I think at my events if you have glass in your door, you need some sort of covering to protect the occupants from shattered glass. I still have my OEM panels in place. They don’t weight THAT much, and they are softer than a steel door frame.
For the heck of it (and because i decided to hang out with my drag racer friends), i decided to take the integra to the local strip for fun. Ran 14.9x @ 93.6 mph. Video:
[video=youtube_share;-2Y07KIxEn8]http://youtu.be/-2Y07KIxEn8[/video]
Finally got out to the track with the recent weight, safety, and engine improvements. The car is a different animal than stock. Reasonably neutral and pulls well with the engine mods and JDM tranny. The track i was at (VIR) favors higher power cars, but it was still a blast and I had fun keeping up in the more technical sections. My Hawk HP+ pads have held up to 4 full track days (2 hours per day, (4) 30 minute sessions) and my Kumho XS have held up equally well (i rotate frequently to promote even wear). I’ve found my pressures work well at 36 psi hot front and 30-32 psi hot rear.
What’s better than a car that serves as reliable and cheap transportation, track car, trailer for weekend camping and car supplies, and gets 30+ mpg on the drive?
PICTURES: HERE
VIDEO:
[video=youtube_share;d2g99DpRL10]http://youtu.be/d2g99DpRL10[/video]
I find my brakes are a little difficult to modulate while heel-toe downshifting, so i’m swapping a larger 1" ABS master cylinder to firm the pedal and make it less sensitive. I have another track event at Summit Point Shenandoah circuit in a two weeks, so I will report back on how much difference it makes and post some more pictures and videos.
Good stuff! Looks like its time for a new camera or new mount though,what’s your current setup?
In regard to the brakes… The larger master cylinder is actually going to make your brakes MORE sensitive. The larger master cylinder means you move more fluid with the same amount of pedal movement. I recently did some adjustments to my pedals to get a better feel. I’m short and have small feet and never realized what I was really missing out on by not tweaking the pedals until I did. First I adjusted the clutch to be as high as possible then bent the gas pedal over closer to the brake. This last thing made a big difference in how easy it is to more accurately heel toe.
[QUOTE=Colin;2294576]Good stuff! Looks like its time for a new camera or new mount though,what’s your current setup?
In regard to the brakes… The larger master cylinder is actually going to make your brakes MORE sensitive. The larger master cylinder means you move more fluid with the same amount of pedal movement. I recently did some adjustments to my pedals to get a better feel. I’m short and have small feet and never realized what I was really missing out on by not tweaking the pedals until I did. First I adjusted the clutch to be as high as possible then bent the gas pedal over closer to the brake. This last thing made a big difference in how easy it is to more accurately heel toe.[/QUOTE]
I’m just using a point-and-shoot picture/video camera and a cheapcameramount.com mount. The Teg is pretty high on NVH though, and gets a lot of wind buffeting. When i put the camera just inside the windshield, the quality is higher but then you can’t see any of the driving.
Colin, agree- the larger MC moves more fluid for the same travel. This means you will need less travel to affect the same brake pressure. Because hydraulics can be viewed as leverage, less petal travel for the same pressure means less leverage, i.e. more petal force is required. Because fluid pressure is uniform throughout the braking circuit (at steady state), achieving the same pressure requires pushing the larger MC piston with more force due to the larger area.
Because more force on the brake pedal is required to stop the car at the same rate, i like to think the brakes are “less sensitive”, but your view that less pedal travel is required to achieve the same braking force is also valid and could be viewed as “more sensitive”! So regardless of what we call it, i think we’re both correct and my hope is that the modulation will improve!
As another note, i tried changing the brake pedal free height but it seemed like it was affecting my booster pushrod clearance. It’s not nearly as easy as on my DSM, where brake pedal height is adjusted independently of the booster pushrod-to-master cylinder clearance.
Only one way to find out I guess 
Well, Shenandoah was a blast last weekend. I have shaved more than 7 seconds off my best time from my last visit. I am running about 01:46. The suspension mods, engine mods, tranny, and additional weight reduction have made a HUGE difference:
The 1" ABS MC & ABS brake booster did not make as much of a difference as i thought. It could be that the ABS booster has more assist to it, which defeats the purpose of the larger master cylinder. On my DSM, i went with a larger MC and the same booster and the pedal was much firmer and required more effort. However, it certaintly didn’t hurt things and brake components are a good thing to replace when racing a 20+ year old car anyways.
