ES Bushings, Skunk2 Short shifter, and Skunk2 Camber Kit

[CivicSiRacer]

My ES Bushing kit and Skunk2 short shifter were installed a couple of weeks ago. And I'll have to say my car is a different animal now.

The OEM bushings were pretty much beaten upon since I purchased the car in 2000 due to 90+ autocrosses, 2 track days, and 46K road miles. I really couldn't believe the change my car has taken after these new bushings.

Several pictures were taken of my car this past weekend and before the bushings you could literally see my front lip touch the ground in hard corners under braking. Now I have about 2-3" of clearance - the car just turns and goes

The Skunk2 Short shifter (double bend) is also very quality. Throws are like 2" and feels almost like an S2000 shifter. Very precise and quick. Also with the new bushings and shifter I'm not getting any more grinds into 2nd gear which most 1999-2000 Civic Sis were getting.

Well for those who don't know I've been autocrossing for 6-7 years now. I purchased my 2000 Civic Si in March 2000. Had 80 miles on it.

Last year I added the Koni Yellows and custom rate Ground Control springs. My car became a different animal. Turn in was quick - although the ride can be a bit rough especially on PA roads. Went with the popular tire for my class - Falken Azenis in 205/50x15" on 15x7" Kosei K1s.

This year I added the ES bushing kit, Skunk2 camber kit and still on the same Azenis from last year.

Had the car aligned to 2.5 negative degrees front, 1/32 toe out front and 0 toe rear, and corner weighed. Car weighs 2508lbs now without me in it.

Our first event was at a HUGE lot almost 800x800 feet. HUGE! The day was cold and windy - around 40 degrees not including the wind chill.

I inflated the tires to 41 front and 43 rear, shocks 1 turn front full turns rear. My first run out I just tried ot get the tires warmed up and the car felt great. I went about 90% full power through the course and ended up with a 73.6 which I already was in 2nd place Lady in a Ford Focus SVT who is a National champion was in 1st with a 72.8.

So I keep the pressures where they were at and ran about 95%. Car felt very neutral. Got onto the brakes on one section and just got a little rotation, kept the rear in check with some gas pedal modulation. I did get into one sharp hairpin too hot and understeered a bit, but once I got the speed slowed down the car turned in. That 2nd lap was a 72.002 I was estatic.

On my 3rd and final run I just went full broke. Through the one loop I had my foot almost down on the floor and the car just kept sticking and sticking. Coming out of the loop and into the first slalom I hit redline twice in second gear. WOW! Got to the 1st slalom and got on the brakes and she just slowed down just enough to manuever through the 3 cone slalom.

Trail braked into the first hairpin and the car rotated perfectly. Almost as if my car knew what I wanted.

Came there were 3 other slaloms and other hairpins and s-curves.

Came across the finish line bouncing off redline and got a time of 71.6. WOW! I said as I crossed the finish line. My car felt so different and fresh!

Now the shop I got my corner weighing at is making me blocks so I can set the camber back to a street setting, and then flip the block over for a race setting. It would fit between the control arm and the ball joint. And then I would have to turn the turn buckles to adjust the toe.

Some pics:
Skunk2 camber kit:


2.5 negative camber:


I posted some videos here:
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4290383073

Some more pics here:
http://forums.clubsi.com/showflat.ph...b=5&o=&fpart=1

I also ran against the usual people in my class. And last year I was about 1 second faster than the 2nd place car a 1987 Civic Si. Now I'm almost 1.5 seconds faster than him. And the next car that usually places 3rd a 1997 Jetta GLX whom I was 1.5 seconds faster I'm now almost 2.0 seconds faster

[elitethug]

where did you get your bushing installed at? and how much did the installation cost?

[CivicSiRacer]

Originally posted by elitethug
where did you get your bushing installed at? and how much did the installation cost?

Yeah if you want to save money and have the time do it yourself. I didn't have access to a press, lift or an extra car so a shop did it for me. 14 hours or so of labor @ $50/hour.

