Deathwagon

 This is Deathwagon. She used to be a 1998 Honda Civic. This is how I like to drive her. No doors, no windows aside from from the windshield, and no hood.

I'll try and disclose as many problems as I can think of. I did cut the rear wheel wells out at one point, and so the inner wheel well and the outer skin became no longer attached. However on the passenger side at least, I reconnected the metal with some new sheet metal. The drivers side could be done in like fashion if needed.

Somebody mentioned that you need doors. This is the door that I currently have on the driver's side. Its been gutted and I screwed sheet metal over the opening (I obviously know that would not be allowed, but perhaps if I were to get rid of the sheet metal and put some flexible clear industrial plastic over instead?) The latch still works as it should and the door bars, outer skin and frame are intact.

On the passenger side, the door is just a half door with no upper frame, and the latch does not work, in place of it, a U bolt goes through the striker and through two holes in the door bar. Does the passenger door need to open, or can it be a permanent fixture, provided I drive alone? Again with some industrial plastic screwed over the opening.

The interior has been stripped completely, I have 2 bucket seats and 5 point harnesses.

I do also have the hood for it though I prefer to drive without it.

Same goes for the hatch.

As you can see, my exhaust very much does not meet spec for the competition, I have no cat and no muffler, what you see is what you get. Is it possible that might be ignored?

These are the tires I currently run. They are 26" ATV quad tires on 14" passenger car rims. I don't know if its legal to run non passenger vehicle tires.

Here is a quick clip of me hitting the rev limiter constantly with this exhaust, to give you an idea of the noise level.

And here is a walkaround before all the wiring was completely done and the tires got mounted.

Monster Civic

Wow, it has been A HOT MINUTE since I made a post here. Since 2016 when I last posted, many things have changed, and I build fewer robots, and more cars now. Still in the flamethrower game, just posting them elsewhere on the net. So anyhoo, around this time last year I turned my 1990 honda civic into a bit of a beast. There is over a hundred pics, so buckle up. I ain't narrating every pic, but I'll try to do sections.

 

Ol' reliable before I started on him. I... I used him pretty hard.

 

I blew up two Single Jingles, the stock D16A6 and a D16Y7 that I swapped in after the first engine blew. With that done, I set my sights on greater things and swapped in a B16A with its matching close geared trans.

Drove it like that for a while, and then he went under the knife again, this time for a bit bigger surgery.

Started with the front end, learned my lesson from the last car and straightaway removed the front fenders.

10lb sledge came in handy clearencing some things.

Drew up a pic showing my front UCA drop. A lot of people either don't do this, or if they do, they space on the knuckle, which is not the proper way.

Here they are installed with the strut and everything in.

I'm running DC integra front struts with 3" billet spacers leftover from a different project. 3" spacers is too much. It stresses the suspension and CVs too much. 1.5-2 inches would be much better.

Fully extended my hub to pinch weld clearence.

Gotta grind down the ridges on the UCAs so they thread into my spacers.

Built these bad boys out of 2" round stock I believe. Just machined them on a lathe.

Trim them UCA bolts

Ah yes, extreme suspension angles. Everything hitting everything at max flex. Beautiful.

Speaking of hitting, That knuckle rubs. Its fine though, just grind the nub off and it doesn't even sound bad.

Better pic of the front top mounts.

Ah, nub gone.

Also rubs here. No problems though. Massaged it a bit with a sledge, but not much.

This is how I made sure I wouldn't rub at full flex.

When you do a subframe drop, you need to extend the steering shaft. I just ripped another U joint out of a civic at a junkyard, cut a piece off, and welded it to the one from the car. Sketch? Maybe, but we shitboxin'

There he is with both big boots on the front.

Here are the parts I made for the subframe drop. Bunch of 1.25" stainless round stock, 3/4" tall, and some grade 10 high strength threaded rod with grade 10 double nuts acting as bolts. I double stacked the spacers on the front for 1.5" of drop, and triple stacked them on the rear for 2.25" of drop on the trailing arms.

Transmission mount

Front subframe

Here you can see the two different ways I tried the rears. I initially tried to use EK civic LCAs, which are significantly longer than the rest, because of the angle I was running due to not running a rear subframe drop (just a rear trailing arm drop) As you can see this caused EXCESSIVE toe in on the rear.

So, I tried again, this time using DA integra LCAs which are similar to EF ones, but with the strut hole placed slightly differently. This caused a much more acceptable to me angle, though I found it interesting that it did cause a little bit of toe out. (note the pics are in opposite directions, which is why it looks the same)

Here you can see the final setup I went with (Sans vice lol) for the rear. I've got a DA trailing arm (mmm disc brakes) and a DA LCA mounted to the stock spots. I had to grind down the LCA where it mounts to the strut because the Legend struts that I am using are narrower than the stock EF strut mounts. I also had to notch the LCAs (pic of that later) so the strut wouldn't impact them. I'm using 1990 Acura Legend rear struts with a civic top hat swap.

The ill fated EK LCA attempt. H8ers said it wouldn't work, and, well it kinda did...

A major issue I have with the rears that is unresolved at this time is due to the extreme lift, to connect the two spots, the UCA has to be massively long. After parking this, I note that Ben Huffman from HRG Engineering offers a solution that extends the UCA mount on the knuckle upwards and forwards which is very necessary, but I have not yet installed. So I did what I could. Cut up an UCA and added some metal.

It was ultimately too long and didn't work, and I ended up using some cheapy Ebay adjustable ones instead, but like I said, issues with that (side note, do not buy the cheap ebay adjustable UCAs. Garbage. don't handle the punishment.)

Here is a close up of the material I took out of the LCA for the strut to clear. I could have taken less, but this is the only set of LCAs I had and I messed up prototyping. Learn from me.

So, I took him out like that, with the rears the way they are, and the fronts with just a little too much lift. Offroaded pretty hard, and busted the worn out lower ball joint. Heres a buddy helping me ratchet strap it back together.

I got a new joint in it, gently drove it home, and have worked on other projects since. To drive well and be reliable, it needs the HRG rear UCA relocate kit, and either a heavy-ass front bumper to bring the front down a bit, or smaller strut spacers. Here is how she sits.

As a side note, HRG also sells a rear subframe drop, which I'm not a huge fan of, but I found this a little while ago that someone homebuilt, and I think it looks pretty great. Im going to fix the first two things I mentioned, and then see how it drives and if I need this. Don't want to lose that sweet, sweet rear ground clearence.