11GenSonicSi
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In 2022, I ran 10-15 track days with my Si. The car ran great with stock suspension and minimal mods. As a seat time track car, I found a couple pain points and they are being addressed accordingly in this thread. Goal is to get a lot of seat time while not breaking the bank.
Disclaimer: this is me sharing my experience with my car. I will not be responsible for any vehicle fitment, damage, injury, death, etc..
Expensive custom brake pads
As of 2023, there are no manufacturer that does high volume production. So custom track pads are over $300 a set for only 20 sessions. Pad cost is through the roof considering how long they last.
After some search, I found the Honda caliper with high volume production, 10th gen non Si caliper. Decent sport pads are $100 a set. Here is the table I found on A-Premium website. Surprisingly Honda Fit uses the same caliper lol.
And I came across this great thread on brother forum civicx: https://www.civicx.com/forum/threads/brake-info-thread.62520/
In this thread, mounting point data is 140mm center to center. Immediately I pulled my measurement with a tape measure. 11th gen has 140mm as well.
With caliper itself is not enough, I would need the whole system to bolt on. I measaured the hub diameter and compared it to the rotor dimension on Rock Auto. They fit. Note that 11gen Si rotor is 312mm while 10th gen non Si is 289mm. Brake bias shifts to the rear about 2-5 percent.
At this point, I pulled the trigger on parts order. Here is what I ordered to do the $300 small brake swap. Long story short, I just bought calipers, rotors, brake hoses. Brake hardware and banjo bolts actually came with Centric calipers so I ended up with a set of spares.
Lets take a look at all the 10th gen non Si parts on 11th gen Si. All of the parts bolt on except for one caveat, the dust shield.
Dust shield delete is fairly common on a track car. In this case, upon removing the dust shield, ABS sensor will be directly exposed to rotor surface. This is not good. For the time being, I wrapped the ABS sensor and lines with 3M aluminum foil tape. Reason being the car is my daily as well. I can't really afford downtime. Result on daily driving is good, no ABS warning or fault. DEI heat sleeve is on order. I will be runnning with heat sleeve rather that foils.
With that, the $300 small brake kit swap is complete.
Sprung assembly overheating
ARP studs
For a while, I though I could pull away with only high friction compound brake pads. Turns out the car did not take it so well. Brake pads are big heat sinks at the same time. When they are grind down, there are less capacity to hold heat. As a result, the heat would be spreaded to the rest of the sprung assembly.
Last August, I came across a catastrophic failure of the front axles. On a track session, the brake pads went from half all the way to the backing plate. Heat got nowhere to go but the rotors and the wheels. I felt that early because of the metal sound and ended the session. While I was in grid, I found the wheel weight fell off. and the wheels studs broke off. They went through too many heat cycles they are designed to withstand. Luckily no one was hurt.
After this incident, I decided to sell the car... oh no, wrong thread lol.
After this incident, I decided to change the studs out with ARP ones. I went with the stock length ARP, part number 100-7709. They turned out still a nipple too long to work with the Honda lug nuts. So I went ahead and bought a set of Dorman 611-144 open ended Honda lug nuts.
For deinstallation of the front studs, I didn't find a neat way to do it. What I ended up doing is to hammer the studs out, and chop the head off with an angle grinder behind the hub face.
About installation, the rear goes in without any cutting. As for the front, to prevent a wheel bearing install, head of the studs would need to be trimmed down. And dust shield would at least need a opening to allow the new studs to slip out. Or a complete dust shield removal with a tin snip. Here is a pic of what I did to the studs. I know it's controvesal, but it holds up well in my case.
Audi RS3 brake Ducts
The other day I was watching Savagegeese's Audi RS3 review.
In the review, a detail caught my eyes, the brake duct! As a high performance car with strut front suspension, RS3 came with stock brake ducts. How about a Honda with the ducts! After a quick search I found them cheapest on eBay and bought them.
Pic on the left is screenshot from video of Savagegeese, pic on the right is my car with the RS3 duct on eBay.
The fitment is great but a lot of trimming is required. Also it's mounted lower than what VW intended to do because of the sway bar protrusion. Although I don't have any data yet nor I am a person that does CFD, this should get the job done since OEs are doing it like this.
