The Civic Racecar That Changed the Honda Game Forever

[Music] okay yeah I'm back again hold on this calls for a drink I'm here with what is arguably the most influential Honda ever fight me hi Steph hi John how are you good you're like the FD guy what are you bringing us today this is a Honda Civic yes it is so much history in this car in my eyes this is the most influential Honda in the Honda community because this has done so many firsts you were like first into the eights first into the nines first to 150 first to 160 first to 170 done so much but the construction of this car is remarkable why built in 1998-1999 so this was at a time when frontal drag drag racing was really starting to be popular and it was like the whole import scene and this was one of the first tube chassis front-wheel drive drag race cars probably the first that really ran well from the ground up it's fully tube chassis it has a steel body in a fiberglass front end but other than that it's all hand-built by a late Sean Carlson [Music] this to me looks like a Nikkei chassis but it's not it is a Nikkei but the chassis isn't what we did was actually built a tube chassis and then went to Honda and got a roof in a pillar the quarter panel the door and actually just got those body replacement panels and then mounted them on the tube chassis and then filled in all of the gaps you know at the body shop actually Sean welded all kinds of metal into it it never actually started off as an ek Civic it started off as a tube chassis and then we bought panels to put on didn't this start as an engine swap on your eg I had a 91 Civic Si with prelude 2.3 H 22 engine turbocharged and was already running 10 60 s with that old 91 civic with that engine swap the car was so beat up from like notching the frame rails and trying to get that big engine to fit into the little Civic so Sean Carlson great fabricator we ended up doing a tube chassis to the front of the 91 Civic we ran it as that 91 Civic but front haft but we're like I think we can make it faster if we get the rest of the carb tube chassis and then it would kind of snowball to were like well I guess we're gonna tube chassis the whole thing why would we do 91 civic why don't we just get whatever the current car was and why don't we just turn it into a brand new civic turn the front half car into a full tube chassis and then ended up cutting up the old 91 Civic into just little pieces put in the dumpster and then got the rest of the the steel components from Honda and then built the rest of the body onto it the biggest goal in 1998 was the first into the nines and no one had done it we wanted to be the first to do that we were debuting this car at Bali imports huge import drag race but we wanted to test the car before we debuted it so we had a private test day up at that drag strip and actually ran into the nines in testing the event finally came around that weekend we did a couple of 10-second passes and then we finally ran into the nines everybody thought that was the first ninth second quarter mile but it was actually the second [Music] [Applause] [Music] what is the weight distribution it's got to be like a 90/10 or something like this on this one it's got to be pretty extreme so with me in the car the car weighed 1,650 pounds and I was probably a hundred fifty pounds at the time so this was a fifteen hundred pound car going you know 150 miles an hour then pulling a chute this is so light it probably only has three or four hundred pounds on the rear axle of the car almost everything was on the front so we did two things to stop the rear-end from coming up one was we mounted the parachute little bit higher and then we added the wing for a little bit of downforce you know and what's what's just back here the engine did not use an alternator so the battery had to be charged in between rounds so you'd hook a battery charge up to these two posts this is an on and off switch and then we had a voltmeter gauge just to see what the battery condition is and this the old data loggers back in the days the crew guy before the car launch would actually have to turn the data logger on because you couldn't didn't want to record for too long because you'd fill up the memory or yeah there wasn't a lot of memory and then it didn't know to mean to record or do you like to manually do wow you had to like literally turn the Det the data logger on yeah [Music] so you open up the door should they do more than open or does it so there's actually two latches there's a top latch which unhooks based on the window so the windows don't peel out and then the standard door handle and then we can actually pull the whole door off what so this just has a little hook so is this fiberglass carbon fiber this is fiberglass door the door hinges are just little posts what and if I lift it up so fast the whole door comes off how about the cage configuration is this pretty much how it was when you built it yes you have to have certain bar a certain diameter intrusion bar what they call like a funny car cage of a window net which has a little seatbelt latch on it this was the way it was built when you and Sean built it huh yeah so you guys knew you were gonna go that fast so built it toward NHRA spec absolutely I really like the pedal box here yeah so the way this works is you can see the bars here this is a chassis this is it are these bars and then this piece of aluminum panel yes is the bottom of the car this is made of aluminum and is just riveted to the tube chassis to separate I guess the outside for the inside of the car but it's not strong enough