At this point, i am thinking of getting some 15x9" wheels with some 225/45-15 tires to run up front and run my current 205/50-15 in the rear. The car pretty much refuses to rotate and the cornering balance leaves much to be desired.
However, more front traction means i can brake harder, which means i will likely overwhelm my front brakes (which are already highly stressed). I am running Hawk HP+ on stock rotors and i am getting some depositing and shudder in some situations. I never get fade, and i got about 6 track days out of my front pads. I plan to install a front air dam and run some brake cooling ducts as a start. If i still have issues, then i have a choice of running more aggressive pads or using a larger rotor size.
You’ll hit your wall with the HP+ pretty soon. When those wear you you can should a race pad. It sounds like you might be ready for one. Making this switch was a big change for me and i should have done it sooner - but my mentality has been to run conservative mods until my driving improves Enough to warrant more aggressive parts/tuning. If you still have issues then try larger brakes (for heat sink reasons) or try brake cooling ducts. But likely just switching to a race pad will be enough so that you can stop thinking about brakes for a while and focus on other weak links.
I’d skip the tire stagger idea, its not going to fix the problem you think it will. You can easily get your car to rotate, you just need to set it up right. Assuming your mods list on the front page is correct stil… Your car is currently setup for neutral to understeer and possibly being able to induce oversteer thru trailbraking. Tire stagger is very inconvenient since you would no longer be able to swap tires front to rear, this will cause your tire costs to increase. I rarely see any of my track buddies running stagger on fwd cars since the problem can be attacked thru different avenues and the practicality of having the same 4 wheels/tires is an very nice.
Currently ou have OTS GC’S spring rates, what are they? I don’t know the exact numbers but I know they are too soft and they are stiffer in front. Since this car is a track car and not a daily, you’re going to want to start looking at higher spring rates. Depending on how comfortable you are and what the other mods are you could start off conservatively with a spring rate 100lbs higher in front than rear. I’m running 700f/600r. Mve these rates closer together (e.g. 600/600) and you’ll start moving towards more oversteer, and you can even go past that so the rear is stiffer than the front. You’ll find most fwd Honda race cars have stiffer rear springs than front to help the car rotate. Your Illuminas probably won’t like anything higher than 400-550lbs. If you plan on keeping them fo a while you could get 400 and 450lb springs and try both 450/400 and 400/450. If you’re ok putting more strain on the shocks you could get a little more aggressive and try 550/450 then switch to 450/550. I actually had 10k/8k (roughly 550/450 iirc) for a long while when I was dallying my car on illuminas and thy lasted years which surprised me since most people say that’s too much spring for the illumina.
You likely need more front camber. 2 deg is practically a streetable amount of camber. I’d think you’d want at least -2.5, and I’d probably start w -3. How is the outside shoulder on your tires now? I’d expect a decent amount of rollover with only 2 deg. I had -4.0 for awhile because I was out of adjustment and couldn’t correct for any more camber and it was fine and no excess tire wear either. I still need to figure out what is ideal for me, but I’m thinking its between 3-4 deg negative. Also, check your rear camber and correct as needed. If its incorrect end you likely have too much negative back there.
Get an aftermarket front sway bar.
Consider a larger rear sway bar (but really the progress should be good enough for awhile).
Fix your rear toe. Toe in is going to set you up for understeer. A little bit can be good for high speed stability, so where you want your setting depends on your preference and the tracks you run. VIR may benefit from a TINY bit of toe in if you aren’t comfortable with a loose car (iirc VIR is a fairly high speed track). But normally I’d say dead on zero is a good place to be. And for autox you could possibly benefit from toe out if you can’t get the car to rotate otherwise.
There’s a lot you can do to move your setup to be more neutral and even to induce more serious rotation. I don’t see tire stagger making any significant change and its be a bandaid helping you work around your current other mods. In my eyes that’s the wrong order to be working in. I’d address all of these other items and if you still can’t get it where you want (you should easily be able to) then start testing a stagger setup. With those items I mentioned you can completely change the feel of the car and should even be able to make it more aggressive than you’d like if you went to the extremes.
Colin, thank you for your detailed feedback.
I’ve been looking at Hawk HT-10, Hawk DTC-60, and Cobalt Friction XR3. On my HP+ i got 6 track days before they were low and started to crumble and were forming deposits on rotors. My HOPE is that a race pad would last longer than the HP+ because they are built to handle the heat? Any brake pad recommendations? Please tell me more about your brake setup and tires (because, of course, better tires demand better brakes).