Happy new year everyone.
Disclaimer: this is me sharing my experience with my car. I will not be responsible for any vehicle fitment, damage, injury, death, etc..
Expensive custom brake pads
As of 2023, there are no manufacturer that does high volume production. So custom track pads are over $300 a set for only 20 sessions. Pad cost is through the roof considering how long they last.
After some search, I found the Honda caliper with high volume production, 10th gen non Si caliper. Decent sport pads are $100 a set. Here is the table I found on A-Premium website. Surprisingly Honda Fit uses the same caliper lol.
And I came across this great thread on brother forum civicx: https://www.civicx.com/forum/threads/brake-info-thread.62520/
In this thread, mounting point data is 140mm center to center. Immediately I pulled my measurement with a tape measure. 11th gen has 140mm as well.
With caliper itself is not enough, I would need the whole system to bolt on. I measaured the hub diameter and compared it to the rotor dimension on Rock Auto. They fit. Note that 11gen Si rotor is 312mm while 10th gen non Si is 289mm. Brake bias shifts to the rear about 2-5 percent.
At this point, I pulled the trigger on parts order. Here is what I ordered to do the $300 small brake swap. Long story short, I just bought calipers, rotors, brake hoses. Brake hardware and banjo bolts actually came with Centric calipers so I ended up with a set of spares.
Lets take a look at all the 10th gen non Si parts on 11th gen Si. All of the parts bolt on except for one caveat, the dust shield.
Dust shield delete is fairly common on a track car. In this case, upon removing the dust shield, ABS sensor will be directly exposed to rotor surface. This is not good. For the time being, I wrapped the ABS sensor and lines with 3M aluminum foil tape. Reason being the car is my daily as well. I can't really afford downtime. Result on daily driving is good, no ABS warning or fault. DEI heat sleeve is on order. I will be runnning with heat sleeve rather that foils.
With that, the $300 small brake kit swap is complete.
Sprung assembly overheating
ARP studs
For a while, I though I could pull away with only high friction compound brake pads. Turns out the car did not take it so well. Brake pads are big heat sinks at the same time. When they are grind down, there are less capacity to hold heat. As a result, the heat would be spreaded to the rest of the sprung assembly.
Last August, I came across a catastrophic failure of the front axles. On a track session, the brake pads went from half all the way to the backing plate. Heat got nowhere to go but the rotors and the wheels. I felt that early because of the metal sound and ended the session. While I was in grid, I found the wheel weight fell off. and the wheels studs broke off. They went through too many heat cycles they are designed to withstand. Luckily no one was hurt.
After this incident, I decided to sell the car... oh no, wrong thread lol.
After this incident, I decided to change the studs out with ARP ones. I went with the stock length ARP, part number 100-7709. They turned out still a nipple too long to work with the Honda lug nuts. So I went ahead and bought a set of Dorman 611-144 open ended Honda lug nuts.
For deinstallation of the front studs, I didn't find a neat way to do it. What I ended up doing is to hammer the studs out, and chop the head off with an angle grinder behind the hub face.
About installation, the rear goes in without any cutting. As for the front, to prevent a wheel bearing install, head of the studs would need to be trimmed down. And dust shield would at least need a opening to allow the new studs to slip out. Or a complete dust shield removal with a tin snip. Here is a pic of what I did to the studs. I know it's controvesal, but it holds up well in my case.
Audi RS3 brake Ducts
The other day I was watching Savagegeese's Audi RS3 review.
In the review, a detail caught my eyes, the brake duct! As a high performance car with strut front suspension, RS3 came with stock brake ducts. How about a Honda with the ducts! After a quick search I found them cheapest on eBay and bought them.
Pic on the left is screenshot from video of Savagegeese, pic on the right is my car with the RS3 duct on eBay.
The fitment is great but a lot of trimming is required. Also it's mounted lower than what VW intended to do because of the sway bar protrusion. Although I don't have any data yet nor I am a person that does CFD, this should get the job done since OEs are doing it like this.
Happy new year everyone.
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