Norm - Perth DC5R

[Norm]

Thanks everyone for the well wishes. What a night. Absolutely exhilarating. I will be writing a short review of my night once I get the videos up.






I spun out on my 4th and 8th lap at the same corner. My timing of dabbing the brakes was a little late and fish tailed the end. Nonetheless here are my results!



Where my time stood overall in the fastest lap times of the short track.




Ended up doing 1 really good baseline lap time of 1:01.2663 and with Geoff Duckworth (Instructor) driving it he set an amazing time of 1:00.2943, with a right tyre PSI of 15 due to my earlier incident causing a deflation!. He is absolutely amazing and I most definitely be seeking some coaching lessons fromhim before I leave for Melbourne. On another note, the car is abit heavy. We shall deal with the weight later.



On a good note, I had great support from friends lukits01 and RacingInJapan giving me awesome advise. Videos will be up shortly! Also big thanks to Lukits01 for the amazing photos!

Geoff driving my car!

Manifold looks nice Norm!

On the track width front, you'd be wasting your time getting Rod to bring his car or a statement from Honda Japan, as the track width of the JDM DC5R is nearly identical to the Australian model. The difference in the knuckle and hub are almost completely compensated for by the wheel offset. No matter which way you look at it you're a long way wider than any DC5.

Tom, I forgot to mention. I'm actually engineering the car with my CR Kai's, 17 x 7.5 inch, +47 offset. I can't pass with my kiwami's.

[tyk]

Nice, looked real fun.

Car looking tough out on the track in the dark.

[eskimo_firefighter]

Only 1 second off a driving instructor's lap time. That's really awesome stuff. Well done Norm.

[Oz Striker]

Great stuff Norm! Good to see the car finnally in action!

[M@lew]

The car sees the track! Time to bring it to Melbourne tracks now

[Norm]

Track review 1/11/2013
It was my 2nd time on the Barbagello track. I have never seen the track prior to its recent renovations however from what my friends and peers have commented it seem as a “nice improvement”. The weather was great and temp was 27 degrees. The first time on the track was a night time event and it was difficult to get a proper vision of my lines. Nonetheless, I talked to Duckie (Tutor) who I must admit, a top top bloke who is as genuine as you will ever find. He decided to take it up and give me a few lessons. What better to prepare me for Melbourne than a few lessons from a pro?

I won’t be reviewing the track as I have not much to compare with at this stage in my track experience. However I will review a couple of items.

1. Hybrid racing shifter and HR shifter cables
2. Toyo R1R tyres
3. AP racing brake calipers 5200 and AP403 brake pads

Hybrid Racing Shifter and cables
The shifter is a state of art. My previous shifter was a very simple add-on attachment to the OEM shifter box to make it a short shifter. It came like that from the previous owner. This shifter has been built with strong research and rigorous testing. Hybrid Racing certainly makes great products. Functional wise, it is easy to adjust how short you like your gears. The height of the shifter is very simple to adjust and the promotion video by Spaz (ClubRSX member) shows how easy it is to adjust from just an allen key. Keep in mind that the bearings are meant to be self-lubricating and HR doesn’t bear any mentioning of any maintenance requirements. In comparison to the other competitors out there, the price ($379.99) is a no brainer if you’re definitely choosing to buy a shifter. An unfortunate design fault about the shifter though is that on reverse it does hit the centre console stitching side even though HR staff claim they have no issues with this. Other than the fancy specifications and metals used, I’m sure you can look this up on their website. Oh, you won’t be able to use your OEM mounting bolts as the shifter gets in the way. You will have to use the ones provided by HR.





