mindless

Finally got the chassis rolling on steelies This is our temporary solution to the missing interior trim... Make our own!

I currently own both. My daily drive is an EK9 with the bone stock b16b lump and my track whip is a race-prepped Starlet GT Turbo (that also used to be my daily driver). I am also building a Starlet Glanza at the moment to share daily driving duties with the EK9. Here is just a few of my observations in owning and driving both in different scenarios. Contrary to a popular notion, the jewel in Honda's crown isn't really the engine in my opinion – its the chassis and suspension, and this is especially true in the typeR. I used to think that this was some fan boy delusion but having driven both the EK9 on track and race my Starlet, it's clear that the TypeR's balance is just on a league of its own. Don't get me wrong – you can get the Starlet's suspension to perform but for the same effort/resources tuning the civic's suspension is just leagues beyond what you can tune out of the Starlet. Let me put it this way – I am faster on the limit with the Starlet, but I am more confident and relaxed on the limit in the Civic. The chassis is just sublime. Starlets are king of power to weight - which makes you forgive all the other shortcomings of the platform (like suspension). Because we can get the car to be super light, we are easier on the brakes, tires, accelerate off the line faster, brake later. Starlets are easier to tune **without having to open the engine** than the B series engine. You get more gains from turning up boost than any combination of header/exaust/drop-in upgrades for the honda engines. I have never any of the little annoying issues I had with the 4EFTE engine in the B series. Maybe it's just my own experience, but when I had my starlet as a daily driver I had all sorts of small annoying problems ranging from erratic idling to boost leaks to misfires etc. I've never had anything like this with the B series. I get in the car it starts. No idling problems. No misfires. Just get in turn the key and it goes. There is nothing more satisfying than giving stroked 2 litre Hondas a run for their money with your little 1.3 litre engine. There is also nothing like the frenzy of driving in VTEC.

Front suspension bits installed. Car is ready to be put on steelies and rolled out.

Thanks for the support guys! I was also surprised with how the harness bar came out, it was my first time to transact with the guys that make these. The impressive thing was that they didn't have any access to the car because they lived in a different city about 3-4 hours away from me. All photos and measurements were just sent through Facebook. That said – I'm on the fence about the "harness guides" and may have them removed/grinded off. Now on to a few small updates while we wait for the engine to arrive from getting refreshed: Finally got the headlights on. Cleaned the front axles getting ready for installation Painted the front calipers Not long ago I was able to pick up this unknown JDM uprated rotor for the glanza. Slightly bigger in diameter and massively thicker than the stock rotors. We suspect it might be a TRD item because we got it in the parts bin full of TRD parts – but who knows. Uprated rotor (Left) and stock rotor (Right) Stock rotor (Left) uprated rotor (Right) Things are going slowly at the moment so we're just keeping ourselves busy by doing the small chores. Hopefully productivity resumes when we get the refreshed engine and the wiring harness back...

Thanks guys! A few more updates on different fronts of the build. I sent out the engine to be cleaned and have all seals/gaskets replaced. Also sent out the transmission so they can install an OEM LSD unit. overhauling kit! If you follow my other starlet build since our engine blew up – we ended up buying a fully forged unit from a friends aborted project. This meant that we had a lot of unused parts that were supposed to go into it – like an Excedy tri-puck clutch set and ARP Headbolts. So instead of these going to waste or selling them off, I opted to install these into the glanza's engine. At least I'll have a really fresh engine going into the car. Better to do all of these things while the engine is out of the car. Now, my build direction has changed slightly – instead of doing a totally stock build I opted to build a track inspired glanza (mostly inspired by motion's epic build). So I'm ditching the rear seats and I had a custom harness bar made... This next one isn't really an update but I'm a bit proud of how we solved this little problem. The car's front sway bar stabilizer links were basically shot, and the Glanza being an import has almost ZERO parts availability here and no dealer support. So what we did was we looked for a match. Turns out the local Toyota Camry's share a very similar design but didn't come with the lower set of bushings. Coincidentally I've just replaced my EK9's bushing set with an energy suspension bushing kit – and since I was already running an uprated front stab link we were able to fit the unused front stab bushings from the ES kit. It's always the little things that come together in a build that makes you feel good.

So a few days back we had the new forged engine installed! Easy does it... Tidying up a few more things She's in! Fitted with the old TD04L and custom exhaust manifold from the previous engine Now all that's left is wiring her up tuning this baby! Can't wait to race the car on the 6th!

While we're trying to sort out solutions for the missing interior panels, the rest of the guys went ahead and finished up the RHD to LHD dashboard conversion. To be honest this was the trickiest part of the build and I was personally skeptical that we could pull it off. But by the looks of it – we did pretty alright. Here it is cleaned up and primed ready for vinyl paint. Can't wait to get this painted fitted onto the car!

I hope it does make a difference.

