Honda Mugen RR Advanced Concept (Carbon)

The FD2 Civic Type R is a critically acclaimed naturally aspirated front wheel drive car produced by Honda from 2007-2010. In this exceptionally short period of time, only around 13,000 units were sold before it was discontinued due to emissions regulations and likely poor sales due to the financial crisis of 2008.

Mugen, a tuning company that is considered to be Honda's external racing development arm produced an additional 300 cars, which sold out within 10 minutes of their launch. Beyond this they an 'Advanced Concept' version, which sought to improve on an already highly tuned machine.

Through analysis of Mugen's work, we can piece together a guide to improve the great FD2 platform gaining some of the experience at a fraction of the price.

I would be grateful to anyone who can offer me a translation to these two images courtesy of King Motorsports . There are 3 areas worth mentioning.

1. Weight Reduction

By replacing a large amount of the car's bodywork in carbon, some pretty dramatic weight savings were achieved. Acceleration equals force divided by mass. We can see that as the mass reduces, the acceleration increases, and this is multiplied by the more powerful engine.

The Mugen saves 175kg from it's original 1270kg mass, a 13.8% savings. A rule of thumb is that cost effective weight savings lies at around 5% of the car's original weight.

Spoon Carbon Bonnet: 8.2 kg (7.3kg saving)

Recaro Pole Driver Seat: 6.2kg (11kg saving)

Recaro Pole Passenger Seat: 6.2kg (11kg saving)

Prodrive's forged GC-07J (x4) Wheels : 34kg (14kg saving)

Toda Header (de-cat): 1.7kg (8kg saving)

Lithium Battery: 3kg (12kg saving)

Total saved: 63.3kg or 5% of the car's weight.

Beyond this, another 50kg (3%) could be saved by the usage of carbon doors, but considering that this will be a vehicle driven without a cage on the street, it is unadvisable.

2. Increase Bore x Stroke

The stock FD2 Type R engine has a 86x86 bore and stroke. This is increased to 87x90.7 in this car for a displacement bump of 10% from the stock 2000cc capacity.

Fun fact is that it is exactly the same bore and stroke ratio found in the F22C. It is possible that they used this method described by the founder of Spoon Japan to lower the lowest point of the connecting rod. This will likely be in addition to some detailed work on the cylinder head and more aggressive cams.

3. Chassis Stiffening

Chassis rigidity allows the suspension setup to work more consistently and to maximise the grip on the 225/40/18 wheels. Note the small picture in the corner right of the first image that shows some triangulation using a carbon piece that claims to add stiffness.

There is almost no information on the suspension system that is attached to this chassis, but it is safe to say that it is well developed.

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