Unity Performance Humza's FL5 Build Thread

[Unity Performance]

Hidden just above the cooling plate is the rear motor mount. I’ve had the Wunderladen Street RMM on the car since early November, and it became my benchmark for both performance gains and NVH. Up to that point, it was easily the best mount I had tested since I started experimenting with them back in 2018.

That said, I always like trying new options, so we swapped in the COBB RMM while everything was apart. In terms of performance improvement, it’s very close to the Wunderladen. Where it stands out slightly is NVH. If I were to rate the Wunderladen a 4/5 for NVH management, I’d give the COBB a 4.5/5. The difference isn’t big enough to justify replacing a perfectly good Wunderladen mount, but it is noticeable and worth mentioning.

 

[ABPDE5]

I had a used 27WON snorkel from a friend’s FL5 part-out, so with the bumper already off, it made sense to install it at the same time. It does require removing the factory shroud, which may raise some concerns, but for a primarily street-driven car I didn’t expect it to have any meaningful impact on coolant temperatures.

It would be difficult to compare intake air temperature data before and after the snorkel installation, as the Infinity Designs Intake and Inlet were installed at the same time. Any changes in IATs would be influenced by all three components, making it impossible to isolate the snorkel’s contribution on its own.

I do have plans to upgrade the Rad once the RV6 660AS goes on. It’s not a mandatory upgrade, but as power levels increase, so does the demand on the cooling system. Additional cooling capacity is a worthwhile step to help manage the extra heat and maintain consistent performance.

FYI: the snorkel has been found to block a significant amount of flow to the radiator and cause coolant / oil temp issues. This is more of a concern for those taking their car to the track than it is for those who drive only on the street, but just figured I'd bring the pretty substantial negative impacts of this mod to your attention, in case you weren't already aware.

 

[Unity Performance]

FYI: the snorkel has been found to block a significant amount of flow to the radiator and cause coolant / oil temp issues. This is more of a concern for those taking their car to the track than it is for those who drive only on the street, but just figured I'd bring the pretty substantial negative impacts of this mod to your attention, in case you weren't already aware.

I’m aware that it’s not the ideal setup for dedicated track use, and since I’m not as avid a track-goer as I once was, it’s less of a concern for me. On the street and highway, I haven’t seen any noticeable increase in coolant temperatures.

The main reason I chose the snorkel was to provide the intake with as much airflow as possible, which I’ll be diving into in my next post.

 

[Unity Performance]

We had an Infinity Designs Inlet Pipe arrive as an exchange, and ID tempted me with their Intake when they heard I was still running the stock setup. It didn’t take much convincing since I’d been craving some induction noise. I previously ran both Eventuri and PRL setups on my FK8, and our shop DE5 currently has the PRL setup, so this felt like the perfect opportunity.

I’m really glad I was able to install this without making any tuning changes beforehand because all the customer feedback about improved throttle response and a noticeable bump in power is absolutely true. The large bar-and-plate intercooler may add a touch of lag compared to stock, but the gains in airflow and consistency more than make up for it.

The butt dyno says there’s easily a 5% increase in horsepower and torque throughout the rev range thanks to the improved airflow. I’m sure other Infinity Intake & Inlet owners would back that up. I can’t speak for other shops, but our sales figures suggest we’re a medium-to-high-volume Infinity dealer, and it’s easy to see why so many people consider it a top choice.

Here is the link if you’d like to check it out on our site

https://unity-performance.com/produ...ake-23-civic-type-r-fl5-23-integra-type-s-de5

 

[Unity Performance]

Wunderladen Passenger Motor Mount (PMM)

The homie, @Austin@Wunderladen Racing hooked us up with an early preview of their PMM (street) to test on my FL5! I already love their RMM (street), and we've experienced how their full mount setup feels on our 10th Gen Si, so I jumped on the opportunity right away.

Context: I've never run aftermarket top mounts on my personal cars before because most of the existing options from other brands introduced way too much NVH for my taste in a daily-driven car. But since our 10th Gen Si handles the full Wunderladen setup without being obnoxious, I felt a lot more confident giving this a shot.

Install: About 1 hour, thanks to @Thusee ! Coolant tank comes off (no need to disconnect hoses), support the engine from underneath with a jack + block of wood. For reference, the already-available Wunderladen TMM is more of a 3–4 hour install since the intake, battery, and other components need to come out to make room.

Immediate impressions: Holy crap... that crunchy 1–2 shift feeling is completely gone. 2–3–4? Yeahhhh baby this thing feels TIGHT!

I noticed a slight bump in NVH, but in 80°F summer heat with the A/C blasting, it's honestly just a mild rumble. No new panel rattles on takeoff, nothing while driving, aside from the occasional map light rattle that was already there before the install.

Best way I can describe it? It feels like stacking the benefits of the RMM swap, cable linkage bushings, fresh trans fluid, and then some.

I'm past my racecar phase these days — I like cruising, doing the occasional pull, and being able to feel the car when I want to, not every second of every drive.

Final verdict: If you already have Wunderladen's TMM, this is a total no-brainer. If you want tighter shifts and a more connected drivetrain feel without being penalized by more NVH, this is absolutely a worthwhile upgrade.

~2 months in: Still running it daily and the story hasn't changed — NVH is still minimal, no new rattles, nothing creeping in over time. Shifts are noticeably tighter than even just the RMM on its own at this point, roughly twice as smooth. This has stayed a genuine daily driver mount, not something you're tolerating for the drivetrain feel.

 

[Unity Performance]

ARK Exhaust

I've had the ARK Exhaust on my FL5 for just over two months now, and it has a really clean tone both inside and outside the car. You can run it with or without the center resonator. As someone in his 30s with a wife and a baby, I definitely prefer the resonated setup since it cuts down on in-cabin NVH. I think the younger and/or wilder crowd will probably enjoy the non-resonated version more.

