There's an old adage that tells us that fast, cheap and reliable are incompatible in the automotive realm. According to this wisdom, you can have two of them, but always at the cost of the third. Applying that paradigm to racing, to be fast and reliable is to be expensive. And in case you didn't already know, building a fast and reliable race car generally is expensive. The adage can also be applied to the race car driver. To become a fast and reliable (consistent) driver generally requires a lot of track time, which isn't cheap, either.
We're glad nobody bothered to offer Andrie Hartanto that nugget of folk wisdom though, as he's gone ahead and done the impossible by building this competition-crushing 1999 Honda Civic Si race car for around $25,000 (which is a pittance in the racing world). It's seriously fast, and reliability, you ask? It's a Honda, 'nuff said. Hartanto even learned to be a fast and consistent driver without spending a dime to go to the track. He and his Civic are a glaring exception to this particular piece of collective knowledge that tells us a racer on a budget can't have their cake and eat it too.
The car and driver have the titles to back it up too; Hartanto was the 2004 Northern California and 2005 Southern California Honda Challenge H1 Champion.
But the race car is only part of the equation when it comes to racing, and even the most intellectually-challenged among us know that one of the surest bets to becoming a great driver is to start at an early age. Which is just what Hartanto did.
While the rich kids in were carting around their miniature circuits in karts, honing their driving and racing skills in overpriced miniature race cars, Hartanto was racing real cars in Indonesia. At age 11, he drove his first car, and by age 12 he was street racing and canyon carving with his friends on the weekends. Hartanto is quick to add that street racing in Indonesia isn't drag racing, but literally racing through traffic.
This isn't an option for kids here in the United States, though, for which Hartanto can vouch. He says his days of street racing ended when he got to the U.S. for college. In his first year here, he got seven speeding tickets. Because he was a broke 18-year-old college student at the time, he says he switched to snowboarding to get his adrenaline fix.
It wasn't until his junior year of college that he got bitten by the road racing bug. While working part-time in a speed shop, he was introduced to NASA and HPDE and was hooked. He participated in HPDE until 2002, when he came across a 1989 BMW M3 that tickled his fancy. He bought it and turned it into a race car.
Unfortunately for BMW owners, the aforementioned adage does hold true. Hartanto quickly realized that racing BMWs was too expensive for a self-described working man like himself. It was at this point that the civil engineer for the California Department of Transportation was introduced to what he described as the strange but nimble Honda, and quickly switched gears. He says he'd never considered racing front-wheel-drive cars before, but once he raced a Honda, he decided to build his own to dominate the Honda racing world.
Hartanto quickly located a 1999 Honda Civic Si and dropped it off at RedZone Performance in Fremont, Calif., for them to transform it into a race car.
One of the first things they addressed was the suspension. Hartanto and RedZone chose to run Koni 30-series dampers in conjunction with sleeve-type coilovers and Eibach ERS 800 lb/in springs up front and 1200 lb/in springs in the rear. All the suspension mods in the world are useless without a proper alignment, so the car was checked and adjusted by Wicked Tuning in California. Hartanto says that from his own personal experience, the setup consistently outperforms any of the "JDM bling" coilover suspensions on the market. To further help get the balance of the car more to his liking, he chose to jettison the front anti-roll bar and bolted up a beefy 22mm Comptech rear bar. Like the Koni shocks and Eibach springs, he says this anti-roll bar is simply the best on the market.
Although purists may cringe at the thought of power steering on a race car, Hartanto went to considerable lengths to install it on his. He says it gives him more precise control of the wheel and prevents him from having to constantly fight the wheel, which in the end allows him to be more consistent. Hartanto further justified his decision by explaining to us the importance of consistency in a full-length race. He says the extra degree of consistency the steering provides is well worth the 3hp lost to the power steering pump. You don't need to justify it to us Andrie, we don't think you're any less of a man for running power steering.
One of the most heavily-taxed components on a road racing car is the brakes. With lots of hard braking and very little time between turns for them to cool down, they can quickly overheat and become useless. To prevent just that from happening, Hartanto wisely chose to upgrade the front calipers and rotors. But this is a working mans car, so don't expect to see a flashy big brake kit bolted to the front end. Like many budget-oriented racers, he chose to hit the OEM parts bin and grafted on NSX calipers and 282mm rotors. Hartanto says that this, combined with some DIY brake vents, provides ample stopping power.
With the stopping and turning aspects taken care of, they then took care of the poweplant (or powerplants in this case). For racing in the NASA Honda Challenge, the car is equipped with an internally-stock K20A motor. When racing in the SCCA Pro Speed World Challenge, the car sports a Comptech-built K20A2 engine. As part of the World Challenge engine build, Comptech installed 1mm overbore, 12.5:1 compression Supertech forged pistons, Eagle forged rods and a Prima Racing oil pan. They then prepped the head per World Challenge specs and bolted it to the built short-block. The exhaust stays true to the budget theme and starts with an R-Crew Racing header and custom 75mm RedZone exhaust.
The stock differential, axles and clutch were discarded in favor of more appropriate units, including a Kaaz clutch-type LSD, HASport axles and a Clutch Masters clutch.
The car's interior, exterior and aerodynamic properties were also given their fair share of attention. Air is directed and downforce is provided by a Prima Racing front splitter and air dam, and a HPM rear wing. Inside the cockpit, Hartanto is nestled by a Sparco racing seat and protected by a rollcage, which is a necessity in the fender-to-fender racing the car sees.
To keep Hartanto in synch in the engine vitals, he can interface with his MyChron XG Log. The steering wheel-mounted unit displays RPM, MPH, oil temperature and pressure, water temperature and fuel level. Hartanto says the unit was supposed to be easy to configure for his setup, but he found that not to be the case, frustrating him on more than one occasion.
The Rota Torque wheels, on the other hand, provided no additional drama. Measuring 17x8 inches and wearing 235/40/17 Toyo RA1 rubber on all four corners, they give Hartanto the grip he needs to win races.
The old adage about not being able to have fast, cheap and reliable all at the same time may be true most of the time, but as Hartanto, RedZone and his crew of brave volunteers have proven, there can be exceptions.
Behind the Build
Head to the message boards at www.importtuner.com to chat about this feature VehicleName. Andrie Hartanto
Age. Thirty One
Hometown. San Francisco, Ca
Occupation. Civil Engineer
Hobbies. Racing
Build Time. Three Months And On-GoingImprovements
Feedback. primaracing@gmail.com