Jeff's build - for occasional light track use

[metal_driver]

Bought a new Red Type R in 2018. Red was only available here in Canada for one year. Even though I was one of the first in our area to have a deposit in for the new Type R, I had to wait an extra year for a Red one.

First up was Xpel ppf for the full front including grill lights and fog lights, hood, pillars, mirrors, lower panel sections, and the entire rear arches.
Next was the install of a Mishimoto oil catch can.

I also returned to the dealership to have the optional door sill trim plates installed.

As a family guy with kids I wanted a reliable four door car that I could use for moving them or groceries around in, etc. , plus be able to use on the odd track day for an outing. As I am at the novice level I decided to focus primarily on mods that would help with cooling. I also decided deliberately to stay away from bumping the power up to help keep the heat in check.

Here is a list of items what I have managed to bolt on to date:

- Mishimoto intercooler with pipe kit (black)
- USR driver side oil cooler
- Mishimoto oil cooler kit - modified to fit on behind the passenger side fog light grill
- GRP fog light garnish with cooling vents/diamonds pre-cut
- custom cut venting/slats in the front wheel wells behind both oil coolers
- hand cut venting/diamonds on passenger side fog light garnish
- USR turbo blanket
- PTP inlet blanket
- K&N air filter
- J's grill (with the optional logo mount) to get more cooling air in
- Morimoto headlights
- Oil temp gauge with a matching 1/8 NPT temp probe installed in an after market oil drain plug
- Reflective thermal barrier between the oil pan and front pipe
- Thermal fiberglass wrap on the front pipe
- OEM 2020 CTR radiator install (as it is denser/a bit more efficient)

My brother runs a small business with a shop that has a lift and a great selection of tools to work with. As a prototype designer and fabricator, he was able to provide me with advice and help me out throughout the build to date.

Here are some of my thoughts/experience with the items installed so far:

Miromoto Intercooler
This intercooler was heavier than I expected but the build quality and fit were excellent.
I also have to commend Mishimoto on their excellent "how to" video for this install, as well as the bumper removal video, and the oil catch can install video.
It took a bit of work to get the associated hot and cold larger silicon and aluminum piping installed. However, I feel the extra time installing the piping was worth it as it was of better construction (black coated aluminum on one side), larger diameter than the original OEM piping, and designed with better flowing bends, etc. in mind. The front of the intercooler definitely eats up most of the available space under the crash bar but the entire kit fits well and without issue).

As a side note on intercoolers for this car - for those looking for an easier install that should still give you good and for the buck, I might recommend the PRL I/C as it simply just bolts right up to the oem piping making the install much easier. There are also good quality smaller i/c's out there that work well.

USR side oil cooler
The supplied oil cooler in this kit is a 15-row Setrab (excellent quality). The oil cooler itself is fairly beefy and similar in size and weight to the Mishimoto oil cooler. I originally purchased the Mishi oil cooler kit but decided against installing it on the driver side as it meant I would have to pull the brake cooling duct. The USR kit came with the oil cooler, an oil filter sandwich plate, custom cut oil lines and fittings, and pre-cut metal plates that needed to be assembled to create the cool air duct work. What I liked about this kit was the size of the oil cooler (about as large as you can fit in the space available, the general fit of the kit, and the black oil lines and fittings. Unfortunately, the install instructions were missing, and the edges of the pre-cut metal ducting were a bit rough but still the kit is worth getting in my opinion. When I finally got my bumper back on today I noticed I also had to trim a bit of the metal ducting around the four upper side vents beside the fog light cover to get the bumper to fit on properly.

Mishimoto oil cooler

Having elected not to use the Mishimoto oil cooler kit on the driver side (which it was designed for) because you have to delete the brake cooling duct, my brother and I took a look at the this kit to see if we could fit it anywhere else. We found two other possible locations; one on top of the crash bar in front of the rad, or in front of the water bottle under the passenger side of the crash bar. We decided to go with the latter (below the crash bar on the pax side) and install the Mishimoto oil cooler with the ports at the bottom as it could just squeeze in there. This spot turned out to be a VERY tight squeeze and we had to do a lot of adjusting to get it to just fit in without interfering with the back cooling vents on the fog light, horns, etc. This was by far the most time consuming part of the build and in hindsight I think it would have been far easier to pull the water bottle for a much better fit and proper venting, My brother was kind enough to make a special lower aluminum bracket to mount the lower corner on and for the upper opposite corner he added a mounting surface to the bottom portion of the airbag sensor bracket just above it. Even getting the oil lines cut to fit into the tight space/corners was a real challenge. You can see in the third pic below I took the time to enclose the oil lines in some black plastic wrap and I used foam at the corners to reduce contact with other surfaces.

