Manufacturer: Hasport
Product: Motor Mounts, EKSTK, 62A Durometer
Application: 1996-2000 Honda Civic
Review By: Bryan Pendleton
I swapped in a set of Hasport EKSTK Motor Mounts in my 96 Coupe. The mounts are quality, CNC-milled aluminum pieces
based on visual inspection. Installation went very smooth for the passenger side transsmission mount and the fire wall
rear mount, other than the difficulty of getting to the mounts. Thank goodness for a foot and a half of extensions.
I was dissappointed with the driver side engine mount though. While I was happy to see my busted, useless OE mount go,
I was dissappointed with the changes necessary to use this mount. First, I could not mount my power steering reservoir
bracket back as there was some interference between it and the Hasport mount. No big deal though. I simply elongated
the bolt holes in the bracket some and was able to shift it just enough to clear the motor mount bracket. Problem
two, the power steering return line interferred with the Hasport mount enough that abrasion wear would have most
assuredly caused a failure of the line. This fix was a little more tricky and again I removed the reservoir bracket.
I reshaped the reservoir bracket by placing two small opposing bends to offset the reservoir closer to the driver
side fender. I also put a slight twist in the bracket to rotate the reservoir clockwise (as viewed from top) some.
This allowed the PS return line to clear the mount, but I still might add some additional sleeving to the line to
prevent any accidental abrasion. Other than that the installation went smooth.
The test drive was shocking upon starting the car. Yes, these are the street compound (62A durometer urethane),
but again they are solid bushings, so soft compound or not, the end result is stiff. I anticipated some vibration,
but not to this degree. Lots of rattles became apparent from all the vibration transmitted to the cabin. I guess
its time to start debuging those rattles now. Now in this application we were running a mild B17 with cams and
headwork, tuned via Neptune, so I am sure I don't have the smoothest running B, but idle and near idle noise and
smoothness suffer considerable from the installation of these mounts. Cruising speeds are not too bad though. I
am temped to pull the mounts and have some holes drilled through the bushings to soften them up some. Though I
know that would kill the Hasport warranty, which was one of the reasons to purchase these, knowing that I would
never need another set of motor mounts
Anyway, these are quality mounts, which I anticipate never having to worry about again, but I would be hesitant
to recommend them for a daily driver. My car is my daily driver, but I'm the only one to drive the car, and it
will most likely be with me until it dies, or my 3 year old son gets old enough to drive, so the comfort loss
is acceptable, barely.
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Manufacturer: Optilux (Hella)
Product: 4" HID Driving Headlamps
Review By: Bryan Pendleton
The need for some headlamps surfaced when our endurance race team decided to enter into a full 24-hour endurance race with the ChumpCar organization.
Our beat-up and tattered 1993 Nissan Sentra SE-R and 1991 Honda Civic Hatchback needed a light solution that would provide ample light for racing at
speeds at just over a 100-MPH. Being a bunch of geeky engineers we tried to apply logic to our decisions. First we needed lots of lumens. For lumens
there simply is not substitute for xenon lighting (HID). Second we needed to ensure we had adequate cornering lighting and distance lighting. An
effective flood pattern should address the cornering and we estimated that 500-ft of light should be adequate for this type of racing. If you run the
calculations (recall geeky engineers) 500-ft of light will give you about 3.5 seconds worth of visibility at 100-MPH, which should provide us with
confidence when most are averaging speeds on 65-MPH to 75-MPH on TWS and MSR. Finally, they needed to be properly aimed. This is where we call in our
team welder to fabricate us a light bar. So the question now is "how do you secure a high-end lighting solution on a ChumpCar or LeMons budget?" Now
you could easily drop $1000-$2000 and more on a good lighting solution, but this is LeMons racing and the idea of spending $1000+ on lighting for a $500
race car sounds absurd.
Our first step was to seek out experienced advice. What were the real LeMans teams racing with? What about rally cars? We contacted several shops that
provide aftermarket lighting solutions for rally racers, off-roaders, and road racers. The unanimous consensus was that we need to run the Optilux 4" HID
driving lights. Opti-who? Optilux. Optilux is a brand developed by Hella and manufactured overseas. The Optilux products are beat on and tested by Hella
and then sold to consumers at very LeMony prices. So why are they so inexpensive? First of all, unlike most Hella lighting solutions, Optilux products are not
serviceable. If they break you throw them out and replace the entire lamp. Second, the materials are not as robust as most of the Hella solutions. Aluminums
and other metals are replaced with plastics to reduce cost and simplify manufacturing. But after a number of recommendations, I hope to show you that the end
output is quit remarkable. And even better yet is the price. For about $225, you get two HID lamps, wiring harness, relay, switch and lamp covers.
Fantastic!
The first test was a simple comparison test to get a sense of the general lumen output of these lamps. In this quick test we compared the OEM HID lighting on a 2005
Infiniti G35 with two of the Optilux 4" HID lamps. I will let the pictures do most of the talking, but my only response when performing this test was "WOW!". WOW!
This test confirmed that we indeed had massive lumens and we were confident that a pair of these lamps could be aimed to provide ample cornering light.
2005 Infiniti G35 OEM Lamps (Left-Low Beams, Right-High Beams)
Optilux 4" HID Driving Lamps (Lamping aiming is slightly different between left and right)
The next test was to ensure we had our targeted minimum of 500-ft of lighting. Details coming soon....
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Hasport Motor Mounts