I see a lot of owners going to a small rim size. Is that something you are considering? I can see the advantage but those OEM wheels look so good

 

Small? I went bigger on my S

 

I'm not sure what size the rims are on a Civic type R but the tires are extremely low profile

 

Nope, I'm keeping the OEM 20" wheels. I know many have swapped for 18" wheels so they can get beefier sidewalls, as there are many, many owners who have bent a wheel due to the ultra low profile tires.

Problem is, swapping to an 18" wheel on that car can affect the handling, and I really like it the way it is. Here is a great article on it: https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cul...hurt-handling/

Right now the only mods have been slight cosmetic differences, but I'm planning on swapping out the factory hood scoop for a carbon fiber piece, as I really like the black contrast on the hood on the LE.

Beyond that, it seems fairly simple to replace the factory subwoofer with an aftermarket sub that will slightly improve sound performance, and give me some headroom if I want to add an amp to it.

The real costly one will be some bolt on mods. Mostly because the sound of the engine and exhaust is....not very good. After that, I'll probably get a Hondata Flashpro and run a new tune on it. Hondata claims gains of about 50HP and 70ft/lb on a 93 octane tune.

Of course, the wifey may have some say on how much I'm permitted to spend.

 

Marc - consider KTuner. I’m told it has more advantages and buying the V2 will give you a proper screen to look up other info too and troubleshoot.

 

Smaller wheels have been the track folks. Because there aren’t too many tire choices in the factory size. If you aren’t driving it on track or going smaller for snows I’d just leave the car as is.

 

Generally the Hondata is preferred over the KTuner in the CTR circles. The Hondata can project information on the infotainment screen, so no other screen is required.

In addition, there are some places nearby in Toronto that do a lot of Hondata tuning, and not so much nearby for the KTuner.

As for snow tires, if I need to drive the CTR in the winter, I'd likely get a set of 18" steelies large enough to clear the calipers and put some X-Ice tires on it. Handling characteristics be damned in the snow.

 

Two trips to Upstate in the past week. We went up last Saturday dodging the snow storm as best we could to try to get the heat started at the camp. It seems that water had condensed in the fuel line outside and blocked flow. I used a propane torch to heat up the line and eventually I was able to decant about a gallon out of the system. Some small ice crystals, but not much H2O as far as I could see. Nancy never got out of the car as it was very cold inside, maybe 10 degrees! It was about 6 degrees outside as I worked. We went back on Tuesday night and stayed until about 6:00 yesterday. Had to receive a delivery of new kitchen cabinets. Heat was working. The delivery truck was too big and the drive too slippery for the truck to get into the driveway. So had to offload into my car and then bring to the camp.

Given my free time, I pondered my timing issues on the MGA engine that I'm refreshing. I've decided (in theory) that I needed to advance the timing from 108 degrees to maybe 105 degrees. So I started to look to see if I could buy an offset woodruff key, say a 4 degree offset. Cost is somewhere near $25.00. British Parts Northwest was having a 15% off Groundhog Day sale so I decided to buy an adjustable vernier camshaft sprocket instead at about $135,00 with free shipping. Will make adjusting the cam timing easy and precise.

I haven't been in the mountains in quite a few years, so I decided to check the bindings on my snowshoes. I have very aggressive snowshoes for use in the mountains and was worried that the bindings had deteriorated. The snow shows are pretty beat up, but the bindings looked OK. So I'm going to plan myself a little winter hike for later this month. Will have to overcome all of the wife's objections.

 

woah! Im impressed. You are like a human Siberian husky or St. Bernard. If I ever needed rescuing I'll call you El Jefe. If I were out in that cold, the last thought on my mind would be confusion not what to do with the MGs timing. And you moved furniture too. My mind is blown.

 

Well, actually, I was planning to call you!

The Escape has 174,000 miles on it and I've been expecting it to die since 120,000. The check engine light that has been on for months has gone off - probably burned out! The car itself is so rusty that the shop wasn't able to do an alignment, and the tires that I bought at 130,000 were pretty shot. In anticipation of my travels north, I went to the Plan B Tire Shop last Friday and bought some used tires at $75 each, installed and balanced. I can't quite tell what brand they are - nothing that I even remotely recognize - but they look pretty good. I don't have a useable spare (not only flat, but rusted on so I would have to cut it off), so I figured I ought to get some better rubber. But If I break down between say Sharon, Ct and your house, I'm calling you for rescue. Once I pass Third Avenue on the Route 90 Bypass, then I figure a call to Turner or Susan is more appropriate, with you moving to stand-by rescue status.