[Dr.Naren]

Good going Nikhil

Really great to see a turboed Civic which is proving it's reliability, one of a kind indeed!!

[karan561]

Hi Nikhil,

Nice set of mods, well done

Also i like the idea of not using bodykits but getting a good pair of wheels & great rubber to wrap around it which truly was tastefully done.

Just 1 suggestion, get better number plates

[Nikhilb2008]

Originally Posted by karan561

Hi Nikhil,

Nice set of mods, well done

Also i like the idea of not using bodykits but getting a good pair of wheels & great rubber to wrap around it which truly was tastefully done.

Just 1 suggestion, get better number plates

Absolutely man. That's the next step. Along with better quality headlights!

[Nikhilb2008]

Wow! It's been 3 months since my last update!

I actually do not have too much to report.

The car has been running well enough and right now, the odo reading is at 1,74,xxx kms.

[Nikhilb2008]

The car has crossed 1,76,000 kms now. So, more than 110,000 miles!






1. Engine rebuilt:

WE did a compression check and found that it was a bit lower than what it was a year back. All the experiments we did, tuning we did, running it hard and overall 170,000 kms of wear had taken it's toll. So, we planned for an engine rebuild and Blackworks completed the entire thing in 1 week flat. We had planned in advance and ordered new piston rings, oversize pistons, etc from Trident Honda. As soon as the parts arrived, I gave my car to Venkat and Chandru and they started the process. We also got a Cylinder Support System for the engine








The image below shows the head mod we did on the car. Detailed in an earlier post on this thread. https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/modif...ml#post4048855







Since the rebuild, the car felt a lot smoother and peppier to drive. Especially off-boost. It felt more lively. It now felt that the engine was being restricted by the turbo. Coincidentally, my friend who is planning a K@4 turbo had ordered a turbo which had reached India, but now he and Venkat felt that the turbo he ordered might be too small for his project. So, he offered it to me and I took it with open arms!


2. New Turbo: A new GTX 2967R. It's marginally bigger and in theory will restrict the engine lesser, improving low end response. And will flow better in the higher rpms.













Post the new turbo, I am very happy. The car just sings in the higher rpms and the bigger turbine housing definitely makes a difference when I am off-boost. The car is far easier to drive around the city nowadays. I can take speed breakers in 2nd gear and crawl around the city in a gear higher than earlier.

And at higher speeds and higher rpms, the acceleration continues without any letup. The drawback is that there does seem to be some amount of turbo lag which was not noticeable earlier. However, I am very happy for the time being and th car is as fast as I want it to be.

And at the end of the day, it's a sleeper! No loud exhaust, no loud stickers or paint jobs or spoilers. No nonsense ricer stuff. Totally clean and neat looking car.

Originally Posted by karan561

Hi Nikhil,

Nice set of mods, well done

Also i like the idea of not using bodykits but getting a good pair of wheels & great rubber to wrap around it which truly was tastefully done.

Just 1 suggestion, get better number plates

As you can see now, I've changed the number plate

[Nikhilb2008]

3. A new set of OEM Nissin brake pads and getting the rotors skimmed. This was an out of schedule service because I checked my brake pads a few days before going to track and I saw that the pads were nearing their end. I was afraid that I would wear them out on track and have a problem while returning from the track.



4. A trackday but no fiery incidents this time! The only problem I faced was ensuring I gave way to the super cars when they came up behind me! Oh, and out of the 1.5 hours and 90 kms I was on track, the charge pipe popped out of the intercooler once. So, I heard a sound and immediately slowed down and came into the pits. A few minutes later, it was fixed and I was ready to hit the track again and I did!




We left the track around 3:00 pm and after an agonisingly slow drive thanks to Sunday evening traffic, I was back home by 8:00 pm.

A total distance of almost 800 kms on that one day with approximately 90 kms on track. Maybe 80% of that was full throttle.

We almost hit a dog on the track too! I shall upload the video in some time.



A glimpse of my car on the way to the track and at the track and some nice cars that were at the track.







This is a nice little queue of cars ahead of me!





The main difference this time was that I had installed my AD08Rs a couple of days before I went to track. However, given how rare these tyres are, I didnt have the heart to go hard on them. So, I took it really easy and babied my tyres throughout the time I was on track.

The air temp was not as hot as Chennai can get but it was much much hotter than earlier. If you remember my previous trackday post, we had observed that the Intake Air Temps were around 40. This time though, it was hitting 60-65 easily but would drop to 40-ish when I was cruising on my cooldown lap.

I felt the car was slower down the straights this time and it could be because of a different tune or because of the higher intake air temperatures.

Either way, I was very happy overall as I successfully completed another trackday an got home safe and sound.

Just for the records, my fuel economy was around 3.5kmpl on the track. Not surprising as it was completely full throttle.

5. MY boot lock had started malfunctioning and it was a royal pain in the ass(of the car!). Had ordered a new one from Trident Honda and went there and got the lock replaced along with the tie rod ends.




6. My brakes! This was a long planned, big, expensive new upgrade. It just reached me a couple of days back and Venkat is on vacation. So, the installation will happen when he returns sometime next month.




