FK7 Time Attack/Daily Driver and NEW Civic X Products

[pinhead66]

Oof

I'm actually pretty surprised by that given the total cost of the kit.




Those who really want to minimize consumables will really appreciate being able to pick up 350z centric 125 series blanks for <$100 a piece. I will probably start with something basic like this.

The z1 2-piece look like an extremely good value for an upgrade, though. At 16.8 lbs they're actually lighter than the stock Si rotors (17.1lbs). $549 for the full rotor, and then replacement rings are only $340. Hmmm...

I’m on the same page and was eyeing those centric high carbon 125 blanks. Only $91 each on tirerack. Either that or slotted rotors from brakeperformance.com for around the same price. The 350z rotors are 3 lbs heavier than Si rotors but i’m sure the ebc caliper will weigh around 2-3 lbs less than a Si caliper and negate any weight increase.

Sponsored

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

I’m on the same page and was eyeing those centric high carbon 125 blanks. Only $91 each on tirerack. Either that or slotted rotors from brakeperformance.com for around the same price. The 350z rotors are 3 lbs heavier than Si rotors but i’m sure the ebc caliper will weigh around 2-3 lbs less than a Si caliper and negate any weight increase.

The loaded caliper (caliper, pads, hardware, mounting bracket) is just a tick over 9.5lbs, so bit over 5lbs lighter than the stock equivalent. The rotors I have here for the 350Z are 20.5lbs so I expect any 1 piece to be right around 20lbs. Based on what I've seen for most of the 2 piece offerings for the 350Z they tend to be in the 15-17lb range.


One thing I'd like to take a minute to mention because I feel it's important and I haven't seen it talked about much on the forum is fixed vs floating rotors. There are two types of 2 piece rotors, fixed and floating. Both of them provide relatively equal amounts of weight reduction but when it comes to putting lots of heat into the brakes (like on track) thermal expansion becomes pretty important. As rotors heat up they expand, obviously the outside edge grows outward, but the inside edge is also trying to grow outward.

With a fixed rotor (this applies to 1 piece rotors as well) the center hat is clamped in a fixed position on the friction ring. So when the inside of the rotor tries to grow outward, it is unable to do so. What ends up happening is the rotor "cups" where the rotor face bends inward because the expansion has to go somewhere. This can cause warping and cracking as well as uneven pad wear in extreme cases.

With a floating rotor the friction ring is affixed to the center hat in a way where they are still retained together but the friction ring isn't clamped to the hat. Usually this is accomplished by having slotted holes in either the ring or the hat and instead of just using a nut and bolt to affix them together there is a drive pin (called a bobbin) which serves as a way to allow movement of the inside of the rotor when heat causes it to grow outward. Since thermal expansion isn't restricted that cupping doesn't occur so cracking is reduced and pad wear is more even.

The 2 main downsides of floating rotors is that they tend to be noisy when cold (usually make a small clicking sound), and are a fair bit more expensive than fixed 2 piece rotors. So if you want 2 piece rotors and your car is mainly street driven a fixed 2 piece rotor may better suit your needs.

We're still talking to EBC about getting a (floating) 2 piece 350Z rotor on the market but they've mentioned there are some clearance issues in the 350Z application with their factory Brembo calipers. I'll be rocking 1 piece rotors for a fair bit to validate them in the kit but if I were to go out and pair some floating 2 piece rotors with our kit I would opt for the Paragon rotors. They seem to be one of the best valued 2 piece floating rotors I've seen and their track record seems very good.

I need to get better at making short posts

 

[st4xor]

I need to get better at making short posts

I'm sure someday you'll get to the point where you just relink posts, but in the meantime i know I for one (and clearly there are many others) appreciate the engineering explanation with all the pros/cons (including the livability ones) laid out.

Looking forward to enjoying the low cost of 1-piece rotors without regret

 

[ManitobaSI]

Any update on front compliance mounts for Si?

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Any update on front compliance mounts for Si?

Thanks for the reminder, we were talking with Powerflex about making it but haven't heard from them for a bit so will need to poke them again.

I have something pretty cool in my head I want to do for the front suspension that'll be a good step up from everything else on the market but it's going to take some time to get measured and designed

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Any update on front compliance mounts for Si?

To update on this, I've talked with Powerflex further and it is on their development list. I made a thread here to gauge interest as more interest from the community will push them to develop it faster.

On another note, our EBC kit has been working great so far in testing. I've got a track weekend coming up April 15-16th so will get to push it then. We're still waiting on our first batch of brackets to come in and there is a delay from EBC for getting lines so we're trying to get that sorted before an official announcement.

