A word about Level Max700 pads

I've been using these since Suzuka and I am noticing a fair bit of vibration under heavy braking in the beginning stages of all my time attacks.

The pads are very good however they need to be heated up gradually in the first 3-5 laps by applying steady pressure to the pedal of no more than 70%. This will heat them up to the point where the vibration will not occur. Just a characteristic of this pad.

Thought I'd mention that since a lot of you have been emailing me about Project Mu's recently.

Tuning Day at Fuji

Here are some photos from a tuning day I attended at Fuji Speedway earlier this month.

Much cooler now - Part 2 !

So how did the KOYO radiator rate on a Formula 1 class circuit ?

Before I answer this question, here is some background of what 'used to' happen...

Fuji Speedway on a day of about 25°C is what I consider a warm-to-hot track day especially if it is a clear sky kinda day. Water temperature during time attack would be usually around 95°C whilst the oil temperature would constantly exceed the 'safe' limit of 130°C. It was virtually impossible to do more than 2-3 hot laps without exceeding 130°C ! It was a real pain in the as%!

Which brings me to what the situation is like 'now', with the new radiator.

Firstly, water temperature never exceeds 85°C !! In fact 75°C-80°Cs is the norm! That's a 10°C improvement (!!) and right in the sweet spot of what this K20A engine likes (there is a small downside to this though...a cooling fan starts kicking in from 80°C and so this also means a little more power drain right when you're trying to push for the best lap)

Moving on to oil temperatures! I have a warning set at 128°C (I use MOTUL 300V oil, other oils would obviously have a much lower limit) which buzzes like silly when I exceed this temperature. Really annoying ! Needles to say, now I don't hear the buzz anymore ! In fact temperature only gets as high as 125°C or below ! Who needs an oil cooler right !?

I am absolutely stoked about this and I can finally have 5+ constant hot laps without needing to worry about oil or water overheating and all that on a warm-to-hot summer day ! I can only imagine how much lower the oil temps will be in the midst of winter (when it really counts !)

Do yourself a favour ! Upgrade your radiator if you track your car ! No buts about it !

Big thanks to Ryo from SEEKER for his valuable advice and attention to this car ! He really sets high standards for service in this tuning industry !

Rod

Much cooler now !

This is perhaps not the most necessary upgrade one would embark on and many of you will probably only undertake such an upgrade much later on in your "tuning careers" but for me the time is now ! A brand new KOYO racing radiator !

(click on images below to enlarge them)



It is a KOYO Type-M racing aluminium radiator with a 36mm core consisting of 2 layers made specifically to an exact fit for a DC5. The OEM radiator was a DENSO 10mm single layer which just wasn't enough! Makes you wonder why a Type-R (and all Hondas actually) would have such a thin radiator but the answer isn't so difficult to come up with ... if Honda had given us all the best tuning parts in the world/Japan the car would have cost almost double of its original price. So they compromised.

To supplement this radiator I also ordered a SPOON low temperature thermostat and a fan switch to aid in cooling of this new system and some SAMCO radiator hoses.



As always the guys at SEEKER did the whole installation.

Bumper is off, coolant is being drained..


Some places are tough to get to !


New radiator fully unpacked ...


Old radiator is out !


Look how thin the old radiator is !


1cm to be precise !


New thermostat is somewhere in there with the shiny blue hoses


KOYO radiator is in !


Time to bolt up what was unbolted ...


New coolant goes in ...


Pressurizing the system ...


All looking good !


These are brighter than I thought they'd be !


The intake cover goes back on ...


Getting the engine working so we can check all the components ...


Last look at it before it disappears behind the front bumper housing


And we're done !


So let's talk about the differences !

With the OEM radiator, water temperatures during city driving ranged anywhere between 82C - 100C (average in low-mid 90s) depending on weather / traffic conditions. The cooling fan usually kicked in around 93C-97C if the car was stationary for longer than usual. High speed highway and circuit driving would yield around 85C-90C.

With the KOYO radiator (and this is a pleasant surprise !), city driving range seems to be between 78C-85C (average of 80C) and the fan kicks in around 80C. So far I have been only able to do high speed highway driving and the temperature stayed at a constant of 75C !!! To add to this the oil temperature stayed below 90C whereas with the OEM radiator it was 95C-ish.

So there is no doubt cooling is now greatly improved and finally I can relax about the engine heating up too much, hopefully my next circuit visit confirms that the oil temperatures are now also under control and thirdly this K20A engine can now work at its optimum performance with such a well cooled system.

Alone at night ...

Shinagawa Wharf

And the winner is ...

Yokohama ADVAN A050 (M compound)



This compound is suited for DRY conditions ranging from 1-2 laps high speed time attacks and general circuit practice runs excluding long endurance runs. Unfortunately the MH compound which allows for long endurance type runs is not yet available for A050s in the size I want.

The front ones will be 245/40R17, the rears 225/45R17 keeping the diameter identical to stock but increasing the necessary width of the tyre to get that extra grip.

An absolute bargain from one of my suppliers !

Now let's see what they look like on my new wheels ...

