Rain-Soaked Horsepower: Turning a 2007 Accord Into a LAP consuming menace
If you’ve ever wondered what separates a “project car” from a “race team,” the answer is simple: a project car waits for good weather. A race team grabs the tools, ignores the forecast, and proceeds to get absolutely drenched while pretending it’s all part of the plan.
Today was one of those days for Black Flag Racing.
The forecast called for more cold and plenty rain. The sky delivered. The driveway turned into a slip-and-slide. And our 2007 Honda Accord—already well on its way from “responsible commuter” to “endurance machine”—sat there patiently, like it knew we weren’t going to reschedule.
So we got to work. In the rain. Because deep down we all know race prep doesn’t care about your comfort, your socks, or your dignity.
The Great Air Box Eviction
First on the agenda: removing the old factory air box and resonator. If you’ve never pulled an intake system from an older daily driver, imagine extracting a stubborn plastic octopus from a crowded engine bay. It’s always bigger than you think, it refuses to come out at a sensible angle, and the entire operation is somehow coated in a film of grit that ends up on your hands, your sleeves, and eventually your face.
But out it came—air box and resonator officially evicted. The Accord took a deep breath, looked around, and realized it was about to be forced into endurance athletics.
With the factory parts out of the way, we installed a cold air intake. The term “cold air” is hilarious in a soaked driveway, because everything is cold air when you’re working in the rain. Still, the intake is a win: fewer restrictions, a little more responsiveness, and one more step toward getting the Accord to stop acting like it’s on its way to a parent-teacher conference.
Will it add fifty horsepower? No. Will it add a more aggressive intake sound that convinces us it added fifty horsepower? Fingers crossed.
Next up: fresh spark plugs. We went with NGK plugs from Advanced Auto Parts, because there are two universal truths in racing: spark matters, and you should never ignore the parts store that’s open when you’re in a hurry.
Swapping plugs is one of those jobs that’s both satisfying and mildly insulting. It’s satisfying because you’re doing real maintenance that can improve performance and reliability. It’s insulting because the weather makes it feel like you’re defusing a bomb with wet gloves. Thankfully the old plugs looked old, but they didn’t look like they had been subjected to oil leaks or air-fuel mixture issues.
The old plugs came out with a little help from some old rubber hose and the NGK plugs went in clean, giving the Accord got a nice little tune-up in the process.
Finally, we installed Mishimoto ignition coils from Summit Racing. Reliable spark is the kind of boring upgrade that wins endurance races—or at least thats the idea. These coils are one of those quiet confidence boosters: you don’t necessarily see the difference, but you feel better knowing the ignition system is less likely to throw a tantrum after hours of abuse.
And yes—every bit of this was completed in the rain. Tools got soaked. Clothes got soaked. Morale got… dampened, then immediately restored by the fact that we refuse to let weather bully us and the car started up afterward without any issues.
The Accord is now breathing better, sparking stronger, and inching closer to the version of itself that will spend long hours on track doing what it was designed to do: survive.
Black Flag Racing doesn’t wait for perfect conditions. We build in whatever conditions we’ve got—and we’ll race the same way.
If we can continue to turn an Accord into an endurance car in the rain, imagine what we can do when it’s dry.
