Civic EK Rally Car Build


markg

Member
Joined
Jun 2, 2014
Messages
31
Finally going to bite the bullet and upload my build thread online, I haven't used forums in years as I developed a unhealthy habit of daily posting onto both the ae111 forum when I had one and browsing through the pages of pistonheads for hours on head, so went cold turkey around 5 or 6 years ago.
:dance:
Over the last 14 months or so however I have abandoned by Toyota roots and crossed over to the dark side purchasing a little 1.3lr automatic EK2.
No beast I'll admit, but the chassis was clean and straight and at the time seemed like a good place to start building a rally car from. (In hindsight its not, get yourself an EK4 or EK9 if you are doing it) You will end up upgrading every single part, costing yourself more money over time. :nono: We'll not get into that now though.

The reason I haven't registered on here before now is I was faced with a dilemma something similar to the catch 22 concept. I had no time to be posting or researching online because I was to busy working, and when I wasn't working I was to busy in the shed building the car, and the car was taking ages to build because I was only working at it every second weekend, and when I did I probably wasn't as productive as I could have been had I asked the advise of someone who has already experienced the issues I was having.
Thus the inevitable day was always due to arrive when I was eventually going to draw a blank and need to ask advise and opinions of others, and where possible provide others with my thoughts and opinions on issues you may be having. (I'm an engineer not a mechanic though =( )
Due to work commitments, life in general and a want to prevent a relapse into my previous car forum addition, I am going to limit myself to logging in twice per week for now, the car is around 80 ish % complete at the moment and am hoping to have it completed by mid to late summer at the latest.

Now I'll just shut up and upload some pictures,
Any questions or comment are welcome, but it may be a few days before I reply.

Cheers,
Mark
 
So the first thing do do was to strip the EK2 down to just the shell, very clean little shell with no rust. Half a skip full of EK2 interior if anyone wants it =)

Photos are taking a little longer than I had anticipated to upload and come up as small thumbnails direct so uploading to a file sharing site and will make the first proper upload later this week =)
 
Cheers, their currently uploading to Photobucket, but not going to get links on here tonight
 
Finally got the pictures uploaded. As I said the Civic started of life as a 1.3 automatic. First job was to strip it to the bare shell.



The blank canvas




Next on the to do list....make room in the shed =)
 
The interior is gone at this stage so next on the to do list is get rid of the clutter under the bonnet and remove the glass.

Because I hadn't room in the shed at this stage to put the car in a permanent spot, I had to put back in the steering to get the car moved.


In hindsight I should have done a full strip out at this stage but you live and learn

There was about 4 straight days spent cleaning seams and internal panels at this stage in preparation for the roll cage, again in hindsight sending the shell for sandblasting may have been a better economic choice in the grander scheme of things, but I was trying to save money where possible so opted against it.

Custom cages international spec cage delivered =)
 
At this point the car was handed over to a professional welder, I have tried my hand at welding on small things previously but when it comes to a roll cage you want it done right. In addition to the safety aspect there's nothing worse to spoil a car than dirty amateur welds.
I got the shell back looking like this.





 
There was one little section on the passengers side floor that was rusted through thus need to be reinforced but bar this, bottom right of the below picture the shell was sound.
Seat rails and tie hoops for the harnesses also in at this stage.







The custom cages cage comes out through the bulk head to allow for strengthening the front uprights, the only issue being you now need to reroute the wiring loom

The panels were also seam welded at this stage ascan be seen in the next few pics


 
Next on the to do list was painting. The underneath was the first to get the gun, with two coats of white under sealer.


And then the inside


Shed still not cleared out at this stage =)
 
Probably got a little ahead of myself at this stage and started to dream up what the exterior should look for. It may be my inner child trying to brake out or some form of undiagnosed mental illness but I decided to sketch something up using my trusty friend the xbox and its sidekick Forza.
Before I even post these pictures I know there will be various opinions on how this vinyl scheme looks like and I'm open to opinions, but im building this car for motorsport and intend having some fun with it so Im not looking for an over serious tone to be set. I mightn't go as extreme but I'm pretty set on the basis of this scheme.