to step on so that's why this other panel is here which has steel welded to it so if you get in the car you don't want to step here because you could push through to the bottom you step here and so the pedal box and everything and where your feet go is on that separate sub panel is this a seat that was on it yeah this is just an aluminum seat again we were choosing the lightest parts that we could completely even down to the seat belt it just goes around the bar and then back again if you look at it there's no like buckle or anything like that so it's actually lighter than other forms of C fella inside we've got a handbrake so staging brake okay so that way I could be on the throttle so the car originally when it was built didn't have like a two-step rev limiter you had to use your foot to get it to the RPM that you want it to launch at and then you'd creep in with the clutch and then in order to stop the car at exactly where you want it in the staging beams pull the handbrake a little bit load the clutch so all the drivetrain would be sort of loaded us set up and then and then launch the car and let go of all that stuff because if you just had the clutch all the way in and just sidestepped it without the drive train all being loaded up you break axles break the transmission they still had a pre-shop drivetrain sent why we ended up not stopping running this car was we couldn't do more than two or three runs without breaking the prelude transmission that was in it so this is just clutch for the hydraulic release bearing in the prelude transmission the brake pedal only activated the front brake caliper if you use the rear at all they would just lock them up so this is just front brake a this is just rear brake okay and I didn't use this to slow the car down the end because you could crash it really easily like that it's actually a Honda Prelude gear shifter standard all mounted in there the dash is cool little carbon fiber piece the dashboard is a drag racing Trans Am a fiberglass one from like like a Jerry Bickle or like if the drag race and catalog I just cut it up and modified it yeah bonus points for the Auto Meter monster tact yeah that's classic you don't see many of those in the fan obviously your partner is agretti is that oh my god is that an old-school pro they'd be yeah that's how we controlled the booze with this can we see what's on the other side you got a look in here first you got to see what the switch panel is Oh what yeah again like its traditional drag racing ignition on the start button this could be fuel pumps and then this little box opens and you can get onto all the wiring and you can see the wiring running down this lever here when you pull that or you've has a driver you actually would push it that releases the parachute wow we can actually pull the dash off too and you can see underneath so actually this vehicle oh so this is the ECU that controls the engine later on we did add a two step switch this actually took little pills so if you're on the clutch at the starting line and I want it to sit at 5,000 rpm you don't program that anywhere you would literally put in no you're this little columns for those are lifestyles and rpm pills this is actually the water tank Oh or the water cooler okay so this opens this ice water goes in here I don't I not pour my beer in there did that not be good and then this is a water pump the water pump pumps the ice water through in water internally hood completely and that way the water air intercooler not only cools the charged air from the turbo better but we don't have to have any opening in the front end for better aerodynamics completely on an air-to-air intercooler essentially an open yes yes but on the water to air like we ran you don't know can we open up the hood yeah [Music] so this is an H 22 with an H 23 bottom end and block that's right okay the blocks with age 22 and age 23 are the same like the actual physical block okay the crank rods and pistons were different yes so this was like an early stroker kit essentially using factory Honda internals yeah you know back when we're building this there was a lot of parts on the aftermarket that just weren't good so I really tried to use as much factory stuff as possible so sorry I'm gonna use the age 23 crank and the age 23 block to get a 2.3 liter set up and then we'd go for rods and pistons the head we had a ported stock cams we did the adjustable AEM cam gears stock head bolts the head bolts were replaced every time the engine was reassembled you'd stretch you'd stretch the stock head bolts I don't know people blow head gasket like brand new head gasket and brand new bolts every time we put it together and we didn't have problems with okay okay and but you have to remember that back when we built this engine it was probably making six hundred horsepower peaked out in 650 something like that nowadays that's not a lot of power but back then it was quite a bit where are you making all that power majority of that power from yeah from boost so this was this greddy mitsubishi turbo it actually still spins and at the time this was a pretty big turbo for you know what they call a small engine you know complete but it actually worked out really well John from high tech headers both those really trick header at all super nice well everything yeah that's what they call ten gentle turbo housing so there's actually two issue it's yes so it's a four into two yep and then geotubes go off to the wastegate so this is what controls the boost yes and then we've got the down pipe and then the wastegate tube and then both pointed