FK7 Time Attack/Daily Driver and NEW Civic X Products

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Hey folks, I'm making this thread to introduce myself, my company and our Civic! My name is Austin and our company is Wunderladen Racing, we're a recently established company but between us we've got over 30 years of manufacturing, test and validation with automotive parts. Our main focus is offering parts for the Civic X and Mitsubishi Evo platforms. Many of our products cater towards people who want to use their car on racetracks, autocross or anywhere there is competitive driving events.

I have a firm belief that the Civic X holds a ton of potential as a great candidate for people who want a daily driver that is affordable, good on gas, easy to modify, and able to be very capable around a racetrack. I spent a lot of time evaluating many different vehicle platforms to develop parts for but nothing offered as good of a balance of these characteristics as the 10th gen Civic.

We'll be fielding the car in Gridlife's ClubTR time attack class for the 2022 season. The class is limited to cars with naturally aspirated engines 2.5L and under and boosted engines 1.6L and under. Last year the class was largely dominated by K24 swapped Hondas but we're hoping to show that the 10th gen can hang with these heavily modified, swapped cars without needing to go to equally extreme lengths.

At the moment we've signed up for the following events:

• NCM (Apr 15-16)
• Midwest Fest (Jun 2-5)
• Alpine Fest (Sep 8-11)
• Undecided 4th event

Some of you may recognize the car, it was owned by another member here. It started life as a 2018 FK7 Sport and has been treated to a bunch of Si parts along with some modifications including:

Engine and Drivetrain:

• L15B7 Si longblock
• Factory Si turbo
• 27Won cold air intake
• Modified factory catback exhaust
• PRL intercooler and charge pipes
• PRL flex fuel kit
• Hasport engine mount package
• MFactory 1.5way clutch diff
• Clutchmaster FX725 clutch
• MAP oil cooler kit
• KTuner V2 tuner

Suspension and Brakes:

• BC Racing BR coilovers
• K Tuned toe arms
• DC5 Brembos
• Eibach rear sway bar
• Enkei NT03+M 18x10.5 w/255 Falken RT660 (F) 18x9.5 w/235 RT660 (R) (track)
• Enkei NT03+M 18x9.5 w/245 Hankook Ventus V12 (F+R) (street)

Exterior and Interior:

• Type R factory front seats
• Type R door cards
• Type R rear wing and hatch
• Evasive Type R rear wing element
• Acuity short shifter
• Acuity shifter bushings
• Acuity throttle pedal spacer
• Modified factory front fenders
• Mugen front lip
• 2020+ style upper grille

First things first I'm going through the car to take care of some maintenance, seal some leaks, address some concerns like some rubbing that's occurring on the oil cooler lines, and get some bolts in areas where they're wrong or missing.

Most of our starting products will be suspension and brake related. I'm very adamant about improving a chassis through suspension refinements before throwing more power at it. I'll be sharing our new products here as we get prototypes in from our local machine shop, everything we offer is made in the USA ??



One of my initial impressions when I gauged the market was the lack of a proper motorsports big brake kit. All of the factory brembo retrofit setups are far from ideal, and all of them have too much of an impact on brake bias, which can make ABS and VSA not work as well when they activate. The kit we're developing uses AP Racing calipers, for those not aware AP produces some of the most capable brake calipers out there. They're commonly used on IMSA and Nascar race cars along with many high end brake kits for other vehicle platforms.

These calipers offer tons of features not present with other options such as, stainless steel pistons, anti knockback springs, pad changes are just a matter of removing one bolt, there is just about every pad compound available for these calipers, pads are around the same cost as OEM brembos but the pads are much thicker so they last longer. The rotors have more thermal mass (32mm thick) so they'll last very long too; there will be options for both one and two piece rotors to give customers the ability to control their consumable cost, and best of all, we've balanced rotor diameter and piston sizes to make sure brake bias is changed less than 2% from the factory Si brake setup. We should have the prototype kit done in a few weeks! The photo below is just for mockup, I only had one spare caliper on hand to test fit with which is why it's upside down. If you guys have any questions about products or product requests feel free to post up here!

 

[Jawngriever]

This is seriously sick! Following this thread. Super interested for more info on the AP Racing BBK. I got introduced to AP Racing when I had my BRZ. Their BBK was THE kit to have for road racing.

 

[Tobiman]

Have you guys considered racing dampers from shaft works or redshift?

