First time on the track with my 2012 Civic Si sedan

jrotax101: If I intend to completely replace the brake fluid, will I need the computer to flush the ABS unit, as well? What about if I am just bleeding them?
 
I plan on taking my care out to the track locally here which is buttonwillow, I'm new to the whole performance scene as my previous car was an s14 240sx in that whole hellaflush scene. And was hoping if maybe you could give me some tips or techniques to practice for the track? Rev matching is currently when in trying to get better at anymore? Many thanks for any input. Maybe even certain mods to do first? Lighter wheels and an cat back exhaust is what's going to be next on the si
 
MarkA - Yeah man let me know. Send me a PM and we'll figure something out.

Jonathong - #1 track mod: Seat time. Sign up for a class/instructed session. Just get out there and do it! (also better tires.)
 
Jonathong: The very first step for modding your car for the track is brake pads. Your OEM pads are for street driving, where you apply the brakes, lightly, every now and then, with plenty of time for them to cool off in between. On the track, you apply your brakes, HARD, over and over again. The track I just ran, WGI, has 7 braking areas per lap. I was running laps at about 2 and a half minutes per lap, 10 laps per session, 4 sessions per day. That's a LOT of braking! Using Hawk HPS pads, which are street/track hybrids, I went completely through the front pads in two days. If you're just starting out, you won't be quite that hard on them, but it doesn't take long to get to the point where street pads just can't do the job.

As far as mental prep, the most important thing is to understand "the line" through turns. There is a most excellent book, called "Going Faster!", by Lopez and Sullivan, that is the best book I have seen on track driving. "Speed Secrets" is another good one (a series, actually), but I'd get Going Faster! first.

One other tip would be to make sure you know how to "heel-toe" when downshifting. It is kind of hard on the Civic because the space between the gas and brake pedal is huge. I installed a cover on my gas pedal to make it easier. It's something you can practice in every day driving.

Good luck!
 
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MarkA said:
Using Hawk HPS pads, which are street/track hybrids, I went completely through the front pads in two days. If you're just starting out, you won't be quite that hard on them, but it doesn't take long to get to the point where street pads just can't do the job.
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That answers my first question in this thread...
They suck, and are glorified street pads that are no better than OEM and really shouldn't be marketed as track hybrid. Get some real pads and see what your car can do.
 
I did my first round of shopping at procivic.com. It is a well-organized site, but they have a very limited selection of brake pads. Tirerack.com has a much wider selection.

There seems to be concern about wear on the rotors when using high-performance brake pads. For the occasional drive at 120 mph, is it worth changing rotors, too? It doesn't sound like a real hard job to change them, assuming you can get the OEM ones off.
 
MarkA said:
I did my first round of shopping at procivic.com. It is a well-organized site, but they have a very limited selection of brake pads. Tirerack.com has a much wider selection.

There seems to be concern about wear on the rotors when using high-performance brake pads. For the occasional drive at 120 mph, is it worth changing rotors, too? It doesn't sound like a real hard job to change them, assuming you can get the OEM ones off.
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The sooner you take out the holding screws the better. Even if you are not going to change your rotors any time soon. There are two screws on each rotor that keep them in place while going down the assembly line. They are absolutely unnecessary outside of the assembly line process. I painted my calipers a week or two after I got my car and was able to take out all but one or two with an electric impact driver and some PB Blaster. In order to get the last one or two out, I would need a normal impact driver (which I don't have) and a heavy mallet.
 
I have a dedicated set of rotors/pads (fronts) for the track. Keep the street pads and rotors for the street. I usually get 4-5 weekends out of a set of rotors and pads (granted my usage is at a higher level). If you use race pads on the street at cold temps they will literally eat the rotor away.
 
I'm reading Don Alexander's book, "High Performance Handling for Street or Track", and I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why putting a stiffer anti-roll bar on the back should decrease understeer. In my head is the image that, as a car corners, the loading on each tire contact patch is going to change. The book points out that suspension geometry also changes, causing an increase in camber on the outer tires. Increasing the thickness of the rear anti-roll bar should decrease changes in the L/R rear contact patches, increasing traction in the rear. That, by itself, would tend to increase understeer, wouldn't it? In order to decrease understeer, it would also have to shift loading onto the front tires, to give them more grip, or, decrease loading on the front tires, so there is less camber change, hence improving their grip.

Does anyone have a good explanation they can share?
 
With the civic in particular the front of the car is very very stiff. Also under cornering the rear of the car gains negative camber. This increases the contact patch of the rear wheel & grip while the fronts, with 0 camber stock setting, lose grip.The factory setting for front camber is 0, and a strut suspension gains almost no camber when compressed; so when you corner, the outside suspension gains almost no camber to offset the roll of the car. This lack of front camber causes the tire to roll onto the outside edge under extreme cornering; so the harder you push the car, the less grip you have. Where the front suspension gains almost no camber under compression, the rear of the car gains lots of camber. So in extreme cornering, the tire gains negative camber to offset the roll of the car, and that keeps the contact patch of the tire firmly on the ground. This is a very "safe" feature of the Civic because the harder you push the car into a corner, the rear tires of the car grip really well, and this provides for an "understeering" car

The reason it comes setup like this is that it causes massive understeer. Basically the *** end of the car cannot whip around on you. It makes it very safe because the average driver going to the store and taking a turn a little too quick can't spin out. Instead the break loose in a straight line which im sure is much less unsettling for them.