[SilverY2KCivic]

What's a general cost of getting a car corner weighted? I'd like to get mine weighted if possible and fix my rear camber. My front camber seems fine as my tires up front don't have any accelerated camber wear. My rears are beginning to show some wear, moreso on my driver's side. I want to get that fixed before I get new tires though so I don't eat through them. I'm considering the cheap washer camber trick for the rear, but I hear that's not good for auto-x. Isn't that what most rear portions of a camber kit include anyways, some sort of extended bolt and some washers or a spacing pin?

My Beak's Performance subframe reinforcement kit should be arriving either tomorrow (saturday) or monday, so once I get my Integra Type-R 22mm rear sway bar installed on, I'm gonna go test it out. First I'll hit some one of the many large parking lots that's within my city to get an intial feel for the almost twice as large bar, then I'll hit up my favorite local mountain road that just re-opended a couple days ago after being closed for the winter since last september. For the time being I gotta be careful up there since there's a bit of dust and sand on the road from recent rains, so there's a bit of an increased slide factor up there right now, but with my current setting (my Teins set at 10 clicks off from stiffest) the car sticks well on this road, even with my Kumho Ecsta 711 tires at about a 65-70% wear of tread.

For my last suto-x I did, I tried playing around with my tranny a bit (auto remember) and I found that my car seems to stick better and controls the acceleration smoother if I drop the stick into "2" and just floor the gas. It smoothly and not too quickly picks up speed esp. if done through the large sweeping and progressing curves, and when I'd exit and get 1/4 of the way down the straight that extended out of the curve, I'd actually just redline 2nd and have to shift back up into "D3" to accelerate further. I probably could have picked up a second or so of time if I had held 2nd to the next brake point/curve, and than powered through that in 2nd. But it's a continuous learning process. I can't say I have any complaints about ride quality when daily driving, even on crappy streets of Los Angeles and surrounding areas. Well not any more complaints than I'd have if I were on stock suspension. Rebound and comfort is top notch! Not too bouncy, or floaty.

[elitethug]

just to let you know, i have a ej8 with tein flex, suspension technique sway bars, kumho 711 in the back and perrilli p7000 in the front and theres still body lean when I turn. I cant stand the body lean, so I was thinking I might need to upgrade my bushing. But since its 14 hrs and $50 an hour, I might reconsider, cant afford that price.

[CivicSiRacer]

Originally posted by SilverY2KCivic
What's a general cost of getting a car corner weighted? I'd like to get mine weighted if possible and fix my rear camber. My front camber seems fine as my tires up front don't have any accelerated camber wear. My rears are beginning to show some wear, moreso on my driver's side. I want to get that fixed before I get new tires though so I don't eat through them. I'm considering the cheap washer camber trick for the rear, but I hear that's not good for auto-x. Isn't that what most rear portions of a camber kit include anyways, some sort of extended bolt and some washers or a spacing pin?

My Beak's Performance subframe reinforcement kit should be arriving either tomorrow (saturday) or monday, so once I get my Integra Type-R 22mm rear sway bar installed on, I'm gonna go test it out. First I'll hit some one of the many large parking lots that's within my city to get an intial feel for the almost twice as large bar, then I'll hit up my favorite local mountain road that just re-opended a couple days ago after being closed for the winter since last september. For the time being I gotta be careful up there since there's a bit of dust and sand on the road from recent rains, so there's a bit of an increased slide factor up there right now, but with my current setting (my Teins set at 10 clicks off from stiffest) the car sticks well on this road, even with my Kumho Ecsta 711 tires at about a 65-70% wear of tread.

