'13 Civic Si BBK advice

The front rotors are also 2-piece, but they are floating instead of bolted. They are 356mm x 32mm and are surprisingly light for how massive they are. I did not realize how thick the hats were going to be on these rotors until I put the wheels on after the installation. I will definitely be upgrading to extended lugs sooner than later because of that.

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Installation went very smoothly Tuesday. There were only 2 real hiccups: One with realigning the e-brake unit (the unit has a guide arm and actuator arm on the end of a cylinder which are adjustable, and they came fixed in a position that the stock e-brake line could not reach, and the instructions did not specify that the arms were adjustable so I had to call the company to verify). The other is that they forgot to include the retaining bolts for the front caliper brackets. They are a standard bolt size so we just went to the hardware store and picked up some good quality bolts to use in their place. Everything got a good dose of red threadlock and lined up perfectly, no need to adjust anything with shims or washers; many, many of which were included with the kit. Overall it took us about 5 hours, but much of that was spent standing around waiting for R1's tech support line to get back to me about the e-brake unit (installation was early Tuesday morning in Ohio and R1 Concepts is based out of California so I had to wait for some of the guys to make it into work, lol).

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(I didn't get to take a picture of the fronts with the wheel on, I'll snap one today.)
 
I got to bed them in properly yesterday. Since doing that they feel much more solid and start biting much earlier in the pedal travel which alleviates my initial concerns. I also have noticed that with the more track-oriented pad compound the cold bite is not as significant as other pads I have used, but a millisecond after they first bite they start biting even harder than previous pads. (These pads are semi-metallic and made by R1, they are the step up from the base Street level pads, but would not be considered Race level pads.) The instructions noted that doing the bed in process once may not be enough, and that doing it up to 3 times will yield the best pad performance. I plan to go out and do it once more today, maybe twice depending on how they feel after the second time. I am extremely happy with them already. The first time I slowed down while bedding I accidentally caused the ABS to go off. That is what I wanted (previously, pretty much nothing I would do would cause the ABS to go off; I could not lock up my stock brakes unless it was wet or snowing). The feel of the pedal is also incredibly precise. With the stock system I felt like I would press the pedal and the pads would bite, but then after that the pedal feel was always the same no matter how hard I was pressing on it. Now I feel the initial bite and it bites back, giving increased pedal pressure with increased application. Achieving peak braking capability and then being able to back off of it just a tiny bit feels amazing and makes me feel like I have much more control over the vehicle than I did before, specifically under heavy braking. On my way home after bedding them in yesterday I went around a very tight on-ramp and waited til the last second to brake going in. I have never felt my car pitch forward that much before; it was intense and fantastic. I did have to tighten one of the lines on the back as it was leaking a tiny bit yesterday morning, but other than that everything looks and feels solid.

I left this picture for last, because when I first set them side by side I could not stop laughing. This is the new and old front rotors back to back for comparison.

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Nice write up! Thanks for the pics! They really do look very nice. I hope they hold up and perform well for you. That company is fairly new aren't they?
 
Nix said:
Nice write up! Thanks for the pics! They really do look very nice. I hope they hold up and perform well for you. That company is fairly new aren't they?
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Thanks! As a company that makes brake components they have been around for almost 25 years, but they are fairly new in the BBK market. Their kit has only been on the market for 2 years or so, and even while they were manufacturing my calipers they came back and noted there were upgrades to their design that were being included in my kit (mostly just much meatier dust boots). They also told me that I was the first to have anything anodized in that color (Amber); I only had a paint swatch to go off of. I'm super happy with how they look.

I can't tell if that same rear corner is leaking still. Every time I run my finger across the line bridge at the bottom I feel a very light coating of fluid, but I don't see/feel anything leaking out of anywhere specific, and there isn't enough to even make a drip while it sits parked overnight. I might have to pull that wheel off and clean things really well to make sure it's not just residual from bleeding. If anyone has advice on this point, I'm all ears.

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I gave her a good bath yesterday and did another bed in run. It appears the fluid on that rear caliper was just residual as I didn't feel any anywhere today. Everything feels solid and extra responsive.

Now that I'm driving it around more and not worrying about minor noises and vibrations, I've noticed that the handling of the car feels different. I would not be surprised if I actually added weight to the front. The steering feels a little less responsive and the front end doesn't move around as much as it used to when going over deviations in the road/bumps. This could also be due to the tires I rotated to be up front being just about worn out. But it leaves me thinking about ways I can stiffen up the suspension and handling, especially up front, so that the wheels feel more planted under the very heavy braking my car is now capable of. A strut tower bar, lowering another inch or so, and going to stiffer springs all come to mind, but I'm not sure what else I could do. I'll be looking into it more over the winter, but any input you guys with track experience have is welcome!

