I've been around this forum for about 6 years now, roughly the length of time I've owned this car. Over the years there have been many contributions to this forum that have helped me get a better understanding of the technical aspects of the car and how to tune it. I don't claim to know everything about the DC5R but merely just expressing my opinions and experience with it on the track (just Wakefield lol)
For those on the forum that know me well, you'll know that I've decided to sell this car and move onto something newer and better. I guess this post is a last testament to the great engineering and reliability of the DC5R that I'll be leaving behind. I've honed my skills over the years in this FWD car and never has it once, on or off the track, given me any mechanical grief.
My benchmark is Wakefield Park. It's the only place I've thought about for the last year and half on how to go faster. After owning the car for 6 years, I've only really started to focus on driving and tuning it at the beginning of 2011. I want to share my experience in terms of the tuning and mentality that went into achieving my PB and maybe even help someone else do better.
Lets start with tuning. I set myself a goal to attain the fastest time I could on stock power, diff, clutch and transmission. The only thing I could mod was the suspension/brakes and tyres. I've learnt that is all you need in this car to do the 10s range at Wakefield Park. Of course this includes a fair bit of seat time.
Brakes
Dont over do it. You only need some decent high temp pads, slotted rotors and decent high temp fluid. BBK in my mind are useless unless you're running alot more power and need the extra stopping power.
Suspension
8kg/10kg front. Others will debate that you need a higher spring rate in the rear to counteract its motion ratio. TBH I got no idea what this means but purely on instinct alone, I found this setup to work perfectly when used with balanced swaybars. I've switched to the EP3R front sway and also the rear JDM 22mm sway. Front I believe is close to 2mm larger than stock, rear is 3mm larger than stock. I'll leave it to the gurus to figure out what extra torsional stiffness that actually equates to but based on my experience, its a good neutral setup with the 8/10kg combo and the following caster adjustment described below. In a typical off the shelf coilover setup in this car, you will not need larger than 22mm in the rear unless you plan to autocross or gymkhana and you really need the extra rotation. Otherwise its just ridiculous on the track and you'll be fighting oversteer instead of learning how to drive under confidence inspiring conditions.
Alignment
Caster is key. After I installed the PCI offset bushings I noticed a significant increase in front end grip through the corners which leads me to assume the car has terrible dynamic camber properties under compression stock-wise - which is probably made worse when you drop the car and subsequently its roll centre. With the offset bushings I attained 2.5 degree caster at the front (no idea how much more over stock, just enough to know it made a difference). With the suspension setup described above, I noticed the extra front end grip also induced a touch of oversteer. This is conjunction with -3.5 camber front, -2.5 camber rear and zero toe all round. After the caster bushings, I also noticed much more even tyre wear up front across the tread (means its working).
Roll centre adjusters - I didn't feel a major difference and anything I tell you will just be placebo.
Tyres
Don't run staggered. The theory of running thinner tyres in the back is to reduce grip in the rear to induce oversteer and thus less understeer. If you want to turn better, figure out how to increase front end grip, NOT reduce rear end grip. You want to increase absolute grip everywhere, not just increase relative F/R grip. Onto semi's, get yourself a 2nd hand set for cheap. Any decent semis which heat cycle well even in smaller widths, will shit all over your brand new Advan Neova AD08. i.e. Kumho V700, advan a050, hankook z221, dunlop dz03g (i think thats the model), and theres probably more. I advise semi's only because the increased grip will give you more confidence to push harder and thus learn faster the characteristics and limits of your car.
Weight
Your rear seats dont weigh shit, dont waste your time and take them out unless you think it looks cool. Take out the spare as a last resort to subtly tune out that oversteer if you need (less weight further back means less weight transfer momentum and shifts the weight to the front thus reducing oversteer).
Monkey bars
Get them. Front and rear strut bars will do, everything else in between is so minute that its almost not worth the money. Stiffer chassis = predictable handling. I noticed this after putting in front and rear strut bars, however after putting in mid floor bar I didnt notice any difference.
Thats pretty much it! Now onto Wakefield and the critical points. If you can carry enough speed through the corners with the extra grip provided from the mods above, dont ever use 2nd gear. For reference, I do about 60km through fish hook and last corner. For the critics who debate otherwise, I carry much higher terminal velocity (162km to be exact) down the straight from using 3rd in the last corner than if I were to use 2nd. I could pretty much use 5th coming into the first kink but its just not beneficial as you waste too much time shifting twice back to 3rd before the 2nd corner (after the kink) and you lose the benefits of engine braking at the top of 4th. Bear in mind this is a stock power DC5R and most of the typically tuned I/h/e should be carrying much more speed down the straight so you will hit 5th earlier and you must use it.
