Project Honda Civic EJ Finale: Dyno Results and Lap Times
On April 7th, 2011, we introduced Project Honda Civic EJ to the readers of MotoIQ. Originally, the goal of the project was to take Annie Sam’s beat down 1997 Honda Civic with over 260,000 miles on it and restore it back to the formidable yet reliable street and track machine it once was. All this, while keeping to a reasonable budget. If you weren’t around back then, visit Project Honda Civic EJ’s project page here to familiarize yourself with its beginnings.
Along with maintaining a reasonable budget, we also had the best of intentions of methodically measuring and quantifying the results of each of the modifications. Both the budget and the methodical data collection went out the window though when Project Honda Civic EJ’s head gasket failed during baseline testing at Button Willow Raceway. However, Project Honda Civic EJ managed to lay down a baseline lap of 2:21.56 on Button Willow’s configuration 13. Since that day though, what could only be described as massive scope creep ensued.
The massive scope creep began with an all-out rebuild of Project Civic EJ’s suspension which included an onslaught of parts from Skunk2, Suspension Techniques, ASR, and Energy Suspension. You name it and Project Honda Civic EJ’s suspension has it.
The same treatment was extended to Project Honda Civic EJ’s brake system. The stock front brakes were tossed in favor of Fastbrakes big brake kit which featured a Wilwood Dynapro caliper squeezing on an 11.1” diameter drilled and slotted rotor.
The rear drum brakes also found themselves in the rubbish bin being replaced by a Fastbrakes rear disc brake conversion kit utilizing a mammoth 10.95” drilled and slotted rotor and OEM Civic Si rear calipers. To complete the rear disc brake conversion a distribution block and master cylinder from a Honda Civic Si was also installed. A fresh set of sticky Nitto NT01s wrapped around some Enkei PF01s managed to find their way onto our ever growing list of performance upgrades.