I have got Wilwood DynaPro 4 Piston Calipers with Wilwood Street Performance Brake Pads.

The rotors are OEM Acura RSX Type S 300mm solid ventilated discs.

I've already got the braided lines and will be using Race brake fluid which has a much higher boiling point than normal stuff.

[deepfreak15]

How effective would the brakes be in regular city conditions? Are you planning on making your civic a track only car?

[Nikhilb2008]

Originally Posted by deepfreak15

How effective would the brakes be in regular city conditions? Are you planning on making your civic a track only car?

It should be effective I guess... I really dont know.

This car is my daily drive and will always remain so. I dont have the money to make this a track only car.

[bhuvan_prasad]

Originally Posted by deepfreak15

How effective would the brakes be in regular city conditions? Are you planning on making your civic a track only car?

Given that the brakes are OEM Honda brakes found on Acura's etc. as Nikhil mentioned, the brakes should be absolutely fine, with no chatter, squeal, wooden pedal feel or any other issues. It should be superior than the stock brakes under all conditions, and will really show its prowess under high speed braking.

Nikhil's car is anything but a track-specific car. Quiet exhaust, stock air intake, no BOV whoosh, it is a proper daily driver, which ploughs through the horror that is Bangalore city traffic day in and day out. Any car and driver which survives that ordeal, should be given a medal in my opinion.

[Nikhilb2008]

Originally Posted by bhuvan_prasad

Given that the brakes are OEM Honda brakes found on Acura's etc. as Nikhil mentioned, the brakes should be absolutely fine, with no chatter, squeal, wooden pedal feel or any other issues. It should be superior than the stock brakes under all conditions, and will really show its prowess under high speed braking.

Nikhil's car is anything but a track-specific car. Quiet exhaust, stock air intake, no BOV whoosh, it is a proper daily driver, which ploughs through the horror that is Bangalore city traffic day in and day out. Any car and driver which survives that ordeal, should be given a medal in m opinion.

Hahahahaha! Well said Bhuvan!

And given that your car survived 5 days in Bangalore with me at the helm, you should be good for your Delhi traffic too!

[nanju]

Nikz,

Its time for a super car mate. You will do complete justice to all those horses. By the way, might need your help to check with Venkat and team on installing a blow-off valve for my Scorpio. Please Pm their number across.

Daily drive, track, turbo, sleeper.. pheww that one hell of a multi-tasking for your civic.

cheers
Avin Nanjappa

[autodoctor]

Nice Job, appreciate the effort.
which track is this?

[SunnyBoi]

Originally Posted by autodoctor

Nice Job, appreciate the effort.
which track is this?

Its the MMSC Race track near Chennai.

In the meanwhile here are our cars during a recent drive

[Nikhilb2008]

A lot has happened over the past few weeks.

1. New Brakes:

Got my new brakes installed. It works brilliantly but we still need to remove some air from the system for it to be perfect. We are using a pressurised brake bleeding system, but there is still some air in the system. We will continue to work on it till it's perfect or as close to perfect as possible.

Some pictures below:







2. Oil leak thanks to Bangalore roads

While driving to office one day(26th July to be specific), I ended up hitting a pothole with the underbody very hard. The pothole had opened up just after a speedbreaker and I took the speedbreaker at my usual speed but this time, the car dived down into the new pothole and I heard a bad metallic noise. I thought it was a lower arm or the metal plate at the bottom of the car scraping/hitting the edge of the pothole.

This was about 1.5 kms from my office, so I went, parked the car and went about my work. Drove back home in the evening without incident.

Once I parked my car at home, I noticed a trail of a liquid on the route I had taken. I followed the path for about 100m and realised something was leaking. I rubbed my finger in that and realised it was engine oil. Allowed the engine to cool and then I checked the oil level on the dipstick. It was dangerously low.

I started the car and peered under the car with a torch and realised that the oil filter had ruptured and was leaking oil.

This was a very very very bad sign. I immediately called Venkat and he arranged for Chandru to visit the next day to change the oil filter. I arranged for 2 jacks from my nearby office and Chandru brought the oil, the filter and the required tools.

Got the filter changed and then drove around for a few days. There doesnt seem to be any lasting damage. There must have been only about 2 litres of oil in the system when this happened.

This was a near miss for sure. I'm lucky I didnt rev the engine or drive fast on my return journey home from office.

Pics below:












This was a total fluke and could have happened anytime. I'm just lucky I noticed it in time.

3. Suspension overhaul

After this, it was time to get the suspension overhauled. I've been feeling that the suspension has become a bit soft. It has done about 60k kms including a trip to Leh which would have really pushed the suspension to it's limits.

I anyway had to go to Coimbatore on work adn scheduled a full rebuild with Red Rooster in Coimbatore. Went there on Monday and left the car and picked it up again on Wednesday.

The suspension post the rebuild feels absolutely FANTASTIC. It feels more planted than before and there is ZERO body roll. They have also made the suspension 4 clicks stiffer. So, the new 16-16 (softest on the EDFC) is actually the old 12-12. The new 0-0(Stiffest) is actually 4 points stiffer than earlier.