For my last suto-x I did, I tried playing around with my tranny a bit (auto remember) and I found that my car seems to stick better and controls the acceleration smoother if I drop the stick into "2" and just floor the gas. It smoothly and not too quickly picks up speed esp. if done through the large sweeping and progressing curves, and when I'd exit and get 1/4 of the way down the straight that extended out of the curve, I'd actually just redline 2nd and have to shift back up into "D3" to accelerate further. I probably could have picked up a second or so of time if I had held 2nd to the next brake point/curve, and than powered through that in 2nd. But it's a continuous learning process. I can't say I have any complaints about ride quality when daily driving, even on crappy streets of Los Angeles and surrounding areas. Well not any more complaints than I'd have if I were on stock suspension. Rebound and comfort is top notch! Not too bouncy, or floaty.

The shop I go to took us 4 hours to do camber, toe, and corner weighing and he charges about $75. BUt in my honest opinion corner weighing will make your car handle great. But of course you have to be patient too The car will handle evenly in both directions instead of being biased to one side or the other.

I also recommend you DON'T go to your favorite mountain pass with a new setup. I know too many people who did that only to eat guardrail or worse. The safest place to test out your new suspension components is at an autocross where it's flat and somewhat forgiving if you mess up. To me it's not worth messing up on a mountain pass.

[SilverY2KCivic]

Originally posted by CivicSiRacer


The shop I go to took us 4 hours to do camber, toe, and corner weighing and he charges about $75. BUt in my honest opinion corner weighing will make your car handle great. But of course you have to be patient too The car will handle evenly in both directions instead of being biased to one side or the other.

I also recommend you DON'T go to your favorite mountain pass with a new setup. I know too many people who did that only to eat guardrail or worse. The safest place to test out your new suspension components is at an autocross where it's flat and somewhat forgiving if you mess up. To me it's not worth messing up on a mountain pass.

I hear ya', I really need to work on a solution for tightening up my front once I have this ITR rear bar on... That's why once installed, I'm gonna go to an open parking lot near me late at night, and just make some Solo2 similar manuvers and turns, and see how it holds/feels from there. I'd never hit up anything serious till I have a feeling for the setup, and know what it's gonna do, or what it might suddenly decide to do without warning. If I find that snap oversteer becomes something common with the new bar, then I'll hit up any mountain passes with great caution. I'm gonna treat it like breaking in a new car, nothing major with it (outside of large flat paved areas) till I know it's feel. I really wanna get my car corner weighted though, but I dunno where around my area would or does that.

[CivicSiRacer]

Originally posted by SilverY2KCivic


I hear ya', I really need to work on a solution for tightening up my front once I have this ITR rear bar on... That's why once installed, I'm gonna go to an open parking lot near me late at night, and just make some Solo2 similar manuvers and turns, and see how it holds/feels from there. I'd never hit up anything serious till I have a feeling for the setup, and know what it's gonna do, or what it might suddenly decide to do without warning. If I find that snap oversteer becomes something common with the new bar, then I'll hit up any mountain passes with great caution. I'm gonna treat it like breaking in a new car, nothing major with it (outside of large flat paved areas) till I know it's feel. I really wanna get my car corner weighted though, but I dunno where around my area would or does that.

Well you can get the front end to turn in quicker by putting more toe out on the front at the cost of accelerated tire wear. And you can reduce snap oversteer by changing air pressures a bit.

[SilverY2KCivic]

Fronts higher, or rears for pressure.

[CivicSiRacer]

front pressures higher than the rears something like 37/35-36.

[SilverY2KCivic]

Ok, I can try that.

Also what about adjusting the dampening on my Teins? I'd want to set the rears softer than the fronts? Or would that even help any?

[CivicSiRacer]

Don't do too many adjustments. Like do tire pressure OR dampening the Teins. Personally I would leave all the Teins on soft and just adjust the pressure, because the stiffer you make shocks the quicker they will wear out and usually shocks are more expensive than tires

Mike

Originally posted by SilverY2KCivic
Ok, I can try that.

Also what about adjusting the dampening on my Teins? I'd want to set the rears softer than the fronts? Or would that even help any?