out the side of the car we didn't want to bring it all the way to the back completely theory was we'll point these up a little bit that way maybe we'll get a little bit more downforce and more traction and and this is stuff that the NHRA like top fuels and stuff art yes exactly and we're trying to taking those ideas you think you're an NHRA guy don't you oh my go fast yes this is why I love this car so much because no one was doing this so this is the inner cool that's you're in a cool so from the air from the turbo gets pulled in here yep it gets compressed in the compressor then it goes out through this tube and then it goes through this intercooler so the air goes this way right before it goes into the engine and the water goes this way and there's a it looks like an intercooler like a radiator in completely air completely and so as the air the charge here comes in and you can cool a cool air exactly and then you get the cold air into the engine makes more power completely and what about for your throttle body element stock such a stock Prelude actually has a throttle cable from Wow some kind of Civic or something okay yeah that's Prelude intake manifold and then we had a custom fuel rail with much larger injectors okay so the the the front hub is actually from a prelude but then it was modified to allow these links but Shawn and ice knew so little about suspension design we kind of designed this weird four link thing but the geometry is so bad that this thing had shocks and springs on it when it would go through the travel it would have tons of bump steer which means that oh wow instead of the so the card normal ride height the wheels are straight ahead yes and then when hundred compression bring it would like tow in and tore out you know has it this cycled through yeah and the car was uncontrollable it didn't work well so we said you know what we don't need suspension let's just put some bars in instead of front shock so the front of the car actually has no suspension no suspension it doesn't work that in a tree-like like top fuels and funny cars actually don't use suspension yep your suspension now is the low tire pressure on the front tires and then what size tire is this so there's MNH tire do not even know I think it's a thirty four point five this is a twenty four point five probably or twenty six twenty six administration somebody on the comments tell us what size tire this is that remember what wheels are these this is a weld wheel this was a wheel for like a real a drive car and we just put it on the front so this is a rear-wheel drive slick that you put on nobody like when we built this car there was no such thing as a front-wheel drive slick for drag racing so we had to adopt a bunch of real wheel drive stuff to the car the tube chassis and everything allows more tire fitment we're limited because on with right the engines of a certain width and transmission the tires are certain width so the overall width of the car is actually much wider than a normal Civic if you look at the car from the front the car is actually 10 inches wider than a stock Civic and the whole front end was sectioned widened so we can get the front fenders over both of the front tires so you somehow still resemble an ek exactly it's not the rear of the car is stock so the whole car is like a is like a v-shape a bow tails essentially yeah and so just had a civic roof on it a steel roof and then the Civic panels but it had these big like pipe section Y so if you get the right perspective you can see the whole car is like v-shaped so you guys essentially built it around getting these front wheels underneath it yep this is a giant windshield yes this is probably like a Trans Am you could shield also that we cut down with the hood off and you could totally see it now we've got the radiator okay so that's just a 92 to 96 fluid iron radiator this is what would just go in a Civic and we're like oh those things always cooled well so let's just use a radiator let's not do something custom can we get this thing up on the lift yeah let's get on the look [Music] what are we looking at here yep so this is a front wheel tire this rear suspension of this and the wheel is from the front of like a pro stock NHRA car and these are actually yeah these are not the lug nuts or lug bolt this is where the rotor which is aluminum it's aluminum rotor no wait wait wait what are you telling me yeah the brake rotors made out of aluminum because we only use it for the hand brake and staging so we wanted as light as possible weight so we're gonna get under here oh my god there's nothing under here rear suspension titanium spring light yeah there's a titanium wait what do you what do you why are you undoing the caliper yeah so the rotor is bolted to the wheel so when we pull the wheel off the calipers in the way so I've got to pull the brake caliper off so what you're saying is this is an entire front suspension from a Pro Stock Car from it yeah so what we do is this this is the outside of the brake caliper and the brake pad that's your brake pad yeah so now we've pulled the outside of the caliper off now we can go back to the other side and the way this works is there's a little the bearing that's like the spindle bearing is in here right whoa cotter pin and yeah because you guys don't have real tools here using just a what do you usually you're giving us a hard time about our tools danger Dan has built cheat cars with these tools this not oh wow so the wheel doesn't need to be off the bearing yes that's the wheel bearing right there just straight under the wheel