K-Swap Civic Finally Hits the Track! - Gridlife Spring Kickoff

[Music] [Music] [Music] so we are finally back here at gridlife and it's a good feeling to be here we're kicking off this year this is the spring kickoff and it's starting here at gingerman which is kind of like gridlife's home tracks the first competitive event with any car let alone with the civic we're just gonna have a lot of fun uh that's what gridlife's all about and uh if the car is competitive then awesome but i have absolutely no basis for it could be way off pace or it could actually be competitive i have no idea street class which is kind of the the entry-level class uh for street cars obviously that's the class that i built this car for i like having my cars be streetable some of these other cars that are here look like they're gonna be more competitive um we've got evos stis but you know that's that's okay we're here to have fun and uh shake the car down this is the first real event that the car has gone to and uh we'll see what happens [Music] i am quite nervous uh i'm going to be slow i know i'm going to be slow right at the gate this car is still obviously a very new setup which means there's a lot of stuff that hasn't really been dialed in when you mess with everything at once that's never really a good idea especially if you're trying to be competitive on track because there's so many variables that have changed so if the car doesn't feel right i won't really be able to target why so it's always a good idea to kind of do mods one at a time that way if something feels different you'll know exactly what it is i unfortunately don't get that blessing and it's also a track that i've only really been to once um you know actually putting down hot laps i was here on the road trip with the tesla but let's be honest that was uh quite a different experience really really appreciate all you drivers coming the biggest thing i need all you guys to do guys girls etc is to stay on the track and not explode your heaps of crap no blown up cars no dirt everywhere i've been watching some of the other people in this class and they've been doing a lot of work to their cars in the off season uh we've got josh halcott with a 425 wheel horsepower subaru uh charles miller last year did really well we followed him in some previous episodes so he's in this class and an evo there's a bunch of other new people to this class including myself and uh i just hope i can be in like top five overall goal for this event would be to break 140.2 which is the current street front-wheel drive record which doesn't really mean a lot around here because nobody cares about drivetrain platforms but because i'm at that disadvantage that's my goal uh so we'll see if i can break that magic 140 number it's going to be tricky giving that it's a new track and a new car for me but we're going to give it everything that we've got there's a lot of really fast cars in this car yeah so please just you know keep my hand out of the window yeah sure just pay attention what's coming up yeah so [Music] so the car is acting a little bit like a provo stick your campaign might be a little too soft because as i go around corners if it's any bit of bumpiness in the corner i feel the rear kind of bouncing around like a pogo stick so i might have to uh increase some of the damping in the rear see if that helps but uh it is not confidence inspiring whatsoever but that's not good uh i'm glad that this is not a high speed track it was a higher speed track i'd be uh even more terrified right here is the sketchy spot this is turn six uh in the brake zone the car gets really squirrely i'm glad that i got this session because otherwise i would have probably wasted a uh hot lap session so this is good i get to mess with the car figure it out i don't know why this car is so sketchy to drive it does not want to go in a straight line i'm just fighting the steering wheel the whole time and i don't know why but i think i'm just gonna have to man up and deal with it um to put down a fast lap uh i did a 146 in that session i only got one good flyer lap in so there's definitely more in it um so that's good you know i might i won't be uh embarrassingly slow but i cannot describe to you just how sketchy this thing is to drive [Music] dude this car is a handful this car has two handfuls i don't i it doesn't want to go straight it's just like i'm constantly skating on ice through the whole track i don't know if it's because the car is way faster than it should be or if uh there's something wrong with like the alignment or something so i came to gingerman a year ago with the b16b and i did a 153 so i'm already six seconds give or take six seconds faster uh than the b series there's potential i can definitely shave more off we'll see the civic feels super sketch it still still feels super sketch and normally i'd be like well maybe it's just because the car is more than it's meant to have but jackie drove it at the last track day and he was like this is the scariest thing i've ever driven so and it still feels like that it's if i if i could describe this it's like trying to hold like a marble on top of this it just like keeps you know hopping off to the side yeah do you have other wheels i do like narrow ones i have 225 squares try those on the front so try to go 225 square all the way around to see if it helps the stability thing i consulted andy smedegaard who did the k-swap on the car and has had a hand in every major change that we've done to the civic this year he recommended a tire swap just to get more data but first i wanted to make sure that it wasn't just a me problem so i asked for help from the most qualified honda driver that i could think of hey everyone i'm tom o'gorman i'm a professional race car driver for honda two-time pirelli world challenge champion uh and i'm sitting in a honda right now first laps of the year on a race track uh so excited we're gonna see how it does yeah thankfully tom agreed to drive this uh this heaping pile well hang on twist this what twist my arm you gotta i gotta drive this all right i guess yeah he's used to tcr hondas but uh we'll give this one a shot [Music] it's quick yeah does it feel okay it feels fairly normal i feel a little bit of that but i'm just gonna just let it go [Music] [Music] honestly the car feels pretty much exactly the way i would expect it to feel okay so i just need bigger balls and it feels really good like there's a little bit of push when you over exert the front end like suddenly like in general it feels really good it puts power down well it's probably just that i'm not used to it yeah i i mean i think like a well-handling fungal drive car is a very acquired sensation and i would i would qualify this as like a well-handling front-wheel drive car i think from what i attempt to do in a good front-wheel drive car is get the nose pointed towards the exit of the corner as early as possible to allow the rear to do more of the work for me and allow the front to do the important things i mean for me i just feel like i'm fighting the wheel more you're just you're just smoother i just need to be smoother but it seems like it's just me it's just i'm not used to the car i guess yeah i mean this is double the power what it had before it freaking rips like it's really fast i would probably start throwing rear right height at it and just try to start pushing the weight towards the nose getting the nose working a little bit better