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The new and improved Slo Car

We picked this car up a couple of months ago from Akron, OH. I finally got around to taking some pictures of it today. It's a '93 Civic DX with a B series engine swap. I'll probably do a little work with this one, but not much. It's already pretty quick and handles ok. Better shocks and a big rear sway bar would be a big improvement.

From 93 Civic

Is it really mid-December already

So 2008 is right around the corner and I'm noticing that it's been nearly 6 months since I posted anything here, and even longer since any content was added. Here's a snap shot of 2007.

The Street Mod Civic was a bust. The car is still at my house and hasn't been driven anywhere since we brought it back from the first event at RIT. After re-assembling the engine and putting it back in the car, it was immediately apparent that we had done something wrong. Some small detail was over looked and there was still something wrong with the engine. There were plenty of other things going on and that job got put on the back burner. Apparently that burner is way, way back somewhere. Marnie was on the verge of moving into her new house and Dana and I were on the verge of having our first baby. We planned on getting the car going mid to late season, but no such luck.

Enter Haley Grace Kuhns. Born June 18th and coming in at a mere six pounds and nine ounces. She's amazing and becoming a dad is the best thing that's ever happened to me :) Lots and lots of pictures of her can be found HERE.

With the SM car out of the picture we focused on preparing the Integra for the upcoming Pro Solo event, the first event of it's kind to be hosted by the Finger Lakes Region, and the first National Solo event held at the Seneca Army Depot. We did two test days and two regional events at the site before the Pro and we were confident that we brought a fairly well sorted and competitive car to the big event. The event was a great success for the region with nearly 200 entries, and competitors came from all over the country. There were 19 drivers in STS with some of them being among the best in country. We got off to a somewhat slow start on Saturday and struggled with the decision of which size tires to use on the car. We ended up sticking with the 16" wheels and by the end of the day had decided that we made the wrong choice. Marnie had a rough day with a couple of near miss red lights at the drag race start, two dirty runs and a DNF, leaving her with just one clean run which was just slightly off the pace. To her credit, this was just her second season of autoX, and she was quick and drove with confidence, besting several competitors with greater experience. Sunday got off to a shaky start when we all over slept and just barely got the car to grid on time. Too many beers at the camp fire Saturday night me have been to blame for our alarm clock blunder. We switched to the 15" tires but there was no improvement for Marnie as she seemed to struggle to put together a good run, coning on her first two runs and her third didn't match the speed that she found on Saturday. Switching to the 15" tires was a compromise. The 16" tires are wider and offer better overall grip, but they're heavier and taller which can hurt acceleration. The average cornering speeds of the course was too slow for the bigger tires. We lose a little grip with the 15" tires but depending on the course are able to overcome the loss with faster acceleration. This was such a course and I as able to improve on my best time from Saturday by more the six tenths of a second, moving me up to a 5th place finish. A minor mistake in one turn may have cost me half a second that I needed to get into 4th. Overall I has happy with my performance at my first National event and was thrilled to bring home a trophy.

Throughout the season we bounced back and forth between the Integra and Marnie's "new" CRX, with variety of tires being used on each car. When it was all said and done, we had both driven the same three cars and competed in five different classes. Needless to say we weren't chasing season points and pretty much just focused on having a good time and learning as much as we could from the variety of cars and set ups that we experimented with. Overall I'd say it was a good season and I'm more anxious then ever for the next to start. There are plans in the works for some upgrades to the Integra and I'm hoping to hit more National events this year including the FLR 2008 Pro Solo, and maybe even a trip to Topeka in September for the 2008 Solo National Championship. I don't have any grand delusions of winning but would like to come home with a trophy and aim to have the Integra be the fastest "non-spec" Civic in STS.

In the mean time we're getting ready for the Winter Rally Series to get underway this coming Saturday. We're trying to put together a winter autocross on the snow covered runway at the Seneca Army Depot and hopefully we'll make it to a rallyX or two and maybe even some frozen lake ice racing. I love winter :)

There are lots of pictures of the cars in action HERE. And here's to hoping that it won't be another six months before the next update.