Use the entire width of the track to your advantage. I cant stress this enough. Its such a wide track that you're just wasting speed if you slow down too much and not use the entire width on exit.
After corner 5 (refer to wakefield map) and before corner 6 (the long bender just before the kink) shift early into 4th. You will be able to keep your foot flat to the throttle hitting the long right bender. This is the ONLY part of the track where you use the ripple. Its got gutter like initial D (no joke). the line you aiming for the gutter may seem weird and not intuitive but aim for it. Once you drop into the gutter it will pull you around the corner. Ride the ripple and only get off it when you think its right.
Now you'll notice I drop out of the torque band and out of vtec using 3rd through fish hook and last corner. If I had the money and commitment to spend more money on this car I would (if you're doing a clutch change) drop in a better LSD and shorter final drive. Especially if Wakefield is your benchmark track, I think you will benefit greatly. Think twice about adding more power depending on your budget and goals. I mentioned before that I'm actually not going down the straight that fast but I make up for it in the corners!! Why need power when you got handling?
All the other corners are fairly basic and you will get faster with experience.
This is my video of me doing it. First lap was a choke lap. I was running sector splits indicating 10s but mis shifted on last corner but still ended up with 1:11.5 because I did the other corners perfectly. 2nd lap of the video is my actual PB but funnily enough I'll point out my mistakes here. In the PB run, you'll see me actually getting on the throttle too early around the fish hook and I end up understeering, probably lose 0.1 sec here. On the 2nd last corner I slow down too much and dont use the width of the track coming out. Another costly 0.1 sec.
This is a 10sec car stock with only suspension tuning! What a great car and I'll miss it indeed. I'm so cut that I never posted the 10s officially and now I will never have another chance. Maybe the next owner will do it for me?
Anyway I'm sure you've heard this 1000x times before, stop modding your car. Take it to the track first, you need seat time. The first time I came to wakefield i was doing 1.20s on street tyres. then 1.18s the 2nd time, then 1.16s the 3rd time. etc etc you get the point. Its just pure experience. Get the bloke from circuit club who does driver training to sit with you, you'll learn more from him in 5 min and reduce your lap by 2sec instead of having to spend $1000 on mods to do the same - im dead serious. I shaved 2 sec from sitting with him. More seat, seat, seat time!!!
I wrote this in like 10min so I probably missed a lot of things but I'll revise and edit when it pop into my mind.
For those on the forum that know me well, you'll know that I've decided to sell this car and move onto something newer and better. I guess this post is a last testament to the great engineering and reliability of the DC5R that I'll be leaving behind. I've honed my skills over the years in this FWD car and never has it once, on or off the track, given me any mechanical grief.
My benchmark is Wakefield Park. It's the only place I've thought about for the last year and half on how to go faster. After owning the car for 6 years, I've only really started to focus on driving and tuning it at the beginning of 2011. I want to share my experience in terms of the tuning and mentality that went into achieving my PB and maybe even help someone else do better.
Lets start with tuning. I set myself a goal to attain the fastest time I could on stock power, diff, clutch and transmission. The only thing I could mod was the suspension/brakes and tyres. I've learnt that is all you need in this car to do the 10s range at Wakefield Park. Of course this includes a fair bit of seat time.
Brakes
Dont over do it. You only need some decent high temp pads, slotted rotors and decent high temp fluid. BBK in my mind are useless unless you're running alot more power and need the extra stopping power.
Suspension
8kg/10kg front. Others will debate that you need a higher spring rate in the rear to counteract its motion ratio. TBH I got no idea what this means but purely on instinct alone, I found this setup to work perfectly when used with balanced swaybars. I've switched to the EP3R front sway and also the rear JDM 22mm sway. Front I believe is close to 2mm larger than stock, rear is 3mm larger than stock. I'll leave it to the gurus to figure out what extra torsional stiffness that actually equates to but based on my experience, its a good neutral setup with the 8/10kg combo and the following caster adjustment described below. In a typical off the shelf coilover setup in this car, you will not need larger than 22mm in the rear unless you plan to autocross or gymkhana and you really need the extra rotation. Otherwise its just ridiculous on the track and you'll be fighting oversteer instead of learning how to drive under confidence inspiring conditions.
Alignment
Caster is key. After I installed the PCI offset bushings I noticed a significant increase in front end grip through the corners which leads me to assume the car has terrible dynamic camber properties under compression stock-wise - which is probably made worse when you drop the car and subsequently its roll centre. With the offset bushings I attained 2.5 degree caster at the front (no idea how much more over stock, just enough to know it made a difference). With the suspension setup described above, I noticed the extra front end grip also induced a touch of oversteer. This is conjunction with -3.5 camber front, -2.5 camber rear and zero toe all round. After the caster bushings, I also noticed much more even tyre wear up front across the tread (means its working).
