PEEFREE's Civic Type R FK8 Build thread - Track / Street

Hks intercooler piping fits with the PRL intercooler?

ipeefreely said:

Actually before I do... I think everyone needs to understand and admit that there is a overheating issue. Every time this topic has been brought up, the first response I always see is someone saying "I know guy X isn't overheating, so why are YOU overheating?". Look people... just because one car hasn't overheated yet it doesn't mean that the platform doesn't have a problem. There's a lot of variables / factors in this equation and I can basically guarantee you that under the right circumstances, the damn thing WILL overheat. In other words, just because one person hasn't overheated YET, it doesn't mean they won't. There IS a overheating issue and it's important that we as a community, stop arguing, admit to it, and come together so we can finally start making progress.

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What scares me though is the amount of modifications necessary to even nudge this in the direction of track "efficient" at temp. Beautiful build man.

Dennietho said:

Hks intercooler piping fits with the PRL intercooler?

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Yeah.

handsoffsam said:

What scares me though is the amount of modifications necessary to even nudge this in the direction of track "efficient" at temp. Beautiful build man.

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That's the thing though. I don't think all my mods are necessary. While I don't think there is a silver bullet to this overheating issue, I do believe you can solve the issue via a few carefully selected mods. The problem is finding it.

Every car is going to be a bit different because of track, driving style, temperature....etc... but there is a combo out there that I think can remedy the issue for MOST of us.

ipeefreely said:

Loaded up. If you look closely, you can also see our custom oil cooler kit mounted in front.

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Putting the oil cooler there obviously helps a lot with oil temps, but it's also hurting your coolant temps. It may still be the best option though.

RedGiant217 said:

Putting the oil cooler there obviously helps a lot with oil temps, but it's also hurting your coolant temps. It may still be the best option though.

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Not doubting that. From what my mechanic was telling me though, in theory, if the oil is kept cool, the radiator has less work to do as well.

But we also did this because we felt it was necessary and we wanted to prioritize the cooling of the oil. And it worked! The oil temp is stabilized. Now it's just a matter of finding a cooling solution for the coolant....

ipeefreely said:

but there is a combo out there that I think can remedy the issue for MOST of us *and remain within the shadow of stock*.

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ftfy :/ I want to believe, but I don't. At any rate, your thread is the best I've seen to explore this and I'm subscribed.

Chapter 21 - Overheating issue SOLVED

So the car has gone through some changes. Just going to list them as we go...

1. More venting - We added a trackspec center vent for more ventilation. We located it near and above where the turbo is.


2. Racebred chassis mounted splitter - We finally had time to chassis mount the splitter. Sizing is a custom one as I wanted the splitter to stick out a bit to complement the aero that was already on the car.



3. Custom tune via hybrid racing - Took it over to Anthony at Hybrid for a custom tune. Super nice guy. Car made some really good numbers and we were able to get it to run a little bit richer to hopefully combat the heat. Car is also tuned for E85 now.

4. Custom radiator work - I've been working with my mechanic at Elite Performance to come up with a bolt on solution for the heat. I''ll save the details for later as I think he has something he might want to release onto the market soon. You guys can always reach out to him. His shop is located in Burlingame, California.

With all the prior mods, we did two days of testing to see if we had solved the overheating issue.

Day 1 was at Thunderhill West in 85 degree weather. This is a short and technical track. Car performed flawlessly and ran a 1.23 with my friend, Gary behind the wheel.

Day 2 was at Thunderhill East on 9/26/19. I was signed up in the advanced and intermediate group so that we could get more sessions to try to get the thing to overheat. Our results were phenomenal. The car only overheated once (i'll explain later) and never ran into limp mode. We were running full tilt the entire day. Averaged a 2.06 with a best of 2.02 in traffic.

The one time that the car did overheat, we were running back to back to back sessions. I was also following my friend's exige and S2k very closely and I had the AC blasting. . Ambient temps were also at a even 100 degrees. Car still didn't go into limp mode and ran the entire session until the very last lap.

I think at this point, i would consider the overheating issue to be about 80% solved. The car in it's current set up can run close to an hour straight, in 100 degree weather, blasting the ac, and right behind other cars. I say 80% though because the gauge will still move past the halfway point and I would like to see a reduction of about 20 degrees.

