tons of times in the brake zones, still learning what the car can do and going at corners soooo much faster than ive been used to. for once the car was just working though, i literally did nothing but check oil levels all weekend and made fiddly adjustments to try to find time but otherwise the car just worked. had i known that thursday was going to be the day i would have pushed for a couple more laps. oh well. ended up finishing 9th overall in a very highly competitive street mod class. made one or two sessions in group A and most the weekend leading group b which is nice for once not having to crawl from the back of the field up into where i dont run into traffic.

that said the car did start to develop a very small oil leak somewhere around the turbo throughout the weekend, no more than a few drops on the ground but nothing visually leaking. after getting home and really inspecting i found the fire sleve to be a bit crusty and burnt. removed the drain line to find it was burnt burnt and cut it off, it was pretty oil soaked and found it had burned through the braided drain line. pretty easy fix and clocked the drain so it sits a bit further away from the turbo/manifold flage.



so i figured the season was over but my buddy hit me up and asked if i wanted to do a private trackday and well.... absolutely, i still was shooting for a pb for the year that was just out of grasp and knew the cooler october air would certainly provide the track conditions i needed. unfortunately the very first hot lap i go to gun it and the clutch lets loose, i click off the ole send it button which turns boost down to w/g pressure and still wont hold. bummer, car made 500/351 on 16lbs and at all of midwest i was running about 19-20lbs and well 350 is already really pushing the oem/act combo. i thought i maybe felt some slipping at the end of the weekend at festival but idk, so many inputs it wasnt wildly spinning but just slipping a small amount, i did nothice my mph was down a tad. hind sight is 20/20 right. it hold a few 3rd gear street rips but starts slipping after 3 or 4. basically the warm up lap feels great then hot lap i have nothing.


and here is just a few shots i liked from midwest fest. the thursday night sessions were pretty great photo ops






winter plans are simple, pay off the debt for the replacement engine, toss in a act 6puck disk at this hd pressure plate and inspect the current throw out and pilot as both are only maybe 5k miles old at most but replace if needed. assess the flywheel if it needs resurfacing or looks ok. i purchased a gridlife gold pass so the season is tentatively planned and paid for. april i'll be at NCM, june at midwest fest, end of june autobahn south, august or sept i forget which is mid-ohio. ill be at west michigan honda meet at gingerman in july as well. this past midwest fest was my first time attack event where i wasnt also instructing in about 6 years and the amount of time i had to actually focus on my program was mind boggling. so im really hoping to give it a really solid push this year. i'll keep you all updated as progress moves along.

 

oh man its been too long since the last update, lots to catch up on...

winter plans went well as the list was short. i did add to my list by acquiring a totaled hardtop from my guys over at a-solutions. but for anyone following along a little bit of work never scared me away.





so i got to work, first step was cutting the hardtops inner and outer shell apart to fix the damage from the backside. this allows me to grind out all the cracks and damaged fiberglass and then layup arguably too much fiberglass to repair it. i figured better safe than sorry id rather have a top a couple pounds too heavy that will never fail than try t be a weight weenie and have issues later on.

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i have literally hundreds of pictures of this process, this was no small feat and took probably close to 50+ hours of work....sooo much sanding and blocking. i used panel bond to bond the inner and outer back together. now this part happened later i will put it here just for continuity sake to finish off the hardtop saga. walking through home depot i spotted this out the corner of my eye, so i grabbed it figuring there is no way. test panel said more than close enough for a racecar, do i recommend on your street car ... no, for a race car plenty good enough. wasnt sure if i wanted to flow the llivery but super glad i did i think it looks great. oh and i just blasted it with the same brand rattle can clear coat as well.









next up was the glooming issue from last season and that was my clutch, first time not doing this on my back and boy what a treat. just tossed a act 6 puck sprung disk in with the current act hd pressure plate. um...i hate it, but its holding all the jams so i'll survive. its cheap and the biggest reason is im still undecided about a transmission, i didnt want to drop a couple grand on a twin disc only to move to a beefier trans option and render such a pricey piece useless.




then onto likely the biggest game changer for this season is trading in my 2016 civic for a 2019 pilot and them picking up a small-ish beat to shit car hauler. thing tows great, i average between 19-21mpg towing depending on how fast i drive. pretty stoked for this and alleviated alot of the stress of having to remind myself that i gotta drive this puppy home after the event