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

This is seriously sick! Following this thread. Super interested for more info on the AP Racing BBK. I got introduced to AP Racing when I had my BRZ. Their BBK was THE kit to have for road racing.

Thanks! I'm super excited to offer track capable brakes that give the customer control over multiple aspects.

Have you guys considered racing dampers from shaft works or redshift?

I'm still trying to figure out what route to go with the suspension. The ClubTR rules allow us to run 2 way adjustable coilovers so I'm not planning to stick with the BRs. I've reached out to a friend who does some sweet custom valved BCs but he's informed me that BC currently doesn't offer their ER or HM 2 ways for the Civic X.

Silver's suspension offers a 2 way but I'm not quite sold on them yet. I've also contacted Fortune Auto about doing their 520 2 way for the car but they seemed indifferent about it. I'm still not quite sure what route I'm going to try for at the moment. I think I want to do the NCM event on the BRs to establish something of a baseline.

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Been a minute without an update. Car has been apart while I've been mending a lot of things.

To start, I got a replacement engine out of a CRV. When I picked the car up the water in the cooling system was never replaced for coolant so the entire cooling system was frozen solid (yes that will happen in Chicago in January). The water pump impeller basically turned to dust and was pushed through the cooling system. Originally I had hoped I could flush the system and just toss a pump and gaskets at it but after doing all that work the car was mixing coolant and oil via the compromised head gasket and had a pretty heavy misfire. So with the racing season looming I decided it would be smarter to just put a new engine in than try to fix the engine in it. Luckily I was able to source a somewhat local (2 hour drive) engine out of a totaled CRV which is the same as the Civic Si engine save some minor things. If you guys are curious about the differences I can put together a list of everything I've found.

I tore the trans down too. When I got the car the trans was leaking and it was hard to tell exactly where the leak was coming from since oil was everywhere. I think I used 2 or 3 cans of degreaser just on the underside of the car trying to clean up oil that had ended up coating basically everything. After cleaning the trans off the only places that seemed to be leaking were both axle seals and the case halves themselves. I wasn't entirely sure the case halves were leaking but decided I didn't want to take any chances and have to pull it all again in case I was wrong. So i pulled it apart, and was immediately greeted with a loose bolt sitting at the bottom of the trans. Was able to figure out that the bolt was for a retaining tab that holds the countershaft in place.

Because of the trans scare I decided to double check bolt torques everywhere and make sure things were as they should be. I can't even count how many bolts I've found that were either way under torqued or way over torqued. The subframe for example, some I could loosen with a 12 inch ratchet, others I couldn't loosen with a 4 foot breaker bar and had to grab my impact with almost 1,200lbs of breakaway force and even then I had to sit on it for almost an entire minute.

I decided to put fender liners back in the car. I'm not sure why they were removed in the first place, the engine bay gets absolutely disgusting without the front liners in. I picked some cheap ones up on Ebay, and a few minutes with a knife and a blowtorch and I was able to make them fit with the modified fenders and allow the fender vent to remain somewhat functional. Pulled the front coilover spring to make sure they don't rub at fully compression and it's looking peachy.

Got new flywheel bolts in the mail the other day along with some other odds and ends to replace missing or incorrect fasteners that are scattered around the car. Just need to get the old oil pan swapped over and I can get the engine and trans back in the car and hopefully get it shaken down at a local track day before its first time attack event at NCM in a couple weeks. I will say, this is probably the easiest engine and trans to pull out of any modern car I've ever worked on. Honda really engineered these cars very well.

In some more lighter news. I picked up a Schroth quick fit pro harness which allows me to use a harness on track and the factory seat belt on the street. The pro version is compatible with a neck restraint which was a big plus to me. Really happy these exist to give some extra restraint and safety on track.

And finally the best news, Wunderladen Racing's prototype brake caliper brackets are complete and once we get calipers (back ordered) we can begin testing the brake kit and have it available to the community later this year! We also have some other product prototypes coming in shortly behind these so stay tuned for even more product announcements and go check out our Facebook and Instagram pages! Thanks guys!

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Prototype brackets are in hand and test fit. Everything fits up just perfect! Unfortunately calipers are back ordered until May (the caliper in the picture has different sized pistons so won't work). But at least I should be able to get a decent baseline with the DC5 Brembo swap vs these!

