Green EK4

[eskimo_firefighter]

The Spoon radiator cap was worth the purchase just for the Honda sic boi points alone.

Well done again on the PB. I still have many regrets of not tagging along to PI.

[RC_dc2]

Green EK4

Nice work on your PB.

Nug Nats run a tight ship, so despite being the 2nd last car on the dyno, I didn't have to wait long.
The graph is below, 95.2kw of B16A2 power!!! The guy running the dyno said it was still making power at the rev limiter, so I figure that is nice to know and that it isn't/hasn't fallen off over the years.

Sounds decent for a well used stock b16. Did any other hondas run that day?

I can still go faster through T1.

180 sounds pretty quick to me already, your vid looks like the car takes it pretty easy around there. How quick do you think you can push it through there?

The baffled sump I've mentioned previously will get installed when I get a weekend to go to my parents. And in addition, I'd like to put an oil cooler and a couple gauges onto the car to monitor some temps.

Do you monitor your oil temps now?

[iwearmoccos]

The Spoon radiator cap was worth the purchase just for the Honda sic boi points alone.

Well done again on the PB. I still have many regrets of not tagging along to PI.

You missed out, Pete! Was a great day!

Nice work on your PB.

Sounds decent for a well used stock b16. Did any other hondas run that day?

180 sounds pretty quick to me already, your vid looks like the car takes it pretty easy around there. How quick do you think you can push it through there?

Do you monitor your oil temps now?

A friend's stock S2000 ran and made 126kw, Tom's K24 CR-X made 140something and I think that was all the Hondas. Lots of Nugs and EXE guys that have progressed to Euro cars!
Ummmmm, I'm not sure exactly! Definitely a few more kms. Maybe 190km?! At a guess.
I don't monitor anything, which I know is bad and originally I don't think it really mattered because I wasn't pushing the car half as hard as it is now. Now I am really beating on the car, I want to be able to keep an eye on everything and know I'm not doing any damage.
Any help from anyone in that area is well appreciated! I've asked a few people about what oil coolers they are running today, so that is a step in the right direction!

[RC_dc2]

You missed out, Pete! Was a great day!



A friend's stock S2000 ran and made 126kw, Tom's K24 CR-X made 140something and I think that was all the Hondas. Lots of Nugs and EXE guys that have progressed to Euro cars!
Ummmmm, I'm not sure exactly! Definitely a few more kms. Maybe 190km?! At a guess.
I don't monitor anything, which I know is bad and originally I don't think it really mattered because I wasn't pushing the car half as hard as it is now. Now I am really beating on the car, I want to be able to keep an eye on everything and know I'm not doing any damage.
Any help from anyone in that area is well appreciated! I've asked a few people about what oil coolers they are running today, so that is a step in the right direction!

My car always felt a bit loose on high speed turns, I'd be keen to test it out with the new suspension but I doubt I could muster up that speed around t1 for a while! I'm sure my lack of speed around there is all in my head.

Regarding oil temps:

I'm guessing your oil temps would be getting past 140 easy without cool down laps with no cooler. Mine can get to 130-135 with the stock heat exchanger and a mocal 235x19 row if I push hard enough.

I think you'll find once you put a temp gauge on you'll focus on it a lot more! Personally I would go as big cooler core as you can fit, something like a 25 or 34 row with the 235mm matrix, then you don't have to worry about it anymore. If you find it runs too cool (doubt it) fit an oil thermostat in the line and it won't be a problem.

With a half size radiator and removing a/c you will have tons of room. Also use 10AN lines minimum to reduce pressure loss. If you want to calculate the sizing mocal publish data on their products, I haven't seen other manufacturers publish any performance data, setrab have a program to help with sizing but it's not available to the public.

Water temps I've never had any issues, I don't know what thermostat I'm running but it always sits 82-84 deg Ect with all stock cooling system (dc2 stock full size radiator). I only use the stock dash gauge for monitoring water temp real time, I occasionally take an ecu log on the track to check afterwards.

[iwearmoccos]

The 6 Hour Relay was on the weekend down at Phillip Island, so I battled some traffic and had dinner at Island Burger Bar in Cape Woolamai. Definitely worth visiting.
20170728_170655 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr
The rest of the team were coming down Saturday morning, so I met them at the track.
We had checked in on Tuesday already, so all we had to do was get the cars through scrutineering, collect dorians and be ready for the first session at 10:30. The first session was a rookie only session, so we sent Steve out for his first run around one of the greatest circuits in the country.

The whole of Saturday is used for practice and is split up into sessions. Every single session had a yellow, red flag and probably a safety car, so it was heavily interrupted as people tried to find their feet and run a few consistent laps.
I have mentioned it previously, but after a few laps the car was getting hotter than I liked it to, with my car at full throttle for 99percent of the time here.
I had replaced the radiator cap previously and that had improved, so we figured the only other thing I could fix at the track was removing the thermostat and confirming if that is an issue.
I pulled the thermostat and used some gasket maker to seal and left the car overnight.
Most in the team ran a heap of laps, though nothing was really consistent. We nominated our laps and went into town for dinner.
20170729_184811 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr
One of the really nice Minis.
20170729_094318 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr

The Civic hard parking in the pits.
20170729_105503 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr

One thing I forgot to mention was that I was running on RS3s, both in an effort to preserve by A050s and also to stay above the 1:55 lap limit for the 6 Hour Relay.

