1970's 1.2l Honda Civic Speed Parts

don-f

don-f

Well-known member
I have a long term project I am not moving very fast on. Jamie Housmans 1978 Civic. It may get finished one of these years. 1970s Honda speed parts are rare compared to Datsun, etc so even though the Civic is not done, I normally buy the parts that come along if the price is right. Not interested in oem parts at all. What I am looking for are dual carb manifolds, Mugen counterweighted cranks, close ratio boxes, specialty parts. Unfinished camshaft blanks are high on my want list. I was able to get two unfinished cores but one got messed up sending it to Schneider Cams already. Regrinds on the factory camshafts mess up the valve train geometry because of the smaller base circle.

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The engine is currently an eb3, just because I have more parts. The "rebuilt" engine that came in the car was an en1 short block with an eb3 head, but the previous owners did a number on it. Allthread used for head studs, one cylinder was damaged and just honed larger.

I have had a few places say they can weld up a core for grinding. They have warned me that its possible to warp the thing that way too. I will keep looking for the unfinshed blanks. I have one left, so still have some options.
 
+1 for Web Cams for the hard-faced weld on the cam lobes
They have done a number of cams for me with good success.
 
Thanks all for the advice. I did have Doug at Fast Forward do a cam gear run recently. Took a while because of the virus, but the workmanship was a home run. Lucky there were 55 other people who wanted them so it made the production run worth while.
 
Protech Racing":1nm1gdu0 said:
"Web Cam" can weld the base up to size.
Click to expand...
Greg Gauper":1nm1gdu0 said:
+1 for Web Cams for the hard-faced weld on the cam lobes
They have done a number of cams for me with good success.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the recommendations for Web Cams. I had a web cams 149i in my project when it arrived. I did not like it at all, but it was 260 @ 050, so I never really gave the company much thought until recently. I have spent a few weeks searching for profiles. Most cam companies are not interested if it's not a common application. Some reply, but will not provide any specifics until you send in the core. At that point you are sort of all in. I lost another semi finished blank that way with Schneider Cams a few years ago. They did not listen to a word I said to their tech guy and sent me a street grind on my new blank. Web Cams actually responds and seems like it will work out. They are searching for a few more lobe profiles for me. I have my last semi finished cam blank and I think that is what I will use this time. I can always have them do a welded version later if I decide I want a change.

Still looking for early honda speed parts if priced reasonably.
 
Have you tried Megacycle cams in San Rafael? 415-472-3195. They don't list any automotive cams on their website, but they were a top secret go-to for a lot of early Honda automotive cams.
 
I got a cam welded from web camshafts at the beginning of the year, excellent work but the lobes hit the head. I contacted Laurie and she's on top of it and very nice. I have to sent the cam back and they will see what went wrong. There used to be people that ran these cars but the knowledge from hard knocks seems to have vanished along with the speed parts. I keep posting and every once in a while some nugget shows up.
 
While it has been a long time since I plated with an EB motor, I occasionally run into this problem with aggressive cams on later model D series engines as well. Depending on where it hits, of course, it is usually okay to "massage" the head a little. I have had to relieve areas under the lobes, and also a little from the sides of the cam towers. It varies from head to head.
 
I ground away the head a bit but it is still hitting the spring seats so it has to go back. Its OK I will get it figured out.
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Perhaps switch to a spring seat that locates the ID rather than the OD of the valvespring? That might solve the problem, and is better overall. When a helical coil spring is compressed, the OD can grow slightly, which is why it's probably better to locate a spring by the ID.
 
Thanks for all the info. We tried to find a replacement that would work. Its an odd size, no one makes a seat even close. Laurie from web cams tried to send me to places she though may have something but no luck. They make cams bigger than this one for the eb3 and list them in their catalog but they reduce the base circle to get it to fit. They forgot that info when they did mine. I have to send it back to see what they can do. They may reduce the base circle or grind a known good pattern into it instead.
 
No problem. Those old hatches are near and dear to me. I rebuilt the engine on one for a neighbor back in high school, and then in college I had a '73 that was turbocharged and had a nitrous system (way before that stuff was even a thing). When I melted down that motor street racing, I threw in a stock engine and then drove the car from Ohio to California. Eventually it had to go when I needed a pickup truck to haul my race bike. I miss that car - a lot!
 
Me not be an engine guy by any stretch, but have curious what if question. What if the spring seat was anchored so it couldn't rotate and the seat was ground off so the cam would clear?

Here are a couple places in WI you may check with. They both have forever Honda race engine guys and a phone call may find results.

https://www.kingmotorsports.com/Service

http://realtimerl.com/

Contact Bob Clark at Pegasus Racing and see if he will put you in touch with Jim Dentici the original owner of King Motorsports. Bob and Jim race together.
 
I thought about milling the edge of the retainer, but reliability is very important to me. If I did mill clearance, it cant rotate or it would be very bad. I would rather have a slightly lower lift and just not have to deal with that problem. This project has taken way way longer than it should have and if it ever does run again I need it to not break for a long time. I have tracked down most people who used to run them, some even bought parts back from me. Scott at King motorsports is awesome but over the years drawings, etc. go missing and they just don't turn back up. Part wise even 20 years ago they had no new or used parts to sell for the 1200s. I did get two raw cast cam blanks from him about 2002. One the cam grinder totally messed up so that was the reason for going welded this time. I have one more but I want to make sure no bugs when grinding rare parts. Jim Dentici has been the biggest help of all, about ten years ago he told me by email several points to do with my engine for reliability and he sold me the mugen crank from the King Civic he used to run. He had just lost one of his parents so I did not push further but the information he did share was really worth saving.
 
Yes Adam got rid of all his Civic stuff, it went to a guy in Colorado. I think his name was Ben Dewitt, then the car and parts went to Hargrove in Canada. I did get some parts from Hargrove. Its been a long time. Scott from KMS was looking for a 1200 shell last year and I showed him a picture of Malleys car all torn apart and unloved up in BC, he said something about risking his retirement funds, ha ha. Not sure if it went away or not. I will probably look him up again but the Canadian boarder is still closed for the virus so no bonsai runs up there with the Suburban yet even if he had more left overs.
 
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