Apologies for the lack of updates – but that's not to say nothing has been happening on this front. On the contrary a lot has transpired since the last race. We ran our most competitive stint ever. During morning qualifying, he clocked our fastest time in the car yet - 2m01.581s bagging second place in Time Attack Bracket C ending our podium-less streak this season. Unfortunately it's not without any dramas, our engine finally gave up on us during the last lap, which meant I couldn't go out and do my time attack stint. I guess 3 years of racing and a 6 hour endurance race sharing the car between a minimum of 2 drivers per race finally took its toll on the little 1.3 engine. But I guess that's racing for you – build, race, break, repeat. It was only a matter of time. I was lent a race car by one of our sponsors (a Honda Civic EF) in the afternoon just so I could race and my day wouldn't be a total waste. Struggling with getting used to the car I did a 2m11.244s which is a far cry from my normal 2m4s lap time in our own race car – but luckily good enough for a3rd Place finish in Bracket F of the Time Attack competition. Here are the last photos during the race taken before our engine failure: (Note our fiber panels have been painted to match the rest of the car. No more ugly flat black paint) Double podium finish! Now unknown to everyone I've acquired an engine with some very special bits a few months back from a friend's aborted project – with the plan of replacing our tired powerplant for next year's season. A fully built 5EFTE that only has dyno mileage. And it has already been converted to work with Honda ECUs just like our setup! Just checking I got what I paid for ;) Anyway here's the full spec of the new heart: 1500cc 5EFE blockWossner Forged Piston 75mmPEC Forged Connecting RodsARP Head BoltsCruise Valve SpringsCruise 264º CamshaftSpeedvision Adjustable Cam Gear750cc Blox InjectorsSard Fuel RegulatorCusco 1.5 way LSDHonda DistributorOther parts included but not yet installed: Custom Racing Intake ManifoldSkunk2 70mm Throttle Body Last time this did an average baseline dyno (no tune, just raising the boost) 241 whp and 210 wtq @ 20psi. So I guess there isn't a better time to put this baby in than now, tune it and then race! Next race will definitely be interesting. Stay tuned!

Well the build sort of hit a speedbump of sorts. Amidst the mayhem of slowly putting the car back together I discovered that someone threw away my set of B-pillar, C-pillar and tailgate interior plastic trims. So needless to say I must to find replacements soon... If anyone knows anything it would really be a big help. Thanks! I'll post pictures soon of the other progress we've made.

Hi Guys, was wondering if anyone has spare C-pillar and B-pillar plastic interior trim + tailgate plastic interior trims they can sell me. Unfortunately a few of the guys working on my Glanza rebuild lost my only set. Thanks!

@Armand hey man! Yep for sure I'm living in Manila so should be about 2 hours away from Los Baños!

More slow progress. Here's what the dashboard looks like after a week of cutting and melting plastic parts together... Getting close but not quite there yet. The general layout has successfully been converted from RHD to LHD – just a lot of tidying up left then we're off to repaint or wrap the dash (haven't made my mind yet) While waiting for the dash the rest of the guys are slowly putting all the other bits together: Got the ABS pumped cleaned and hooked up. Aircon parts all bolted on. Also factory horn! All the reservoir bottles cleaned and hooked up too Picked up about 3 packs of these Password JDM 10mm fender bolt things. Thinking of replacing most of the visible screws around the bay with these (where sensible of course)

Thanks guys! @Rich-k, usually just a bit of bog to hide where it was seamed and then repaint it with vinyl paint. Use crumpled paper to recreate the texture. Alternatively I was also thinking having it wrapped in alcantara instead of painting it – if budget will allow.

Piecing the dashboard back together. Refreshed rack

Picked up these strutbars and lower arm bar today!

Plumbing installed and wiring mocked up! Rear suspension and coilvers installed! Let there be light! Meanwhile, we still have a lot of detail going on in parallel... Every nut, bolt, bracket and washer cleaned! Now for the tricky part - cutting up the RHD dash for conversion to LHD!

Slowly piecing it all back together. Painted/refreshed and installed more underchassis/suspension parts.

Thanks guys! @Idrees yep definitely nothing beats the feeling of building up from a bare shell! Still a long way to go but we're slowly getting there.

Aaaand the last section of the shell has been painted. We've just completed painting the inner part of the shell! Getting ready to put it all back together again Mocking up the brakelines as the will need to be slightly modified to suit the new LHD orientation We've started cleaning most of the suspension bits and giving them a nice coat of VHT Epoxy Paint. Sanded down the tank so it can get painted too

Underchassis has now been painted! We also repaired a bit of damage in the wheel well tub caused by shoddy installment of an external fuel cell On the detailing side a few more small bits here and there have been cleaned and spiffied up Also my supply of VHT goodies have arrived! (Vinyl, Caliper, Epoxy, Engine Enamel etc) so we can start repainting all the other interior bits and suspension parts and of course the engine + gearbox

Sideways!

Getting ready to barbique this bitch!

Also race photos are up. If you'll notice we have new fiber panels installed that were rushed for this race. So for the time being we painted them flat black because of lack of time. They still need some smoothening up and proper paint to match the rest of the car. The wing hasn't even been installed yet. Apologies the car looks like crap at the moment

VERY. WET. - this what our race weekend was like. Add to that battery/electrical gremlins we failed to qualify and attempt a proper time attack run in the morning. The afternoon saw heavy rains and with our newly lightened car -- traction was very tricky to say the least. Despite the greasy wet track, and started 26th my brother was able to claw up the grid to finish 8th. Not the elusive podium finish that we both have been chasing all season – but an 18 car jump in a wet race is not bad at all. Apart from a few small details we have a very competitive package. Here's the video of that grid race. Enjoy! >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LFX3VVbQQM