Bumping this back up because it's that time of year again... off season build time. I've been doing a lot of research and a lot of debating with myself on what to do to the car for next season. I've made up my mind with everything so now it's just a matter of getting parts, doing the work and looking forward to an even faster 2014 season.
What's planned to purchase and get done before March:
New Lug Nuts(current ones are VERY worn since I R&R the wheels a loootttttt!)
Possibly a Velocity Stack(this is just a maybe as of now)
Hypercoil Springs, going to run a staggered spring rate setup.
ASR 32mm Hollow rear swaybar .095 wall thickness to replace my current rear swaybar
Exhaust work- Going to switch to aluminum piping with possibly an aluminum muffler to hopefully cut a good chunk of weight
Very light weight lithium battery
Bisimoto header... yes the very expensive one...
Install the rest of the Energy Suspension bushings I have lying around.
Buy new 3rd brake light
Re-do alignment and corner balance once everything is complete
Possibly another set of 195/50R15 Toyo R1r's, except unshaved to use as a rain set.
Non performance, just maintenance things to do:
New Axels
Oil/filter Change
Trans Fluid Change
Coolant change
Brake fluid
I haven't had much time to mess around between the holidays, work and my back giving me troubles. But, I did a little bit already to lose some free weight. Call me crazy but I'm doing everything I can to, affordably and legally, lose weight in the car.
I removed all of the washer fluid that was in the bottle. For the nearly 3 years I've driven this car, I've never used the washer fluid( I couldn't anyways, hose is broken). Needless to say, this fluid was sitting in the already front left heavy part of the car for no reason for too long. Poured it out, weighed it, a big 4lbs of dead fluid weight is now removed.
I then pulled the battery tray out, that removed about 1lb of weight. I currently have a Braille 9.5lb battery, which is small. But I'm going to replace that with a smaller, lighter Lithium battery which is only 2lbs!. With such a smaller battery, I will make my own battery tie down out of sheet metal to save weight and position the battery as low as possible.
A couple aesthetic items that I hate to remove had to go to save weight. Car doesn't look as good without them, but at this point I'm serious and I just don't care. I pulled the OE front lip off which is about 1lb saved off the front end.
I also pulled off the rear OE wing. Which I HATE to do because I think it looks really great and the car now looks really funky without it. But, that's a big 4lbs of top heavy weight off the car. I'll buy an LED 3rd brake light to replace the brake light on the wing to keep it class and street legal.
Annndd just today I made probably the biggest single purchase of a part I've ever made... On a new stainless steel V3 Bisimoto Header. I don't know the weight of the header but the shipping weight says 20lbs. I have the DC Sport 4-2-1 ceramic header on now, which again I don't know the weight but shipping weight for those say 25lbs. I'm hoping, based off the shipping weights, that the Bisimoto header will save 5lbs off the front and also add a good amount of power.
If you haven't noticed, weight is on my mind a lot.. I'm hoping once all is said and done, the car will lose about 40lbs. Which may not seem like a lot, but in terms of an autox civic, it's huge. With a 1/4 tank of gas, with that much weight lost, I SHOULD be right around 2,020lbs or just a smidge less. Which is very good and I'd be happy with that.
So here is where she sits now..
I'll update as I go on. Hope I can get things done in time!