Archive - The Original Street Touring 1989 Civic Tech Page

Cost Est. ($)

Item

1,000-3,000

A car - 1989 Honda Civic Si (this is the best year because it's around 40 lighter than the 90-91..... no Civic Si in 1988)

SUSPENSION

600-1,200

Wheels -

12/14/11 Update: Best wheels I know of now are the 949Racing wheels. Cheap and LIGHT...and several different sizes that work great on the Civic.

The best wheel for the money is the Enkei RPF-1 that we sell for $215 per wheel. There are other wheels but nothing that is as good as the Enkei in my opinion. In STS, you can use up to 7.5 inch wide wheels, but these are hard to find. Definitely run them if you can find them, but they are usually expensive..... why I like recommend the Enkei to most (the Enkei RPF-1 15x7, 9 lbs). Lastly, the offset of the wheel makes a difference. Anything above 40mm is ok, but several wheels are out there at 35-38mm, and that's not as good. The 35mm offset Kosei, for example, really doesn't work too well because it doesn't have good fender clearance.... you'd practically have to rip the fenders off with the fender roller to lower the car as much as have with the SSRs.

250-600

Tires -

12/14/11 Update - tires are constantly evolving. Lots of new options. The basics as I understand it now is the Hankook RS-3 is the best for a heavy car and works best when hot (and can be bad in the cold or before they heat up)...and they last a long time. For the lighter cars, the Toyo and Dunlops are the most popular because they work well even when ambient temps are cold, on lighter cars, and on first runs.

There are several articles through Grassroots Motorsports; so you can google the info. One such article is here.

500-3,800

Shocks - There are really 3 levels of shocks.

What you don't want: If you have Tokico HP "Blues", Tein Basic or SS, OE stock, or eBay crap, you will want to take them off the car absolutely as fast as you can. The worst thing you can possibly do it have bad shocks on the car. This is Level 0.... throw Level 0 in the garbage and get good shocks.

Level 1 - Good on the street and competitive and won't break the bank??? Koni Sport "Yellows" are externally adjustable shocks and by far the best shock for the money!!!! If you line up 100 people that have used ebay or cheap coilovers (up to $1000) on their car and then switched to a good Koni setup, you will have 99 that say the Koni setup is FAR superior and the $1000 coilovers were a waste of money. The 1 guy that says he likes the old Coilovers better will be in last place and have no friends. haha. Seriously, I cannot stress this enough. And why??? Mostly because the cheap coilovers have too much low speed "compression" valving and will make the car ride like a brick when you adjust the shock higher. Konis allow you to adjust only rebound, so you don't have to increase your "bump" valving in order to control the mass of you car in transitions better. On the cheap shocks that make you adjust "bump" and "rebound" together, the only way to turn the shock up is to increase the "bump" (aka compression) valving and that causes the tire to lose traction on anything but very smooth surfaces. Koni Sports can handle up to 500 lb/in on a street car as a daily driver and 600 lb/in on a race car. If you don't want too harsh a daily driver, I'd stay with rear rates closer to 350 or 400. So, for the street on a novice car, I'd recommend 350/350, or 400/400...and maybe go 50 higher in the rear. If I were trying to build the fastest STS(2) car I could with Koni Sports, I'd run 400/500 on a Civic or CRX.

Level 2 - A few years ago, Koni came out with the Koni Yellow "RACE"valved version of the Koni Sports for all of us lucky Honda/Acura owners . Why, because they are the same great shock but with increased valving to handle higher spring rates you are likely to want as you get more competitive. These are often referred to as "SPSS Konis" because they based on the "Street Prepared Showroom Stock" racing Koni NA Motorsports Director Lee Grimes frequented back in the 80's. These are a bit more expensive, but you'll find these are standard at National events. They can handle spring rates up to 1000 lb/in, but I would run 400/400 up to 600/800 depending on your driving style and needs. For an 89 Civic/CRX in STS(2), the rates I would run for my own car are 450/600 because Heartland Park, KS (where the Solo2 National Championships is hosted) is not an overly grippy surface; so you are better to have less spring rate than more.

