i seriously want to thank you for sparking my interest in civic wagons. After seeing your car in the honda-tech post "road race/auto X pics" i actually considered buying one, and a clean, unmolested one is throwing itself at me right now.
You are very welcome. I'm glad that my build is inspiring you and others. I have certainly enjoyed the process so far, and the Wagon community here, and in other places is fabulous.
Make sure if you grab that ride, that you come back and post up about it. I autocrossed mine a couple times as a FWD and had a blast, but bought it for the sole purpose of building what we have here.
I'm hoping it will be cheaper than that, but at this point I have no idea whatsoever. If we get enough serious interest in the $500 price point range, I think the fabricator will likely be more inclined to work on getting the price down. I fear that even at $500, people are running screaming. Let's wait and see.
I'm down for one too. just wondering the next weak link. and how about sourcing some internals? my local dealership says everything is discontinued or no longer available. I think I can get a left side tail light, and that's about it. but I figure a complete rebuild at the same time would keep everything fresh and give me peace of mind.
I used the RT4WD transmission, but removed the SL gears, the spider gears from the front differential and the selector arm and sleeves for the 4WD/2WD system. This alone dropped 14 lbs out of the transmission. I then sealed up the openings in the transmission where the front axles would come out. I obviously did not use front axles, but did keep the outer joints and axle nuts to hold the front hub/wheelbearing together. The joints were "pared" down substantially though. I would have gone with simple bolts if not for the fact that I will be using ABS rings at the front wheels for my traction control.
The front/rear driveshaft is 1 piece to avoid the center bearings/hanger/viscous coupler assemblies. This was only possible using a CF driveshaft, as aluminum (or steel for that matter) would not survive at that length (86", can you say driveshaft whip?).
The rear was simply an RT4WD differential housing with a modified FWD Civic OBX LSD, and custom made Drive Shaft Shop axles. The rear hub area was a little more involved. I used the 1st gen CRV rear bearing holder/bearing assembly, with some minor mods, the RT4WD bearing holder with substantial modifications, and a FWD Integra hub pressed into the CRV bearing.
So far so good. I honestly haven't been able to "really" test it out in autocross, but that'll come in about 1 1/2 weeks. In the meantime, it works great on the street, and the wheelhop that nuked the transfer case seems to have done no discernable damage to the rear diff.
^ that's true, you haven't had much time to "test" it.
i always hear good/bad things about it (mostly bad).
but it's intersting to see that it didn't get damaged from the t-case incident.
Here's the only pics I have of the finished product. What you see is what's left of the original Wagon bearing holder, cut down and out to act simply as a brace/bracket for the back of the trailing arm. It's took a bunch of work. Wasn't difficult, just time consuming. I honestly don't remember exactly what I had to do to the CRV bearing holder, but again I don't recall it being anything terribly difficult. I did it with hand tools and Dremel, etc...
Thanks for the pics, when I was searching through to see if you had posted them previously, I noticed you cut your toe adjuster portion off the trailing arms. Why?
I wanted to try and conserve the toe settings that in place after an alignment. The OEM geometry with the toe control links gives toe-in under bump/compression, and I was trying to eliminate as many variables as possible, as this is something new and untried. I'm trying to simplify the sorting of the handling as much as possible. With this setup, and the mods that I did at the lower control arm attachment point to the trailing arm, I get almost perfect toe control (stays almost exactly at zero in this case).
You could weld it as mentioned above. However, if you're staying 4WD, you'll be faced with some drivetrain binding when driving on asphalt. Do a search. This has been discussed a bunch of times.
FYI, my company has a full tool and die / machine shop, and this morning I asked if they could make billet parts for me and they said they could. They do it for some of the other engineers here who are car guys, and make them in between jobs. If you make prints you can send them to me and have them made for free (aside from materials).
FYI, my company has a full tool and die / machine shop, and this morning I asked if they could make billet parts for me and they said they could. They do it for some of the other engineers here who are car guys, and make them in between jobs. If you make prints you can send them to me and have them made for free (aside from materials).
That sounds fantastic, and you've definitely got my interest peaked. What exactly do you mean by "prints"? I know there's one contact that I have in Taiwan that could get the 2 pieces 3D scanned for me, and then there would be a little bit of manipulation needed to the scan files to beef up the pieces in a couple key places. If you could inquire for me as to what file format the scans should be (what software they want/need for their equipment), I could certainly pursue this further.
Comments
You are very welcome. I'm glad that my build is inspiring you and others. I have certainly enjoyed the process so far, and the Wagon community here, and in other places is fabulous.
Make sure if you grab that ride, that you come back and post up about it. I autocrossed mine a couple times as a FWD and had a blast, but bought it for the sole purpose of building what we have here.
so which bits did you use from the 4wd wagon and which bits didnt you use to make yours rwd?
The front/rear driveshaft is 1 piece to avoid the center bearings/hanger/viscous coupler assemblies. This was only possible using a CF driveshaft, as aluminum (or steel for that matter) would not survive at that length (86", can you say driveshaft whip?).
The rear was simply an RT4WD differential housing with a modified FWD Civic OBX LSD, and custom made Drive Shaft Shop axles. The rear hub area was a little more involved. I used the 1st gen CRV rear bearing holder/bearing assembly, with some minor mods, the RT4WD bearing holder with substantial modifications, and a FWD Integra hub pressed into the CRV bearing.
i always hear good/bad things about it (mostly bad).
but it's intersting to see that it didn't get damaged from the t-case incident.
Picture?
Good Luck in the up coming 6 weeks..
You could weld it as mentioned above. However, if you're staying 4WD, you'll be faced with some drivetrain binding when driving on asphalt. Do a search. This has been discussed a bunch of times.
That sounds fantastic, and you've definitely got my interest peaked. What exactly do you mean by "prints"? I know there's one contact that I have in Taiwan that could get the 2 pieces 3D scanned for me, and then there would be a little bit of manipulation needed to the scan files to beef up the pieces in a couple key places. If you could inquire for me as to what file format the scans should be (what software they want/need for their equipment), I could certainly pursue this further.
Thanks!
Basically they just need a sheet with a rough drawing at the least, but exact dimensions. They can handle the programming on their own afaik.