Civic Type R at the track, goods and bads! Let's share our experience.

[Toshagi]

A Scangauge will only pick up the coolant temp. You need to know the PID numbers to read the oil and pressure numbers. The PID numbers are very difficult to obtain. You're probably better off running an aftermarket oil/water temp and oil pressure sensors.

Hi all, I've only done one track day this past November on Alleggerita HLT 18X8.5 with Pirelli PZero 235/45 UHP all seasons, everything else bone stock. I'm new to HPD, so went to a smaller track for the first time - Englishtown, NJ, it's about 1.5 miles, technical track with lots of turns and kind of rough surface. You get a lot of track time with their driving school; the day was chilly and there was some rainwater here and there on the track for the first hour. Car felt great and no overheating issues with 7-8 laps per session - but like I said, the weather was maybe slightly below 40F with wind.
Question for everyone: my oil indicator shows 50% oil life at ~1,500 miles. Would you say this is normal and what do you recommend in terms of how frequently to change the oil, what specs and brand oil to use, etc? I've seen in other strings people recommending Motul and Red Line, different specs from what Honda recommends, but wanted to get input from people with track experience. Thanks.

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[Stig_jdm]

Team Honda Research West Team ran two Civic Type Rs at the 25 hours of Thunderhill. The cars were allegedly stock besides the required safety modifications. They both completed the race, but I'm not sure if they ran into overheating issues. I wonder if they were only pushing the car at 75% to keep the temps under control.

True. As far as i know it was stock, but they did remove the condenser and A/C unit. This might be enough to solve the issue. It seems to me the overheating issue is not a major design issue, but rather a slightly undersized cooling system that a small tweak will solve. As I said, in my case, just by leaving the heater on it prevented any overheating issues. And trust me, I was hammering the car for the full session.

 

[nojeebs]

Thanks, bro. I almost joined that track day at Chuckwalla. It would've been fun. Nice driving. Agree with watching the rev limit and being hard to tell from the stock exhaust.

I am also looking forward for coilovers/camber plate. There is a LOT of suspension travel on the stock suspension.

Hopefully we will meet at the track soon. View attachment 81871

I signed up for Willow on April with the same group. Let me know on ig if you plan to go! (kazuo_wfc)

 

[jonnys_honda]

I signed up for Willow on April with the same group. Let me know on ig if you plan to go! (kazuo_wfc)

Stig, myself and another R owner are going 2/11 to Buttonwillow. Come along!

 

[yargk]

Team Honda Research West Team ran two Civic Type Rs at the 25 hours of Thunderhill. The cars were allegedly stock besides the required safety modifications. They both completed the race, but I'm not sure if they ran into overheating issues. I wonder if they were only pushing the car at 75% to keep the temps under control.

I went up to spectate. It was quite cold that day and they removed the AC condenser, which helps airflow.

It seems on very cold winter days that the car might not be bothered by a 20 minute session, but it also seems guaranteed that if you know how to drive, and it's 95 F outside, you're going to have a bad day with the car (limp mode after limp mode). I've heard conflicting advice on what to do, some say oil cooler, some say intercooler, other say that intercooler isn't worth it because it just heat soaks. I can't wait until the heat of this summer and we have enough people with mods to learn what the silver bullet is and what isn't necessary. I'm speculating, but my guess is that if the 25 hrs of thunderhill were run in June, that the AC mod wouldn't be enough to keep the car cool.

 

[lawl]

I went up to spectate. It was quite cold that day and they removed the AC condenser, which helps airflow.

It seems on very cold winter days that the car might not be bothered by a 20 minute session, but it also seems guaranteed that if you know how to drive, and it's 95 F outside, you're going to have a bad day with the car (limp mode after limp mode). I've heard conflicting advice on what to do, some say oil cooler, some say intercooler, other say that intercooler isn't worth it because it just heat soaks. I can't wait until the heat of this summer and we have enough people with mods to learn what the silver bullet is and what isn't necessary. I'm speculating, but my guess is that if the 25 hrs of thunderhill were run in June, that the AC mod wouldn't be enough to keep the car cool.

Having done quite a few track days in super hot weather, the best answer is to stay home lol.

You're miserable, the car is miserable, you're all sweaty, and if you go on any agricultural excursions the dust cakes on you because you're sweaty, and your seats have your sweat all over them. then when you're NOT running you're just dodging the sun all day.

screw it.

 

[PRL Motorsports]

The ac removed will deffantily improve cooling temps!
Our tires were destroyed but not chunking, the track surface is fairly smooth with repave about a year ago.

Our intercooler greatly reduced iat temps and still allows better airflow to the radiator, its been on 3 cars now fro about 6 months and our production version begin shipping next week.

We have some eibach springs were looking forward to throwing on and we will be maxing out the front and rear camber as well, we have some tricks we've used in the past with our road race cars that will work.

The procedure to turn vsa off is
1. Turn car to on position
2. Parking brake off
3. Press and hold brake pedal
4. Turn traction control on and off
5. Parking brake on
6. Release brake pedal
7. Turn traction control on and off
8. Press and hold brake pedal
9. Turn traction control on and off

The VSA light will light up and another similar but with the letters "OFF" will be blinking.

 

[yargk]

Having done quite a few track days in super hot weather, the best answer is to stay home lol.

You're miserable, the car is miserable, you're all sweaty, and if you go on any agricultural excursions the dust cakes on you because you're sweaty, and your seats have your sweat all over them. then when you're NOT running you're just dodging the sun all day.

screw it.