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webby said:
Is the suspension all stock?
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I currently have the HFP suspension, everything else is stock. My next round of upgrades are going to be a 22mm rear anti sway bar and some body pieces, which I had already been planning on for awhile. I had not considered upgrading the front sway bar before now, but with the added unsprung weight up front I'm now thinking that may be a viable upgrade as well.

My thought process is that lowering a little and stiffening the suspension will help control body pitch which will help keep things stable during weight transfer under heavy braking or cornering. Those have also always been my two qualms with the HFP suspension: I'd like to be about an inch lower than I am now, and I've always wanted it to be stiffer. I had also been thinking about a strut tower bar, but had not gotten around to it yet.

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see comments from nix on the sway

Nix said:
I think the 22mm is pretty balanced and makes the car feel a lot better. Its just at high speed that you start getting into "interesting things." It helps a lot with rotation and making the car feel planted.

I would really like to make a video of this one corner at work showing what the bar allows you to do. If I take it at speed and just turn in and hold the car stays flat and goes around the curve. If I get into the turn late, I can yank the wheel tighter and have the back end skid around very tightly. Its half the bar and half the alignment. If you get the bar and start having stability issues, add in more rear camber. I have mine dialed out in the rear and more in the front.
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Nix said:
Suspension: Larger rear sway bar, coils or strut/spring combo with a performance alignment. Pick up some front camber bolts and rear camber arms so you can get it singing.
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Nix said:
Yea, it's an impressive difference that one bar can make. If you upgrade the front bar the car will flatten out more but you will get worse understeer. Right now with the larger rear bar the *** end will want to rotate around more. You're basically fighting the bad understeer setup from the factory. Be careful at highway speeds until you get used to it. The car can get a little twitchy feeling. I find the magic number for instability to be right around 80mph which is way too fast for normal driving anyways. Heh.
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front strut brace
Nix said:
Ya, these cars are notoriously stiff at the junction of the A-pillar and the firewall. The strut tower bar won't add much in that area as it is already one of the most heavily reinforced areas on the car. The struts are jammed right up against that junction. On older cars, and just generally differently designed cars, if the struts are stuck way out in the middle of the fender then a strut bar can make a huge difference. Usually I steer people away from the strut bar as that money can be spent elsewhere and make a bigger difference.

Tires are the number one thing to help with the way the car handles. But tires are boring! And expensive for good ones. Especially if you have stock tires that aren't dead yet. The rear sway is a great place to start followed by camber bolts for the front. If you haven't done camber bolts I would say spend the money on a set of those and an alignment instead of a strut tower bar. More neg camber in the front!

Not that the tower bar will "do nothing" but its so minimal due to the design you can get better performance from other parts first. On this chassis the strut bar is a bling part. If you've bought it, you like it, and maybe you just wanted something to do/wrench on the car then go for it. Also, how a car feels vs how a car performs are two totally separate things.
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Thanks @webby, I was actually going back and re-reading a lot of those posts, so it helps to have them all in one place, lol.

One thing to note is tires and what I envision my car being in the end. My goal is 275 wide tires on the front. I haven't decided if I will do that size all around, or opt for a 255 in the rear since there is no power going to those wheels and they're really just making more drag at that point, as opposed to offering better grip. This will be accommodated with a custom wide-body kit (custom fenders, etc). I will probably have to run a small spacer up front to clear the suspension. With all of that, things are going to be changed quite a bit from the stock geometry and is why I'm thinking about ways to reinforce the front end (not to mention the fact that the brake bias is definitely more toward the front than it used to be).

I've been thinking about how my car feels different now, and it's interesting how the weight has been added. It's all in the front rotors, so I'm dealing with a larger rotational inertia within the unsprung mass. This makes turning the wheel feel different depending on which way turning, and I can feel the two front wheels moving more independently of each other. Tying the two sides together with a strut tower bar I think will improve that and help keep the two sides from wanting to wander from center.

Something else entirely that I've noticed is the lack of body "roll" under heavy braking. I used to notice when I slammed on the brakes with the stock setup that the back end would move around a lot - either shimmying back and forth almost like it was fish-tailing, or more often like the whole car would roll like it was a boat taking a large wave from the port side. I don't notice this body movement anymore with the new kit. Part of that could be that I notice a lot less movement up front and that the front feels more planted with the added weight. But I had attributed the weak stock rear sway bar to this motion, and am now wondering if I had that diagnosis all wrong. Either way, I'm happy it's gone.

And I realize that how things feel and how they are actually performing might be different, but this late in the season I will not be making it out to the track again so how things feel are really all I have to go off of for now.

