On My Own - 1989 Honda Civic
Using A 15-Year-Old Chassis, A Venerated Power Plant, And A Healthy Serving Of Resourcefulness, One Man Makes His Road Race Dreams Reality. This Month, Honda Tuning Concludes Its Coverage Of The Racecar Build, Showing What Went Into Rollover Protection And The Civic's Drop-Dead Good Looks.
writer: Bob Hernandez
photographer: Bob Hernandez
It's been over a year since we last checked in on Dane Sloan and the construction of his 1989 Civic hatchback racecar. You'll recall the beginnings of the venture in our November and December '04 issues, and since then, the project has changed in some significant ways. Sloan is still running a B16 del Sol motor bored and stroked to 2 liters, which he built with help from Pro Street Import, but the ED6 chassis is not what it was when we last reported on it.
For starters, the Rotora brakes have been booted for a Wilwood kit, which boasts lighter calipers. Additionally, the Omni-Power non-adjustable shocks that were once onboard have been updated to Omni's adjustable versions to optimize damping. But the biggest change came not to the car itself but where the car will be campaigned.
The hatch is now prepped to Honda Cup spec, a Honda-only open class offered by the California Sports Car Club, or Cal Club, a regional chapter of the Sports Car Club of America. Cal Club's Cup is for any Honda or Acura of model year 1988 or later, running sans forced induction or nitrous, and appealed to Sloan because it is an open class that permits engine swaps. This is a departure from Sloan's initial aim to compete in NASA's Honda Challenge series, which he's still interested in and hopes to compete in, as well.
Different roll cage specs come with the different classes. Cal Club says rollover protection needs to comply with SCCA's General Competition Rules (GCR) section on touring car cages. Basic design considerations include using seamless or drawn over mandrel (DOM) mild steel tubing or alloy steel tubing that is sized for the vehicle's weight without a driver. A racecar under 1,500 lbs., like Sloan's, should use 1.375x0.095-inch DOM, seamless, or alloy, but for added strength Sloan went up one size, running instead 1.5x0.095-inch tube throughout the cabin.
Cages have to be contained entirely within the cabin and welded to the car at no more than eight points (sorry, no bolt-in cages). The touring car cage section of the GCR also makes a handful of provisions, namely that any number of extra mounting points can be used and any number of extra bars can be used, even for chassis stiffening. Furthermore, there are no restrictions on the sizing of the mounting plates.
Roll cages are subject to approval by Cal Club's tech and safety inspectors at each event. That's why an inspection hole at least 3/16-inch diameter, but no bigger than 1/4 inch, needs to be drilled in a non-critical area of all the cage's tubes to facilitate verification of wall thickness. Officials will also be scrutinizing the bends in the tubing to ensure they are continuous and show no evidence of crimping or wall failure. Be warned, though-the technical staff may not accept alternate construction standards that vary from the SCCA's.
As in previous installments, Sloan has been keeping a photo log of the racecar's progress and provided us with most of the images of the cage build for this story. He also grabbed pics of the sick paint and graphics job, which seems a shame to put on the track, but Sloan assures us he's got spare doors and fenders for race days. Finally, Sloan wants to send love to Tri-Par Spiral, the Jenkins brothers and SPA Technique, without whom the project would never have come together.