The shifter cables sure are tough. You’ll get abit of a hand workout when you first use them but I believe they do soften up. The combination on track with the shifter is amazing. They certainly feel solid. The cables are direct OEM replacements however HR do provide new & stiffer shifter springs to change. Just make sure to not over-tighten the bolts as I did. I snapped one off. If you don’t know what I’m mean then perhaps it won’t worry you. But if you have bought the product, it is one of the items you will need to change. A comparison of different shifters out there and cost,

Metal & Billet construct

• Hybrid Racing Shifter - $379.99
• K-Tuned Billet RSX Shifter - $429.99

Plastic casing

• Buddyclub shifter - $135.00 (via Karcepts) or $112.95 (via eBay)
• SSR short shifter - $130 (via http://www.speedstar-racing.com/)
• Tegiwa short shifter attachment - ~$85 (via Tegiwa)

I'm sure there are others out there but these are the ones off the top of my head.


Toyo R1R Tyres
Well let’s start with the thread wear rating. Their 140 and the tyre sidewalls are extremely soft. You will feel a cushion of air as you press on the brakes and you will receive good progressive response from the road. Despite my choice of a very ambitious 265/35/18 spec tyre/rim choice, I certainly can’t complain about the traction around corners but the unsprung weight certainly works against me. It is almost acting as a form of brakes. From the camber wear on my rear tyres, I will be dropping them to 235’s and perhaps have 245 or 255’s upfront. Overall the tyres handle very well and for their cost they are definitely a well worth a purchase. I was running temperatures between 32-34 whilst hot and 27-28 while cold. However depending on your track layout, you might have different temperatures on each side and may have to adjust accordingly. A handy tool to have is a tyre pressure gauge. In the wet it is believed that these perform beautifully due to their pattern design, but review sources stem from online reviews. For my next set of tyres I will perhaps try the RE-11’s or the AD08’s. For those wanting to use these purely for a street tyre, you might want to consider something else which does not wear as quickly. One criticism about these tyres is its sidewall softness and the design being directional. Perhaps the softness of the sidewall is just the Toyo design flagship.

• Thread Wear Rating – 140
• Sidewalls – Soft
• Dry – Very good grip
• Wet – Performs well according to online reviews
• Longevity – Won’t last long due to low thread wear rating
• Track use – Good set of tyres for entry level track use
• Price – Well priced and a set of four will easily come under $1000 from tirerack.com.
• Criticism – Directional, sidewalls soft and not recommended for daily use unless you intent on buying lots of tyres driving high KM’s.

AP Racing CP5200 calipers and AP403 brake pads
The CP5200 calipers are well built. Lighter than the JDM Brembo Calipers. I believe approximately 500g-1.5kg. I should of weighed them before I selling them off. The calipers themselves are 4 piston however are interchangeable with another 6 piston AP caliper. They are able to accommodate discs between the sizes of 304mm to 330mm and 28 x 32 thickness. The great thing about these calipers is they also come with pad anti-rattle clips which are typical of the high end brake calipers.



These are taken directly from AP Racing “APF 403 - General Competition pad. Not suitable for road use. Easy to bed, predictable and repeatable performance with good bite and friction”. From experience, street use will yield you a lot of noise and definitely turn unwanted heads. They really squeal when cold and are not recommended for daily use. On track, they require some heating up before they perform optimally so a warm up lap with intermittent braking will be sufficient. The effective temperature range of these brake pads are between 100-650. In terms of brake fade, I haven’t pushed them hard enough to assess them. Perhaps the next couple of track days in Melbourne will give a better review. They have a good bite and certainly display no juddering when pressed hard. I don’t believe these pads are inter changeable with the OEM DC5 sizes or brembo calipers however similar brake pads characteristics can be found with other options.

[M@lew]

Video is private Norm!

Good write up, your calipers are so much nicer than mine

I use the APF404 for street and APF402 for track. The 402's have been well worn in and screech like crazy on slow stops. Pretty damn annoying.

And the shifter looks sexy as! I was looking at that or the K-Tuned, at the moment can get neither.

[Norm]

Video is private Norm!

Good write up, your calipers are so much nicer than mine

I use the APF404 for street and APF402 for track. The 402's have been well worn in and screech like crazy on slow stops. Pretty damn annoying.

And the shifter looks sexy as! I was looking at that or the K-Tuned, at the moment can get neither.