Opinions are welcomed, I may just choose to ignore them though =)
 
So having decide that the colour scheme in the last few picture was what I wanted to go with, I left the car as it was for two weeks as I was away with work, planning to begin work to the suspension when I returned.
However my Dad got his hands on a copy of the pictures above and when I landed back to my parents house 2 weeks later the car looked something like this.









Its Probably fair to say I owe him a pint......(It's on the to do list)
 
At this stage I dropped the idea of doing the mechanical work for now and decided fitting the wiring loom and electronics should take priority, to do this the dash needed to go back in.


I cut a small section out of each side up as far as the small vents to allow it to fit back in around the roll cage, and sent it away to get flocked.

Its actually extremely difficult to get back in with the cage fitted but after some wiggeling and twisting it eventually founds its way in.

Probably getting ahead of myself here again but stuck in the seat mounts too.


Seats back out.......time for some wiring :shocked:


 
Some of you may have noticed in the last few pictures I had also started to bring the brake and fuel lines trough the chassis. The next few pics show under the bonnet, as I brings these braided lines through and begin hooking up the front section of the loom.

All the windows were put back in at this stage bar the windscreen. In hindsight I should have put in perspex windows but for some reason had assumed that they were expensive, thus didn't even bother pricing them......I'll replace them at some stage but for now its glass all round.


 
So its time to start some mechanical work. First thing to do is organise what parts I have and don't have, I had bought this EK4 shell years ago as a basis but decided against using it as it has a small amount of accident damage on one of the front arms.
First plan of attack was to get this out of the shed for good as it was taking up valuable space and arguably should have been thrown out months before.

EK4 cornors cleaned down and ready for paint.

http://s1374.photobucket.com/user/Mark_Gormley/media/69_zps687c520c.jpg.html?sort=9&o=68
Full set of pullybushes (Took over two full days to get them all changed)
Rear trailing arms painted up

Cleaned and painted all of this lot too........all spares now as I have uprated everything in this pic since

Decided to not hold back on the suspension budget and got myself a set of fully adjustable DMS =) , the credit card bill didnt look as good as the suspension unfortunately.

Out with the old in with the new



 
Having the suspension in give me my mechanical fix at the time so back to the interior I went, managed to get my hands on a set of fiberglass door cards


Brilliant job just needed some minor trimming to get them to fit


You may have spotted the nozzels in the last few pics, I fitted the fire suppression system at this stage too.


Decided to save money by flocking the door card myself using a diy ebay flocking kit


They look good here, but the flock is in no way as well set as it was on the dash, and as you will see in future pictures they begin to shed,may have been a mess up on my part but, its usually a case of you get what you pay for, Ill get them done properly sometime down the line.


Its really patch in the above picture so i went over it again with another layer......done the job but not The job.

 
Usually keep the shed a bit tidier than this.........was working late that night, thats my excuse. Think I spent just over 30 hours on it that weekend.




The first time I looked at it and felt I was making progress toward completion......in hindsight probably a bit over optimistic =)

 
Cheers, some more uploads to come, not finished just quite yet (the car and the updates)..........
Time to get back to work on the suspension and brakes.

Stuck with the standard ek4 brakes for now, planning to upgrade at some point but just cant justify spending £3000 on Brembos just yet, I'v been told the cheaper kits arn't that much better than standard honda kit so ill hold off for a year or two.

Had to make custom mounts for alot of things on this car, brake lines included.



Tie rods, arms and steering rods were replaced at this stage too


Got a set of Hardrace camber arms for the front and back too





Fuel tank finally back in too
 
Now back to the interior, I wanted a single central console which was ergonomic, looked half decent, held everything in one place and minimised clutter, I started with various cardboard templates before making this out of sheet steel.

I wanted to relocate the main fuse box inside for conveniance, not sure if moving it is actually worth the hassle but its done now.


The central tunnel looking quite bare........watch this space....


Some small extras fitted, starting to get there,


 
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