EP3 Civic Type R - Track Car

[RS Grant]

I was looking for a car which I could use predominantly on track as I didn't like the fact that, although it's proved a pretty handy tool on Knockhill/The Ring, I was using my Golf R for track days and risking a track bump, visit to the gravel or even worse in a car worth a large amount of cash.

So after this year's trip to the Nurburgring in the Golf; I decided that it was time to get something else to use on track and relegate the Golf to 'absolute last resort' status for local track days at Knockhill.

Having so many friends who are into Hondas and having had numerous VTEC cars before (EG6/EK4/EK9/DC2/S2K ) then I know how well they take hard driving and how effective they can be after a few well chosen modifications. I set myself a budget of 2000-2500 for the base car and went off to the classifieds to have a look at what was available; quickly discovering the days where decent EG and EK VTi are easily had for 1000-1500 are long gone and so was left with an EP3 Type R as my only real option.
Only problem was, there are a lot of properly thrashed/rusty/abused EP3s around and after looking at a few ropey examples I accepted that finding a decent base car wouldn't be that easy but I had narrowed down the criteria of what I wanted:

- Silver/Red
- Facelift Model
- sub-120k miles
- Decent History
- non-Premier Model

Anyway, I eventually found a car a couple of hours drive away which was:

- Black
- Premier Model
- Over Budget



...but at least it was low miles @ 62k, has decent history and has had chain/tensioner replaced at Honda 7k miles ago. I picked the car up on the Thursday night at about 8pm, had a track day booked on Saturday at 12pm and would need to go over the car to check/prepare it before that, including a suspension geometry set up (coilovers were just fitted and not set up) and replacement tyres as the Michelin tyres were more suitable for a Prius or Econobox rather than something with a bit of power that's being chucked around.

It's got a few modifications fitted; Scorpion Exhaust (CAT-back), BC Coilovers, Cold Air Induction, Mugen Rear Spoiler, Front Splitter, Rota Wheels... and here's a picture of it the night I picked it up:

Untitled by RS Grant, on Flickr

So the next day I dropped the car off to get a fairly normal fast-road geometry set up done and get the rear ride height brought up a touch as it was very low and too much for me/using on track.

IMG_8801 by RS Grant, on Flickr

So with that done, the next day I'd organised changing the econoMichelins with a set of almost new Kumho KU39's that I had in my unit with Wheels Around who are based at Knockhill. They are tyres which I've used previously on my 19" BBS wheels on the Golf and they really impressed me with their grip and durability, even on track.

IMG_8832 by RS Grant, on Flickr

Couple more pictures from the day, including when ruined front brakes stopped play... and melted the centre cap, causing it to fall out when I stopped in the pits.

IMG_8843 by RS Grant, on Flickr
IMG_8835 by RS Grant, on Flickr
IMG_8837 by RS Grant, on Flickr
IMG_8838 by RS Grant, on Flickr

After I destroyed the front brakes on track, I needed replacements and didn't fancy spending serious cash on a replacement caliper/big brake set up just yet so did a bit of reading and spoke to Godspeed Brakes who recommended some J-hook discs and Carbon Lorraine CL5+ pads with braided lines and ATE fluid too.

IMG_9250 by RS Grant, on Flickr

I have also stripped the rear of the car out, not a massive amount of weight saving, but every little counts and will add up to a reasonable saving if I decide to stick the Recaros in the attic and fit some lightweight bucket seats.

IMG_9259 by RS Grant, on Flickr

Next was a track-essential, mounting the bluetooth microphone which had been stuffed away in the centre cubby:

IMG_9261 by RS Grant, on Flickr

Now just a few pictures from a quick clean I gave the car today:

IMG_0396 by RS Grant, on Flickr
IMG_0414 by RS Grant, on Flickr
IMG_0411 by RS Grant, on Flickr
IMG_0410 by RS Grant, on Flickr

Future plans are:

- Hondata ECU & Mapping
- 4-2-1 Exhaust Manifold
- De-Cat
- Different Exhaust (don't like the big tailpipe)
- Gruppe-M/Tegiwa-M Intake
- LSD




Cheers,
Grant

Edited by RS Grant on Saturday 4th November 15:58

[chrismc1977]

Looks a good buy- & should be a different proposition with the sensible mods planned.

Best of luck with it

[hora]

Looks v.nice

[Martin_Hx]

Enjoy it, i know the EP3 will serve you well (had mine almost 10 years on similar mileage) and a red Golf-R, don't see many of them in red!

Just be careful of oil starvation on track with sticky tyres, but you are probably already aware of this.

See Butterface's thread to get the supercharge bug....

[MuZiZZle]

I like this, but I'm amazed at the choice, I struggled to put down the power in a 320d with those tyres.


May see you up at Knockhill this year

[Bdevo3]

That's a really nice looking type r.

[RS Grant]

Thanks for all the comments.

Martin_Hx said:

Enjoy it, i know the EP3 will serve you well (had mine almost 10 years on similar mileage) and a red Golf-R, don't see many of them in red!

Just be careful of oil starvation on track with sticky tyres, but you are probably already aware of this.

