Modular Cal
Senior Member
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I had a bit of an idea this morning. I love going over build threads and seeing everyone's progress on their car, but I don't see threads on performance/competitive driving and someone's progress in that regard. In my opinion, these are just as exciting. Plus, I will be doing more driving than building, so I feel this is the perfect place for this thread.
Background
Myself: I've been autocrossing, doing HPDE and Time Trials for 15 years. However, I have always been in something V8 powered and rear wheel drive. For someone who claims to love all sorts of cars, I have been singular in my automotive choices for the past 5 cars (3 Foxbodies, 1 New Edge, and an S197 Mustang). I had a lot of fun in those cars, but I wanted to try something new. The FK8 (what I was planning on buying in 2019) and now the FL5 (what I ended up buying after seeing spy shots) fit the bill in multiple ways. An added bonus was the effect of history: my father was a big Honda enthusiast and I've loved watching REALTIME compete in World Challenge since the old Speedvision days. I've never driven a performance FWD car in anger, so I'm excited to learn. People vastly underestimate the value of having the chance to be bad at something.
The site for events 1-3: January was actually the 3rd event in our SCCA region's "Farewell to Pungo" series, but my first event in this car. We found out late last year that we were losing our autocross site, an old WWII era airstrip, to the energy company for an equipment laydown area. This meant a fun, but chilly, winter series to have our last few events at the place. The surface is not in the greatest condition, being an old concrete pad that has been ill-maintained for the last handful of decades. It's also not very big; it requires a course that turns back into itself and only allows one car on course at a time. This meant course designers had to get creative but it produced some fun courses over the years. This site was normally looked down upon due to it's size and condition, but that little postage stamp did create some national champions and podiums over the years. I'm going to miss it.
The Car: A Boost Blue 2023 Civic Type R, badge 581. No optional accessories. Currently bone stock as I want to see what the car presents to me before making any changes.
Events 1 thru 3
Due to inspiration for this thread coming later, I'll quickly sum up my experiences with the FL5 during the first events in this post. Later posts will have a more thorough breakdown, along with more video (GoPro was having some issues the first event) and pictures.
- Event 1: January's event was a bit chilly, but not unreasonable in the low 50's. At this moment, the FL5 was not classed for SOLO competition. Our Solo Chair and myself went back-and-forth between D-Street (DS, where the FK8 is classed) and B-Street (BS, where the FL5 eventually became classed) and decided on DS for this event. I also decided to see what the car did with no changes, so for the first event, I left tire pressure's at the factory 35 psi and left the suspension pins in place. I ran the car in +R mode with traction and VSA off (held the button for 10-ish seconds). 1st run - I had no idea what RPM would be good to launch the car, so I settled on a street start with a little extra ambition. A bit of a bog, but no worries as the first curve (a left) was about 15 feet from the start anyhow. The 2nd turn, a 90 degree into a slalom, showed just how tail happy the FL5 can be with stock tires in an autocross environment. A quick dash of the brake and some steering ended up with me 90 degrees to the path of travel. Hey, no worries, I'm learning the car. This about happened again coming into one of the smaller 180 sweepers around what was affectionately called "Gilligan's Island," a small patch of grass at one end of the course. Instead of becoming perpendicular to the turn, it made some nice rotation through it. Run 2 - Lets see how intrusive/slack the traction and stability control can be. I decided to leave everything on and regretted it just after immediately. The remaining runs were more of the same; a couple spin outs but also a lot of learning.
Verdict from the first event: I'm driving the car like it's one of my old Mustangs. I'm so used to braking in a way to get the rear to rotate a little and I need to adjust myself for this car. Our course can be quite bumpy in spots, but at no point did I feel like +R suspension was too hard. At least not yet. I also noticed how much wider this car is compared to my precious car. Maybe it's more of the car being wider lower-down.
Event's 2 and 3 will be added this evening (as well as pictures and video). Picture from the 2nd event with temporary yellow tape over my old blue number set. New numbers came in!
