To build or not to build

[TStiles]

More confused than ever.

CRX vs. Prelude. I need a sign

You could always hit the EZ button and buy a miata

[seckerich]

Tried to PM you but I don't know if it went through.

Replied, but here is the information.

Car is owned by my friend Steve Haupts Father and they were running track days with it and planned to race ITA. His father does not want to race it now so it is for sale. . As far as I know it is legal to current ITA specs and has some nice pieces on it. You can contact Steve at 828 Three Three Five 1864 and he can get you information on the car. It is even street legal and was tagged so he drove it to VIR for a track day.

[timo944]

If you find yourself suffering from sticker shock looking at used race car prices, be warned that building (whatever) will cost 2x or more to achieve the same "sum of the parts" as buying.

Good luck!

Kirk

You gotta be kidding Kirk. More like 5x !!!!!!!!!

[HQHITA]

I think I got a sign. No more CRX. Between prelude or buying a race ready integra. Either ITA or ITS.

[HQHITA]

Got the Prelude.

Thanks to Darryl.

Looking forward to seeing some of you guys out there.

J

[mossaidis]

congrats!

[mark500]

If here is a better option to purchase a car then why are you wasting your money and time both to built a car?

[Greg Amy]

If here is a better option to purchase a car then why are you wasting your money and time both to built a car?

Spammer or not? You decide before I go ahead and ban him and delete this post. - GA

(Why? Just created the account, first post is an attack, advertisement in signature).

[Chip42]

likely spam but it wasn't completely obnoxious. watch list, 3 strikes sort of thing?

[HQHITA]

I asked myself that question several times. It all started with me building a car though... I guess I did something "in the middle".

Prelude is coming along. Pulled the old motor last week, and found a donor motor. Went to pick up the car it was in yesterday, pulled it in the shop, and pulled out the motor in about 2 hours. Going to seal it all up just in case and drop it in. I'm removing the sound deadening this weekend and and installing the kill switch. The car should be way underweight so then comes adding ballast and I should be ITS ready.

I am planning on shaking the car down next weekend at Homestead w/ NASA in TTE.

How accessible should the kill switch be? I am planning on mounting it on the dash on the passenger side.

Also, I might remove the ABS and install an adjustable prop valve. Any adverse side effects of doing that?

[Chip42]

Jero - good to hear about your progress, and good that you got a doner spare car, too!

mount the kill switch such that you (as strapped into the seat) AND a corner worker can get to it. this is optional of course, but it's helpful to everyone. if you or the workers can't get to it, then it's not serving its purpose. my car has 2 mostly for this reason, as my seating position limited good interior mounting points to the center of the cockpit.

ABS is suppsoed to be disabled in IT. the honda brake hydraulic system is a diagonal, so when you add a manual prop valve you hav to either brake into both rear lines and add one to each or re-plumb the system such that one piston of the MC works one axle (F piston - F brakes/R-R is common convention). with a little preparation you can do all of this underhood and keep the hardlines form the OEM prop valve or ABS module, let me know if you need a hand here. for now, though, just pull the ABS fuse and deal with the dash light, it should work pretty much fine (verify that before braking when it counts!!!). The OEM ECU might get annoyed by the missing ABS.

[R2 Racing]

How accessible should the kill switch be? I am planning on mounting it on the dash on the passenger side.

Also, I might remove the ABS and install an adjustable prop valve. Any adverse side effects of doing that?

I'm a huge supporter of sticking the kill switch somewhere that the driver can reach it from his seat. If I'm in that car, and something happens, I sure as hell am going to want to be able to reach that switch. I always just weld a little plate on the drivers-side A-pillar down tube, just far enough away to still be in the drivers reach, and mount the kill-switch there. That way it's also right there on the edge of the window opening, so it's easily accesible by workers as well.

On my old ITS Prelude, I removed the entire ABS system. Per the rules, you're supposed to have it at least disabled, so why not remove it entirely (which is also legal per the rules). It's quite heavy, makes bleeding the brakes a bit more of a pain, and the routing of the hard-lines is long and usually in the way. If you remove it, you can replace the weight where you want it, bleeding becomes easy, custom make your own hard-lines and route them wherever you want, and you can stick in a simple bias controller very easily while doing the conversion. Win-win-win-win.

[HQHITA]

Awesome! Thanks guys. I will find a good location on the driver's side. With that Prelude, the passenger side is more convenient because of the way the harness is laid out and the battery. Drivers safety > running more feet of battery cable!

I'm glad you guys confirmed my suspicions about the ABS. I had a Longacre brake kit lying around from a couple of years ago and have all the flaring tools. I might just order a prop valve and do it this weekend. The engine bay part would be much easier to do while the motor is out.

Kevin, you routed the front line from the MC to a T to both front brakes and the rear line from MC through the prop valve to the rears correct?

[Terry Hanushek]

Greg

Spammer or not? You decide before I go ahead and ban him and delete this post. - GA

(Why? Just created the account, first post is an attack, advertisement in signature).

Delete the signature, leave the post

Terry

[R2 Racing]

Kevin, you routed the front line from the MC to a T to both front brakes and the rear line from MC through the prop valve to the rears correct?

Yup. The port on the MC closest to the radiator, I use for the fronts. One line out of it, into a T, and off to each front caliper. The port closest to the firewall goes out, through the firewall and along the exhaust tunnel to a prop valve located next to the seat, then another line out of the prop valve and back to a T located up on the rear passenger seat area, and then off to each rear caliper. Quite easy and effective. Just be sure to get yourself a nice double-flarring tool to make the ends of the brake line. Cheap ones from Harbor Freight or whatever don't work well at all. As for the T's, I just go down to the local junkyard and pull them out of cars. Especially early-mid 90's Toyota's, you can be find them easily accesible mounted right on the firewall. Same thread size any everything as Honda, and can easily be tossed into your toolbox.