Will also have a new clutch in the car later this week so we can finally get it on the dyno and do some A-B testing on some stuff

 

[pinhead66]

To update on this, I've talked with Powerflex further and it is on their development list. I made a thread here to gauge interest as more interest from the community will push them to develop it faster.

On another note, our EBC kit has been working great so far in testing. I've got a track weekend coming up April 15-16th so will get to push it then. We're still waiting on our first batch of brackets to come in and there is a delay from EBC for getting lines so we're trying to get that sorted before an official announcement.

Will also have a new clutch in the car later this week so we can finally get it on the dyno and do some A-B testing on some stuff

What are the specs on those NT03?

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

What are the specs on those NT03?

These are the street set which are an 18x9.5 +40. For the track set the fronts are an 18x10.5 +30. The street set has a 25mm spacer up front but the brakes have about 15mm of spoke clearance.

 

[pinhead66]

These are the street set which are an 18x9.5 +40. For the track set the fronts are an 18x10.5 +30. The street set has a 25mm spacer up front but the brakes have about 15mm of spoke clearance.

I’m a bit surprised that a spacer is needed to clear those calipers even with 9.5 wide wheels. Is it because of the concavity of the face? Any estimation on how much further out the caliper sticks out vs oem? Just excited to figure out if my wheels will clear. Sorry for the pestering. You can just tell me to shoosh and wait for the official announcement.

 

[86salmon]

I’m a bit surprised that a spacer is needed to clear those calipers even with 9.5 wide wheels. Is it because of the concavity of the face? Any estimation on how much further out the caliper sticks out vs oem? Just excited to figure out if my wheels will clear. Sorry for the pestering. You can just tell me to shoosh and wait for the official announcement.

I was curious how they got the Enkei to clear. 20mm spacer seems the norm for nto and rpf running Acura and other make 4pot calipers

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

I’m a bit surprised that a spacer is needed to clear those calipers even with 9.5 wide wheels. Is it because of the concavity of the face? Any estimation on how much further out the caliper sticks out vs oem? Just excited to figure out if my wheels will clear. Sorry for the pestering. You can just tell me to shoosh and wait for the official announcement.

I am still working on getting a template made for wheel fitment. The NT03 caliper clearance is mediocre, not as bad as an RPF1 but there are definitely wheels with better spoke design for caliper clearance.

With the DC5 Brembos that were on the car when I got it there was ~5-6mm clearance so we've got ~8-10mm better clearance than most factory Brembo retrofits I would guess.

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Whew, finally wrapped up the clutch job tonight. Spent 2-3 hours the past few nights getting it done, cleaning the underside of the car and measuring some other stuff for some potential future products!

This is the first time I've dropped just the trans and I was tempted to just pull the engine with the trans and do it out of the car because that wasn't too bad last time when I swapped the motor, I decided to drop the subframe and go out the bottom because I wanted to see how both ways compared. With access to a lift and plenty of tools at my disposal I'd say it was a 6/10 job for difficulty. Definitely not too bad, just some key things that have to be remembered and there are a lot of steps involved. If I had to do it without a lift it would definitely be a whole hell of a lot harder.

I ended up grabbing an ACT HDSS to replace the failed Clutch Masters 725 twin disc. Overall first impressions are amusing to me because of how much more tame this clutch is. The 725 wasn't terrible in pedal effort but the ACT is so low effort that I had to make sure the clutch was even actuating at first haha. Now I'm curious what a stock clutch feels like in these cars. The ACT grabs a fair bit lower in the pedal travel which I like and the best part is it doesn't chatter and rattle like crazy which was all the 725 did, I could barely hear the engine over the clutch chatter at idle.

I did toss them both on a scale, the entire 725 clutch setup is 21.4lbs and the ACT is 32.6lbs (the ACT flywheel alone is 22lbs). The car is still buried in the shop so I won't be able to get out and drive it until tomorrow but so far I'm liking it just from how it feels moving the car back and forth a few feet.

I will post up some photos of the CM 725 twin and the condition it's in later (spoiler: it's not good) and my thoughts as to why it ended up failing. In the mean time I need to get miles on the car to get the new clutch broken in before our dyno day event at the shop next weekend! I'm hoping to get a solid comparison between high boost on 93, low boost on E30 and high boost on E30. Moving forward we should be doing some A-B tests on the dyno when the opportunities present themselves

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Almost 250 miles on the ACT clutch so far and definitely liking it. For sure a tad easier to drive than the CM twin but really the best part is how much quieter this clutch is, I can actually hear myself think when I'm in the car at idle.