I also heard from our machine shop that they just finished up a couple more parts so in the next week we should be announcing a few more products too!

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Time is flying and things somehow feel like they're moving too fast and not at all at the same time. Took the car down to NCM for Gridlife's event there this past Friday and Saturday. The car did great, except for a few hiccups. It's on the stock tune at the moment and the car kept getting kicked into limp mode at seemingly random times on track which resulted in me losing 3 flying laps, not sure if it's something with the clutch pissing off the knock sensor or an issue with the intake but hoping that will be resolved with a tune. The last session I drove that happened and not having the pedal dance memorized I just hit the TC button. VSA kept kicking in more and more over the next 3 laps when I decided to cool the car off but it kept kicking in. Not sure what was making it so unhappy but it toasted the front driver's brake pretty hard.

This was my first time with the car on track and my first time driving NCM so I definitely left some time on the table, Was able to get it down to a 2:26.2 and I wholeheartedly believe it could do a 23 or 22 even on the stock tune but I need more than 15 laps to get there. NCM is not a quick track to pick up and 23 turns is a lot to string together just right.

With that said, I'm happy we were able to place somewhere just above the middle of the class in one of the only cars that drove to and from the event. It did the 1000 mile round trip with zero issues and I'm happy the car came away with no catastrophic failures. I'm hoping that after the car is tuned, not going into limp mode and has some better brakes that we can break into the top 5 or maybe get onto the podium at an event where I am more familiar with the track.

Our next event is at Gingerman Raceway here in MI June 2-5th. Shooting to get one test day in before then so we can make sure we got the bugs worked out and can bring our A game to the fight for that event! Still waiting on some on track photos to come by from the photogs.

We've also announced some more Civic products recently! Soon we'll have our upper strut locks and throttle body spacer available on the site. The strut locks are for use on cars that need more negative camber and have either pulled the factory locating pin from the strut top hats or are using aftermarket coilovers. These effectively fill in the remaining space in the slot to prevent the strut from slipping in the slot and changing the wheel alignment. it also helps put things back in place where they were when the car is worked on.

The throttle body spacer fits between the throttle body and intake manifold. It serves two purposes. First, it gives a nice smooth transition from the round throttle body to the oblong intake manifold inlet vs the sharp edge transition that's there without the spacer. Its second purpose is to give a good location to spray water or meth to cool off the intake charge. I know these cars tend to run pretty high charge temps so having a cooling solution is a great benefit. It seals using the factory o ring too so no messing around with annoying gaskets and it's easy to get replacements.

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Photos are starting to trickle in!

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

And more photos!

 

[ManitobaSI]

Any luck looking into a rear bbk. The type r calipers are actually the same and their are type r bbk. But the hole pattern is different. Unsure if the hub height is the same. But Likely is.

Also what did you need special to get the ctr seat in?

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Any luck looking into a rear bbk. The type r calipers are actually the same and their are type r bbk. But the hole pattern is different. Unsure if the hub height is the same. But Likely is.

Also what did you need special to get the ctr seat in?

I've not done any evaluation on the rear brakes other than running numbers for brake bias, but I'd be hesitant to make a rear bbk as it will lose the electronic parking brake which is part of the factory caliper.

As for the CTR seats, they were in the car when I got it but I did look at them a good amount and they appear to bolt up and plug right in without any modification. Just had to grab a scan tool to recalibrate the weight sensor in the passenger seat to get rid of a code that was turning on the airbag light on the cluster which was never addressed by the PO when he installed them.

 

[arpypat]

Would love to hear more details on that AP BBK!

There are several BBK options out there, but like you mentioned, the majority of them do not address the issue of bias as they were not designed from the ground-up.

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Would love to hear more details on that AP BBK!

There are several BBK options out there, but like you mentioned, the majority of them do not address the issue of bias as they were not designed from the ground-up.

Is there something in particular you'd like to know?

The rotors are from and Evo 8/9, the sizing just so happens to be exactly what's needed to keep bias happy with the AP calipers. We decided to go this route because it gives customers the option of saving money with 1 piece rotors or saving weight with 2 piece rotors. It also gives the customer a plethora of places they can buy rotors and pads. One of the things I always disliked about many aftermarket brake kits is that they force the customer to buy rotors from a single source, and sometimes that source has a delay on supplied parts (which is all too common nowadays) and that leaves the customer stranded with no options.