![11th Gen Honda Civic ModularCal's FL5 Competition Thread [Competitive Driving Journal] 20230226_113455](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns%3D'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg' width='3000' height='1401' viewBox%3D'0 0 3000 1401'%2F%3E)
Background
Myself: I've been autocrossing, doing HPDE and Time Trials for 15 years. However, I have always been in something V8 powered and rear wheel drive. For someone who claims to love all sorts of cars, I have been singular in my automotive choices for the past 5 cars (3 Foxbodies, 1 New Edge, and an S197 Mustang). I had a lot of fun in those cars, but I wanted to try something new. The FK8 (what I was planning on buying in 2019) and now the FL5 (what I ended up buying after seeing spy shots) fit the bill in multiple ways. An added bonus was the effect of history: my father was a big Honda enthusiast and I've loved watching REALTIME compete in World Challenge since the old Speedvision days. I've never driven a performance FWD car in anger, so I'm excited to learn. People vastly underestimate the value of having the chance to be bad at something.
The site for events 1-3: January was actually the 3rd event in our SCCA region's "Farewell to Pungo" series, but my first event in this car. We found out late last year that we were losing our autocross site, an old WWII era airstrip, to the energy company for an equipment laydown area. This meant a fun, but chilly, winter series to have our last few events at the place. The surface is not in the greatest condition, being an old concrete pad that has been ill-maintained for the last handful of decades. It's also not very big; it requires a course that turns back into itself and only allows one car on course at a time. This meant course designers had to get creative but it produced some fun courses over the years. This site was normally looked down upon due to it's size and condition, but that little postage stamp did create some national champions and podiums over the years. I'm going to miss it.
The Car: A Boost Blue 2023 Civic Type R, badge 581. No optional accessories. Currently bone stock as I want to see what the car presents to me before making any changes.
Events 1 thru 3
Due to inspiration for this thread coming later, I'll quickly sum up my experiences with the FL5 during the first events in this post. Later posts will have a more thorough breakdown, along with more video (GoPro was having some issues the first event) and pictures.
- Event 1: January's event was a bit chilly, but not unreasonable in the low 50's. At this moment, the FL5 was not classed for SOLO competition. Our Solo Chair and myself went back-and-forth between D-Street (DS, where the FK8 is classed) and B-Street (BS, where the FL5 eventually became classed) and decided on DS for this event. I also decided to see what the car did with no changes, so for the first event, I left tire pressure's at the factory 35 psi and left the suspension pins in place. I ran the car in +R mode with traction and VSA off (held the button for 10-ish seconds). 1st run - I had no idea what RPM would be good to launch the car, so I settled on a street start with a little extra ambition. A bit of a bog, but no worries as the first curve (a left) was about 15 feet from the start anyhow. The 2nd turn, a 90 degree into a slalom, showed just how tail happy the FL5 can be with stock tires in an autocross environment. A quick dash of the brake and some steering ended up with me 90 degrees to the path of travel. Hey, no worries, I'm learning the car. This about happened again coming into one of the smaller 180 sweepers around what was affectionately called "Gilligan's Island," a small patch of grass at one end of the course. Instead of becoming perpendicular to the turn, it made some nice rotation through it. Run 2 - Lets see how intrusive/slack the traction and stability control can be. I decided to leave everything on and regretted it just after immediately. The remaining runs were more of the same; a couple spin outs but also a lot of learning.
Verdict from the first event: I'm driving the car like it's one of my old Mustangs. I'm so used to braking in a way to get the rear to rotate a little and I need to adjust myself for this car. Our course can be quite bumpy in spots, but at no point did I feel like +R suspension was too hard. At least not yet. I also noticed how much wider this car is compared to my precious car. Maybe it's more of the car being wider lower-down.
Event's 2 and 3 will be added this evening (as well as pictures and video). Picture from the 2nd event with temporary yellow tape over my old blue number set. New numbers came in!
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