Tsukuba Circuit (筑波サーキット) DC5 Time Attack 12/05/2010

The day started off very wet as it had been raining alot since the day before but luckily by the time my sessions started at 3:30pm the circuit had dried up and the temps stayed relatively low around 20 degrees C.

Camber adjustments made by Seeker the other day worked very well ! In fact for the first time ever at Tsukuba I was able to consistently and comfortably run multiple laps under 1 minute 10 seconds with the best lap being 1'09''71 !! The car was experiencing a bit of oversteer though which needed to be corrected by making rear damper settings 1 notch softer (5) and reducing tyre pressure in the rear down to 210kPa.

It was a very consistent performance from me and the car !

Mugen (無限) N1 ECU !

I had an appointment with the guys at SEEKER this morning to increase the camber on my front wheels. This is mainly in preparation for the new RAYS wheels which are yet to arrive. but also because I have two Tsukuba circuit sessions coming up next week.

As I was talking with the manager Ryo, somehow we started talking about a Mugen N1 ECU which is available for sale (for a DC5) only if your car meets the HOA (Honda One-Make-Race Association) regulations or you're able to buy it second-hand from someone else (keep checking those yahoo auctions!). Anyway Ryo happened to have the ECU in his shop as one of his race cars is a DC5 and so we ended up having an interesting chat !

Why am I writing about this ? Well, I've seen hundreds of posts around different DC5 forums talking about people wanting to buy and install these ECUs for street use and it really boggles my mind how un-educated and down right wasteful such attempts are. People concentrate on the plug-n-play aspect of this ECU but don't try to think about what it really is they're getting by running such an ECU.

Let me explain ...

First of all, it is a RACE only ECU ! It is such by design and by regulations here in Japan where it comes from. Secondly, this ECU is meant for N1 production races therefore there are certain regulations regarding modifications needed to supplement such an ECU. This means this ECU is effective ONLY when you have the following modifications in place :

a) Upgraded cooling system
(yes you need to be able to cool your engine beyond what the stock radiator is capable of otherwise the higher air/fuel mixture characteristics will go to waste and the engine overheats and causes unwanted side-effects like pinging/knocking)

b) Upgraded spark plugs
(you heard it right ! With the increase in air/fuel mixture ratio comes greater heat and therefore your spark plugs need to be able to handle higher temperatures and be able to dissipate that heat well! Try NGK spark plugs with 8, 9 or 10 heat characteristics)

c) Upgraded exhaust system
(Preferably Mugen's N1 catback system but others will do)

d) Upgraded valve springs
(As recommended by Mugen themselves for longivity and durability. Don't ignore this point!)

e) Run on 100 octane fuel
(which as far as I known is not available outside of Japan. Yes you can use lower octane with a booster or otherwise expect pinging or knocking)

This ECU will lower the VTEC engagement point, it will rev higher and give you more power but it will also consume more fuel, idle higher and disable your air-conditioner. It is a purpose built ECU and should be consumed as such, but it makes your car POWERFUL and it is definitely NOTICABLE (I am talking from experience here :) )!

So if you're thinking of getting one, think about what I wrote and make sure you have a clear purpose which is not STREET driving ! If you do buy it, make sure you keep your stock ECU and use it whenever you're not on a track or circuit or doing any competition. When you're about to go to a track or circuit, simply unplug the stock ECU and plug-in the Mugen ECU (go back and read this last sentence again !).

As always feel free to email me if you have question or reach out to the guys at SEEKER who are more than happy to assist with any Honda related queries

New tyre choices

In anticipation of the arrival of my new Rays Volk Racing CE28Ns I am now pondering as to which slick tyre I should choose...

The choices are :

- Yokohama ADVAN A050 (M compound)



- Dunlop Direzza 03G (R1 compound)


- Bridgestone Potenza RE-11S (Type-RS compound)



Any ideas ?

Suzuka International Circuit - In-camera video !

The 1st of the 2 sessions, was basically spent learning the circuit and the line



The 2nd of the 2 sessions was more about time attack.



... and here are official results from J's Racing web site.

Suzuka International Circuit - what an experience !

April 30th 2010 was the day of J's Racing Suzuka Attack 2010 Round 2 event held at no other than the world famous Suzuka International Circuit in Mie prefecture !

The circuit itself is about 420kms (!) east of Tokyo hidden away behind the main town of Suzuka. The town itself immediately gave me an impression that Honda was the main man in the area with Honda factories, Honda testing centres, Honda education centres, Honda dealerships etc. sprouting out all over the place. The circuit itself had nothing but Honda Civic Type Rs (FD2s) as their main vehicles with Honda advertising overwhelmingly prevailent.

When I arrived at the circuit hotel the day before I was greeted by familiar sounds of racing. It got me very excited and anxious to start my day the next morning.

So, let's start by taking a look at this amazing F1 class international circuit first !
(The map below shows the circuit and I'll use it to give you my impressions of the circuit and each of its corners.Click on it to view it in full)



The Main Straight

As you will see in my video as soon as you enter the main straight it looks amazing ! Grand stand on the left with a huge ferris wheel in the background, first class pit areas on the right and just a very clean main straight overall. When I entered it for the first time it felt like I was watching an F1 race from an in-car camera of one of the F1 drivers ! The straight isn't as fast as the Fuji straight though and I think I didn't exceed more than 180km/h on it.

