We were able to use a gear puller to remove the stuck inner race from the wheel hub. We were then able to press out the old studs.ARP hardened 3” lug studs replace the rusty old stock studs. The stock 2” studs don’t offer a lot of thread engagement and they are 3 decades old. Losing a wheel is super dangerous so we wanted brand new studs with better tensile strength and much more thread engagement to prevent such a scenario.Be careful when shopping for used EF parts. While most American Civics used the larger 26 spline hub on the left, STD Civics (like ours) and HF CRXs used the smaller 23 spline hub on the right. The smaller hub also uses a smaller axle which means the two are incompatible (the uprights, bearings, and axle nuts are shared between the two designs). We found this out the hard way when we had to replace the passenger side hub and accidentally got a DX hub that was way too big for our STD axles! We had to completely rebuild the passenger side a second time because of this snafu.Mike Kojima has some experience with Honda Challenge cars and has seen Honda uprights fail on the track. He recommended we polish out the stress risers around the balljoint and have the upright shot peened to avoid a dangerous suspension failure. I went ahead and removed the stress riser as well as deburred the casting.Deburring removes sharp points that create hairline cracks and eventually failure points. The casting quality of these old uprights is rather poor. The parting line is visible and there are lots of sharp edges and corners. These will really benefit from deburring. Unfortunately I could not find a shot peening facility with a short enough lead time so I did not get that done. I picked up another set of uprights and will fully prepare them as spares.
I absolutely loved the Kingpin spherical bearing setup on Project S2000. All that suspension work is going to transform the car. What can you do to stiffen the chassis within the rules?
Well it’s already got a rollcage and front strut tower brace. We can add a few more per the rules. I would like to add to the cage as it is very basic. Could use some extra diagonals.
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Really looking forward to updates. This takes me back to Sport Compact Car days.
Glad it brings back happy memories. Got lots more coming. Thanks for reading!
I absolutely loved the Kingpin spherical bearing setup on Project S2000. All that suspension work is going to transform the car. What can you do to stiffen the chassis within the rules?
Well it’s already got a rollcage and front strut tower brace. We can add a few more per the rules. I would like to add to the cage as it is very basic. Could use some extra diagonals.