The other big positive is the car no longer has an odd resonance in the low RPM range which would cause the car to buck pretty hard if you shifted early (like one normally does while daily driving). The only thing I can think to cause this is how light the twin was. I've heard others mention that they've had to disable the misfire detection with the CM twin and I think the bucking and the seemingly random limp modes I would experience on track could be contributed to this.

The ACT is living up to my expectations and I wish I had put one in sooner. I've run ACT in other cars and they've always given me great results. If anyone is looking for a great clutch option we have them in stock on our site too!

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Okay, I've had some time to tear down the CM twin and here's what I've found. I want to preface this by saying I don't think Clutch Masters is to blame here. It's a quality clutch and I've used their stuff in the past without issue.

• All the steels (flywheel, floater and pressure plate) are all heat scored to hell.

• The ceramic disc looks decent but the aramid disc is glazed over and the rivets have wallowed out their holes creating movement between the splined hub and the rest of the disc.

• The pressure plate fingers have a groove cut in them from the throw out bearing, one finger is entirely loose and not really retained anymore, and worst of all none of the fingers are at the same height.

• The throw out bearing has some pretty bad impressions on the back of it from the fork.

I believe the uneven finger height was causing partial/uneven disengagement which lead to the heat spots in the steels and glazing on the aramid disc and over time it got worse and worse which explains why it progressively held less and less power through the season.

But fingers don't just go uneven so figuring out what caused that still has me scratching my head a bit. It could be the throw out bearing seizing, which would also explain the groove in the fingers, but the TOB spins fine and doesn't feel gritty at all, though it could be a different story when it's under load. It's also a Japanese NTK bearing so it's definitely not a low quality bearing.

After tearing down the pressure plate I found that the loose finger was broken off from the rest of the finger plate, not much of a surprise. What was a surprise is after I had the pressure plate all apart the fingers returned to the same height. There was a TON of carbon packed inside the pressure plate that was sitting behind the finger plate so I believe the carbon was trapped in the pressure plate and made the fingers uneven, which resulted in the partial/uneven disengagement that ultimately wiped out the steels and friction discs. The only way this could be avoided is to make it routine maintenance to remove the clutch, tear it down, and clean it out, which isn't realistic for the average street car.

So, moral of the story? Don't daily drive a racing clutch. For a pure racecar it may be a great choice, but not for my uses with my car.

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Well our dyno day went awesome, weather was perfect and the turn out was just the right amount of people!

I tossed the Civic on the dyno at the end of the day and did 3 pulls on it and was pleasantly surprised with the results. A quick run down of what's on the car:

• 27won street intake (would like to do a comparison with the stock airbox and a drop in filter)
• PRL intercooler and charge pipes
• PRL flex fuel kit
• Stock downpipe (would like to do a comparison with aftermarket downpipe)
• Stock Type R catback
• Stock Si turbo
• Stock Si turbo inlet
• Stock intake manifold (would like to do a comparison with aftermarket manifold)
• Phearable 2.5 flex fuel tune

So the first pull was high boost on 93 octane. Peak power was 223hp and peak torque was 271tq. The second pull I turned it to the low boost setting and we tossed some ethanol in the tank to get it at just about E30.

The second pull the car made 245hp and 266tq. Peak torque went down a bit but there were still gains across most of the curve, this is likely because boost was lower (though I admittedly wasn't looking at boost numbers while doing the pulls).

For the third pull I switched back to the high boost setting and this time peak horsepower didn't go up much but torque sure did and damn was I surprised when we pulled up the results. It made 248hp and 294tq! Below is a graph comparing high boost on 93 to high boost on E30, just look at how much is gained under the curve! We're not exactly sure what the dip is towards the middle, it may be some boost limit that was hit in the tune so it may have closed the throttle a tad?

Here's the comparison between low boost E30 and high boost E30. As you can see peak numbers are pretty similar at the top end but the mid range has a very healthy gain under the curve.

I've very pleased with these results, I wasn't expecting to get much over 220hp and 250tq considering our dyno generally is a bit of a heartbreaker. The ACT clutch is fully broken in as well and it's been just perfect, I really think this is one of if not the best clutch options for a stock turbo setup. Next weekend I'll be up in MI instructing a track event at Grattan Raceway so I'll be sure to post up how that goes and how the new brake setup fares!

Happy Easter everyone!