This leads us into the Sunday, where we plan to run as consistently as possible for 6 hours!!
Our team for the weekend.
2 Civics, 3 MX5s. Street cars!!
20170730_091926 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr

As I had my issues on the Saturday and we needed to nominate a starting car, Matt went out on the start grid. This was the most fun part of the day when I ran this event 2 years ago as all the cars are bunched up and you can slice and dice traffic for those opening laps.
20170730_093637 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr

The 'serious' teams have numerous people in their teams who are not drivers, but as we just had the 5 of us and me as the team manager, it was a pretty hectic 6 hours.
It is really hard to drive a consistent lap again and again, which put us up and down the leaderboard as some drivers hit the mark and others went too fast/slow.
I took my car out a number of times and the overheating issue had stopped until I came back into the pits and the temp gauge would rise again and I'd end up with a full overflow bottle. Once the car cooled down again, it'd go back to normal. I also had no change in temp on the track, it stayed at the same spot on the gauge no matter how many laps I did.
As I did mention above, I was running on RS3s and having a HEAP of fun on the laps I was doing. As much as it is fun to chase PBs each track day, it was nice to run laps at about 85percent and have some fun with the other cars out there. Not many/anything are as quick as the Civic over Lukey, though MANY/most things are faster down the straight, so it was a bit of cat and mouse. The rear RS3s would get a bit loose as the session went on, so I could chuck the car in and have it rotate really well. It was a great time.

Side note, here is Bill's EG with a B18.
20170729_103436 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr
We also had a few issues with the 3 MX5s. Johnny lost a clutch pedal and had to drive home without a clutch, Matt had throttle issues which he has dealt with previously and Steve had his slave fall off which he bolted back on and smashed a heap of laps. Bill's EG was also VERY smokey, which did not go unnoticed by officials.
So the street car team wasn't as reliable as it has been previously, but we've done a HUGE amount of track days between us over the past years and we were now expecting to run more laps than we aim to. It is all part of the fun.

I have no idea where we ended up in the standings, but we were 39th with half hour to go and Steve went faster than his nominated lap twice in his last session!

We had a discussion afterwards and if we are to be competitive, then we need to employ more people to run the team and focus on laps etc, while we smash out those laps. OR, and the option I prefer, is we go out there and just run laps as required and see where we end up. It is a fun weekend doing that, and we're all about fun. The winning team had 20 people total in the team and the team manager shed a tear when they won. Serious Relay participants.

Standard SDPICS photo, I like this one.
AN5W5056 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr

So I drove the car home Sunday night without a thermostat and it ran really cool the whole way home.
On Monday, I ordered a new OEM thermostat along with all the housing bits. I will put effort into cleaning the housing of gasket glue, but figured I'd buy the parts just in case I have issues.
Once they arrive, I'll replace and then put some fresh OEM fluid through the radiator and hope to have resolved the issues.
Other than that, its either going to be a water pump or head gasket. I replaced the pump in December 2015 though.


Then we are off to H Nats in September, ready to smash PBs and hopefully a Class 3 win!!

I also bought this Battlecraft gearknob, which I liked driving on the street with but didn't feel too confident with it on the track. Will swap back to my old gearknob and probably sell this. It looks really nice!
20170711_171209 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr
Thanks.

[Austro]

That event sounds pretty cool, how much does entry cost per driver? I looked at the website and a few related forms but couldn't find any info on it, purely curious.

[iwearmoccos]

That event sounds pretty cool, how much does entry cost per driver? I looked at the website and a few related forms but couldn't find any info on it, purely curious.

$2200 for the team.
It seems like a lot of money, but split between the 5 of us, and including garage rental at PI, it is reasonably good value.
You may not get as much track time as a PIARC Sprint weekend, though that doesn't seem to matter by the end of the Sunday.

[Austro]

$2200 for the team.
It seems like a lot of money, but split between the 5 of us, and including garage rental at PI, it is reasonably good value.
You may not get as much track time as a PIARC Sprint weekend, though that doesn't seem to matter by the end of the Sunday.

Yeah, mainly for the experience and whatnot. I feel like it's fair considering the scale of the event and other factors. Would be keen one day....

[iwearmoccos]

From my last update, I had been waiting for a thermostat from our good friends at Amayama to arrive, so I could install that and head off to Haunted Hills for a weekend of hill climb.
I rushed home Friday afternoon to install the package I had received earlier in the week before I ran out of light.
I had also ordered new thermostat housing and a couple of extra rubber gaskets, though I didn't use any of it because the gasket glue came off reasonably easy.

20170809_172301 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr

At the same time, I decided to replace my Mishimoto radiator and slimline fan with a stock fan and an Epman radiator. This might be wasted time/money, but I bought the radiator second hand a year or so ago and can't really confirm what/who had gone through it.
It looks worse than I expected!