There's no real drone around town with the resonated setup. I only noticed a bit of it with the non-resonated version. I did a 50-mile drive with the cruise set at 75 mph, and while there was some cabin noise with the resonated setup, it was completely livable. Personally, I wouldn't have wanted to do that same drive with the non-resonated version.

Keeping it around 67–70 mph is the sweet spot. I was able to reduce cabin decibel levels to 73db, compared to 76db as seen in the video that I shared here on Reddit. That drop represents a very noticeable drop in in-cabin volume.

For reference, this is with the stock downpipe and front pipe. I usually rank exhausts as mild, medium, or loud. The resonated ARK sits on the lower end of medium, while the non-resonated version is on the higher end of medium. To me, loud is stuff like the AWE Track Edition Exhaust or Tomei Type D. A resonated ARK paired with an upgraded downpipe and front pipe would be a really nice combo.

Build quality is excellent. From the packaging to the welds, material quality, and overall finish, you can tell a lot of effort went into making this exhaust. Overall, pretty satisfied with my time testing out the ARK! Anyone who has heard it inside or outside has complimented the sound as well

If you'd like to check it out, we're an authorized ARK Dealer: https://unity-performance.com/products/ark-dt-s-exhaust-23-civic-type-r-fl5

 

[Cueyo]

Wunderladen Passenger Motor Mount (PMM)

The homie, @Austin@Wunderladen Racing hooked us up with an early preview of their PMM (street) to test on my FL5! I already love their RMM (street), and we've experienced how their full mount setup feels on our 10th Gen Si, so I jumped on the opportunity right away.

Context: I've never run aftermarket top mounts on my personal cars before because most of the existing options from other brands introduced way too much NVH for my taste in a daily-driven car. But since our 10th Gen Si handles the full Wunderladen setup without being obnoxious, I felt a lot more confident giving this a shot.

Install: About 1 hour, thanks to @Thusee ! Coolant tank comes off (no need to disconnect hoses), support the engine from underneath with a jack + block of wood. For reference, the already-available Wunderladen TMM is more of a 3–4 hour install since the intake, battery, and other components need to come out to make room.

Immediate impressions: Holy crap... that crunchy 1–2 shift feeling is completely gone. 2–3–4? Yeahhhh baby this thing feels TIGHT!

I noticed a slight bump in NVH, but in 80°F summer heat with the A/C blasting, it's honestly just a mild rumble. No new panel rattles on takeoff, nothing while driving, aside from the occasional map light rattle that was already there before the install.

Best way I can describe it? It feels like stacking the benefits of the RMM swap, cable linkage bushings, fresh trans fluid, and then some.

I'm past my racecar phase these days — I like cruising, doing the occasional pull, and being able to feel the car when I want to, not every second of every drive.

Final verdict: If you already have Wunderladen's TMM, this is a total no-brainer. If you want tighter shifts and a more connected drivetrain feel without being penalized by more NVH, this is absolutely a worthwhile upgrade.

~2 months in: Still running it daily and the story hasn't changed — NVH is still minimal, no new rattles, nothing creeping in over time. Shifts are noticeably tighter than even just the RMM on its own at this point, roughly twice as smooth. This has stayed a genuine daily driver mount, not something you're tolerating for the drivetrain feel.

Have you tried it without the rmm to see if it's actually doing as much for the car? I'd be curious if it's a better alternative to an rmm if it didn't effect nvh that much

 

[Unity Performance]

Have you tried it without the rmm to see if it's actually doing as much for the car? I'd be curious if it's a better alternative to an rmm if it didn't effect nvh that much

I haven't tried the Wunderladen PMM with the factory RMM — I'm still running the COBB RMM alongside it. We could run that experiment just to see, but I'd guess almost everyone installing a PMM is already running an RMM too. It'd take a while to shift the general mindset toward doing a PMM before an RMM.

I do eventually want to try the Spoon Motion Control Beam rods, front and rear, since those tend to settle out unwanted frequencies — but I haven't felt any rush to pull the trigger on that yet.

 

[Cueyo]

I do eventually want to try the Spoon Motion Control Beam rods, front and rear, since those tend to settle out unwanted frequencies — but I haven't felt any rush to pull the trigger on that yet.

First time I'm hearing about these. Have you seen anyone running them? Im holding off on rigid collars because they're such a pain to install, though they've shown to reduce nvh in my own vehicles.

 

[Evox787]

First time I'm hearing about these. Have you seen anyone running them? Im holding off on rigid collars because they're such a pain to install, though they've shown to reduce nvh in my own vehicles.

I installed rigid collars on mine for the PRL because I wasn’t going to overpay for the spoon. I did it in my garage, and the ones that were a little bit difficult were the ones on the control arm and in the rear middle of the front subframe, but it is just to play a little bit with the bolts. Honestly, it took me an hour tops. I did it for alignment mainly after I installed the lowering springs.

 

[Unity Performance]

First time I'm hearing about these. Have you seen anyone running them? Im holding off on rigid collars because they're such a pain to install, though they've shown to reduce nvh in my own vehicles.

No, but I’m sure if I put a post up on the Facebook groups, someone will come out of the woodworks and talk about them. If not, then I’ll happily be the guinea pig. They’re similar to the Mugen Performance Dampers, which several people I know have vouched for - if we had a Mugen account I’d already have these on.

My next post is about the PRL SRS Collar Kit. Got those installed a month ago, and they’re great - noticed them right away. I had the Spoon Rigid Collar Kit in the FK8 for but we did so many installs at once on that car it was hard to distinguish the effects of each mod.

I’m really enjoying the step by step process with the FL5

Sponsored