in steady state okay i mean but it feels very freaking cool it's good i like it awesome [Music] during his handful of laps in my civic with me weighing him down tom was able to turn a 141 some five seconds faster than i had managed so far this weekend but with his approval that the car actually drove well i had the confidence that i needed to go faster [Music] having tom drive the car was the best thing that could have happened uh driver mod is definitely the most important thing in any car that you're trying to drive on the track and uh having tom drive the car really gave me a lot more confidence to drive the car a lot harder having tom rotate the car a bunch when he was out there really helped me kind of feel where the weight of the car is so i was able to toss it around a lot easier and that was definitely the best thing that could have happened uh when tom drove the car he did at 141 with me in the passenger seat so there's definitely still more in the car i might do some setup changes a little bit of tweaking to see if i can get it under that sub 140 it's looking a little bit unlikely but i'm still very happy because the car just flies out there it's absolutely incredible as you can see we're obviously sponsored by falcon and they've just come out with their newest latest greatest tire the rt660 and uh it's been showing some very promising results um in some testing that they've been doing so this is a 225 45 15. unfortunately they don't make my very rare size of a 245 40 15 yet um they i think they're going to make some eventually but we're going to run a 225 square with this set up for now which honestly might be a good thing because that's going to help the car settle down a little bit more because it's a very rowdy setup and i'm not very used to that yet this might be a great way to transition and get more comfortable with the car before i go to have something with a little bit more rear slide so this is going to give the car a little bit more understeer being a square setup but i do think that these tires are stickier than the current tires that are on the car so i'm gonna have more rear grip and maybe the same front grip even though i'm 20 mil uh skinnier we're gonna find out we've got a nice benchmark i did a 143 on the current setup we'll see if we can go faster with these so the uh just rolling around in the paddock the tires are making like a sticky noise i don't know if that's from the actual sticker that was on the tires or if the tires are just that sticky but i can hear it rolling through the paddock so i think i think we have an increase in grip and uh we're going to find out very shortly if that increasing grip translates to a faster lap time [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] ah man i can't believe it i shaved two seconds off uh with a skinnier tire phenomenal and my tire pressures weren't even right i was uh 32 hot so i brought that down 5 psi i'll have even more grip next session which means i'm actually close to that 140 mark all thanks to these freaking tires now i know this is like a sponsored thing you think are more biased but like for real this is this is the hot setup man for a 200 treadwear tire like it's an unbelievable amount of grip more grip than 245 with in a 225 with which man when they when they come out with the 245 that's blowing my mind so you might have noticed i've lost 31 pounds and that helps me on track not gonna lie that was part of the reason i was convinced to do some weight loss but it's not enough so how much weight are we taking out of this thing buddy [Music] you're such a guilty bird wait five minutes listen every ounce 310 [Music] to make sure all my weight reduction wasn't for nothing i wrangled two more expert drivers to help me dissect my laps and data andy smedergaard and kobe shield they were both able to show me where i could clean up my line compress my braking zones get on throttle sooner and generally eclipse the 140 barrier by the time my second to last session rolled around both i and the car were ready to go fast [Applause] [Music] i tried to push the brake zone in turn one a little bit too late and i just came in a little too hot [Applause] well you saw what happened it looks like i ripped off my front lip a couple bolts there i think i can bolt that back up we got one shot left one last chance but it's gonna be hot so everyone else is saying that the morning session is the fastest session and my tires are like hard to hold my hand against they're so hot so i don't know if this last session is going to be any better even if i drive better but we'll give it my best shot this is the last session this is the last chance i have to make anything count my goal for this session is to just be consistent and actually put laps down because last session i tried to shave off immediately on turn one and and you know box the whole session so i'm gonna try my best to uh kind of slowly work my way up to it hopefully i can do at least you know four good laps out there and uh you know slowly chip away at each lap fourth place is the goal and right now that is a nismo 350z he's at a 140.3 so that's my goal i got to shave off 1.4 seconds to get that hopefully he doesn't shave off any more time as well but 1.4 seconds i think i can do it and if i can then that gives us a good solid fourth place which i would i would be ecstatic to take home a fourth place on the first competition day [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so uh it was a pretty odd experience for everybody involved even the uh safety guys were like what the heck what happened was that my exhaust wrapped itself around my lower control arm uh they had to cut it off trackside to get the car to move because this was pushed up against the wheel or i guess it was this way against the wheel and stop the rear wheel from from rotating it's crazy the cuff is off the car so that the car would roll because this was actually dug into the tire and this falcon tire it's essentially bulletproof uh it still has tire pressure you can see it like scraped a little bit in there but all in all that is a strong sidewall man it's stronger than 304 stainless [Music] you think that'll cause a restriction you can't say i didn't try to get that sub 140. i came very close uh you know 1.7 seconds off from breaking under 140. pretty happy with that considering that i came here with the b series and did a 153 so i shaved off 12 seconds off of that lap time i think i finished fifth um the final results haven't come through yet but out of 18 i'm pretty happy with that result even if it isn't a sub 140. i tried every trick in the book trying to remove the weight out of the car i took off probably 30 40 pounds off the car got a lot of advice from other drivers that are much better than myself and they gave me some tips and pointers on how to drive faster on this track um the biggest difference was probably the change to the falcon tires i shaved two seconds off right there [Music] fortunately in those last couple sessions i was trying too hard uh and the car just started uh devolving underneath me so that's more my fault than the cars uh and i will definitely get the car fixed up and this car is only going to get faster [Music] you

Channel: Gears and Gasoline

Views: 368,984

Keywords: civic, kswap, k24, gridlife, time attack, gingerman, ek, gears and gasoline

Id: wfGpFez5B7c

Length: 20min 52sec (1252 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 15 2020