20170811_173310 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr

I had bought OEM coolant that week and all was very straight forward to get sorted and bled once the thermostat opened after a quick blast around the block.

I also found (or think I know!) out why I think my reverse lights aren't working! Will have to fix that eventually!

20170811_170242 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr

Saturday morning I headed down to Newborough and gave my car a well deserved scrub after the 6 Hour Relay. The brush really glides over the painted after I put the Nu-Shine polish on it a while back!

20170812_105207 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr

After a scrub and a visit to my parents, I installed my A050s and headed up for some practice at Haunted Hills.

This was my first time on A050s at Haunted Hills, so I wanted to run a number of laps and see where we ended up with.
The rear was a little skatey on the first runs, but they eventually got up to temp and showed their great abilities to put power down in spots that I was not able to previously.
Coming around the last right hander to the finish line is always a tough one to control under steer via the pedals, but with the A050s I could put pull down the whole way through. The difference from NT01 to A050 is very similar of RS3 to NT01, that is probably the easiest way to explain it.
At a point, NT01s were more than enough tyre, but as I'm progressing with my driving, the A050 seems to fill that grip void I've ended up with at the end of my 2nd set of NT01s.

My previous fastest lap on the clockwise layout was 58.73 at Nug Nats earlier in the year, so to see the below on my Racechrono was quite promising.
Even with external GPS, there was some squiggly lines so I wasn't banking on it, but knew we were in a good position for Sunday!

20170812_133753 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr

Overnight it had rained, so I ran as many practice laps in an effort to get a dry line on the circuit and also some heat into the tyres.
We were running a 'double delight' and didn't know the 2 layouts we would be running. At drivers briefing, we were advised we would run the clockwise layout in the morning and what we'll call the 'reverse spoon' in the afternoon, a layout that had never been run previously.

20170813_083056 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr

The track was still wet for the first 2 runs, had dried up by the 3rd which gave me a 58.9 lap and knowing that we were switching to the reverse spoon in the afternoon, I only had one chance to put down a really fast lap.
With the extra height in the front tyres, I've had to experiment a little with revs on take off as the car is more susceptible to bogging down.
I felt I got off the line reasonably slow, but made sure I keep on the hammer a bit more down the hill and also on the corners before the back straight. It was quite an exciting riding actually, so I was pleased to come around the finish and see a 58.21 on the board.

EDIT - All times are now available, didn't realise I beat the previous class lap record of 58.75 twice.
61.46 58.99 58.51 58.21
My fastest official lap around the clockwise layout and also a new improved production up to 1600cc lap.
Here is that lap now.

The afternoon was a new layout for everyone, so it was quite relaxing for all involved.
As you were going backwards down the start and through the crossover, which isn't a very used run direction, it was a big learning curve for all/most.
We only got two runs on this layout as it takes a heap of time due to not being able to release another car until the completion of each run.
I would have liked to have run the clockwise in the afternoon, as the weather was perfect! I got what I wanted out of the day, so I can't complain!
EDIT - Lap times, 82.55 81.89
Here is the reverse spoon run, a quickest of 81.9

My friend Jonathon came down in his MRS and had a heap of fun, here we are together at the end of the day.
Soooo many people came up to talk about this car with him!
He won sportscars up to 2000cc class.

20170813_165205 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr

And then my EK4 by itself.

20170813_165231 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr

I'll bleed the brakes over the coming weeks and then I'll be ready for H Nats at Winton!
All fingers and toes are crossed, hoping for good weather to smash out a heap of fast laps.
I also bought a Honed geometry kit, which I'll install after H Nats, so I can compare the difference in lap between current setup with A050s and then again with the geometry kit.
Other than that, all is good!
Thanks.

[RC_dc2]

Did you notice any difference in your water temps or overflow bottle?

Or does it not usually get hot enough on hill climbs to tell?

[iwearmoccos]

Did you notice any difference in your water temps or overflow bottle?

Or does it not usually get hot enough on hill climbs to tell?

No movement in water temps via stock gauge, no changes in level of fluid in overflow bottle all weekend.

Realistically, it doesn't get warm enough via hill climb so Winton will be the test.

[iwearmoccos]

Also, yesterday was 3 years since I bought my EK4.
The original idea was to buy this car and run a few track days without blowing heaps of money, while improving on my driving ability.
While it has cost me a little bit more money than previously, mainly due to me wanting to upgrade things/go faster along the way, every dollar I've spent has been well worth the fun I've had and the skills I've learned.

I look forward to many more years out of this chassis, I have no interest in selling it as all the other cars I like are way too expensive and I also can't afford to race in a real series just yet!
Thanks for following along at home.


2017-08-16_01-42-52 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr

[Toddxxx]

Happy car anniversary rhys.
Not long till H nats now

Sent from my VTR-L09 using Tapatalk

[iwearmoccos]

Happy car anniversary rhys.
Not long till H nats now

Sent from my VTR-L09 using Tapatalk

I know, I'm really excited.

[iwearmoccos]

Washed the car, will pack it on Friday night and wander up on Saturday night.
I'm excited, weather looks great.

20170827_153214 by I WEAR MOCCOS, on Flickr