Dyno numbers, damping curves, alignment settings and the like are all fine metrics for attempting to measure performance, but what really counts for the editors here at TOV is how the car drives - especially on the racetrack.

Since we had baselined Project Si at the Streets of Willow Springs back in September, we definitely wanted to bring it back there again. We signed up for a track event with Drift Day (Sounds strange, doesn't it? But no drifting was allowed). We arrived at the track bright and early with our Chevy Tahoe support vehicle hauling tools and tires just in case. Our first surprise of the day was the temperature - it was freaking cold! 22 degrees fahrenheit to be exact. Now, if you don't have experience with race tires, you may not realize that anything below about 40-50 F turns even the softest race tire into frozen rocks. And Jeff's feet weren't far behind. But we soldiered on in order to bring you the information you need about Project Si (yeah, right, I'd walk through hell for a track day and I'm pretty sure Jeff is the same).

Anyways, I went out first on cold tires and a cold track. On the first warmup lap, our rear swaybar bracket for the ASR adjustable sway bar broke in mid-corner (see video). I probably shouldn't have spun, but between the cold tires and the shock of a spin starting at about 6/10ths, I looped it (at least I kept it on track). Charleston Ong from ASR had told us he didn't know how long the prototype hardware would hold up, so it shouldn't have been totally unexpected, but it was unfortunate that it happened on the first lap! I came in briefly, checked the car and went back out to get a feel for the car. Immediately I noticed we had picked up some more understeer (as you'd expect with no rear bar - but I didn't know what broke at that point). But overall the car was quite good. Balance was still better than stock, braking was great, grip was good and the acceleration was outstanding - it seems the cold air offset the high altitude power loss we normally see at the 2600 ft elevation of Willow Springs.

After adjusting tire pressures, we proceeded to really get down into pushing the car. Passing other cars was not a problem, especially for Jeff in the intermediate group (he was the fastest driver there), and even the advanced group where I was classed, no one was leaving me on the straights and several cars fell prey to the Si under braking and cornering. Our biggest complaint on the handling was that in longer sweeping turns, especially those with back to back transitions, the car just understeered too much. In fact, this was the only place I felt we lost time to other cars, and I'm pretty sure this was due almost exclusively to the lack of a rear sway bar. In quicker transitions, the car rotated nicely (although more would have been better), and it put power down well coming out of corners with one exception. In tighter corners with any bumps, you couldn't apply much throttle without getting some axle windup and hop. Traction wouldn't necessarily be lost, but the front end would oscillate up and down and force you to wait until you straightened out the steering wheel to apply more power. We still haven't figured this out, but it may be related to alignment, or our switch back to the old shocks, or maybe even the lack of a rear bar.

In the end, the car was substantially faster. Our fastest recorded time of the day was a 1:33.3 and Jeff, on only his second event at the Streets got down into the 1:33's as well. Compared to our previous time of 1:38, this is a great improvement. Please note that I emphasize recorded times because the timing equipment at the event was not working well. My best recorded time in one session was a 3:13!! While Jeff was hand recording times, he was also trying to shoot photos and man the video camera, so he only managed to record roughly half my laps. And finally, after our first cold session, we hotlapped the car prior to each of my sessions, which meant the tires already had 10 laps of heat of them when I got in the car. I'm pretty sure that I knocked out at least one 1:32, but we'll never know for sure.

Furthermore, there are a couple of caveats. First, our tires were less than optimal. I suspect that fresher tires with no flat spotting would have netted at least 0.5 second/lap and maybe as much as 1 second/lap. Fixing the rear swaybar would also have helped a similar amount. Finally, the axle windup issue definitely cost us time. I suspect that on fresh RA-1s (never mind some Hoosiers or Kumho V710's) with the issues resolved and a bit more development, we'd see a solid 1:30. By comparison, the famed Pierre Kleinubing of Real Time Racing recorded a high 1:28 in a supercharged S2000 with DOT race tires at the same track and he's worth at least a second/lap over Jeff or I (Pierre also recorded a 1:31 in a stock 05 S2000). A good driver in a stock EVO will typically go 1:33-1:34, so we're certainly near our goals.

For now, the car is off to Chicago and then to Atlanta for a few months. But when it returns to SoCal, it will be faster and we'll try and break that 1:30 barrier. In the meantime, we'll see how it handles the Tail of the Dragon....

Project Partners/Sponsors

• Wheels: 17" (track) and 19" (street) SSR Competition (provided by The Tire Rack)
• Tires: 225/45-17 Avon Tech R, P225/35/R19 Avon Tech M500 (provided by The Tire Rack)
• Intake: AEM Cold Air Intake
• Header: DC Sports Race Header
• Exhaust: DC Sports Stainless Race Exhaust
• Camshafts: Intrinsic Performance Solutions K2
• Engine Computer: Hondata
• Suspension: Progress Technology
• Rear Swaybar: A-Spec Racing
• Carbon Fibre Hood and Trunklid: Seibon
• Foglights: Honda Factory Performance
• Vehicle Graphics: InStyleGraphics.com
• Headlight/Taillight Film: ClearAutoShield.com
• Installation: Epic Motorsports/Church Automotive
• Dyno Testing: Church Automotive
• Tuning: Hondata/Church Automotive
• Exterior video camera: Chase Cam