See Butterface's thread to get the supercharge bug....

Yeah the red R isn't too common, most seem to be blue or white... which is why I fancied something a wee bit different.

I had forgotten to mention the baffled sump, I had thought about a Clockwise Motion sump baffle. Not done a lot of reading on it yet, so not sure if there are better/more effective solutions out there.

Haha the forced induction bug is nibbling away at me already... I've got a friend who had a 700+bhp EP3 Drag Car and another friend with a 600+bhp EP3 track car who I went to Germany with last year and while that kind of power doesn't appeal to me and I wouldn't want anything more than about 50-55% of his output; I do think that the extra oomph would come in handy and liven things up.

MuZiZZle said:

I like this, but I'm amazed at the choice, I struggled to put down the power in a 320d with those tyres.

May see you up at Knockhill this year

Hmm possibly the torque of the BMW they struggle with? ...after all that is something the Honda is a little light on!

But the tyres have been great on this and my Golf (although while that is torquey, that is '4WD'). These are Kumho KU39 Le Sports, not sure if there are any other versions of KU39 out there but I can't complain at all.. there was a night and day difference to the Michelins which came off this car.

Had a wee look at your profile, will it be the Saxo you'll be up in? Have you done much to it? ...if you see me then definitely fire over and say hello.


Cheers,
Grant

[MRobbins1987]

Looks a nice one, it will go really well with the mods your planning, the clockwise baffle is the one you want.

[Butter Face]

Nice buy! Welcome to the EP3 club.

[Johnny50]

Why should i be surprised to see another cracker in your collection!!

Looks ace Grant, liking that a lot.

[AWG]

Be interested to know how you find the carbon pads on track, mine were pretty pants on the road and opted for Performance Friction in the end.

Great thread.

[MuZiZZle]

RS Grant said:

Had a wee look at your profile, will it be the Saxo you'll be up in? Have you done much to it? ...if you see me then definitely fire over and say hello.


Cheers,
Grant

Yeah it's the Saxo, I've done alsorts to it really, it's had a Quaife diff'd box with a shorter final drive and some Avo suspension since I was last up, so I'm hoping to be much quicker, well, as quick as a saxo can be

haha

[RS Grant]

MRobbins1987 said:

Looks a nice one, it will go really well with the mods your planning, the clockwise baffle is the one you want.

Yep I've done a bit more reading about them now and the clockwise baffle is now definitely on my (ever growing?!) list, haha... it's not an eye watering amount of cash either considering how important it seems to be on track if you are running sticky tyres.

Butter Face said:

Nice buy! Welcome to the EP3 club.

Thanks buddy, yours is a fair old way down the road compared to mine.. but the urge to add some boost to mine is growing and reading threads like yours doesn't help!!

But I think I'll do the N/A mods to start with and leave it that way for this year and once I've done some more reading/pricing of parts decide whether I want to take the F/I step over next winter when the car is tucked up in storage.


Cheers,
Grant

[RS Grant]

Johnny50 said:

Why should i be surprised to see another cracker in your collection!!

Looks ace Grant, liking that a lot.

Long time no hear!! It seems we only catch up on PH Readers' Cars threads these days, haha.

Thanks though, it's a belter of a base car; really happy with it and although I wasn't a fan of my previous 06-plate EP3 Premier back in c2008, this one seems to be growing on me much more already.

AWG said:

Be interested to know how you find the carbon pads on track, mine were pretty pants on the road and opted for Performance Friction in the end.

Great thread.

Yeah I'm looking forward to seeing what the pads are like on track too. They've been really quite impressive on the road (aside from the low speed squeal) from the small amount of miles I've driven with them on and don't seem to need much heat to provide good stopping power either... which is great on the road but I hope doesn't mean they'll crumble away when up to track temperatures.


Cheers,
Grant

Edited by RS Grant on Sunday 15th January 14:54

[RS Grant]

MuZiZZle said:

Yeah it's the Saxo, I've done alsorts to it really, it's had a Quaife diff'd box with a shorter final drive and some Avo suspension since I was last up, so I'm hoping to be much quicker, well, as quick as a saxo can be

haha

They're ultra light wee cars and with some small modifications can go very well round Knockhill. It sounds like yours has had some choice work done to it as well, I'd expect that you'll be all over or pulling out a gap on some big power cars and exotica round the tighter half of the track.


Cheers,
Grant

[RS Grant]

362BC4DC-F09A-4A4B-A13A-6B8FDB272231 by RS Grant, on Flickr

I had arranged to take the car over to get the once over from someone who may be repainting a couple of bits for me yesterday, this had all been arranged before the baby jesus dumped snow all over the place.. so rather than cancel, I took the car to see him and although it only did c20 miles it came back looking far less presentable than it does here.


Cheers,
Grant

Edited by RS Grant on Saturday 4th November 16:03

[RS Grant]

B8034055-87D3-4313-803D-55322096F2B4 by RS Grant, on Flickr

I took the car in to Honda to look at an erratic alarm issue, it would recognise the keyfob when you were doing the programming procedure (ignition on-> press lock button-> ignition off... repeat four times) and you could cycle the motors with both lock and unlock buttons. But once the key was removed from the ignition, the keyfob buttons had no effect again. Very strange.