Level 3 - Having run Penske, JRZ, Advance Design, and Koni monotube race shocks on various cars in the past, I can say for certain that they give you an advantage, but only if you really know what you are doing. Most people who run a monotube shock car can't really tell the difference, especially with street tires. The latest shock spec on Cy Lee's car (the one I help setup and drive with him) is an aluminum bodied Koni 2812 Monotube Race Shock with the standard 233 valving, and they are very good. How much faster are they than the Level 2 Koni RACE Shocks??? Hard to say... it's not that they are faster, but they offer some tuning capability (and it does require a bit different setup of hard parts on the car....springs and swaybars). At $3800 for the set, they are about 3 times what the Koni Yellow RACE shocks go for and obviously not for everyone. If I had to estimate how much faster they are than the Koni Yellow RACE shocks, I'd say they are more than 0.1 sec but probably not more than 0.2 sec faster.

340

Springs - Ground Control Coilovers - don't be mistaken, these are the best coilover sleeves on the market. Whatever bad you hear about them is mostly because of installer error. Very minimal squeaking (or none if installed correctly) and the ability to custom pick spring rates. For a basic setup, I like a 400/450 rate to 450/600 rate. The 450/600 rates are surly a bit much for some people on the street; so if you want to drive the car everywhere and not get beat up, consider a 400f/450 spring rate or even softer.

175-510

Swaybars -

Level 1 - Suspension Techniques 22mm Rear Swaybar ($175) is the standard. It has 3 settings but I usually run it at full stiff. I highly recommend starting with full soft though for your safety. ;) If using the Koni shocks with this swaybar, you should tack weld the swaybar bracket to the lower shock bracket so that the swaybar bracket isn't allowed to spin. I've also seen people drill a small hole and install a 2nd screw between the swaybar bracket and lower shock bracket to keep it from spinning.

Level 2 - ASR Race Swaybar is a great rear swaybar for Honda/Acura cars, but it's not as affordable....big surprise ($510). But it provides for as much stiffness or more than the Suspension Techniques bar above with less weight. We run this ASR bar now and I like it alot. It uses a different design than the ST bar above; so you cannot run a full exhaust with this ASR bar (like you can with the ST bar). We offer a modular exhaust in center dump or LCA dump configurations for those that need a good exhaust that dumps under the car (but behind the driver to stay SCCA legal).

Previously, I had posted that attaching the bar to the middle mounting point on the lower control arm was preferred, but this has caused so much controversy. When prepping my 1988 Civic in 2003, the ST adapter kit for a 1988 Civic mounted the bar half-way down the arm (similar location to hole on 89-91 rear arm), and I thought it would be a great setup. And it was ok until tires started getting better and we started needing more front role bar stiffness. Stick with mounting it to the bottom of the shock now for full effectiveness of the swaybar.

As for the front swaybar, the CRX HF bar is not as stiff as the stock Si bar, which really helps the traction at the front. The HF bar is also lighter because it's hollow. It's a GREAT setup to include that, but many people now run no front bar (including me) because tires have dictated it. The downside is you can feel a little vague-ness with no front bar as compared to the HF or stock bar, but with good bushings, springs, shocks, etc, the vague-ness goes away.

0-450

Tie Bars - This is another point of confusion for many people. Many people say tie bars don't do anything, but they do. They help tighten the chassis of the car so the suspension pickup points don't move relative to each other during transitions. The more you keep the suspension pickup points from moving relative to one another, the "tighter" the car will feel (it's flexing less). Still, we don't run any tie bars on our STS/X car anymore for the weight, and we are doing just fine without them... these tie bars are good for those who are just starting out, but you'll find more and more front runners without them as weight plays a more and more important role.

160

Polyurethane suspension bushings - These are important for a car of this age. The stock bushings are likely shot. Poly bushings make the car feel much better. The feedback you get from the car is much easier to understand. Poly is a little harsh for a street driven car in the everyday, but if this is mostly a weekend car or if you are young, it's probably ok. I'm getting to old to run poly on the street! :) Either Energy Suspension or Prothane make a good choice for bushings, and they are about the same price. We sell both, but I have always used the Energy Suspension Master Kits on my cars..... so you can be a lemming or not... it doesn't much matter in this case.

ENGINE

300-1,400

Header - a good 4-2-1 Ceramic Header, like the one from DC Sports, is a good choice (as of 5/1/08, DC Sports is now owned by APC/Pilot, and for some reason they are not stocked anymore at our distributors...looking into it). There are a couple other makes that are cheaper and almost as good, but I wouldn't get the really cheap ones because they are often crappy build quality; so you are on your own there.

