I took my basically stock 2007 Civic Si Sedan to Willow Springs Raceway for a BMW Car Club Driver's School. The only mods on my car are Porterfield R-4 brake pads, StopTech slotted rotors and ATE Super Blue brake fluid. Tires are stock summer Michelins. Motor and suspension are all stock.
I posted a video here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DFYrCV6cIc
I am really sorry for the poor quality video. I mounted my Cruise Cam to the rear headrest posts and I now know that was a mistake.
In this video you will see me pass some really fast cars. The reality is that I am supposed to be in the advanced-intermediate group (and probably the advanced group) but due to space limitations at the event I was put in a group with the better beginners. As you can tell, they never once put their cars in the right place at the right time on the track. They were uncooperative with passes and frankly dangerous to follow.
PLEASE NOTE: I am
NOT pretending the Civic Si is faster than any of the cars I passed. I am just showing that the driver is sometimes more important than the car.
The grey Porsche 996 C4S was one of the worst examples...That driver was braking way too much for the corners and then would not point me by on the straights. Obviously down the very long straights of Willow Springs that car would pull away...duh...Once he finally did point my by (after many laps of utter frustration
) he barely backed-off the throttle. That made the pass dangerous for both of us!
The Civic Si just did not have enough power for that track...In order to make passes, I had to start gathering momentum 1 -2 turns before the actual pass happened. On those MANY occasions in which the passee did not point me by, I had to stand on the brakes and lose all my momentum. Then it took me nearly half a lap to gather it all back.
The handling is beyond reproach. Steering is fine. Brakes (as modified) worked great all day. But Willow is a horsepower track and the Civic just lacked. Going through turn 2, a long sweeping uphill right, I was full throttle in 4th (at about 82 mph) all the way around and never gained 1 mph. I couldn't use 3rd since that put me on the rev limiter about 1/2 way through. Going up through turns 3 and 4 (also sharply uphill), throttle buried in 3rd gear, the car would not accelerate at all. The one time I tried 2nd I was in the rev limiter in the middle of turn 3. That is an off-camber turn with a very short shot to turn 4, making an up-shift problematic.
On the front straight I could only hit 105 which is not that fast. The cars with real hp were hitting 130-150 on that same straight. This all leads me to wonder why people drag race the Si...but that's another story.
Out of the box the Civic Si is a good track car. Honda did a very good job in this regard. I think it could tolerate some more suspension travel and slightly firmer shocks/sway bars but that would compromise the decent street ride quality. For example going into turn 8 at about 102-105 the car felt very uncomfortable on the bumps near the apex. It never upset grip but definitely made me take that corner more slowly.
Some people ask whether or not to leave VSA on at the track. Please note that I left it on all day and only had it intervene once in 80 minutes of track time. The one time it did, I botched a corner by carrying too much speed into it and trying to accelerate too hard out. While I would have been fine without it, I was glad it was there. For non-pros like me LEAVE THE VSA ON!!!!!!
Thanks for reading my post. I hope you enjoy the videos.