WhiteRice's FK8 Build Journal

WhiteRice

Member
First Name
Lucas
Joined
Jun 16, 2021
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1
Messages
6
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Location
SFSD
Vehicle(s)
'17 Type R
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Welcome, Honda Family!

It has been a busy couple of months and I am finally getting around to putting together a build journal. Years down the road I want to have something I can look back on(40 years in the future when the R is a hard to find collectors car) to reminisce and hopefully bring you guys some entertainment/info along the way.

Here we go...

A couple years back I got into a 2019 Civic Sport... The year they switched the sport to the NA K20. It was the slowest, most economic car I had owned. Sure it was great car for road trips, but I was always wanting more. After 40k miles and a change of employment I thought it was time to get into something that I could truly enjoy. I was looking for the perfect balance between performance and daily drivability. Enter the Type R.

Honda Civic 10th gen WhiteRice's FK8 Build Journal Day 1


Initially getting into a car with double the power it felt sooooo fast, and the noises just added to the experience. The prior owner had installed an Invidia exhaust and it is LOUD. I always hated loud exhaust, but it has really grown on me. I told myself I would leave it stock for awhile to get a feel for the car, and a car like this should perform well enough to begin with.

I was content for a couple of weeks until I went to my first autocross event. A couple of my friends will go regularly and talked me into going. I was hooked. My tires were not. I couldn't getting ANY sort of grip on the s****y Nexens that the prior owner had put on the stock 20s. Between this and heeding the advise of most R owners of the forum, it was time to make the switch to 18s.

My coworker introduced me to a guy at autocross that also has a Type R(currently races his Tesla). He hooked me up with a set of VMRs 18x9.5 +45 with Federal RS-PRO 275/35R18 on them.
Honda Civic 10th gen WhiteRice's FK8 Build Journal image000000


I wasn't a fan of the styling at first, but it was a cheap option to get into some 18s.

The next autocross event was the following weekend, and I now felt much more prepared. It was a night and day difference over the prior weekend.

Honda Civic 10th gen WhiteRice's FK8 Build Journal Snapchat-1190836825


This solved traction issues at autocross, but I could not reasonably daily drive it on these tires. I settled on a set of 275/35R18 Falken FK510s. They are suitable enough for the driving I will be doing and priced very reasonably. I did, however, need a another set of wheels. I had a set of Enkei TS-V in bronze on order from Fitment Industries. It states in the order confirmation that they need up to 8 days to confirm inventory, up to 8 days to process, and another 5-8 days to ship. I waited a couple weeks without confirmation and gave them a call. They were on backorder with no eta so I canceled the order. Working at a tire shop has its benefits, cheap tires and wheels being one of them. I bought a set of the Motegi Traklite 3.0 for less than half the cost of the Enkeis and were lighter. In pictures I was not a fan of the Motegi "bronze" in pictures.

Honda Civic 10th gen WhiteRice's FK8 Build Journal 20210529_174007

Honda Civic 10th gen WhiteRice's FK8 Build Journal 20210606_145602


They have really grown on me and for the price I'm wishing I would have just bought two sets of the bronze.

With a month and a half in between autocross events, I was looking for ways to make it around a course faster. I feel the need to hang with the big boys... It became apparent when looking at the tires after an autocross event that I was not running enough camber in the front. Before the last event I had pulled the alignment pins on the strut towers and gained -0.2 to -0.3 degrees of camber which put me ~2.0 degrees on stock suspension. Running higher camber on a FWD is a double edged sword. Obviously it corners harder, but it also affects front line traction. It is already hard to find grip until third gear.

Ideally I want to start around 3 degrees to get a feel for how much it affects cornering traction vs accel/braking traction. Camber plates can achieve a low amount of camber. Adjustable ball joints can achieve more. I could not find much info on the forum about people running either. I decided to go with the Hardrace adjustable ball joints.

Honda Civic 10th gen WhiteRice's FK8 Build Journal 20210530_165558


Another perk of working at a tire shop. Free use of an alignment rack. Yes, I did adjust rear toe into spec.

Honda Civic 10th gen WhiteRice's FK8 Build Journal 20210529_174038


With this aggressive stance, I don't want it to throw rocks and road debris onto the body of the car. If only I had a set of mud flaps.... I didn't open the hatch for the first couple weeks after buying the car. THE LAST OWNER LEFT A SET OF RALLYARMOR MUD FLAPS IN THE TRUNK!!!!!!!!! That was awfully nice of them!

After a month and a half, it was finally time for the next autocross event. It was the first time in years that they were doing a night event. A few of my friends talked about doing underglow, but I had something else in mind. In the past I had seen people use reflective tape to get a Tron car look. My brother in law was up for the weekend so the three of us spent a couple hours taping up my car in preparation.

Under the right lighting it looked really good. Even an hour before sunset with the sun to our back it looked really good. Come night time there wasn't enough light to reflect and most of the time I couldn't even tell.















Honda Civic 10th gen WhiteRice's FK8 Build Journal Snapchat-1087548792


Night time autocross was pretty rough. Most of the cars running were missing turns and getting lost. I worked the first heat, so when it came time to race during the second heat I knew the course very well. After watching ~100 runs it was still so hard to tell where the course led. It was a great night for photos though.

Check out Reverse Grid Media for some sick automotive photography/videography!
SCCS Night AutoX by Reverse Grid Media (pixieset.com)

Honda Civic 10th gen WhiteRice's FK8 Build Journal NightAutoXShot.JPG


It was a late night that led into an early morning. We got up early to attend the monthly Cars and Coffee then to another day of autocross.
That was the first day running autocross with the new suspension setup. I was starting to put down some respectable times, but still I crave more. At this point I am looking into a more aggressive tire setup. I did order a set of 275/30R18 Bridgestone Potenza RE71R when they were on closeout on tirerack. I can't justify swapping them on until I burn through this set of Federals. I have seen one other guy here running on 315s staggered and have that on my list. It will likely be next year before I am in need of another set of tires.

I let another guy with a type R run my car during fun runs. The biggest thing he noticed was the amount of lag when accelerating out of a turn. He has a PRL intercooler and hondata on his R and told me the tune made a huge difference in throttle response. Thus leads us to today. After a couple hours of researching tire fitment and realizing that I REALLY don't need another set of wheels sitting around, I went a whole other direction. Hondata is on order!
 


 


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