For the fastest guys in the US, the HyTech Race Header has become something of a norm. At $1400, it's probably the most expensive single part you can put on your car, but it's worth it. We've seen 2-4 hp gains over the DC Sports header, which doesn't seem like much, but that's a 2-4% improvement in forward acceleration everywhere. In ST classes where wins often come down to the thousandths, this header DOES make a difference. Then again, it's probably the last modification you should make to your car because power if by far not the most important thing in STS.

230

Cold Air Intake - I like the AEM Cold Air Intake, but anything that pulls cold air is going to work well. The white Civic that won the 2001 and 2002 Nationals just had a modified stock airbox in those years. Again, power isn't the most important thing. We run an AEM Cold Air Intake on ours.... and they come in Polished, Silver, Red and Blue... so you can bling up your engine bay! :)

165-1,000

ECU Reflash - you can pick up horsepower by getting the ECU modified with a RedShift chip. This also is your chance to raise the rev limiter, something these cars need a bit of. Of course, if you do up the rev limiter, you are on your own as far as blowing the thing up. I think you can go 500 rpm over stock ok. And make sure you run 91 octane or better when you change the ecu tune. Our current tune makes an extra 2-5 hp throughout the rev range. Our chip is $99 and we can "socket" your ecu for $65 if you send it to us. This socketing allows you to run any chip you want to run, even the E85 chip mentioned below. Our socketing procedure also allows for use of datalogging functionality with the purchase of the $100 datalogging option (laptop and some prior datalogging experience is recommended).

You may be able to squeeze another 1 hp out of your setup if you tune your specific setup on a dyno, but it's not likely worth it until you have that fancy Hytech header.

An interesting things has happened recently with E85 Ethanol becoming a legal fuel. On a 1989-91 Honda Civic Si, we only run about 2/3 of injector capacity on gasoline and plan to do testing with E85 Ethanol. And normally we could do this without changing the injectors, but the 240cc injectors in the Civic are the same size as the injectors in the Integra Type R; so there is actually room to run more fuel. E85's stoichiometric point is about 8.8:1 (as opposed to gasoline's 14.7:1); so it needs more fuel, but I believe we have the room to make E85 work in the usable rev range of the engine). This chip is NOT available as of 5/1/08, but we will have it for sale when we have it tested (so we know we aren't going to blow anyone's engine). (12/14/11 Update: We never made an E85 Chip and don't intend to at this point. Sorry.)

free

Bump the ignition timing on a stock ECU (advance it). It is important to know your base timing. Your stock timing is listed on a label under your hood, and you can advance timing 2 degrees and pick up a little bit of power as long as you are using good fuel.

400-600

Exhaust - There are a million exhausts out there. Only 2 stand out as the ones to get. If you want to run the best full exhaust around and have no interest in short race exhaust setups, then the Thermal R&D CL Exhaust is the best one and $500. If you want to remove an extra 10 lbs off the car, RedShift manufactures a line of RedShift "Modular" Exhausts (some refer to them as RedShift LCA Exhausts because they dump right before the "Lower Control Arm"). 12/14/11 Update: The RedShift exhaust is no longer available. The Thermal one is best full exhaust still by far. Or you have to make your own. The power improvement of one 2.25" exhaust on an STS(2) Civic or CRX to another is so small that it's not an issue. Run the 2.25" exhaust of your design choice without concern for power because they all flow plenty well for the 100-115 whp that most ST Civic/CRX competitors are making. The exhaust decision become more a issue of what rear swaybar you want to run (ASR Race Swaybar requires no rear exhaust), your lifestyle (do you care or are you driving to events?), and weight (RedShift is the lightest in shortened form).

200

Lightened Crank Pulley - Unorthodox makes good ones. There is the R pulley if you don't have power steering or a/c for around $180.... and there is the S pulley for everyone else that goes for around $210. There is some discussion about removal of the stock crank pulley/dampener in favor of a non-dampener style pulley can cause premature wear, and the testing has merit. If you want your car to run to 500,000 miles, then don't autocross. :) I'd run one of these because they offer a solid 5 hp. Don't use the accessory pulleys along with this though... .you'll be double underdriving the accessories, which is bad. Unorthodox makes a pulley kit where the crank pulley is smaller but the accessory pulleys are stock size; so if you want them for looks, that's the kit to get. For more infoon the wear issue, go to http://www.dinanbmw.com and look in the white papers section for Dinan's research on this.