Increasing the rear sway on this chassis will cause the rear end to break free sooner thereby increasing rotation and handling by inducing more oversteer. Although it is not power oversteer, when the back breaks free you can counter by simply pointing the wheels where you want to go and giving more gas to pull out of it.

Make sure what you are reading in the book applies to FWD cars as it is very different for RWD.

Running between -1 & -1.5 degrees front/rear camber will help increase cornering ability as well.
 
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jrotax101: I'm collecting the parts I need for my brakes: Hawk HT10 pads, SS lines, RBF600 fluid, and a pressure bleeder kit. I couldn't find a single source for everything I needed! I had to go to Summit Racing for the pads (several sites had rear pads only. Summit has them as "special order"), Tirerack for the SS brake lines, and JEGS for a Motive Products bleeder kit. I didn't buy rotors, as I'm not sure what would be a good selection. I see them priced any where from $20 to $200 per rotor. Horsepowerfreaks.com seems to have the best selection: EBC, Hawk, Powerslot, Rotora, and Stoptech. Any advice?
 
HPF went out of business AFAIK.
importrp.com should carry rotors that you need. I also use brakeco.com

I'd stick with OEM or brembo blanks.. no need for anything else. They are cheap and consumable! Buy, use, have fun, replace, repeat! Did tirerack not carry the front pads?

http://www.hrpworld.com/index.cfm? Another good site.
 
I have solved the mystery of why nobody sells Hawk HT-10 brakes pads for the front axle of the 9th gen Si: it turns out that Hawk doesn't *make* such a pad! The 9th gen Si uses different front pads than the 8th gen did. 9th gen uses the same front pads that were used in the '03-'06 2.4L Accord, the CR-V, and a few other models that are not likely to see much track time. As a result, the only front pads available are the HPS (what I just used) and the LTS. If you search for the pads that were used on the 8th gen Si, *everything* is available! Also, many models use the same rear pads, so they are available in track-only versions.

Hawk's designation for front pads on the 9th gen Si is: HB 393x665 ( where 'x' designates the pad material: 'F' for HPS, 'S' for HT-10, etc)
For the 8th gen: HB 361x622. Rear pads, for both, is HB145x570.

Hawkperformance.com has a very complete listing of all their pads, with reference drawings of sizes, shapes, etc.

I sent a feedback to Hawk, letting them know about the gaping hole in their product line. Hopefully, they are already working on it, now that there's going to be a sizable market for more aggressive pads in that size. In the meantime, I believe EBC makes "yellowstuff" and "bluestuff" pads that should fit. They also have a track-only, "orangestuff" pad, but I don't think it's available for the honda. I haven't started looking through the offerings from Carbotech or Cobalt, to see if they have anything available.

Anyone have experience with EBC pads on the track? What would be comparable to the Hawk HT-10 or 9012? I'm leaning toward "blue", based on their marketing info.
 
Not a fan of the EBC stuff. If you can find carbotech or cobalt that would be more ideal. However, to answer your question, blue should suffice.
I've ran the yellow on an s2000 and they sucked on the street and on the track. Really pathetic..
 
Nix: I'm getting ready to buy my rear sway bar. I'm still undecided between the Eibach 19 mm, adjustable, versus the Progress 22 mm, non-adjustable. Is it possible to have the rear bar be too stiff? I like the idea of "adjustable", though I'm not sure I'll ever actually adjust it. Which makes me think that maybe the Progress bar is the way to go. What happens if the back is too stiff?
 
Progress recently released a 24mm bar. Hehehe.

Stock size is 15mm I believe. The 22mm is a large improvement over the 19mm. It's 34% stiffer. You're fighting a lot of built in understeer, I don't think you will be close to overdoing it with the 22. There are a lot of other factors built into the handling that I don't think you could overdo the rear end stiffness with just a sway bar upgrade.

A better strut/spring combo would probably be the next upgrade after the braking issues are sorted out. The rear sway is a serious bang for your buck upgrade that you can feel right away though. And at less than $200 it's a steal.

The other nice thing about the progress bar is that it comes with frame reinforcement brackets for the mounting point on the rear lower control arm.

Your stock endlinks should hold up fine but if you want upgraded ones:

http://9thcivic.com/forum/threads/moog-endlinks.8058/
 
For the price, I would suggest upgrading to the Moog Endlinks while you are doing the work anyway. Not to mention Nix has suggested some greasable sway bar bushings as well. I wish I had known about them before I installed the Progress sway bar.

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