2007 Solo Season

The season is now in full swing. Our first event was a test and tune at RIT on April 28th, followed by a competition on Sunday. Saturday got off to a good start. The new Street Mod car was on the dyno getting tuned at Fountain Motorsports first thing in the morning. We had 35 people show up for the test and tune and everything was going good and everyone was having a good time. Oh... did i forget to tell everyone about the new Street Mod car. Well for fourth year in a row i'm racing a different car then i did the year before. I've always competed in the STS class but had three different cars in 4 years. This year i'm trying something totally different. My friend Marnie has a '99 Civic EX coupe which isn't exactly fast, so during the off season we pulled the engine out and replaced it with an Acura Integra Type-R engine. The original engine was good for 130 horse power and the Type-R motor is 195 hp, a fairly large increase. We also added a custom made cold air intake pieced together with all AEM parts, a Comptech header, custom made exhaust with 2 1/2" piping, Toda Racing cam shafts and adjustable cam gears, an Exedy light weight flywheel and racing clutch, Unorthodox Racing light weight/underdrive crank pulley, and Prothane polyurethane motor mount inserts. The motor mount inserts allowed to us to install the engine without the torsional vibration mounts. All of the air conditioning components have been removed, and a very light weight motorcycle battery replaced the original. Some other odds and ends have been taken off the car here and there and all together we think we've shaved about 100 pounds off.

The suspension in this car had already been significantly upgraded, but we just couldn't leave well enough alone. All of the suspension bushings have been replaced with polyurethane units, stiffer springs went on the front and the front sway bar was removed (part of the ~100 lbs we lost). There's no sense in making a car go faster if you can't slow it down, so the brakes have also been upgraded. The rear drum brakes were replaced with Integra disk brakes utilizing Brembo slotted rotors and EBC performance brake pads. Stainless steel brake lines were also installed at all four corners and the brake fluid was replaced with ATE Super Blue racing brake fluid.

Power, brakes, and handling are nothing without the right rubber. We're using 225/50R14 Kumho Ecsta V710 race tires that are currently installed on stock wheels from 1990 Sentra SE-R. We're still waiting for the custom made 14x8" racing wheels that we ordered in March, but they're expected in soon.

Enough about the car and back to the action. Marnie made it to the test in tune late in the afternoon on Saturday and we were only able to get a couple of runs in each, and it was raining so we couldn't really tell if the car was as good as we hoped. But it was definitely very fast and seemed to handle pretty nicely. The weather was great on Sunday, but we seemed to get off to a slow start with the car. We were starting to get a feel for the car's potential and were pushing it closer and closer to the limits. Right up until the engine started knocking, and our day was over. We got the engine torn apart the next day and found that the number one cylinder connecting rod bearings were toast. We're still in the process of re-building the engine and are just waiting to get a couple more parts in so we can get it all back together.

Last weekend we had a novice school on Saturday and then our second event was on Mother's day. The Finger Lakes Region Solo program really showed that we're capable of running top notch events and this was one of the smoothest weekends of racing that i can think of. Since the Civic engine is still in pieces, we put the race tires on the good old STS Integra from last year and tried our luck in the Street Mod class. I designed the course for this one and was really really happy with how it came out. It was really fun to drive and the feed back i heard was very favorable. I drove pretty well and was able to pull off a third place finish, ahead of some cars with considerably more horsepower.

Our next event is and "Out of Region" at the Syracuse fair grounds this weekend. We're hoping to have the Civic running by Sunday, but may have to take the Integra out one more time.

Happy 2007

I guess it's been quite a while since i've done anything with the site. the second half of the '06 season was just one event after another and i was pretty busy with other things.

2007 will be an interesting year for a few reasons. first and foremost Dana and i are expecting a little girl in June. it's our first kid... and yes we're terrified. the Finger Lakes Region will be hosting a Pro Solo event in July at the Seneca Army Depot. this is a national event and some of the biggest names in the sport are already registered to be there. it should be a lot of fun and really exciting. and it looks like i'll be driving a different car again this year. that'll make four years in a row that i've changed cars. details on the new ride will be coming soon.

right now we're in the middle of the Winter Road Rally series. Dana and I are back together as a team again, this time with her behind the wheel and me navigating. we had a couple of rough spots in the first event but overall i'd say we did well. we finished 3rd out of 5 in our class and 9th out of 21 overall. we have some kinks to work out and expect to do even better at the next event this coming weekend.

be sure to check out www.redshiftmotorsports.com the new Red Shift twin screw superchargers will be available soon and from what i've heard from Chris, they're going to be great.

-cory

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Created By Bret Kuhns