BRAKES

in general

These cars are notorious for having bad brakes. But the brakes on my cars are amazing!!! Here's why. You have to make sure the hardware is new. The old worn out brakes will feel horrible. Get good street pads for the front and new OEM style rotors. Get stock rear shoes and new drums. And service the front and rear calipers and cylinders. New hardware will solve a mushy brake pedal, and it's not too expensive. Also, swap out the rubber lines on the car with Stainless Steel lines. And bleed the crap out of it to make sure NO air is in there.

45

Pads - The Hawk HPS is a perfect match to the rear stock shoes on the autocross course. Don't get too good a pad for the front because it'll screw up your brake balance. The Hawk HP+ is too much pad for the stock rear shoes.

15

New rear OEM shoes - I've never found anyone making performance shoes for the rear of this car. I don't think you'd want anything more than the stock shoes either. (1/1/04 update: I've been told that someone does make a rear shoe for the Hondas in a race compound, but I have also forgotten which is it.... maybe Carbotech or Porterfield? Anyway, I've not used them; so I cannot comment on them. The stock rear shoes perform perfectly on our cars.

80

Front Rotors - the OEM spec rotors are fine at 10 lbs. Slotted rotors are a bit of an improvement in general, and Powerslot is the leading slotted rotor (9-10 lbs). You can also use cross-drilled rotors, but most are not street worthy because they can crack. If you run them, be careful on the street not to overheat them too much. There are a number of cross-drilled rotors out there and they are all basically the same weight (8 lbs). If you are really weight conscious, you can cut them to minimum manufacturer's thickness... some do this.

120

Stainless Steel Brake Lines - We offer the Russell kit. It's great quality and about $100.

50

Rear drums - get new OEM drums if you have braking issues in the back.

40

Rear brake cylinders - these are the little actuators that sit inside your rear drums and push the shoes into the drum. Absolutely without question buy these when you redo the brakes..... no exceptions! Seems like most old cars need at least one, and they are cheap so just get them both and replace them.

SETUP ADVICE

Alignment (camber)

NEWEST SETUP ADVICE.... by the numbers

For the trailered car....one you want to be as fast as possible...run this:
Front Camber 3 deg
Front toe 1/4 out total
Rear Camber 2.25-3.25 deg depending on tire and driver
Rear Toe 1/16 in - 1/8 out total (Depending on surface and driver). We run a hair over 3 degrees negative on our car.

For aggressive street setup I would recommend something a little different:
Front Camber 2.5 deg
Front toe 1/16-1/8 out total (the more you go, the more wear you'll see from road driving)
Rear Camber 2.0 (what you'll get from normal lowering without any camber parts)
Rear Toe 1/16 in total

For conservative street setup I would recommend something a little different still:
Front Camber 2.0-2.5 deg
Front toe zero

Rear Camber 2.0 (what you'll get from normal lowering without any camber parts)
Rear Toe 1/16 in total

You don't really have to run any camber adjustment on the car because you get a good camber setting just from lowering the car. If you need to be more precise though (like racing), you should get adjustable alignment parts to make that happen. With the standard 1.5-2" drop, you will already have something like 3 degrees negative on the front and 2 at the back. 2.5 is ok in front too if you aren't as low, but I prefer the more aggressive camber in front to really help the car dig in at corner entry (and I don't like to lower the front as much as some do).

There are 2 front camber kit designs. First is the inner slotted bolts on the front upper control arm. The 2nd is the adjustable upper ball joint. I prefer the inner pivot for a single important reason.... it was brought to my attention by Allen Kugler (CSP/FSP/EP Civics/CRXs) that the aftermarket adjustable ball joints don't have the range of motion that should have and that they cause the ball joint to bind when the front suspension compresses all the way. And he is right. Even the new Skunk2 upper front arm with integral adjustable ball joint has this problem. Definitely use the inner slotted bolts (we like the Ingalls parts) and not an aftermarket ball joint. If you need to change the ball joint, you need to get a new front arm and it's around $140 for that! bugger! And the Ingalls front upper inner slotted bolts are $65 each, $130 for the pair on our site.