I could go on and on about the benefits the AP calipers offer, a lot of them I outlined a few posts up, but the reason I chose to use AP over any other caliper manufacturer is for a similar reason as the rotors. They're serviceable calipers, every part in the caliper has a part number, so if any part on the caliper gets damaged, misplaced or worn out, that single part can be replaced easily instead of having to purchase an entire new caliper or jump through hoops trying to track down something similar that would work as a replacement. They also use a very common pad shape so there's lots of compound options available to use with them.

The caliper brackets are made by our machine shop here in the midwest. They're made from 7075 aluminum, it's the strongest grade of aluminum that's commercially available. The bracket uses studs instead of bolts because it makes it easer to remove and install the caliper vs holding it all together and trying to line things up to get a bolt in. The studs are ARP studs too so they're plenty strong.

The caliper uses the same inlet hose size as the factory caliper so they'll work with factory brake lines although we will also offer braided lines with the kit as an option. I understand that not everyone can throw down a ton of cash all at once for mods and any BBK is considerably more costly than just doing pads and rotors, so being to able use factory lines and relatively cheap 1 piece rotors allows the customer to save some money up front and still get the meat and potatoes of the performance improvement. Then in the future they can upgrade to braided lines and 2 piece rotors to get the remaining improvements. It just makes things easier financially in the long run.

I generally like to put an emphasis on serviceability, replacement ease, and being able to upgrade in steps for products which is why they're designed the way they are. Sorry for the long winded response, I've spent a ton of time on this kit so we can offer something unique that will be able to be used effectively forever

 

[DPL8]

Time is flying and things somehow feel like they're moving too fast and not at all at the same time. Took the car down to NCM for Gridlife's event there this past Friday and Saturday. The car did great, except for a few hiccups. It's on the stock tune at the moment and the car kept getting kicked into limp mode at seemingly random times on track which resulted in me losing 3 flying laps, not sure if it's something with the clutch pissing off the knock sensor or an issue with the intake but hoping that will be resolved with a tune. The last session I drove that happened and not having the pedal dance memorized I just hit the TC button. VSA kept kicking in more and more over the next 3 laps when I decided to cool the car off but it kept kicking in. Not sure what was making it so unhappy but it toasted the front driver's brake pretty hard.

This was my first time with the car on track and my first time driving NCM so I definitely left some time on the table, Was able to get it down to a 2:26.2 and I wholeheartedly believe it could do a 23 or 22 even on the stock tune but I need more than 15 laps to get there. NCM is not a quick track to pick up and 23 turns is a lot to string together just right.

With that said, I'm happy we were able to place somewhere just above the middle of the class in one of the only cars that drove to and from the event. It did the 1000 mile round trip with zero issues and I'm happy the car came away with no catastrophic failures. I'm hoping that after the car is tuned, not going into limp mode and has some better brakes that we can break into the top 5 or maybe get onto the podium at an event where I am more familiar with the track.

Our next event is at Gingerman Raceway here in MI June 2-5th. Shooting to get one test day in before then so we can make sure we got the bugs worked out and can bring our A game to the fight for that event! Still waiting on some on track photos to come by from the photogs.

We've also announced some more Civic products recently! Soon we'll have our upper strut locks and throttle body spacer available on the site. The strut locks are for use on cars that need more negative camber and have either pulled the factory locating pin from the strut top hats or are using aftermarket coilovers. These effectively fill in the remaining space in the slot to prevent the strut from slipping in the slot and changing the wheel alignment. it also helps put things back in place where they were when the car is worked on.

The throttle body spacer fits between the throttle body and intake manifold. It serves two purposes. First, it gives a nice smooth transition from the round throttle body to the oblong intake manifold inlet vs the sharp edge transition that's there without the spacer. Its second purpose is to give a good location to spray water or meth to cool off the intake charge. I know these cars tend to run pretty high charge temps so having a cooling solution is a great benefit. It seals using the factory o ring too so no messing around with annoying gaskets and it's easy to get replacements.

See you at MW fest !

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

See you at MW fest !

Definitely! Would love to meet more faces in the Civic community!

I was hoping for one test day between now and MW fest but now I've got 2 with another potential 2 more! Car should be well shaken down by then, just need to cross my fingers at least one of those days is wet, I don't think my current set of RT660s will make it thru MW fest otherwise!

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