Tag: Track Days

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Fully modded!

Over the course of the nearly two years I’ve owned my Type R, I immediately started accumulating parts to not only enhance its performance on the track, but to give it a bit more pizazz in the style I like. Hanging out on the CivicXI.com forums and reading of others’ experiences on track, I knew that early indications were that the FL5 platform was better than the FK8 platform at heat dissipation, but there there was still a lot of room for improvement. I also knew that while some were happy that the looks of the FL5 had been taken down a notch from the ‘boy racer’ look of the FK8, I wasn’t quite ready to grow up.

The other big deficit this car had was sound… it had no indication that it was anything more than a normal Civic hatchback. I decided to address all of these perceived deficits and do what I could to bring it up to my standards.

Parts. Lots of parts. Thousands of dollars of parts. While I got out from under my BMW M2 Competition due to parts costs, the Civic Type R isn’t nearly as bad as the BMW tax, but it still sometimes shocks my pre-pandemic sensibilities.

I’ve come to rely on @TwoStepPerformance / TwoStepPerformance.com as a trusted source of the parts I’ve read about and determined I’d like to add to my vehicle. I started sifting through their site and picked up as many of these parts on my list from them as possible. I’ve found Two Step to be a great partner to deal with: good pricing, good selection of quality products, and excellent customer communication and support.

A buddy of mine found me a great deal on a used APR Swan Neck wing, and after coaxing the seller to package the wing and sell it to me, I took on that project and installed it. I knew it would look great paired with the APR front lip I was having installed, and it looks as good as I anticipated.

After getting over my fear of invalidating my car’s warranty, I finally decided it jump in and get this project moving. First up, I wanted to get the car dyno’d in stock trim to get a feel for what it was making before I threw all these parts at it. I made an appointment at Round Lake Auto to have Roz do some dyno runs of my car. Roz was very friendly, as was everyone at the shop, and had me sitting in the car to watch my car’s process of doing some dyno runs, then uploading my tune from @JesterTuned / JesterTuned.com. I’ll do a full write-up on planning for my tuning of the Type R. For a brief overview, I ordered a spare ECM, purchasing an Acura Integra Type S engine control module (ECM) because a) it’s the same the Type R’s, and b) availability is better and it’s cheaper.

The dyno measurement proved that Jester found a lot of performance that Honda left on the manufacturing floor, boosting the FL5’s performance numbers:

Mustang DynoStockJesterTunedGains
Wheel HP260 HP @ 6.7k rpm302 HP @ 5800 rpm+42 HP
Torque (ft-lb)280 ft-lb @ 3k rpm341 ft-lb @ 3.3k rpm+61 ft-lb

Next up was reaching out to All Tech Automotive and get some time scheduled for an install appointment for all of this stuff. As a testament to the Type R’s storage capacity, I got all but the intercooler into the car. It was so packed, I could not see out the rightside mirror or even the right side of the car, but it help almost all of the parts I’d bought. Semir & Jake of All Tech did a fantastic job of installing the parts, but we had to push some of the project out in order to make my Lime Rock Park track day event. Time ran out before my track day at Lime Rock Park to get my Whiteline Front Camber adjustment kit installed, so that will get done soon.

One thing that popped up immediately (other than the turbo and downpipe blankets curing and smoking lightly on the way home after everything was buttoned up and I drove it for the first time), was a well-known issue of the low-temp thermostat causing a P0128 CEL. Apparently Honda wants the engine to come up to temp quickly for several reasons, so the early opening thermostat triggers the code. The error on the dash warns that power will be reduced, and that the auto-rev match function will be disabled. I found no evidence that the car’s power had been reduced, as the car seemed plenty powerful during my on-track sessions, but indeed the rev matching function was disabled, which I missed since I’m not a great heel-toe guy. I reached out to Jester to see if anything could be done to address the code being triggered, and Jester sent me a new flash tune that would keep the code from being triggered. I ended up flashing my FL5 at the track after the 1st day of on track activities, Sure enough, the code was gone, and I regained my auto-rev matching during the following sessions of the day.

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The BMW Tax

I’ve had a few months now of ownership of the BMW M2 Comp, and while I’ve found the new car very comfortable to run around with on the streets, and it’s been fun to be competitive in stock form at the autocrosses, I’ve been actually shocked by the cost of aftermarket parts for this car. Prices for parts have been twice to nearly five times as high as what I was used to paying for my Mitsubishi Evo. Camber plates? $350 versus $750. Intake? $400 versus $800. Front brake pads? $230 versus $800.

The economics of the BMW have taken a good amount of the joy of owning the M2C out of the equation for me. While I thought I was making a statement by avoiding paying an outrageous markup on a used Civic Type R, I think I’ve fallen into a similar financial pit with the cost of parts for the M2 Competition.

Doing the reliability mods first: replacing OEM plastic charge pipes and J-pipe with ARM silicone charge pipes and an ARM aluminum J-pipe. Adding in a Burger Motorsports oil catch can while I’m in the engine bay.

I’ve consulted with some friends who own and track similar M2 Competitions, and I’ve gotten some good advice on what’s needed to enhance the car’s performance at the track and to keep costs down in the process. The paths of the two friends provide the choice between two road maps: A) minimal mods to enhance performance and minimize costs, and B) significant mods to… enhance performance and minimize long-term costs at the expense of significant upfront costs.

