A Trip to the Teknotik Shop
When Chris made the leap into insurance payments and oil changes, he took the road most travelled, a Honda civic with a manual transmission – in particular, a 4 door 2000 Civic. After 10 years, the only upgrade was a decent set of coil-overs from Tein. It was time for a change – to take this relatively harmless Civic and prepare it for the harsh world of autocross.
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After some research, Chris decided the best place to take his Honda was to Teknotic, a local shop in Toronto that specializes in the modification of Honda’s. Chris called up Eric, the man behind Teknotic, and the two conjured up a new toy. Eric decided first-things-first, to get the suspension in order before adding more power.
With the car being 11 years old, there were two types of work being planned, first, essential maintenance like worn bushing, broken boots, and rusted bolts. And second, upgrades, which included beefing up the adjustable control arms, lowering the rear control arms, and installing a shorter shifter, new wheels and tires.
On an early Saturday morning, we rolled the car into Teknotic and started pulling the car apart. The plan was to swap out the existing stock parts for the following upgrades:
- Skunk2 pro series front camber kit
- Blackworks rear lower control arms (LCA’s)
- A rear tie bar
- Short shift kit with Energy Suspension bushings
Once the civic was up on the hoist, the Teknotik clan got to work, starting with the short shifter kit. Pulling out the stock shift linkage showed some eleven years of wear and tear. After swapping out the stock bushings with Energy Suspension ones and lubing up the linkage, the short shifter was put in place. You can really see the difference in the throw when the shifters are side by side. This will really tighten up the shifts and make for short and crisp gear changes.
The lads at Teknotik had their hands full attacking the rear lower control arms. When removing the six bolts to take out the LCAs, two bolts broke and had to be drilled and cut out. This is a common occurrence for civics and tends to be expected when working on cars of that age. However the guys at Teknotik are fully aware of this issue and had stock Honda bolts to replace the broken ones. Once removed, the Blackworks LCAs bolted straight in along with the rear tie bar to tighten up the rear suspension and upgrade the old, used up bushings to new hardened rubbers.
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With the rear now complete, we moved to the front, taking out the stock upper control arms which wasn’t nearly as bad as removing the rear LCAs – no broken bolts up front. The Skunk2 pro series camber kit will not only allow for camber adjustment to compensate for lower ride height, but it also comes with upgraded hard rubber bushing mounts, and the upgraded ball joint. This ball joint has bottom-up style adjustment Allen head screws for easy access to change the camber settings, as well as a large clamping plate to ensure that once we’ve dialed in the appropriate camber, it’ll stay there.
After putting everything all together we adjusted the ride height slightly. With everything in place, it was finally time to get out of Teknotik’s shop and off to completely set the ride height before getting an alignment and new brake pads. This would ensure everything is just right before hitting the autocross track.
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