I Built a Budget Race Car From Scratch and It Was CHEAP!
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- Опубліковано 27 січ 2025
- In this Episode of Dirt Race Life I take a 2004 Fifth Generation Honda Civic Front wheel drive and turn it into a Dirt Track Race Car. All in one video, start to finish, I show every detail of how I did it.
Dirt Race Life is me building, setting up, and racing hand built race cars on dirt tracks and to be honest, I love all racing including drag racing and asphalt track racing as well. I have a shop behind my home and I build everything myself including the chassis, gears, and engines. I try to figure out the hard stuff to compete on the big stage against the very best racers in the nation. I work a regular job during the week while working hard in the shop at night so i can win a race on the weekend.
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Jason Dukes
137 Armour Rd
Halls, TN 38040
DirtRaceLife@gmail.com
DirtRaceLife.com is my website for information including Technical Specs about my builds, Video Playlists, and Merchandise!
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I'm 46 years old and finally decided to build one of my own and go to the track. I really appreciate you sharing all this knowledge with us🙏.
Glad to see Rachel getting to make some laps. I can’t wait for the ice bowl videos I look forward to them every year. And of course I’ll be watching the race cheering for ya. Good luck guys
Great idea 💡 on using the stock dash bar. That saves all the way around, in time, effort, and money 💰 😊
Oh that was pretty cool actually never seen any build one of the front wheel drives lotus Street stocks in late models but never one of them I hope Rachel has fun in that thing and hope you can put the street stock up towards the front we all have fun and take care
Next time consider using Plinth boxes on the A-pillars and the main roll hoop. That way you increase the area the load is spread against and you can use a rachet strap to pull your down tubes together, drop them off the boxes and you have more room to weld on the halo. Plinths would allow you to drop the main hoop in front of the back seat and get more surface area to spread the load. No need to cut the top either.
“If it’s not in the cold air it’s not a cold air intake” .. I love it! 😆
Tech man didn't see it that way AT ALL LOL. But hey, we begged for mercy, got a pass, and off to the track we headed!
Jason love the build and the video. Cant wait for some racin videos!! Yall be careul and have fun!
Jason, just something we saw locally - a guy was in a wreck and it actually bent the top halo/A pillar bar of his car. with that, he could no longer get enough compression on his window net to get out. he was stuck inside while the car was stuck in the billboards... it was on a sport mod. After that, we switched our cars to buckle nets because even if it bends that bar, the net can be dropped - yes takes a little more concentration as a trade off...
as always - enjoy the videos and good luck!
@@justinbrunner7127I also would worry about a chunk of mud hitting it and nocking it out
Love it. I want to, but my New USRA factory stock has the budget. Love your work. Thanks and Happy New to you and Yours
I race fwd race car and I go by Cherokee speedway rules and I race a 2003 Chevy cavalier automatic and I am happy to have fun
Can you use a small chain to "hang" the LF? If you use a chain on the lower Suspension LF then bolt up above it will pickup the LF thru corners and shift weight onto RF. It does work. I was at Moberly Missouri racetrack several years ago, Carl Edwards little brother did that and was flying around and won. NOW, he was DQ'd for it, but it does work great with front wheel drive compacts.
I wouldn’t recommend putting your seat on a the bar that’s connected to the cars chasssis. It’s better to have a round bar that’s bent that holds the bottom of the seat kinda floating like a swing that’s attached higher up on the cage. Just my 2 cents.
I have been racing an 01 civic (same generation as yours) on asphalt in Ontario Canada and have a couple things you might want to consider.
First thing I would do is adapt a D16 intake manifold on to the engine. You basically just need to drill out a couple holes. This reduces your runner length from around 17" to 12 or less (depending on the exact manifold used). This was the single biggest change we made to get the power band up in the rpm range where we needed it.
The overall gear in 2nd is 7.68 (1.87 x 4.11) but 3rd is 5.10 (1.241 x 4.11). We really need something in between that for our application and have spent a FUCK ton of time (and money) trying to get around it. There is a possibility that a D16 transmission will bolt on to the back of the engine, but I don't know that for sure and the starter is in a different spot and I don't know if the CV ends are the same.
On top of that you cannot tune these ECUs. I had to buy a very expensive setup from HA Motorsports (in PA if memory serves) and I had all kinds of problems with it. We eventually ran a distributor with a carburetor but it didn't make the same power.
Now the really bad part. We have destroyed 7 engines in 2 years. There is something wrong with the oiling system and it absolutely does not react well when you get your RPM levels to around 8000. We have tried all the things my dad has used over the last 65 years of racing and nothing has solved the problem. This, in my opinion, is a direct product of limited gear ratios available. I think if we could get the RPM down the engine would work great. When I was bouncing the engine off the rev limiter I had no oil issues and I was competitive in my class. I went up a class and needed more speed and all hell broke loose.
The D17 gets a bad rap, but I still feel like the issues we are having are not insurmountable and the engine makes good power for its size.
Shit! I almost forgot! This generation of Civic is NOTORIOUS for having immobilizer issues. Especially after something like a battery going dead.
KTuner sells a bypass that wires into the engine harness that works well and isn't terribly expensive.
Great Info David and much appreciated! I confirmed this car is just like you said and is 7.68 in second gear. I did some math and I do think we can make it work for a local track if I can make a larger tire work. We were on a 205/60/15 and if I go to a 225/70/15 it will take the total rollout down by 10%. The local track is close to the same size as Dega was and that may be just enough change to get us hitting the rev limiter at the end of the straight instead of halfway. Gona try that first because it will be BY FAR the cheapest solution LOL!
@DIRTRACELIFE we ran a similar tire size our last race in what is called Bonestock up here and it worked well. Unfortunately I was involved in a serious wreck (from the car's point if view, I was fine) and the amount of chasis work we had to do meant we had to run Mini-Stock (essentially a front wheel drive late-model chassis). If you're not running Falken 660 (200 tread wear tires) you're not competitive, and the circumference choices are Too Small or Smaller Than That.
Bon Chance! (as the Quebecers would say)
Used to run Chevy Cavaliers they are good cars won a lot of races with them. Found a cheap Honda Civic Si 8th gen. 197 HP Stock and LSD stock. Looking forward to this year!
DANG, 197hp in one of these would be pretty dang perky on the track!
I used to machine larger throttle bodies for the guys who run hopped up frontwheel drives
The most fun I ever had racing cars was this class in the early 2000,s next car I drove was a arca car , never say you kant
Cheap could mean slow as flip!!!
Ha! No Doubt our starting point in this adventure will be SLOW!