Another Civic VX Kammback with deep roots

[mloveland78]

Hello Ecomodders, this is my first post so I will try to make it worthwhile. I recently purchased a Civic VX after lurking on this site for about a year and doing research. It seemed like the VX was the way to go to get into a high mileage car on the cheap. I found one on c*list for a great price because it has some damage which should be repairable. It was sideswiped at some point and the previous owner started the repair and gave up halfway through. I got it looking like this:
Hopefully the pics will load.

The rear quarter was cut out and the wheel arch is smashed up. Sooo time for a trip to the local u-pull it with a sawzall. Four junkyards and 6 blades later.

I got my rear quarter. I'm a little bummed that I still have to repair some rust on the "new" quarter, but it was the best that I could find. So I started cutting and ended up with this:

Then many hours of drilling, grinding, hammering later.

Its not welded in place yet, just fitted. I have to start welding on it this week. Once it is welded together, I have to fix the civic rust on both wheel arches, and then paint the whole car and give it a generous coat of undercoating to protect it. Then on to the Kamm back and possible wheel skirts and front airdam.

I plan on going back to at least 30% or 32% on the template. No way I'm going to do a boat tail yet. Going to follow Greasemonkee's great lead on Kammback construction. He's got 80k miles on his with no issues and great results.

[mloveland78]

Pic links don't seen to be working, I'll see if I can fix that.

[Xist]

Wow! How long has it taken you just to get this far?

I am glad that you understand the template. Greasemonkee's build looks pretty good: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tch-19186.html

[MetroMPG]

Cool.

But with the tools and skills you have... did you consider modifying the car itself and not just repairing it? You could begin tapering the roof just aft of the B pillars. (Of course then you have to deal with custom rear 3/4 glass & hatch.)

[AntiochOG]

While you're already welding and painting the car, it seems that you could do better than just an average kammback. Interested to see how this turns out!

[Xist]

Why not teardrop it like the Lupo?

My thought was that if you added a section between the C pillar and the hatch then you would have a Kammback without reducing visibility, except that you would have a giant gap to fill, just begging for a boat tail!

[mloveland78]

Originally Posted by Xist

Wow! How long has it taken you just to get this far?

I am glad that you understand the template. Greasemonkee's build looks pretty good: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tch-19186.html

Time invested so far is two weekends working in my sister's garage.

[mloveland78]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Cool.

But with the tools and skills you have... did you consider modifying the car itself and not just repairing it? You could begin tapering the roof just aft of the B pillars. (Of course then you have to deal with custom rear 3/4 glass & hatch.)

Not sure how much better I could make it. If you look at the last pic, the car already follows the template perfectly. To get any better I would have to chop the whole top and bring it down a couple inches which would involve new glass all around. More time and money than I've got. I'm under a deadline to get this car up and running by the end of the month. It will be my daily driver for my 30 mile commute one way to work. I'll be happy to be getting an estimated 60 to 65 MPG since my current ride is a 3500 dodge diesel pickup. I'm currently getting 18-20mpg in the truck, which is not bad considering it weighs 8000lbs, or three times as much as the average passenger car. It coasts pretty good too, there is one part of my commute to work that is 1.5 miles downhill where I can coast the whole way down.

[mloveland78]

I should also mention that I plan on installing an mpguino that I got from Meelis in Estonia. Isn't the internet wonderful? I don't even know where Estonia is, but I got the 'guino in the mail in just a few days. I plan on installing it in the dash where the rear defogger switch is now and I will move the switch to the other side of the steering wheel. I'll post some pics when I get to that stage.

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by mloveland78

Not sure how much better I could make it. If you look at the last pic, the car already follows the template perfectly.

There has been some debate/revision about the initial rate of curvature in the template. I'm not sure whether the overlay tool is using the latest version that allows for a "faster" initial curve which better conforms to known low-drag "sub-template" cars like the original EV1, Insight, and Prius hatchbacks.

Looking into the tool question today...