Oh thanks for letting me know Matt. I'm sure once your calipers get a refurbish they will look brand new. End of the day we chose it for function didn't we . I will switch to 402's next time once my current ones require changing. They seem to have a higher friction rating at the same temps.

Regarding the shifter, personally I would lean more to HR due to their intensive testing; ease of adjustability and cost. Their shifter is listed at $429.99 http://k-tuned.3dcartstores.com/Bill...Box_p_230.html

[gunpoons]

Nice reviews Norm and cool vid, wish I had the time, motivation and skills to do updates like that.
And what the hell was that black thing?

[Norm]

Nice reviews Norm and cool vid, wish I had the time, motivation and skills to do updates like that.
And what the hell was that black thing?

Thanks dude. Just takes time like anything else to explore how to use the video editing software. The black "thing" was a off-road commodore of some sort. Was full de-registered by the looks of it with a full cage and lexan windows. I had to slow down to let him pass on the straight. He was creeping up quick around the corners.

[DjentleDjiant]

Hey Norm! Saw your DC5R at the BBQ today. Looked awesome man!

[Norm]

Hey Norm! Saw your DC5R at the BBQ today. Looked awesome man!

Thanks dude!

I've recently attended 2 track days (1 NoLimits Night event and 1 Perth Honda Club, FT86/BRZ & JDMWA track day).

Here are some pictures. A review and video will soon follow. My plates appear covered due to the lap timer.

[iVTEC_R]

Your car is FAAAAAAAT!
In a good way of course hehe

[Norm]

So this video was taken from a NoLimits night event held on 21-11-2013. I didn't set any personal bests for the night however I did start to push my brakes to quite extremes to determine what cornering speeds, brake points and exit speeds I should be taking for each corner. This data was logged using lukits01's racelogic datalogger and has and will be the key in helping me improve my track times. Please excuse all the wind noise. The video:

You can probably tell that my foot was on and off the throttle around corners at times. Since then I have attended another track event and have attempted to iron out those flaws by hitting my apex correctly. You will also notice that I've been downshift too early prior to the corner. I'm attempting to grow confidence in the brakes, which by the end of the night event, I pretty much had it down pat. Come 2014, I've set a few goals for myself including a 1on1 session with some instructors to learn the art of trail braking. My 2013 track journey is coming to an end. The goal is to have the short track 58.5 seconds under short track and 1:10 long track with street tyres. This shouldn't be difficult to achieve considering I'm about to strip more weight out of the car (EG: stupid sound deadening I put in, half cage and new rims/tyres)

Current times

• Short Track: 1:00.717
• Long Track: 1:11:903

I recently also decided to purchase a new starter motor. The grinding was getting to me and it was time to put an end to it. Some of you may ask why I didn't take up the option to rebuild it instead of a new one. I weighed up the costs and decided a new replacement was a more cost effective way despite being slightly more expensive than the parts itself. It also meant I had spare parts incase I needed to change something. I also purchased the Toda Ring Gear off White_r and have proceeded to replace the PITA starter motor. Once I replace my old starter motor with the new one i'll take it apart the old to see what type of damage a 72,000km ring gear has produced. When I get a chance I'll write up a DIY.









Also to share abit of my track prep experience, I've replaced my front calipers with speed bleeders (http://www.speedbleeder.com/). They make bleeding brakes a breeze with 1 person. I bleed my brakes before each track day and these were definitely making the job easier. The sizes I bought suited the AP calipers so I can't really say which ones would be suitable for the Aus DC5R brakes. I'm still trying to find the correct size for my rear JDM brakes, so if anyone out there knows the correct size please let me know! But here is a pic of the 1 man bleeding process. All you need is a 1/4 turn of the bleed nipple and begin the foot pumping action! For those who are wondering the safety of these nipples, from what i've known is that numerous people who are pro and occasional track warriors use this product. I have yet to hear any horror stories.





Lastly, for good measure a pic from the PHC, FT86/BRZ & JDMWA track event.

[Nathannnnn]

Just went through the whole thread. This car is amazing Norm.