1st and 2nd curve

Loved them ! Not only is entry to the 1st curve fast but it is very forgiving should you miss your braking point or the apex. It widens on exit and gives you a chance to comfortably brake and downshift in preparation for the 2nd curve ! Once you're in 3rd (I believe) you can gently exit out heading for the S'es.

The S'es

These took me a while to figure out but in the 2nd of the 2 1hr sessions I got the hang of them quite comfortably by timely downshifting, gently braking and letting the car "flow" through them without any obrupt weight shifts. I found that during exiting of the 2nd of the S'es I had to shift down in order to keep my revs above 6000rpm.

Gyaku bank curve

This corner still eludes me. If you enter too fast you go too wide and end up in the mosh pit (as many other cars learnt the hard way). You enter too slow you're in a good shape but you're loosing valuable time. I wasn't doing it right and having thought about it in the last 24 hrs I think I can do this right next time (if there is one !).

Dunlop curve

An absolutely fantastic corner ! You enter it relatively slowly aiming towards the apex and as you accelerate fully the G forces are pulling you away from the inside of that corner but it doesn't matter because as you gain speed you're gradually entering the straight part of the corner going full speed. The cool thing about this corner is that you can't see what's lurking behind it because of a wall barrier which gradually unravels what's ahead as you make your way through the corner.

Degner curve

The nice right hand kink is fantastic ! It is fast and kind of daring and since there is a lot of run off it isn't as scary to approach as if there was a wall nearby ! The 90 degree corner is a downhill corner and also very fast and it exits right into the overpass. I had to play around with gears here because I felt like on exit I was under 6000rpm and had I exited in 2nd instead of 3rd I would have had more pull behind me to shave more seconds from the lap time

Hairpin curve

Your usual hairpin. Nothing exciting here except as you exit Degner curve and press ahead there is a slight right hand kink just before the hairpin which is a full throttle approach kind of corner ! Loved it !

200R

Another one of those high speed corners where you can just let it all fly ! It reminded me of the Dunlop curve in the opposite direction. It goes downhill as opposed to Dunlop being an uphill curve. It is very fast and picturesque and unfortunately I was struggling with the latter part of that corner where I kept braking being afraid of running off. Watching others I saw them just pushing and never saw any brake lights come on on their cars so I presumed either my fear or just an incorrect line was forcing me to brake unnecessarily there.

Spoon curve

First of the corners here is a very fast (!) 4th gear corner and the 2nd one a slightly slower 3rd gear corner. Again these reminded me of the 1st and 2nd curves in the nature of their speeds and handling needed to overcome them. When you exit Spoon curves you're flying downhill towards the back stretch

Back stretch

Probably the fastest straight on the circuit where I reached almost 200km/h. It is downhill and uphill and it is bumpy ! With my initial damper settings it was a little unsettling so i had to harden up the settings on my front and rear dampers. What follows is the infamous 130R.

130R

*Sigh*. We were warned about this curve. On the day I saw 2 serious accidents from our group. A Honda Fit with a written off rear, an S2000 hitting the wall and smashing its side. It is a very fast corner, it widens on exit but if you don't time your speed you'll collect the dirt and unsettle your car enough to hit the wall. I've heard many stories about this corner. If you want to know more read about it on google.

CASIO triangle

Very nice shikane. Very embarassing for me when on my first lap I missed it and ended up wide. I blamed it on my lack of knowledge and familiarity with the circuit :) From then on as you exit this triangle you hit the main straight !

So there you go !
5.8kms of an amazing, scary, exciting, thrilling, surprising and fun circuit !

It is now my favourite circuit although being so far away from Tokyo probably never to be driven again ! It is a much tighter circuit and less forgiving if you loose it. Compared to Fuji with wide run offs it gives you less room for error but it makes you work harder !

As to the event itself. We had 2 sessions of 1 hr each. Saw lots of nice Hondas ranging from Fit to S2000s and NSXs. There was a race queen there and a GT driver Wada-san (Taniguchi couldn't make it). Wada-san drove 10 lucky dudes around the circuit showing them what their machines were capable of. I wasn't one of the lucky ones unfortunately although I had the pleasure of watching him in my rear view mirror sitting on my ass in an FD2 around the Spoon Curve. That guy was FAST !

FACTS

• My lap time was 2'41"37 (given another chance I'm sure I can slash it down to 2'35"s)
• Out of 48 cars, my overall position in Round 2 was 27th
• I was 2nd fastest DC5 out of 4 (the 1st fastest was J's Racing's race-tuned DC5!)
• I've beaten majority of FD2s and was beaten by majority of AP1/AP2s
• Main tyre of choice was Dunlop Direzza 03G (only a few ADVAN A050s)!
• If you smashed and damaged certain parts of the circuit your out-of-pocket expense to cover the damage would be up to 790,000 yen (around 8,000 AU dollars)

Anyway enjoy the photos.
I'll try to make a video in the next few days !