Even on the stiffest setting, it absorbs road vibrations extremely well. I've used the Teins for over 1 lakh kms and I am still blown away by it. The experience of using such high quality suspension is something else altogether.

My experience at Red Rooster will be explained in more detail at the bottom of the post.

4. Coolant leak and Dyno Session:

While driving to Coimbatore on Monday morning, I felt there was a coolant leak somewhere. I could smell coolant strongly sometimes. When I collected the car after the suspension rebuild, I went to my hotel and looked under the car and saw a small pool of coolant that had collected. Basically there was a minor leak which was allowing coolant to escape under pressure.

Joe and Venkat were scheduled to join me in Coimbatore on Thursday morning for a dyno session at RRP. Since the leak was minor we decided to go to RRP and decide how to handle it. The guys at RRP were kind enough to lend us a lift for a few minutes and we checked the car and realised the leak was from one metal hose that had probably cracked and was leaking coolant under pressure.

We decided to go ahead with the dyno session. This time we didnt even try Speed 97 or anything. We just used normal petrol that I had filled in Salem on my way to Coimbatore on Monday morning.

We did a couple of really hard, long pulls and even held it Wide Open Throttle at 7000 rpm for a fairly long time. That led to some nice pics like a red hot exhaust manifold but thankfully, nothing gave way.

The coolant of course continued to leak and we were collecting it in a tray. Our idea was to measure how much had leaked out and then replace that quantity back in the radiator.

Our best result on a conservative tune was 170 WHP and 207 NM of Torque. It is lower than last time simple because we didnt push too hard. I was very keen that I want to dyno a street tune and not a special map only for the dyno (like last time). Boost was limited to 7-10 PSI.






Also crossed 1,79,000 on the Dyno. By the time we reached Bangalore, my car crossed 1,79,300. This marks a full 50,000 kms since we began the turbo project in November 2015.








This exhaust manifold is the one we made to replace the Integrated Exhaust Manifold that is part of the head of the R18 engine. We made this about a year back and it has seen some proper thrashing and it's still survived. When we did this "head mod", we were doubtful how long it would survive.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/modifi...ml#post4048855

Well, as of now, the mod seems to be working. We will know more in the next few days.





After the dyno session, RRP guys decided to remove my rear spring to take measurements for the spacer that they have to install. The Spacer should have been installed when this new set was installed about 2 years back, but for whatever reason it wasnt. I always felt the rear sagged too much and this was confirmed when I measured the ride height as well. The rear was 15mm lower than the front.

Anyway, once they measured the rear spring, they tightened everything and we were good to go.

We left RRP and navigated a bad patch of road and just as we reached the better roads, Joe realised that he had left my tool kit at RRP. Since we were just 10 minutes from their workshop, we went back. As we pulled up outside their workshop, Joe went in to get my tool kit and Venkat and I realised that the coolant leak seemed to be getting worse.

We requested RRP for some help and Karna and Leela Sir very kindly lent us a 20 litre can, filled it with water and gave it to us.

We decided to push on to Bangalore immediately.

It took us around 8.5 hours with a food halt as well to reach Bangalore. Every time the Coolant Temp crossed 55 deg C, we stopped, poured more water into the cooling system and continued driving.

Driving too was very slow as we had to limit our revs. Higher the revs, harder the water pump works and more pressure builds in the system, increasing the leak!

We stopped in Salem for a break and when we returned our hearts sank. There was a large puddle of water below the car. Larger than we had ever seen it.

We anyway filled up the radiator as much as we could, filled up the 20 litre can as well and carried on.

Slowly, excruciatingly, we inched along and finally reached the workshop at 3:00 am.



In the time it took me to position my car and reverse into the garage, more water had leaked out.

As of now, we are all safe and sound and we dont think there is any major damage.

Of course, the entire turbo and the related manifold will have to come out to zero in on the leak and fix it.

We all went to bed relatively pleased that things could have been worse.

We should have known better.

This morning, I spoke to Venkat and he says that just as he started the car this morning to reverse onto the lift, one cylinder didnt seem to be firing!

Great! Our bad luck just never seems to end!

We are yet to start begin work in figuring out what went wrong.




Conclusion: All cars break when pushed beyond a limit. The limit for this R18 engine is pretty low. No reasonable person should try this on an R18, if you're going to actually drive the damn thing. If you're going to just use it for like 700-1000 kms a month, then it's fine. But if you're like me and want to drive a car the way it's meant to be driven, get something else.

I'm not a reasonable person. I love the Civic and have loved this car since the day I got it. It has never let me down and has always pulled through. The one time it did break down on the highway was when I was with 4-5 other cars and 10 friends and it was a little sad but I was never stressed or worried because I was surrounded by friends.

There is something special about my White Civic which is why I've been spending so much time, money and effort on this thing. And for what? For it to be just about as fast a Stage 1 Laura TSI.

But again, we humans are not always rational. That emotion, that idea of "Heart ruling over the mind" is what makes us human.

And irrespective of whether this project continues or not, I will forever be happy that I carried out this project.

[nitrous]

On our roads, please avoid leaving the oil filter exposed.
Have an engine protection plate fabricated in aluminium with holes drilled for ventilation.