Update: Spoon Sports USA Time Attack Civic!
If you are a Honda fan or a follower of Time Attack then you are probably familiar with the Spoon Sports USA Civic, the little Honda that could. Last year the Spoon Civic with Formula Drift Champion Dai Yoshihara at the wheel, set the Time Attack world on its ear by surpassing the previously thought unbeatable FWD Unlimited lap record for Buttonwillow 13 CW.
Considered to be the home of North America’s Time Attack lap time standard, the Buttonwillow record was held for many years by Chris Rado’s revolutionary F-Wing. The little underpowered Civic set the record despite the challenge of several other FWD unlimited cars that had much more power and more aero.
With the challengers coming to this year’s Super Lap Battle with more power and another year’s development, Spoon Sports USA decided to moderately update the Civic with some refinements to the chassis, suspension, and aero. The improvements were not major changes, just some refinements to mostly improve driver safety and reliability some small changes in suspension and other systems.
The work is currently progressing at Eimer Engineering, the home of Dai’s Formula Drift team and the location where many of our own projects get their fabrication done. Even with the best of plans, we are behind. largely due to a long and difficult Formula Drift season that was big on development as we fought from 22nd in 2015 points to 6th this year. Work on the car did not begin in earnest until after the final round at Irwindale two weeks ago.
The K20A2 engine built by Spoon Sports Japan remains internally unchanged from last year. The focus for this year was to replace the problematic Japanese built header and exhaust system with something more reliable and better flowing. Last year the header and exhaust cracked several times during the event. The stock transmission also failed and the record was set without the benefit of 4th gear.To solve the drivetrain issues, Special Projects Motorsports rebuilt the transmission using one of their Gear-X heavy duty gear sets. The syncro gearset can hold up to 600 hp and has close ratios. 2.313 for first, 1.650 for second, 1.304 for third, 1.080 for fourth, 0.958 for fifth and 0.851 for sixth.
An OS Giken 1 way FWD tuned differential was also installed at this time, replacing the previous differential that was found to be worn out.
The problematic hand made JDM exhaust header was replaced with a Full Race 4-1 part.The Full Race header is made of thick wall stainless, is equal length and has a true merged collector. Chris Eimer built a simplified 4″ exhaust that is a straight line out to the side of the car with a flex bellows-equipped discharge pipe from the 50mm Turbosmart Pro-Gate 50.
All of the fabrication parts like the bellows, V-band clamps, and U-bends in stainless steel and aluminum were supplied by Vibrant.
The same Garrett GTX3576R ball bearing center section turbo was reused.The Full Race exhaust manifold cants the turbo to make the side exit exhaust a straight shot out of the side of the body and handily positions the turbo so the previous hood mounted scoop feeds cold air right into the inlet.
The charge pipe to the intercooler was straightened out and simplified. A Turbosmart Race Port BOV reduces compressor surge on overrun and reduces lag improving throttle response when modulating the throttle.
You can see how direct and short the charge piping is from the turbo to the GReddy intercooler.On the intake side the charge pipe from the intercooler to the throttle body is super short and simple due to the K-Tuned intake manifold with the bottom mounted throttle body. The piping has been kept short and simple. Low volume charge pipes reduce lag, improve throttle response, are lighter, and actually increase power by reducing compressor work and backpressure.