Our next step is to add a J's grille to improve airflow. If we still want more cooling, we might remove the fog lights to install some sort of ducting but I'm trying to stick with bolt ons.

In the meantime, feel free to reach out to Gary from Elite Performance regarding these solutions.

Also, here are some pics from our last track day. Enjoy.

NOW this is a damn review. Not that other bs kind of crap.

with regard to the venting, you got a lot of vents lol

your saying you believe the above turbo vent to be the most effective? This is much like what most of the aftermarket hoods are doing. That’s a good signal for this if so. And of course it’s always cheaper just to throw a vent in an oem hood.

Thank you Ipeefreely... have been following your progress updates and it’s great to know you were able to find a solution for the cooling issues.

Yes, finally some light at the end of the tunnel.

It sucks that the CTR needs so much hood venting, coolers, custom radiators, grill mods, bigger intercooler just to be resolve the overheating issue and be able to track.

May I ask if you observed the ECT temp, IAT temp etc, or did you confirm from the fact the car never went into limp mode?

Thanks for the comprehensive review again

jasonjm said:

NOW this is a damn review. Not that other bs kind of crap.

with regard to the venting, you got a lot of vents lol

your saying you believe the above turbo vent to be the most effective? This is much like what most of the aftermarket hoods are doing. That’s a good signal for this if so. And of course it’s always cheaper just to throw a vent in an oem hood.

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Yes. I think the most effective way to vent the hood is directly above the turbo area (where most of the heat is being generated). If you look at the slew of new hoods coming out (J's racing, Varis...etc...) they're all going for that function.

If you're looking for the best bang for your buck, I would just use the trackspec vent and install it onto the OEM hood. It won't be the prettiest thing but it'll be functional.

Milktealord said:

Yes, finally some light at the end of the tunnel.

It sucks that the CTR needs so much hood venting, coolers, custom radiators, grill mods, bigger intercooler just to be resolve the overheating issue and be able to track.

May I ask if you observed the ECT temp, IAT temp etc, or did you confirm from the fact the car never went into limp mode?

Thanks for the comprehensive review again

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The car just needs some radiators, oil cooler, and a grille to keep things cool. I think my list is just absurdly long because we were trying out everyone's suggestions on what might fix the overheating issue.

As for temperatures, we installed separate gauges to monitor both oil and coolant temps. Some of the guys monitor their ECT's via the hondata hack but then it leaves you wondering if the oil temps are ok. haha.

This is a side note but while we were working on all this stuff, we do believe that there might be several other ways to fix the overheating issue.

1. Replace the turbo - While looking around for answers, it came up, several times, that there might be an issue with the stock turbo. Well... I shouldn't say "issue", but we do think that the stock turbo generates an excessive amount of heat.

I don't know how I would go about doing this but I do wish I had a stock car we could test. Install another turbo, and then test again to see if the overheating issue could be solved this way. I know several guys who run aftermarket turbos with built engines and none of them have any overheating issues.

2. Removing the AC condenser - This was always going to be our last resort. We stayed away from this option because I honestly don't think that's what people want. While I'm sure some of us would love to have a dedicated track toy, the reality is that 99% of us need the car to be street able. This means having all the amenities including AC.

3. V mount - This idea was kind of crazy and came about after taking a deep look at the Civic TCR's (my friend had access to the pro's TCR cars). That and we had experience fabricating a kit from my previously built S2k. But doing this had several drawbacks including a lot of custom work and removing the front crash bar.

Not my pics but as you can see, the TCR's front grille isn't even real. The whole thing is V mounted and duct to force air to come in where our intercooler normally is. I'd ask why they didn't do this from the factory but I already know the current safety laws would never allow for it.





With all of the work done so far, it's been a long journey to say the least. A journey that's been filled with both ups and downs. I never expected to pour this much money / effort into solving something that ... tbh was supposed to be trackable to begin with. I guess I'm saying all this because I just want to clarify that I don't have any monetary gain from doing this stuff. It's purely a hobby (unlike a certain someone *ahem*).

At this point, I hope you guys can benefit from our research and with this solution in place, be able to enjoy the car for what it's meant to do.

Excellent work and good news, I am a little surprised that you have not fitred an aftermarket grille already but still great to see all your mods in the pursuit of improved cooling, hats off to you sir.

Thank you very much for the hard work and effort to reach this solution/conclusion! The path to cooling is now clear!