GCC off the shelf rates are 330F 250R. I would like to experiment with stiffer springs. My front camber may be closer to 2.5* but i’ll need to check. At 36-38 psi front, i am getting the appropriate amount of sidewall roll-over (halfway down the triangle indicator), but am still wearing the outside shoulders a little quicker than the insides (but not by much). My rear camber is unadjusted and is less than the fronts. Pictures indicate they roll roughly flat or even a bit more in corners, so it’s definately not TOO much. I may experiment with reducing the rear toe, but VIR is high speed and has an uphill 105 mph at-the-limit slalom, so i like stability through that section.
The tire angles can be seen in the picture below:
Hufflepuff - Let me know when your going out to Summit or VIR again. I’d like to come out and meet up with you and check out your car. I’ve been looking forward to meeting someone local who actually participates in track days around here and is somewhat serious. I’m located just south of Baltimore.
And regarding your spring rates I am running Koni/GC with 550/450 with the dampening set a full turn stiffer in the rear and the car will start to rotate at the limit with steady throttle.
Your experience with the HP+ is basically identical to what I went through. I was having a little bit of uneven pad wear (caliper issue) and all my pads were toast. I was also going thru rotors like nobody’s business. I knew this was all a heat problem. I wanted to get new calipers regardless so the decision I had to make was do I stick with stock sized calipers and race pads, or just upgrade to ITR sized brakes and race pads. If my existing calipers were OK I may have decided to simply move to race pads. However the cost of reman stock calipers vs reman ITR calipers made it such that it was a no brainer to just upgrade to the larger brakes. This made it so I was pretty much assured of having good brakes for quite some time before I’d need to think about another upgrade. Had I kept my stock calipers and started using race pads I’m sure this would have worked well, I know multiple friends who are running this size brake and race pads without problems. However, most of these guys do have slightly lighter cars (ef/eg), but they are going faster than me too, so it’s hard to compare.
Race pads will handle a lot more heat and it sounds like you’re definitely at the point now where you need to move to a race pad. I think it’s really smart that you’re starting with a basic setup, learning to drive and then mod the car as those weak links start to appear. This is what I’ve tried to do as well. Since I only switched to race pads this year I unfortunately don’t have too much experience with different pads and how they compare. I first went with Raybestos ST43 on the recommendation of someone at Porterfield brakes. This ended up being horrible. I had read some reviews about getting horrible vibrations from these pads but the guy at Porterfield assured me it was more of a user problem and that I should be fine. Well, regardless of whether it was user error or not I ended up with horrible vibrations from these pads. I didn’t do anything different and followed the guy’s recommendations on how to bed them and break them in. I didn’t want to deal with the hassle so I quickly found a set of lightly used Hawk blues at a good price. I just needed something quick that I knew would work. This setup has been working well for me so far, however at my last track day I did start to get some vibration. I figure that to a certain extent this is going to be normal that I need to resurface rotors once or twice a season (vibration started after a few laps with the ST43’s).
I’d check out the RR/Autox forums over at H-T and NWP, do some searches about compounds. I don’t know the exact specs on the ones you mentioned above, but I know a lot of the guys I run with have those pads or the models right around there. The HT-10 in particular I think is a favorite. But don’t quote me on this. Relatively soon I’m gonna need to start researching this stuff as well since I’ll be needing new pads within the next year. (My car is currently down with a blown motor, so not sure when I’ll be getting back out there).
What pads are you running in the rear right now? I tried HP+ all the way around and really didn’t like it, the rears would lock up too easily. So I was running HP+ front and cheap autozone in the rear. When I switched to race pads up front I put the HP+ back in the rear and this combo seemed to work well.
Sounds like you’re getting a little more rollover than you should be. Unfortunately the only REAL way to tell is by taking tire temps on the inside, middle and outside. The wear and rollover are just guidelines and can only get us so far. With that said, my tires aren’t quite rolling over onto the triangle indicators. Those tire pressures you noted, are those hot or cold? In that pic the car looks very flat, I’m still thinking you may benefit from a bit more camber. Hard to say though.
As for the toe, I’d keep it zero or just ever so slightly IN, and focus your other mods on getting rotation. You definitely don’t need to go toe OUT in order to get rotation, I just mentioned it since it was an option. I know for me I’d prefer to keep that stability since I’m still relatively inexperienced and learning.