bearing so we're gonna pull yeah we're doing it you normally don't do this cuz you normally have to drop the rear suspension there we go no I just did it so that you can see how the rotor amounts onto the wheel and here's that brake caliper that we had to get out of the way so this is the spindle so normally this is on the front of a car and this is where they'd turn it from yes but we just have this as the suspension adjustable point and it's just has these thin little tubes and the spring that mounts Macpherson style to the top of chassis and then another cool thing is so remember that push off button yes so this lever yep turns this physical switch down here so that's exactly how you do it yes so all the power from the battery goes to this yes and then it goes back up to power every Wow Wow and then under here this is where the wheelie bars okay so we don't have a wheelie bars on it right now yeah and then down on the bottom also down here so what's the adjustability for we didn't know exactly where to put so we just made a bunch of holes nice yeah like ember like a lot of this stuff was at its infancy whoa yeah there's no one no one had done this before I'll give it credit to the Bergen Holtz Brothers for doing it first but yeah they didn't have it on a two chassis car though so yeah and it was all you know they did it one way and then we're like oh we can do it better and that's kind of completely how things of all you want to the front wheel off yes and by the way how small your wheel bearing here's my cup for reference here that's like that's not a wheel bearing that's nuts again the only one hundred thirteen hundred twelve you right again relatively lightweight WOD so later cars we used carbon carbon carbon okay brakes but this one was just steel so it's very traditional brake setup here and the spindle is actually a Honda Prelude that's been modified and welded to and then you can see all the custom suspension on it and more of the tube chassis even the trick transmission mount so the transmission mount is just this plate with this rod and it mounts up to the chassis the whole engine is solid mounted because there's essentially no factory OEM body to attach it to so you had to find a place to mount it to because you lost the unibody yeah the car essentially started as integers round tubing and flat plates of metal and fabricated yeah if you look under it it's very just Honda Prelude engine and transmission even have the stock oil tan to El Paso not even a dry so you don't really need like because you're not really loading the oil in any one direction it's not subject to a lot of g-forces other than accelerated forces correct yeah and you know this was very simple we didn't get too complex when we built this car not really much higher rpm than fact I think we revved it to maybe 8,000 or 8,500 rpm which is not crazy so the wet soil can do a good job there this is the drain for the oil okay from the oil from the charger okay from the turbo yep here you can see the fuel system out of the tank yeah yeah out of the tank he goes to the pump into a fuel filter and then up to the fuel rail and then here again as the battery 16 volt battery you talk about a tube chassis this is it right here so these are your stress members underneath yeah you know if you look underneath and remember the floor that we were looking at I said don't step on it this is that same piece of aluminum aluminum yeah you guys do this now with the drift program were you guys doing would you guys bring the car back after an event and totally clean it and break it down and put it back together again and everything yeah we would bring it back from an event we clean it checked stuff over we actually went to a lot of car shows and stuff like that with this because the whole car show scene was really big like import show off and honda port nights and stuff like this this car has a bunch of trophies that it won at car shows which is crazy cuz you know what's funny I just posted something on the Instagram shout-out to Jarrod DeAnda who said he remembers seeing this at the Del Mar show off of the Del Mar Fairgrounds where the car made its Car Show debut after like a battle yeah that's right the magazines would come out and shoot photos and stuff like that so it was fun to share the car and talk to people about it you know a lot of the time one worth a racetrack were super busy working on the cars but if we go to car shows then we have more time to just talk about car stuff talk about the car and not always be worrying about running it thank you so much stuff for bringing this in with that let's go look for some import models [Music]

Channel: Hoonigan

Views: 1,032,881

Rating: 4.8966241 out of 5

Keywords: steph papadakis, stephan papadakis, papadakis racing, papadakis civic, civic drag race, drag civic, honda civic, fwd drag racing, 2000s drag racing, NHRA legend, AEM civic, Honda Civic race, honda civic racecar, honda civic drag car

Id: JElRZZ8PAvM

Length: 21min 37sec (1297 seconds)

Published: Wed May 01 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/peanutbuttahcups]

This guy and his team do amazing work. Learned about him when YouTube autoplayed one of his videos where he assembles a 2JZ, then I was rewatching Build Biology from the beginning and learned about the RWD drift Corolla they built for Formula D, then I learned they built Tanner Foust's Nascar v8-powered RWD Scion tC.

Just, so sick. All of the builds I've seen so far on Build Biology are well-made.

[u/stoner116]

I remember this car. Seen it up close. The amount of fab work is insane.