To supply both oil coolers we used the USR provided 4-port oil filter sandwich plate to mount two sets of oil lines, one to each cooler (in parallel so to speak).

Oil cooler venting

To get more air through both oil coolers I cut out more diamonds on the passenger side fog light garnish (see thread no. 123 https://www.civicx.com/forum/thread...sting-fake-vents-on-front-bumper.27081/page-9). For the driver side I purchased a Evasive GPP pre-cut fog light garnish. I was impressed by the quality of the cuts in their piece. I cut out some additional diamonds to match the pattern up on both sides.
I left the pin out of the garnish pieces so they can be more easily removed to remove the fog lights for extra cooling on track days.
To exhaust the warm air I cut and folded up some slats in both front wheel wells using a hot box cutting knife and a hot air gun to gently bend up the slats.

USR turbo blanket

As others have said before this is a pita to install, and instructions were hard to come by. You have to remove the inlet pipe and the top portion to the down pipe to get this on a bit easier. You also need a special tool to remove the oxygen sensor off the top of the heat shield to get that off and out of the way. I elected to re-install the heat shield for a little extra added protection. To do this, I had to punch an extra hole in the blanket to get all three heat shield bolts back on.
Unfortunately, I did not get any good pictures of the install process for this item.

PTP inlet pipe blanket

The verdict is still out on this one... I had bought this a while back after it came out, so I figured I would try it since the inlet pipe was already out for the turbo blanket install. I realize that I would likely be better off with a titanium inlet pipe but those are larger in diameter and require a tune to work well. Didn't really want to shell out the extra cash for a tune at this point.
As I had an early version of this blanket I had to punch an extra hole or two in it to get the harness mount bolted back on (far left side in pic below). As others have mentioned, one of the inlet pipe bolts is also a pain to get back in during install. I also found a bit of silver insulating material to wrap the small metal pipes above and below the inlet pipe.

J's Grill

This was not a cheap option and unfortunately required paint as a portion of the lower side had been ground down at the factory taking the sheen of the factory outer finish.
For details on the install see post no. 60 and others at https://www.civicx.com/forum/threads/js-racing-fk8-grill.28403/page-4
I went with the optional Honda logo mount. After getting it installed I have to say I am very pleased with the look and the size of area for fresh air to flow through to the radiator.

Morimoto headlights

Also not a cheap option but I loved the look of the jewel lights in combination with the J's grill. The installation of these was pretty straightforward. There is also a thread on these. I did notice after I got them installed that the driver side sequence flasher cut short on some cycles. Turns out my battery was low. After I ran the car for a bit the problem went away.
I like the orange color of the sequence flasher and the output seems decent. As others have stated these seem to come adjusted quite low. I ended up turning a bit more than the max three turns recommended to raise them and luckily I had no issues with the adjusters falling off the gear (earlier Morimoto XB light models).

Oil temperature gauge

Wanted one of these to keep an eye on the engine temps for track days. Went with a cheap CN Speed gauge with sensor. I had to move my sensor from the oil sandwich plate to the oil plug drain as I ran out of ports once I decided to hook up two oil coolers. I set the gauge up in a removable pod just above the dash near the driver door. The wire harness can be disconnect and tucked away under the dash and the gauge stored if I want to during trips around town.
I will provide feedback on oil temps once I track the car a couple of times.