now that the offseason is caught up stop one... NCM, now i have never been here and to say i was nervous was an understatement, this place is massive. im used to 2-2.3 mile tracks with a dozen turns or so, easily manageable to wrap your head around. its 3.2 miles with 23 turns, lots of elevation and blind corners. its one of those places that really reward sending it but critical you know where exactly you are on track. and then boom i run into issues, whats new. day one it was wet for the first session, cool, im fine with slower pace to get my bearings, second session im hitting boost cut...f#@$ me not again i thought this was fixed. im like ok, im still learning the place just do what you can do and get some seat time at this point. pulling the gates off would mean missing my sessions and i opted to just say get the seat time for day one and work around the boost cut the best you can and lets fix this after the track goes cold. also pretty excited in the nearly a decade ive been racing on tracks this is the first time my wife and kids are coming out to spectate with my sister-in law and their family. so i do my thing trying to move up in the run groups but being handicapped pretty bad i get through the day. upon pulling the gate apart worst case scenario, i assumed it was just the valve sticking again...nope, ripped diaphragm. there isnt really a way to fix this, not track side anyway. so me and my buddy (also a scott driving a s2k lol) come up with a mcguiver solution. i remove the 10 psi spring only leaving the 4 psi spring, we then cut that spring down, lets let the back pressure just push it open. the second gate is still functioning so i just need barely any pressure to keep it shut and in the upper rpms in theory the backpressure should push the gate open a bit. this silly stunt actually worked, held 18 psi just fine! but it also caused me to lose an axle. swap it out and well now it comes down to the last session of the weekend and truthfully, just got hung up in tons of traffic, because of the boost issue im not stuck back in a pack of much lower hp cars and every strait i get to is either sketchy passes or i just had to wait for the opportunity to pass. i didnt know the track well enough so i opted to be a bit conservative on passing and ultimately ended with me not going very fast. id love to go back and give it a proper rip.








when i got home i promptly made and order, im done with shitty gate issue, i should be set now... thank god they were close enough in size everything still bolted up, i was pretty concerned about that. twin scroll is great for response until you realize you have to buy two wastegates, which is why i cheaped out in the first place. lesson learned






next up was gridlife midwest fest, i wish i had a better excuse, i ran a new pb but nowhere near what i wanted, the track just wasnt really there and i think my tires were pretty well cycled out. i did my best but just wasnt it. i did also blow out my 3rd gear on corner exit. so finally stuffed my first oem trans, took long enough lol. nice guy a few spots down loaned me the lift in his trailer to toss in my spare unknown trans, well i knew it was locked out of 5th and gambled that it was the common bur issue, luckily it was.






next on the agenda was autobahn country club in joliet, illinois. pretty excited to get back out here after a pretty bad time last year and the cars fuel pump dying on me on the first session. so i was ready to give it the ole college try, and just to make sure i ordered up and installed a fresh set of cr-s (formerly the nankang cr-1's) these things are amazing, faster than a re71 but wear like a rs4 its the best of both worlds. unfortunately bad luck strikes again, sometimes i wonder if i didnt have bad luck id have no luck at all. first session was raining heavily, ok well i want to go out, just get some sight laps in and play in the rain. 1st session goes great, 2nd session is drying out so its getting fast but there is lots off traffic but i go fast enough to clear me of the uber slow cars for the 3rd session. unfortunately the 3rd session goes terribly, i get a nasty clunking noise on my first hot lap, still has power, no vibration so im thinking the exhaust is maybe falling off, or something is wrapped around my driveshaft. so i pull off to investigate. seems like maybe the diff is stuffed. i make a few calls and my boys over at a-solutions in Chicago about 45 min away meet me after hours to get me a diff. get done with that at like 2am and go to bed. huge thank you to phong with twerk team racing with the assist here. get it in but issue persists. spend the next day just going though everything. pull the driveshaft and it seems fine, axles seem fine plus there was no vibration. well after further inspection and some help from others we think it may have actually been an axle, swap it out literally running full speed, i hear the 5 minute call to grid and im torqueing the lugs run to the bathroom and clean myself up and run back to the car and get to grid just in time. lucky for me i was sitting right up front in the run group...nothing but open track and man am i excited. first hot lap mind you this will be my first ever full lap in the dry ever here, i go several seconds faster but tons left on the table, i go for the next hot lap, aim is saying im a 3 or 4 seconds faster yet coming down the back strait and i know i left alot on the table last corner complex before the front strait where start/finish is. as im aproching the last section they black flag all....noooooo! i was like 10 seconds away from the finish line and a decent time...uhg. i pull in hoping it'll be quick and we might get another lap in but nope, someone stuffed it int a wall and thats was the end of the weekend.





next event is one of my favorite all year, west michigan honda meet. back at my home track at gingerman. event went great, i went fster and faster every lap, i do think the diff i swapped in is pretty damn tired and seems to open up quite a bit on corner exit causing the rpms to just jump before it hooks which is leaving some time on the table. but i did go faster every session and reset my pb by more than a second in sub optimal track conditions. overall event went off without a hitch and got some sweet rollers done with my guy nate vestal of nvus images








and that basically brings us to current. i was supposed to be at mid-ohio for redemption last weekend but i caught the 'rona the week prior and just had zero energy to do anything to prepare. been to a few cars and coffee events, i may go to the drag strip this weekend, we'll see. have never brought the s2k to the strip, it wouldnt be launching but just curious and something new. i had over 250 passes on my old turbo civic. i did find the downpipe cracked at some point so gotta rip that off this week and weld it up.



if you made it to the end, well thank you for following along, i'll try to be better about keeping this current

 

Nice updates, and nice work on making that top newish again!

 

Nice hardtop! I did mine in gloss black. Dont like the fake window look on my silverstone