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Early on in 2015, Edo Stepanyan decided he wanted to reconfigure his long time wheel-to-wheel race car DA Integra into an Unlimited Class FWD competitor for Global Time Attack Super Lap Battle. With his former B20/VTEC race engine not being up to par in the power output department for time attack competition, Edo went with a full race-built K24 conversion with I-VTEC K20 head. Thanks to his supportive sponsors, the engine and driveline came together in time for Super Lap Battle in a short 2 month span. Even though he was down from the engine’s peak potential due to limitations in fuel flow capacity, the motor still made solid horsepower and a wide torque band to match the sponsor built tight ratio gear box.
With massive wheels and tires that required heavy modification to the fenders up front, new braking system, and a fully upgraded and modernized driveline, Edo was able to lock in 3rd place in Unlimited FWD class with a time of 1:51.617. This is the fastest NA FWD time ever recorded at Buttonwillow.
James Houghton, of R-Division, was another Canadian team making their second appearance to Super Lap Battle with the Supercharged K24 DC2 Integra Type-R. Halfway through day one however, James had a bad off-track incident, essentially destroying his whole front-end body work.
The R-Division crew worked though the night piecing together the remains of the front-end and repairing the parts that could not be found in order to get James back on grid for day two. The hard work paid off with a 2nd place finish in Unlimited FWD class at a lap time of 1:49.245
Spoon Sports USA has been looking to take the long standing Unlimited Class FWD record, which they just barely missed last year at Super Lap Battle. Even with testing all year, the JDM Type-R Civic had various issues with the exhaust manifold reliability, leaving the car down on power.
Once the exhaust manifold issues were repaired, the gear box lost all function of 4th gear. However, the team decided to send out Formula D pro driver, Dai Yoshiara, anyway to see if they could still challenge for the record. Amazingly, even without 4th gear, Dai was able to beat the record with a time of 1:45.585, which also secured 1st place in class.Watch the Spoon Sports USA Civic Type R run record pace with no 4th gear!
Unlimited class FWD podium, 3rd place Edo Stepanyan, 2nd place James Houghton, 1st place Dai Yoshiara.
Shortly before Super Lap Battle, Tom Tang’s 2.5 liter NA motor let go at the last MotoIQ MPTCC race weekend. With less then a month to figure out a new engine, Tom decided against another exotic and extensive 2.5 NA build, and went with a stock F22 and supercharger. With higher levels of horsepower and torque, and also cheaper and easier to source stock 2.2 liter AP2 engines, Tom’s car was sorted out before the event. Tom was able to run his quickest ever at 1:49.958 and take 3rd place in Unlimited RWD.
Tom Tang behind the wheel of his ST3 Race car supercharged for Global Time Attack Super Lap Battle!