Oil pan heat reduction effort

When I was under the car I noticed that the front pipe is positioned fairly close to the oil pan itself. I decided to put on some flexible thermal DEI heat shield on the bottom of the oil pan near the exhaust and wrap the front pipe to reduce heat transfer in this area. Not many others have mentioned this one to date...
I did not wrap the down pipe as I have heard that may not be a good idea for a catted downpipes. I see PTP now has a small insulating hat you can put on the top of a downpipe. Unfortunately, this was not available for me to purchase or try while I was doing this build.
Note the line to the back of the oil pan in the picture below is for the oil temperature probe which I put in a custom order oil drain plug and then inslated to reduce the effects of any latent heat form the front pipe.

I recently also had the car into a local Honda dealership to get an OEM 2020 CTR radiator installed (as its suppose to be more efficient/effective) along with fresh rad fluid while the bumper was off.

I now have an upcoming appointment to have the the following parts I am holding onto installed:

- G-Loc R-8 front pads
- G-Loc GS-1 pads
- Girodisc front brake discs
- Girodisc front Titanium brake pad shields
- Motul RBF 600 brake fluid
- Hardrace front lower camber adjusters
- NSX wheel install with brand new Michelin Cup 2's

I had the NSX wheels ceramic coated and I bought some of the 19mm Ti Porsche products titanium wheel bolts to put them on with
https://www.civicx.com/forum/threads/lug-nut-solution-for-nsx-wheels-solved.42281/
I also bought the OEM matching grey Honda caps to go wit the NSX rims but I custom cut red adhesive decal material which I inserted behind each silver H logo to make it look OEM.

Still to come ...
I have a J's/First Molding hood on order that I am waiting to get. Once it arrives i'm going to going to get painted and ppf'd to match the car.

I have my first two track days with this car now booked for July and August. I can't wait!
I will let everyone know how they turn out.

 

[Lust]

I'm seeing a lot of good stuff here and some similarity to my car. I would recommend against the Mishi IC though. It is a huge brick blocking your rad.

 

[aldksgo]

Woot Jeff! Can't wait to see it in person brother!

 

[metal_driver]

I'm seeing a lot of good stuff here and some similarity to my car. I would recommend against the Mishi IC though. It is a huge brick blocking your rad.

Mike (Lust), thank you for the feedback. I've watched your build thread with envy. I see you are running a HKS i/c with piping. Seems like Michael Baxi seemed to like the switch from the Mishi to the HKS. Also very interested to see how the new PWR race radiator works ourt for you. Cannot believe how fast you can bolt on the mods! Keep it coming. Great build.

I bought a lot of the stuff for this car when she was brand new and have come to learn over time there may be better options available out there now.. Seeing as I already paid and installed the Mishi i/c I'm going to try it out first to see if it helps at all. I'm still at the novice level with no power bumps and I have the luxury of living in the cooler "Northern" climes (Canada). I'm hoping that may help.. From what I'm seeing set ups can be dependent on temperature (obviously), how hard a driver pushes the car, the type of track you have it on, and any power bumps. I'm going to try this out for now at a local track (Calabogie) to see how it goes. I will keep everyone posted.

 

[metal_driver]

Woot Jeff! Can't wait to see it in person brother!

You bet brother

 

[Lust]

Mike (Lust), thank you for the feedback. I've watched your build thread with envy. I see you are running a HKS i/c with piping. Seems like Max Baxter seemed to like the switch from the Mishi to the HKS. Also very interested to see how the new PWR race radiator works ourt for you. Cannot believe how fast you cans bolt on the mods. Keep it coming.

I bought a lot of the stuff for this car when she was brand new and have come to learn over time there may be better options available out there now.. Seeing as I already paid and installed the Mishi i/c I'm going to try it out first to see if it helps at all. I'm still at the novice level with no power bumps and I have the luxury of living in the cooler "Northern" climes (Canada). I'm hoping that may help.. From what I'm seeing set ups can be dependent on temperature (obviously), how hard a driver pushes the car, and the type of track you have it on. I'm going to try this out for now at a local track (Calabogie) to see how it goes. I will keep everyone posted.

Thanks! I am flattered.

So there are a few things wrong with the Mishimoto IC for track driving
1. Size. It's too big and is a huge wall in front of the rad + increase in turbo lag.
2. Bar and plate design. It may heatsoak slower compared to tube and fin, but once it heat soaks, it's toast. You get less airflow with bar and plate design.
3. At the cost of initial lower IATs, that hot air travels through the radiator, potentially heating the water.
4. Weight. That thing is a brick.