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420Coupe said:
I highly recommend these below, they make the car feel completely different

http://www.full-race.com/store/trac...th-gen-civic-fg3-fb2-acura-tsx-ilx-cl7-9.html


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I had not seen these before and look like something I would be interested in. Another item similar to this that I'm curious about: the front lower control arms. I may have asked this before here, but are there any aftermarket LCA's? I see aftermarket parts for the rear, but I wonder if the stock componenets might not be strong enough to handle these giant brakes, lol. Not terribly worried about it since I have never seen anyone else have that issue, but if they existed it's an upgrade I would consider.

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PainlessCandy said:
I had not seen these before and look like something I would be interested in. Another item similar to this that I'm curious about: the front lower control arms. I may have asked this before here, but are there any aftermarket LCA's? I see aftermarket parts for the rear, but I wonder if the stock componenets might not be strong enough to handle these giant brakes, lol. Not terribly worried about it since I have never seen anyone else have that issue, but if they existed it's an upgrade I would consider.

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Not that I know of or have seen anyone make aftermarket replacements for that. Then again don't think I've ever seen anyone break them to begin with for aftermarket to be needed.


World's fastest Honda Civic R18A1
IG | 420Coupe
 
Update: I really love these brakes. They are insanely powerful and do everything I wanted them to. I can't wait to see how fast I can stop once I get the wide tires I want on the front.

There are, however, issues. I am not altogether comfortable using the e-brake to keep my car from moving while parked like I used to. I don't like the idea of pressure being built up in the system for long periods of time, and I have noticed an imprint of the pad from one time I left it set overnight in the rain on both of the rear rotors.

Then, there is what feels to be the front pads rubbing when my foot is not on the pedal. I have yet to confirm that this is what is happening, but 95% of the time when I come to a rolling stop it feels like the front is grabbing and bringing me to a full stop without my foot on the pedal. It seems to happen less when the system is completely cold, but that is what I feel. So far it doesn't really seem to be an issue as I did a rolling stop test after driving for a bit to see if any significant amount of heat was building up due to the contact, and everything felt cool to the touch.

What really concerns me is the performance when it is raining. On the highway, there is zero bite and almost a feeling of there being no brakes at all when you first step on the pedal. They quickly heat up and act normal, but in an emergency this is quite alarming and hard to compensate for. The other thing I notice is a very audible squeal if I get on them hard while cold and wet. Is this normal for a semi-metallic pad? Are these pads the issue here? I have zero experience with this sort of pad compound, so I really don't know what to expect.

Back on the positive side, I scared myself half to death the other night while doing a bedding cycle to try and knock off the imprint on the rears. I hit the pedal a little to hard and found my breath taken away as I dropped 50mph in the blink of an eye. I could smell the tires and pads as I accelerated back to speed, and decided not to continue the cycle as I felt a little shaken, lol.

I really love this setup :D

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I forgot to note: I have contacted R1 about the rubbing issue and have gotten little feedback except to take pictures and send them. I have yet to get her back up on a rack since the install, but will be doing so soon and taking pictures, pulling the pads to check for wear, and overall double checking the whole setup before winter sets in.

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The sticking might be normal break in stuff for everything to start sliding around properly. Check and grease all the contact surfaces and slide pins. If you don't have many miles on them, ask R1 what a common break in mileage might be. Probably just tight tolerances that need to get run in a bit.


I can comment on the rain bit for you:

The pads are wet and the rotors are wet. It takes a second to burn off the water so the pad can grab. Used to happen all the time with my Axxis ultimate pads. Never happened with my Hawk HPS or my newer Project Mu pads. From my experience, certain pads just hold onto moisture worse than others. It takes a second to dry them. Just something to be aware of in the rain. I used to have to pump the brakes once or twice if I knew I had to stop and it was really raining out. It was a very brief half second they didn't grab but then, BAM! Full force. Sucks, but thats the compromise of a street/OEM pad vs. a high performance pad.

Squealing while cold? Yep. They are below or nearly below operating temp. Did they give you a temp range for the pads? I've noticed some that say 0-400 don't really function well in that 0-something range. If its cold out my current pads screech until they get a little heat in them. They still work but definitely let me know they aren't ready for fun.

Don't worry about the imprint. It'll burn off in one or two good stops. It's most likely just surface rust. Most rotors have a really high iron content and will "rust" overnight. High performance polished rotors tend to oxidize really quickly. That imprint is just where the pad protected the rotor from ambient moisture. My brembos turn completely orange overnight if it rains hard. Comes off when I back out. Looks bad but isn't an issue. You're just seeing a high quality rotor do its thing. OEM rotors balance looks, life, noise, etc. It's a big change going to a super high performance setup. Lots of new noises and things to get used to.

8 hours or less parked in the rain does this to my rotors:

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