The rear camber adjustment is also an important tuning tool. These are threaded upper control arms with rubber or polyurethane bushings (or brass... but that's not legal is most classes) from Ingalls. If you don't run enough rear camber, your car will overheat the outer edge of the tires, which changes the balance of the car significantly during a run and certainly from run to run or with a co-driver. The difference in running enough camber in back can be the difference between being mid-pack and up front for sure. And btw, the Ingalls rear alignment adjustment arms for the Honda/Acura cars are $126 per pair on our site.

Alignment (toe)

The front works best with a little bit of toe out... maybe 1/8 inch total. As much as 1/4 can be used if it's a trailered car. That 1/4 toe out on the road is a little freaky because the car wanders and tugs all over the place. Plus the more toe, the faster your tires wear out.

In the rear, I'd run a little toe in. Perhaps the ideal toe in is around 1/16 per side. Some people like 0 toe. And if you are a racer and want more rotation, then a little toe out can work well.

Shock settings

I think the ultimate no-no is to run the front shocks too high. A FWD needs to be able to drive hard into corners and then power out of the corner. It's a delicate balance. If you run you shocks too high in front, then you'll have a problem with grip and corner entry, and the car won't come out of the turns as quickly or easily. I run full-soft on the fronts with most shocks. There are times when you want to run a little bit of extra rebound valving to settle the car in a particular section of the course, but this an unusual exception. On the Advanced Design shocks I ran on the red car in 2003, I found the front compression valving was a bit too high, especially low speed valving (meaning how the shock was damping the car under dive and roll ...braking and cornering). And I ended up having to take the front swaybar off the car to get the car to be able to enter corners aggressively. So, if you have some sort of custom shocks or fancy Japanese shocks, be advised that you may be tuning around a fundamental shock valving problem. Many of the shocks sold as high-end race shocks are very stiff.... too stiff. It's not good. I'd much prefer a off-the-shelf Koni with a slightly soft suspension to a stiff-as-crap setup. Stiff isn't usually a good thing in the front.

On the other hand, the rear of the car does benefit from being stiff. I tend to run as stiff as possible in the back with an off-the-shelf Koni. Or close. You want the rear of the car to be stiff and follow the front in a way that is comfortable and controllable. Just be careful with running too stiff on a slippery or bumpy course.

So, a quick thought to summarize my feelings..... if running off-the-shelf Konis Sports, run 1/4 to 1/2 turn from full soft in front and and run full stiff in the rear (or 1/4 turn from full stiff as they recommend never run full stiff on those shocks). On the Koni SPSS Race shocks, you may still want to run this same setting, but you will also usually be on slightly stiffer springs; so it all works in the end.

Tire Pressure

Determining tire pressures is fairly simple. Start at 36-40 front and 32 rear on just about any tire. From there, lower the rear pressure to get the car to rotate suitably for a given course. I ran 24 psi in the rear when I won nationals in 2002. I usually run around 30 psi but have gone up to 32 to try to get a little more grip. I think 32 is ideal for grip, and ideally you'd want the grip in the tires and just change the setup a little bit elsewhere (like toe out), but when you are in between runs, you don't have much time, and taking a little pressure out usually makes the car faster. But you can still go back up to 32 if you need that grip. If you run really high pressures to get the car to rotate, you will find the car will have more of a tendency to snap oversteer. Running lower pressure as a means of getting rotation will afford less "snappiness" at the limit because the tire is softer. Furthermore, the lower pressures in back allow a slightly higher slip angle at all lateral acceleration levels; so the tire has more lateral movement throughout the entire turning sequence (from low g to high g), and that's usually what you are after. High pressures induce oversteer by actual slip of the tread (oversteer), which is a little harder to control and can catch you off guard, especially on by fast courses.

On the newer and stickier tires, it's common to run even lower rear pressures because the car doesn't want to rotate as easily. I regularly run around 18-25 psi in the back, while still at 36 in front.

TOTAL

If you total all the prices up, you get around $5,500 or so (without the car). And that doesn't include labor. If you only have $1000 to spend, put it into the suspension (Konis, Ground Controls, rear swaybar) and run 14" tires. If you have another $850 to spend, get some 15x7 wheels (and another $300 for 15" tires). Then start piecing the rest of it together after you've done those 2 most important thing.

further help

please email me at chris@redshiftmotorsports.com anytime if you have any questions. I'm happy to help. Good luck to you all!!!! it's been a pleasure running with the ST crowd! And now as part of the SCCA Street Touring Advisory Committee (STAC) through 2012, I am part of a group who is doing it's best to keep the rules fun and fair.