Anyway, you could still lock the car with the key but when you unlocked the car, the alarm would sound and you'd need to go through the keyfob reset procedure again?! I've got this down to a fine art now, but the alarm sounding wasn't really acceptable to me or anybody near me at the time.. so I booked the car into Honda in the hope that it'd be a cheap fix... wrong.

Got a phonecall from the dealership saying that it needs a new alarm siren unit which would be £700+ fitted, or they could remove my defective unit. Tough call eh?! Haha, I got them to remove the current one so now the lights flash when I unlock the car, but no siren which is massively better.. but not ideal, so I'll look into getting a replacement alarm and immobiliser fitted at some point in the near future.

Anyway, onto more fun things...

Rightly or wrongly, I don't trust the Rota wheels being used in extreme situations like track or competition, I remember pictures of shattered Rotas in the way back when and so I'd rather a more substantial wheel to put through the stresses and strains of track work. I've got a bit of an obsession with Speedline Turinis (already having a set on my Golf and a set in storage which I had on my last Impreza) so when these little puppies came up for sale on a Facebook group, I couldn't help myself.

17x7" and ET45 (with 225/45/17 RE070)

7377D9D4-38D8-4E86-807C-5FF161860AE9 by RS Grant, on Flickr

Looking forward to seeing what they look like on the Civic, although I'm tempted to get them refurbished and some slightly narrower tyres in the interest of arch preservation first!!

RS Grant said:

Future plans are:

- Hondata ECU & Mapping
- 4-2-1 Exhaust Manifold
- De-Cat
- Different Exhaust (don't like the big tailpipe)
- Gruppe-M/Tegiwa-M Intake
- LSD

Well I didn't plan for these future plans to arrive so quickly, however, over the past week or two I've been collecting bits from this list and a few extras on top too...

Japspeed 4-2-1 Manifold:

DC6711FA-B321-4C5B-9D07-AFD0A1D1C0D4 by RS Grant, on Flickr
FE639BA7-05C7-4868-BCBE-66210F245D26 by RS Grant, on Flickr

Clockwise Motion Sump Baffle:

EC3E7C16-9F2C-4D12-8677-72FE35945473 by RS Grant, on Flickr
E7F2A6B9-46F4-4269-A05A-1B4E77297A51 by RS Grant, on Flickr

Energy Motor Inserts:

639329F3-1A77-4628-8107-9B41485C416A by RS Grant, on Flickr

Hondata KPro4 ECU:

5240D69E-F310-4DBD-8ED1-B5320D742777 by RS Grant, on Flickr

M2 Adjustable Rear Camber Arms:

28DF0DE7-C394-456C-A6AA-F3CBB101EA27 by RS Grant, on Flickr

Wavetrac ATB Limited Slip Differential:

DF6E3D5A-049B-4593-8CE8-D547FA0990A4 by RS Grant, on Flickr
75402A39-B73F-40AE-B54F-0E66102E5DD3 by RS Grant, on Flickr
09ECBC9F-9BD2-4B76-A3C8-370223A52B4B by RS Grant, on Flickr

Piper 2.5" Cat-Back Exhaust:

FA1B8DDB-49D2-49EB-B3D9-CC31D7015DF6 by RS Grant, on Flickr
1170C1E6-075C-4800-A3E0-6AC7FB2F689C by RS Grant, on Flickr

In addition to this I've ordered genuine Honda Diff Bearings and transmission fluid which I will collect on Monday and I will also pick up an oil filter and some replacement oil for the car too. All things going well, this week coming they should be fitted to the car as it's booked in for mapping on Thursday morning and is booked onto a track session at Knockhill on Saturday!!

Looking forward to seeing how much of a difference this makes to the car though, everybody I've talked to has told me that it'll be money well spent... so the proof will be in the pudding next weekend.


Cheers,
Grant

Edited by RS Grant on Saturday 4th November 16:24

[Butter Face]

Some nice parts mate, the pain is in the fitting of those bits. Sump baffle + LSD + Kpro mapping = ££££

[RS Grant]

Butter Face said:

Some nice parts mate, the pain is in the fitting of those bits. Sump baffle + LSD + Kpro mapping = ££££

I'm very lucky that I've got a friend who is comfortable pulling Hondas apart and building them back up again, although he may need more than a slab of beer this time.. ..however the money tap will need to remain running for some more track-biased rubber and possibly more supportive seats and harnesses too!!

How are you finding your Brembo brake kit? I've just replaced my front brakes but always keen to explore my options so I know what I'm doing when the time comes to replace mine.


Cheers,
Grant

[Butter Face]

They seem spot on mate, nicely bedded in now. If I were going on the track I'd maybe have had more hardcore pads but for road use they seem fine!

I have a friend who fits all my Honda bits for me too, he's a legend. Don't know how he'd feel about an LSD thoug.

Who's going to nap the car for you? Kpro V4 is pretty cool, I like using the app for the live data!