I hear you and have started to prefer the cooler Sonoma and Laguna in the summer, but avoiding the heat completely means no Thunderhill all summer, basically. I put 95 F as a "reasonable" day, imho. You can watch the weather, it says it's going to be 90 F or 85 F and it's often easily 95 F. I've personally done 100 F days and had fun and I know someone who has down a 110 F day in a GT4 without issue.

My goal would be to prep the car so it can do five 20 minutes sessions, at 100 F, no problem besides a "normal" decrease in performance just due to thermodynamics and air density, not the ecu going nuts.

 

[Banshee]

I have took it to multiple track days. When I went to Indy with the Porsche Club, It was around 80 degrees ambient temp. My coolant temp rose to about 3/4 up, but it came down on the cooldown lap. Multiple days at Mid-Ohio, and the only issue I had, and the Instructor had, was the fuel issue, this was at the end of October.. A Honda Engineer(he also experienced it) was there, and said it was the low pressure fuel pump, that feeds the high pressure fuel pump. The said a recall could be coming. I was coming up and around the "Keyhole" to the back straight. All the fuel rushes to the front of the drivers side. Sometimes I was 1/4 tank, once was almost 1/2 tank, depends on how hard you push it around that Keyhole. Times were between 1:42 and 1:45

Edit: After 250 mile drive, the 3 full days(6, 20 Min sessions each day and a 30 min session the last day) at Indy(IMS), and 250 miles back, I had the same separation on my front drivers tire(Probably from one of the High speed chicanes on the back side). I had 265/30-19 Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires. No rubbing anywhere on the body.. So those tires had a very large workout...so, they might have gotten a little overheated and rolled some. Even as a Touring tire, it done well, but they weren't meant to abused like that...

 

[Gansan]

Hi all, I've only done one track day this past November on Alleggerita HLT 18X8.5 with Pirelli PZero 235/45 UHP all seasons, everything else bone stock. I'm new to HPD, so went to a smaller track for the first time - Englishtown, NJ, it's about 1.5 miles, technical track with lots of turns and kind of rough surface. You get a lot of track time with their driving school; the day was chilly and there was some rainwater here and there on the track for the first hour. Car felt great and no overheating issues with 7-8 laps per session - but like I said, the weather was maybe slightly below 40F with wind.
Question for everyone: my oil indicator shows 50% oil life at ~1,500 miles. Would you say this is normal and what do you recommend in terms of how frequently to change the oil, what specs and brand oil to use, etc? I've seen in other strings people recommending Motul and Red Line, different specs from what Honda recommends, but wanted to get input from people with track experience. Thanks.

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who is posting their experiences. I'm reading this with interest since I'll be taking the car out soon. (I'm in SoCal so I'll probably show up at Big Willow or Buttonwillow, so hopefully I can meet some of you.)

Regarding the oil life indicator, I would say that's probably normal and to be believed. It's just an indicator of the high oil temperatures and high rpm running and it's correctly reflecting the faster deterioration of the oil. If the oil life still said 90% both before and after a track event, then that's when I would say you can't trust it.

Edit: Just for comparison, my oil life indicator is at 90% after 1400 miles. And that is 100% mild street driving, city and highway. Compared to your example, this also indicates the monitor is correctly subtracting relatively few "wear points" from the oil when experiencing mild driving duty.

 

[Stig_jdm]

The ac removed will deffantily improve cooling temps!
Our tires were destroyed but not chunking, the track surface is fairly smooth with repave about a year ago.

Our intercooler greatly reduced iat temps and still allows better airflow to the radiator, its been on 3 cars now fro about 6 months and our production version begin shipping next week.

We have some eibach springs were looking forward to throwing on and we will be maxing out the front and rear camber as well, we have some tricks we've used in the past with our road race cars that will work.

The procedure to turn vsa off is
1. Turn car to on position
2. Parking brake off
3. Press and hold brake pedal
4. Turn traction control on and off
5. Parking brake on
6. Release brake pedal
7. Turn traction control on and off
8. Press and hold brake pedal
9. Turn traction control on and off

The VSA light will light up and another similar but with the letters "OFF" will be blinking.

I agree larger intercooler is a very good mod. I am looking forward to having Hondata released and I will probably do downpipe, I/C and tune. This should be it powerwise.

Regarding the suspension, the springs will help a bit, but I am planning to wait a little longer and go full coilovers. Camber bolts and removing the upper guide pin should allow some negative camber that will make a good difference.

I am wondering how the procedure you described is different from the one I described. The one I described shows something like "VSA system completely off". Isn't it completely off then?

Thanks for the input!

 

[jonnys_honda]

I agree larger intercooler is a very good mod. I am looking forward to having Hondata released and I will probably do downpipe, I/C and tune. This should be it powerwise.

Regarding the suspension, the springs will help a bit, but I am planning to wait a little longer and go full coilovers. Camber bolts and removing the upper guide pin should allow some negative camber that will make a good difference.

I am wondering how the procedure you described is different from the one I described. The one I described shows something like "VSA system completely off". Isn't it completely off then?

Thanks for the input!

HKS coilovers amongst others are near completion. I’ve done R&D with them so not too much longer...

 

[Stig_jdm]

HKS coilovers amongst others are near completion. I’ve done R&D with them so not too much longer...

Nice. Can you provide more details of what kind of R&D you participated?

 

[jonnys_honda]

Nice. Can you provide more details of what kind of R&D you participated?

initial measurements with the suspension system, exhaust, intake, and bov development. They then shipped out all the prototypes to Japan for testing on their Type R. They want to make parts that will fit on both RHD and LHD FK8 chassis. So we should all receive news about their products this weekend at HKS Premium day on 1/28/2018.

 

[Gansan]

To those who are posting their track experiences, I think it would also be helpful to include the tire pressures they settled on (hot) when they are on track.

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