The Filthy Harlot - My Base DC5

[isaac]

For all who don't know me my name is Isaac and I've decided to build a base model DC5.

I purchased this car from Wollongong early last year for a song after I sold my daily driven 4age powered VW kombi van.

I've owned and modified close to 20 cars in the last 10 years. It's been a fairly even mixture of Honda, aircooled volkswagens and 4wd's.
I'm not the kind of guy to buy and flog cars, I just get bored really really quickly!!!

So without hesitation lets talk about my little red...well sometimes pink looking car.



I'll post a lot more photos when I have more time.

When I purchased the car it had 110,000k's and was completely stock as a rock!!! The clutch slipped but overall it had been maintained well and was driven by an elderly gentleman.

Within a week or so I replaced the head unit and added some nice JVC speakers. In the same week I decided to get my local shop to supply and fit a new clutch.... 'There are no heavy duty clutches available for this car so we will modify a standard pressure plate to suit'. What a $1800 load of crap!!!

I have always been a DIY kind of guy, but running a small business and having a young family has given me very little free time to work on my own cars.

So for the next couple of months I put up with the shitty clutch and general state of the car and enjoyed the fuel economy.

It was about this time I discovered ClubITR and the boys at BYP racing.

I started collecting bits and pieces from people on here to improve the little fuel miser's drive ability.

I fitted:

- typeS header and Cat
- typeR cat back
- typeS Struts and camber arms
- typeR wing
- typeR brakes
- k&n panel filter
- and a buddy club short shifter
- changed all fluids for nulon synthetic

This did improve the car!! It clearly gained torque across the board and was a lot more rev happy! Led me to believe this little car may be worth spending some currency on.

More to follow...

[Shakeel]

Finally a build thread!

It was a pleasure meeting you at Wakefield on Monday.

Good to see another base model DC5 out there and keeping up with (even beating) the rest!

[isaac]

Thanks Shak!!

It was great meeting you too and your car is certainly inspiring to say the least!

[itr5093]

Wow the black rpf1's look soo aggressive

[wongy]

Hi issac, nice car looking good so far

[felixR]

Nice post!

Keep up the good work.

[isaac]

.....Living in the blue mountains has taught me to appreciate a car that can handle well.

When I first moved up here I owned a lifted Jeep wrangler on 37" mudders, a turbo 1965 beetle and an EK1 civic with a built D series motor!!!

The jeep was good for running over things, the beetle had the stance down and the little EK was my little diamond in the ruff!!! More on these later..

I've always been attracted to the underdog!!

So back on track... I decided that suspension was a good place to start with the DC5.

The first upgrade was a set of GAB SS coilovers and some hard race camber arms!! Wow this car could turn now but the little 16" wheels just couldn't take the abuse!!!

I knew the next logical step was some new shoes!! After very little thought and consideration I went for a set of Enkei RPF1's (17x9 +22) wrapped in Hankook RS3's!

Woohoo I was loving my new found grip!!! Something I hadn't really had in previous fwd cars!!!!

[ZIPPIE Type-S]

Hey Isaac, an MR DC5. How's the paint doing on her? Lovely colour for fading hardcore..

[Batchy]

Nice work man. Keen to see more!

[isaac]

Thanks guys!!!

Hey Isaac, an MR DC5. How's the paint doing on her? Lovely colour for fading hardcore..

Yes it's a love hate relationship I've had when it comes to red cars!! Never mind, there is always plasti-dip!

[isaac]

So the opportunity arose to take the little Harlot with her new shoes to the track. What better place than Wakefield Park with John Boston's TrackSchool.


It was not only my birthday that day,but I was not alone piloting a DC5 with RPF1's thank you Ameer and his super duper clean type R!!!!


We had some fun that day!! In the morning session it was wet, so it was more of an exercise in car control.
The second session of the day was not timed but I had some great battles against a lotus Elise and some MX5's.


The track bug had bit and bit hard!!

[isaac]

Once you start, you just can't stop modifying these cars.

I decided to make a list of things that I wanted to do before the next track day.

I was aiming for the queens birthday circuitclub but due to my current workload I just didn't make it. Instead i signed up for the Team Ground Zero track day!!

I attempted to time my efforts on the Track in April using an iPhone app and cross referencing it to my gopro footage, not real accurate but I was hoping to beat a 1:17.5 with no real engine modification.

I must say my gopro footage had been pretty lame to watch to date as this little engine is sooo quiet!! So off to BYP to sort that problem out!!!



This 70mm titanium cat back is the business!!! It is beautifully made and feather light. Great price too!



I've had mild and stainless exhausts on both naturally aspirated and turbo cars. There is something different about a titanium system, other than the sweet smell if has after a hard drive!! It has a natural crackly and raspy tone especially in the higher revs. I'd love to hear it paired to a decent honda engine!!!



It's a bit on the loud side, but what do you expect for a 70mm pipe with 1mm wall thickness!!!

[isaac]

Next thing on the list was pedals. The standard base ones are pretty woeful so my mate Brian had a genuine DC5R set never used.

It was good that the pedal geometry changed swapping these over. The positioning is much more even and the accel pedal is perfect for heel/toe driving.



The list was growing longer faster than I could cross things off!

[amee-reb]

YAY you ended up making a thread! good stuff mate! more updates!!

[benson]

Glad the BYP Racing team can be apart of this car development. Can't wait to see future development with the car

Keep up the good work!