In the recently concluded Merdeka Millennium Endurance 2004, the unheralded Honda Civic 2.0 i-VTEC overcame all odds to emerge overall champion. It was a magnificent victory, even more so than the Class victory and podium finish by the DC5 Integra Type-Rs last year. Following my race coverage article, in this article I will now focus on the race winning cars. Because of their tremendous feats, there have been quite a bit of myth and misinformation about the cars since the race. So I have made an extra effort to cover the cars in as much technical details as I can here.

The bulk of the photos in this article are taken over 4 separate sessions; when the car was displayed during the HMRT launch at the JGTC 'party' in June, the media launch of the car itself at Sepang on August 12th, the MME 'pary' held on August 24th to introduce the HMRT MME race drivers, and finally at a special photo session I requested after the race when the cars were at the Honda Malaysia PJ office. The cars themselves were constantly being built and modified all the time so throughout this article, many small differences will be obvious on the various photos. I also received an extensive collection from Honda Malaysia, taken by their own photographer during the 'parties' and the race and a number of photos are taken from that collection. All the moving gif banners are built using photos from that collection actually.

I have made extra efforts to ensure that all technical info in this article are as accurate as possible. My own technical observations of the cars have been reconfirmed for accuracy with Honda Malaysia Racing Team staff whenever possible and many technical data are actually supplied by them (and indicated so when applicable). Nevertheless in the cases of any unintentional mistakes that may be made, the fault lies entirely with me of course.

The Cars

Honda Malaysia entered two cars for the MME 2004, cars no. 26 and 27, both Honda Civic 4-door sedans. As is already well known, car no 27 emerged the overall winner for the race while car no 26 who was originally the leading car, encountered a suspension problem but eventually still finished 3rd overall. Much have been made that these cars are special one-off monsters imported from Japan for the sole purpose of winning the MME. This can't be further from the truth. In the first place, there are few if any 4 door Civics being raced in Japan. The top variant JDM 4door Civics comes with the 130ps D17A SOHC VTEC engine and a MMT-S (CVT-7) auto gearbox so racing Civics in Japan are always based on the 3-door EP3 Civic Type-R instead. So there is no blueprint at all for a race-spec 4-door Civic in Japan, what more one that can win a 12-hours endurance race. The truth is that both the MME Civics are actually built by Honda Malaysia using cars originally assembled in their Melaka assembly plant. They were designed by an expert team comprising Mugen, Team Kunimitsu,Mooncraft & Speed Connection, as well as local engineers. The street cars are re-built into the race versions by volunteer mechanics specially selected from the Melaka assembly plant, i.e. people who actually build a Civic daily to earn their living, only that what they are building now is a winning race-car. The whole HMRT spent countless late nights working on the cars, their race strategy and the many other stuff necessary to win the race. Success don't come easy and hard-work is certainly a most necessary pre-requisite !

Of the two cars, car no. 26 was actually re-built from a complete road-car taken immediately off the Melaka assembly line. Right after taking the just assembled road car from the plant, it was totally stripped again by the team mechanics. This car was first re-sprayed white and done up in an 'estimated' racing motif in time for Honda Malaysia's JGTC party in June where the Honda Malaysia Racing Team (HMRT) was launched. At that time, the car was only partially built with the engine still the original road version. After the event, It was then further completed in stages for the race.

The original colour of the car was told to me rather amusingly by the Honda Melaka factory manager who after checking out the mock-up car at the JGTC party, came over and remarked to me 'the scary thing is when I passed them the car, it was black !'. Indeed the original B92P Nighthawk Black Pearl colour can still be seen in some parts of the car but for the race, the Civics are re-sprayed with NH565 'Grand Prix White' . And yes, I did ask why not NH0 'Championship Racing White' but the formal response is that NH0 CRW is reserved for Type-R variants and their derivatives only. If one is able to take a close look at car's no 26's engine bay, the original light-blue VIN plate is still in its original position, complete with the declaration 'Manufactured by Honda Malaysia Sdn Bhd' and the fire-wall even has the original chassis code (ET1) and chassis number still engraved there. On the outside, giveaways would be the windscreen which have the 'Honda Lamisafe' logo with the manufacturer 'MCIS' identified. On the front doors, the glass even have the engine immobolizer stickers intact !