[QUOTE=TurboG2teg311;2295567]Hufflepuff - Let me know when your going out to Summit or VIR again. I’d like to come out and meet up with you and check out your car. I’ve been looking forward to meeting someone local who actually participates in track days around here and is somewhat serious. I’m located just south of Baltimore.
And regarding your spring rates I am running Koni/GC with 550/450 with the dampening set a full turn stiffer in the rear and the car will start to rotate at the limit with steady throttle.[/QUOTE]
I’m at VIR 8-9 May and Summit Shenandoah 5-6 September. I also have a few autocrosses in frederick, MD. Thanks for the spring rate feedback.
Colin, i’ve heard the blues have lots of bite, but can be difficult to modulate / threshold brake; is this your experience? How many days did it seem like you will get out of them? Also, did you remove the heat shields? I did some research and it looks like the ITR front calipers and the 06+ mini cooper rotors are a bolt on affair to upgrade to 11" rotors.
I agree about the brake bias; the stock DA integra proportioning valve seems to have a lot of rear bias. I get quite a bit of rear lock-up in some spots (i.e. letting off a smoke trail), especially while trail braking and unloading the inside rear tire. Running a race pad in the front with HP+ in the rear sounds like a good plan!
I am thinking i’ll try to address front roll-over with stiffer springs, especially since my current rates are (laughably) low. Ideally, you want to run as little front camber as required to provide better braking and acceleration traction, so stiffer springs may reduce my roll to where my current camber is sufficient. I will have some adjustment left in the skunk2 UCA if i need it.
Sorry to hear about the blown engine. My friend just blew up his turbo RX-7 at summit point last event (my youtube channel has a video of me passing him…)
The Blues have felt just fine for me, haven’t experienced any problems with modulation - but again, I don’t have much to compare to. Started w/ Axxis Ultimates, moved to HP+, then Blues. I’ve run 4-6 events on the Blues so far and they still look great. I think I can get another 4-6 easily, beyond that, who knows.
I removed my heat shields when I was having heat problems with my HP+ pads. I didn’t notice a difference when I did this. The upgrade you speak of is exactly what I did - ITR calipers, '07 Mini base model rotors. 100% bolt on.
I think you’re right in that spring rate is the first thing you should be looking at, it’s definitely the one item I see on your build list that is quite far from what I’d expect you to be running on a more dedicated track car like this. Crank up those spring rates! lol. I’d pick up a front sway bar as well.
Yeah, it sucked that I blew my motor, especially because now I’m out of championship contention for the HFF Challenge. But no big deal, it’s just fun and games so I can’t really be upset. I can’t wait to get the car up and running again but with work/life being so busy at the moment it’s probably gonna be awhile 
----------- PLAN AHEAD -----------
BRAKES: ITR front calipers, Mini front rotors, Hawk Blue front pads
SUSPENSION: 550ish/450ish spring rates, then reassess need for alignment changes
Brakes should be in time for the next VIR event. Suspension will hopefully be by Summit in October. Will report back!
So, i realized my 14" transport wheels won’t fit over the 11" brakes, so i resurfaced my 10.3" rotors and i’m going to try running Hawk Blues up front and Hawk HP+ in the rear. Hopefully they last for more than 6 days and don’t leave shudder-causing deposits. On a sad note, my A1Cardone caliper from rockauto already failed (torn dust boot and leaking fluid), so i’m getting a replacement from autozone just in time for the race.
I also removed the front bumper reinforcement and fabricated a custom front bumper hanger. The hanger goes in the center and attaches between the hood support bracket and the upper bumper lip. I had to open some holes and use some bolts from the hardware store. It’s only a single additional bracing point, but it feels pretty sturdy for bumps and air pressure at 120 mph. We will see at the track.
So i won the last two autocross events in the CDC “smallbore” class, against mainly NA and NB miatas and civics. I also experimented with my new Sony Action Cam HD. Here’s a video:
[video=youtube_share;aNrcUhKO0lk]1992 Acura Integra RS Autocross - YouTube
The sound is a little crappy, probably because the camera vibrates inside the plastic protective housing. I’m going to try to add some damping material to eliminate the idle vibration. Overall, video quality seems great!
Lookin’ good man! I missed that post from June till now… bummer about your caliper. Same exact thing happened to me with the ITR reman’s I got from RockAuto. I need to find a rebuild kit and try my hand and rebuilding it.
I have Centric reman ITR calipers on the way from RockAuto. Hopefully I have better luck then you guys.