We learned a pretty hard lesson at Oregon Trail this year.  Due to unseasonably 100+ degree weather in April, heat management became a pretty serious issue for us, and the car was found largely deficient.

Basically when you get hot, your brain doesn’t work as well as it does when comfortable, which can and did impact our performance.

The floor of the car ran around 140 degrees, due to the fact that the catalytic converter was positioned in the stock location.  Interesting thing about catalytic converters: the exhaust that exits them is actually more hot than the exhast before it hit the catalysts.  Many rally teams deal with this by relocating the catalytic converter to the very rear of the vehicle–this improves performance as well as reduces the in-car temperatures drastically.

We ended up fabricating a complete stainless exhaust using pre-fabed 2.25″ midpipe from Dynomax (WLK-38212) as a starting point.  It came with several hangers, flanges and an inline resonator–and was less expensive than buying the raw materials.

We bought some flanges from Vibrant and basically put a Dynomax 2.25″ Race Bullet Muffler (WLK-24234) where the stock catalytic converter was located.   Our intention was to run the two resonators and the catalytic converter with no additional muffler.

The custom rear “axle-back” component was all that needed to be completed to finish up the system.  It was composed of 2.25″ stainless bends, a Vibrant 200 cell 100% metal core high flow catalytic converter joined up to the Dynomax DNX midpipe with a Reid Washbon Racing v-clamp (very nice peice of kit).

Intial testing revealed that the car was LOUD.  It sounded great idling and under heal-toe downshifts, but was obnouxious the rest of the time, especially when decelerating off throttle (compression braking).  It probably would be legal for rally, and I’m pretty sure it would have passed most road racing requirements with the addition of a exhaust turn-down tip.  But at a rally, communication is very important–even though we use intercoms, noise can be very problematic.  Futhermore, we spend a ton of time in the car over a rally weekend, and I could easily imagine getting a headache (not to mention potential hearing damage) from exposure.

We use a Supertrapp Wavetech muffler on the CRX with pretty good success.  The nice thing about Supetrapp components is that they are completely tunable.  The added bonus was that we already had a bunch of Supertrapp discs and a open tip, etc.  We opted to go for a 2.25 ID,  4″ disc only muffler (SUP-444-2503), which also is a United States Park Service approved spark arrestor, which is often required when we compete on federal and state land.  Remember: only you can prevent forest fires. The muffler has to be one of the smallest, lightest, effective mufflers out there, and it definately did the trick.  The exhaust note is agressive but not obnoxious–and we’re not stuck with it.  We can add additional discs to increase flow, or remove them to reduce it.

Overall I’m pleased with how it turned out.  I’m pretty sure it is lighter than the system we had on the car, and the heat has been reduced to a far more comfortable level.   Before, if you touched the exhaust tunnel with a bare hand it was very uncofortable, perhaps enough to burn.  Now it is warm to the touch but not hot.  I will take a infrared temp, I’d estimate it is around 100 degrees.

Mission accomplished.

We brought the TVR out to “Sunday At The Depot” hosted by Northwest European Autoworks.

Here is a selection of some of photos taken at the event.

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One thing that people in general don’t know about me is that in addition to road racing and rally, I’m really into vintage Japanese and microcars.

Over the last year or two I’ve managed to track down and acquire several of these often neglected machines, and have been working with my father to restore them to running, driving condition.

So without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to several of the project cars:

1971 Honda Z600 Coupe (Pop Orange)

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The Pop Orange N600 was actually the first 600 we purchased (I think sometime in 2006 or 2007).  It had been sitting in a barn out in Ferndale, WA for a while after the motor failed.   Overall the car is in pretty good shape, although some components aren’t 100% stock.  Trying to find a replacement motor was actually a big part of why we bought the N600 Sedans (below).  Originally the plan was to do a full restoration on this one, but because it isn’t completely original and we now have a better candidate in the green Z, we are leaning towards doing something… interesting… with this one.

1970 Honda N600 Sedan (Spring Yellow)

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The 1970 N600 Sedan actually came with a twin sister, a 1969 N600 Sedan.  We found the pair of them for sale out of Ellensburg, WA and picked them up in the Fall of 2007. The twin was in really, really rough shape and so was stripped for parts, and it was intended that the motor would go into the orange car.  This was apropos because later in the winter a tree fell on the stripped-out chassis.  It was a noble sacrifice because if it hadn’t of taken the brunt of the impact, the tree probably would have crushed our new Civic rally car.

The goal for this car is to turn it into nice driver.  While not a full restoration, it will use original parts as much as possible and probably get a new paint job.  Over the last winter we were able to get the car running and moving under its own power by rebuilding the carburetor and cleaning the fuel system.  We need to put the refurbished fuel tank and braking system in to the car and it should be ready to drive.

1971 Honda Z600 Coupe (PoPo Green)

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The Green Z600 was an impulse buy.  I have an automated eBay search for vintage Japanese automobiles and this one was for sale in Sammamish, WA–roughly 5 miles from my house.  The owner (who was a really great guy), had one of these years ago and wanted to relive those days, but it just did not end up happening.

It also came with a sister car, a N600 which was a bit of a basketcase, having been “customized” by a previous owner.

The coupe though is in really good shape, with only minor rust areas and was almost complete with the exception of some ignition and exhaust.  We replaced the ig