Taking a just assembled car and then immediately stripping it again is of course very unproductive and time consuming. Because of this, car no 27 was actually built from a bare chassis supplied by the Melaka factory. The Civic chassis is a 'monocoque' design and is built in the factory by welding individual sections together. After building the entire bare chassis, it was then passed over unpainted and in its base dark grey colour to the HMRT mechanics for the task of completing it up as the race car. As a result, car no 27 does not posses the VIN plate though the mounting holes are visible on the chassis. The chassis also does not posses any code as it is not a completed unit and so the firewall is also blank in that section.

Why did Honda Malaysia chose to race the 4-door Civic ? Last year, Honda Malaysia competed in the 2003 MME with a DC5 Integra Type-R and won its class (Class A), also finishing 3rd overall on the podium. But that achievement, other than a pure point of interest for the motorsports fan was really an exercise in futility. 'Wow, the DC5 Integra Type-R won its class and finished 3rd overall.' 'Wow, so I can't even buy the car even if I have the money ?!'. So this year, despite widespread derision, Honda Malaysia decided to field their Civic 2.0 i-VTEC instead. This decision largely stems from the Honda Malaysia senior management, especially their CEO Seiji Kuraishi's belief that whatever is raced should be available for sale to their customer's as well. So the effort is two pronged. To uplift the rather faded reputation the current Civic has amongst the performance-biased car buyers. And for those who are already believers and drives a Civic 2.0 i-VTEC, this will also have their judgement vindicated. The Civic was chosen over alternative choices like the Accord or the Jazz because of its position as Honda Malaysia's premier performance model. While it has been quite warmly received by discerning enthusiasts and generating good sales too, unusually it has not been getting 100% good reviews. So Honda Malaysia also has a 'secondary' objective; to prove that their Civic 2.0 i-VTEC do indeed pack a very high performance potential and of course the best way to do this is to win races with it.

The Honda Civic of course has a very long, successful and distinguished racing heritage. EK, EG and even EF Civics have been competing in all forms of amateur, semi-professional and professional racing. The famous Group A Civics raced in Japan were well known for their mighty B16A DOHC VTEC engines which delivers between 200 - 230ps in race-trim. The EG9 was raced in the JTCC by many famous drivers early in their careers - Naoki Hattori, Kaz Shimizu and even the legendary drift-king Keiichi Tsuchiya ! More closer to home, the EG and EK Civics have been actively competing in the local Super-Series, the regional ATCC and indeed for the MME, they have even been dominating Class C, often beating out cars in the higher Classes.

For 2004, the MME was run in a more 'official' manner. All competing cars must now be homologated according to one of a permitted set of FIA Appendix J Articles. Then a set of supplementary rules are further imposed under the 'authority' of FIA Appendix J Article 277. The HMRT Civics were entered in Class A based on FIA Appendix J Article 255. This is for 'production saloons' (so called Group A cars) and 'rally cars' and contains pretty specific restrictions on what can be done to the race cars. However the MME Supplementary Rules relaxed the restrictions by quite a bit. Nevertheless, the nett effect is still that whatever car competes in MME Class A needs to be more or less 'stock' and they can only be modified for racing from there. Great care was taken by HMRT to ensure that their MME Civics were fully compliant with both the FIA Article 255 as well as the MME Supplementary rules. In fact the only rule the HMRT Civics could not meet was the MME Supplementary Rule for the minimum weights for Class A competitors which is set at only 800kg. The HMRT Civics actually weigh in at 940 or 980kg (depending on which 'official' source I use, both of them from Honda), so they were really quite disadvantaged weight-wise for the race.

So the main chassis of both HMRT MME Civics are built locally by Honda using actual road cars from their Melaka assembly plant, But what about the rest of the car ? How much was built locally and how much was imported ? In the rest of this article, I will attempt to explain as much as possible, covering the the cars in two main sections, first the engine bay, and then the rest of the car including the cabin.

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