Roll centre adjusters - I didn't feel a major difference and anything I tell you will just be placebo.
Tyres
Don't run staggered. The theory of running thinner tyres in the back is to reduce grip in the rear to induce oversteer and thus less understeer. If you want to turn better, figure out how to increase front end grip, NOT reduce rear end grip. You want to increase absolute grip everywhere, not just increase relative F/R grip. Onto semi's, get yourself a 2nd hand set for cheap. Any decent semis which heat cycle well even in smaller widths, will shit all over your brand new Advan Neova AD08. i.e. Kumho V700, advan a050, hankook z221, dunlop dz03g (i think thats the model), and theres probably more. I advise semi's only because the increased grip will give you more confidence to push harder and thus learn faster the characteristics and limits of your car.
Weight
Your rear seats dont weigh shit, dont waste your time and take them out unless you think it looks cool. Take out the spare as a last resort to subtly tune out that oversteer if you need (less weight further back means less weight transfer momentum and shifts the weight to the front thus reducing oversteer).
Monkey bars
Get them. Front and rear strut bars will do, everything else in between is so minute that its almost not worth the money. Stiffer chassis = predictable handling. I noticed this after putting in front and rear strut bars, however after putting in mid floor bar I didnt notice any difference.
Thats pretty much it! Now onto Wakefield and the critical points. If you can carry enough speed through the corners with the extra grip provided from the mods above, dont ever use 2nd gear. For reference, I do about 60km through fish hook and last corner. For the critics who debate otherwise, I carry much higher terminal velocity (162km to be exact) down the straight from using 3rd in the last corner than if I were to use 2nd. I could pretty much use 5th coming into the first kink but its just not beneficial as you waste too much time shifting twice back to 3rd before the 2nd corner (after the kink) and you lose the benefits of engine braking at the top of 4th. Bear in mind this is a stock power DC5R and most of the typically tuned I/h/e should be carrying much more speed down the straight so you will hit 5th earlier and you must use it.
Use the entire width of the track to your advantage. I cant stress this enough. Its such a wide track that you're just wasting speed if you slow down too much and not use the entire width on exit.
After corner 5 (refer to wakefield map) and before corner 6 (the long bender just before the kink) shift early into 4th. You will be able to keep your foot flat to the throttle hitting the long right bender. This is the ONLY part of the track where you use the ripple. Its got gutter like initial D (no joke). the line you aiming for the gutter may seem weird and not intuitive but aim for it. Once you drop into the gutter it will pull you around the corner. Ride the ripple and only get off it when you think its right.
Now you'll notice I drop out of the torque band and out of vtec using 3rd through fish hook and last corner. If I had the money and commitment to spend more money on this car I would (if you're doing a clutch change) drop in a better LSD and shorter final drive. Especially if Wakefield is your benchmark track, I think you will benefit greatly. Think twice about adding more power depending on your budget and goals. I mentioned before that I'm actually not going down the straight that fast but I make up for it in the corners!! Why need power when you got handling?
All the other corners are fairly basic and you will get faster with experience.
This is my video of me doing it. First lap was a choke lap. I was running sector splits indicating 10s but mis shifted on last corner but still ended up with 1:11.5 because I did the other corners perfectly. 2nd lap of the video is my actual PB but funnily enough I'll point out my mistakes here. In the PB run, you'll see me actually getting on the throttle too early around the fish hook and I end up understeering, probably lose 0.1 sec here. On the 2nd last corner I slow down too much and dont use the width of the track coming out. Another costly 0.1 sec.
This is a 10sec car stock with only suspension tuning! What a great car and I'll miss it indeed. I'm so cut that I never posted the 10s officially and now I will never have another chance. Maybe the next owner will do it for me?
Anyway I'm sure you've heard this 1000x times before, stop modding your car. Take it to the track first, you need seat time. The first time I came to wakefield i was doing 1.20s on street tyres. then 1.18s the 2nd time, then 1.16s the 3rd time. etc etc you get the point. Its just pure experience. Get the bloke from circuit club who does driver training to sit with you, you'll learn more from him in 5 min and reduce your lap by 2sec instead of having to spend $1000 on mods to do the same - im dead serious. I shaved 2 sec from sitting with him. More seat, seat, seat time!!!
I wrote this in like 10min so I probably missed a lot of things but I'll revise and edit when it pop into my mind.
I'll have to keep it all in mind for when I go 
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