I would highly recommend installing the stock IC if problems persist and take a look at the PWR intercooler or HKS intercooler + piping. Everything else looks good in terms of heat management. See how it does with the Mishi IC compared to stock. You'll be quite surprised. I'm sure you'd be able to sell the Mishi quickly.

 

[metal_driver]

Mike, thank you for the excellent feedback/input. I'll give this one a shot first and then take it from there. Definitely a puzzle trying to keep these things cool (on the track)..

 

[Snmtazz70]

Awesome post, waiting to see, I did PRL intercooler and Greddy Oil cooler.

 

[SSchmed]

That's a whole lot of work for a novice track guy. Most novices that I've seen are running 4/10ths of the car's potential. Do CTRs overheat that easily?

 

[metal_driver]

Awesome post, waiting to see, I did PRL intercooler and Greddy Oil cooler.

Thank you Matt.
Interested to see how the PRL intercooler holds up for you in the Florida heat.
The Greddy oil cooler looks like a nice set up as well.

Cant wait to get mine to the track to try it out.

 

[metal_driver]

That's a whole lot of work for a novice track guy. Most novices that I've seen are running 4/10ths of the car's potential. Do CTRs overheat that easily?

You are probably right. I plan on keeping this car for a long time so I figured that cooling mods such as these would at least help reduce the stress on the engine/car while on the track, even at a reduced pace. I'm hoping it will also help a bit while during on hot summer days.
Gotta admit though it turned out to be more work than I expected after I bought all the parts. Buying the parts is the easy part
At least I got to spend some extra time with my brother while working on it. I am hoping the car will be fairly well set up for when I reach intermediate levels at the track..

 

[fatherpain]

Jeff, we are waiting patiently for more photos of the J’s Racing grill and Morimotos on your Rally Red!! Cough em up brother! Don’t hold out on us

 

[metal_driver]

Here are a couple of other minor items I did which I forgot to mention;

1) I added a small area of DEI adhesive heat Mylar matting to the under side of the hood directly above the turbo (furnace) to help keep the hood from getting baked. This stuff is great to work with.

2) I also changed out the engine oil to Amsoil Signature Series 0W20, and the transmission fluid to Amsoil synthetic synchromesh.

Here are a couple of more pics of the new J's grill set up with the Morimoto/J's headlights. I think its a great looking combo. The white LED daytime running lights on the new headlights look great.

Note I cut the diamonds out of both fog light covers for the dual oil cooler set up to keep it symmetrical looking.

I also had the original orange side marker lights covered in tinted material when I had the car ppf'd and I am very happy with the way they look.

 

[SSchmed]

You are probably right. I plan on keeping this car for a long time so I figured that cooling mods such as these would at least help reduce the stress on the engine/car while on the track, even at a reduced pace. I'm hoping it will also help a bit while during on hot summer days.
Gotta admit though it turned out to be more work than I expected after I bought all the parts. Buying the parts is the easy part At least I got to spend some extra time with my brother while working on it. I am hoping the car will be fairly well set up for when I reach intermediate levels at the track..

You obviously know how to work on cars, so that's great. I bought a 2020 hoping that it won't overheat at the track. I'm no pro, and not a novice.... somewhere in between. Let us know how your track days go!

 

[metal_driver]

/\ Thank you - thats a huge compliment. My brother was a great help. He has a nice shop with good tools.
I gotta say, in the end, I am very happy with the double oil cooler set up. I'm hoping that will help in concert with the other items. In hindsight, I should have probably purchased a RV6 catted and coated d/p at the same time. Just trying to avoid the need for a tune and the extra power at this point, as that can then lead, in turn, to more heat.
I am liking the size of the opening on the J's grill as I think getting more air through will definitely help. Patiently waiting on a J's/First Molding hood to help extract some of the hot air. Unfortunately, I do not think I will be able to get it in, prepared, and on for this season.
I will definitely post up my track experience once I get there. Also purchased a Kiwi3 to see if I can keep an eye on some of the OBD data.

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