Around a decade ago, Clint Boisdeau bought a 1990 Honda Civic to use in the former MotoIQ Pacific Touring Car Championship. That car had a wonderful, revvy B18C engine, a factory Type-R 5-speed transmission, Integra brakes, and a well developed suspension. That car mixed all of Honda’s best parts and put them into a handsome, quick package.
During the driver’s meeting at a South Jersey Region autocross, one of the regional officers announced that he was selling his old Civic racecar. We had a chat and a day later I went to see the car. I made a snap decision to buy it and bring it home. See, as much as I love my Suzuki Cappuccino, it no longer fulfills my performance goals. Having never been sold in the US, the Cappuccino is not eligible for National SCCA events in any Street class. The cramped compartment means installing an SCCA or NASA legal rollbar is not possible and installing a full cage would take away from its primary purpose as a fun street car, so track days are out. In order to do track days and National events I would either have to turn the Cappuccino into a dedicated track car or replace it. I had been searching for 6 months to find a new weekend warrior. I started looking at Mitsubishi EVO VIIIs and IXs (too expensive), Nissan 350Zs (mostly trashed so the good ones are expensive), and I had my heart set on a Toyota MR-2 Spyder (lightweight, perfect balance, and fits my trend of grabbing classic JDM cars before they become popular). But then the Civic came along at a price that was too good to pass up. Now I could retire the Cappuccino to full street car life and have a dedicated racecar for track fun. The plan is to make this Civic a strong autocross/track day car. I’d love to do some road racing too but we’ll have to see where my budget can stretch.
This particular Civic has been a racecar for a long time. It was built for SCCA Improved Touring racing. IT is a mild modification class a step above Showroom Stock. Modifications allow removal of the interior, some cylinder head work, engine blueprinting, and some mild suspension work. The class is broken down by engine size and weight. The EF Civic ends up in Group C, hence the ITC lettering. Due to the rules, the stock engine and transmission must remain in place.
3 comments
A “Petty bar” is one that goes from a point high on the main hoop to a point in the passenger footwell. The internet generally agrees with this, though I saw one post that described it as reversing what must have been common practice at some point in NASCAR where the diagonal in the main hoop was low on the drivers side and high on the passenger side, leaving the section over the driver unbraced.
Thanks for the clarification. I’ve updated this piece accordingly
Following closely!
My friend and I have a similar EF 2dr, with a D15b high comp vtec fuel injection engine
We got to throw the original dual carb out as the class restrictions were CC only 🙂
Any FB / IG page that I could follow?