In the minimal mod corner, I’ve gotten the suggestion of getting some camber plates to address the limits of the stock front camber adjustment range in order to even out wear on the front tires, which I’ve been told will typically get more wear on the outside edges. However, this leaves uncovered several drawbacks that track use vehicle owners will recognize, not only with tires, but some other components as well. Let’s look at the tire issues.

The stock wheel & tire setup, which isn’t “square” (i.e. the same all around), is a 245/35R19 front tire and 265/35R19 rear tire setup. The OEM wider rear tire configuration means that you can’t rotate tires front to back, which can help even out wear and prolong the life of your track tires. On top of the lack of a rotation option, the pricing and selection of performance tires in this 19″ sizing is pricey and limited. Michelin makes a great tire, but you pay for that quality and performance. The experience of owners says that there are better (and cheaper) choices in the 18″ tire sizes, but there is an issue with that: OEM brake rotors do not allow you to convert to 18″ wheels due to the stock M2 Competition rotors’ diameter being so large as to require 19″ wheels. To break out of this 19″ wheel limitation, you’ll need to jump to option B as mentioned previously.

Option B, the significant mods method, you make some significant investments in brake packages and new 18″ wheels, and then reap the rewards of cheaper options for tires, longer lifespan of those tires, and significant savings on brake pads. However, to get to these benefits, you’ll need to grit your teeth and be prepared to part ways with over $10k worth of upgrades and parts. First up, would be a brake kit to accommodate 18″ wheels. I’ve used AP Racing brake kits from Essex Parts, and they are quality kits. Brake pads are significantly cheaper for these brake kits than they are for the stock Brembo calipers the M2 Competition come with, but the prices of these kits are eye-watering compared to what I paid for the kit I put on my Evo. The Evo kit I had went for roughly $2400, while the cheapest kit I could go with for the M2C is over $4700! Where I really start to cry is that cost only covers the front brakes; to cover the rear brakes would require another kit and cost another $4400!! These rotors are slightly smaller than the OEM stock rotors, and thus fit 18″ wheels, but provide comparable braking performance so that you don’t lose anything in the conversion, other than a significant portion of your bank account.

So, you’ve gone $9200 into downsizing the brakes to fit 18″ wheels & tires, now it’s time to purchase those wheels. Wheels in the sizes needed for the M2C – say, 18×9 or 18×9.5 – typically are running at minimum $2k or more.

Another option I’ve seen some owners take is simply plus sizing the front tire widths and squaring up the setup – 265s all around. This requires some new wheels – APEX has a great guide on this setup.

I figure I’ll do a track day first before figuring out what direction I may want to go with the car. Next steps are setting up an appointment at Highline Motorsports to get the camber plates installed and do a whole vehicle fluids change (thanks Henry @ BimmerWorld for putting together a package for me). Then, I’ll be hitting a track day at Lime Rock Park with Patroon Chapter BMW CCA.

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Search for a new track toy is ON

If you’ve done any research recently on purchasing a new or used vehicle, you’ll quickly discover that now is a terrible time to purchase a car. I’ve found this out in spades while investigating some of the sports cars that I’m interested in.

Recently took a test drive in a like-new 2021 Honda Civic Type R. This one was located at my local Acura dealer, so I arranged to take a look at it and see if I had any complaints with it. Unfortunately for me, I loved it. The car has great power, rides reasonably well, and I fit in it just fine. However, the huge drawback to a Civic Type R these days are the outrageous markups that dealers put on them. This car had a window decal out the factory for around $39,000. Current price? $47,205. These types of markups are insulting at best, and I refuse to participate. Besides, a gentleman I met while selling off some of my motorsports tires has warned me that the current FK8 generation of the Type R needs some modifications to address heat (hood vents, oil cooler) in order to make it truly trackworthy.

To avoid the ridiculous Honda markups, I’ve also turned some attention to a gently used BMW M2 Competition coupe. These cars are another magnitude of expense – roughly in the low to mid $60,000 range – but their pricing is much more in line with their value, at least from a percentage perspective. Sure, you can find the odd M2C out there that has some dealer believing someone will drop $71,000 on one, but there are some M2s that are priced much more reasonably and appear ready to sell. I’ve entertained the idea of placing an order for a ’23 M2 Competition, but the advice of my One Lap buddy Christo keeps ringing in my head: “Never buy the first year of production of a BMW”.

Toyota has released their pricing for another contestant: the 2023 Toyota Supra 3.0 w/ a manual transmission: $53,595. That’s a bit lower than the M2 Competition, but still is considerable. I’m thinking I should find one to sit in so that perhaps I can rule it out from an ergonomic standpoint, but even if I do like it, I’m curious as to whether Toyota dealers will play the same games as Honda dealers do. I’m hoping I can get some clarity on what I want in the next month or two.

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Open Track Day – Lime Rock Park

Attended Patroon BMW CCA‘s Open Track event Saturday, June 20, 2020 at Lime Rock Park, and it was great to get back to the track. Things were a bit strange, what with social distancing and masks, but we got used to it quickly and focused on turning laps. This was a successful event for Patroon, and we were discussing what factors went into that. Was it the end of quarantine for many? Was it the open track format? We’d like to repeat the success of the event, that’s for sure!

Here’s a video of one of the first sessions of the day from my Evo.