Cover story: Honda Civic Type R

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Cover story: Honda Civic Type R Seats are excellent, if a bit on the loud side, but don’t drop low enough. Alloy gearstick is so short in the throw you think you’ve missed the gear dual-zone climate, 320w audio, Garmin nav, driver-assistance tech and more. Honda UK expects a 50/50 split. Open the Type R’s driver’s door and you sink into excellent bucket seats: they’re comfortable, supportive and grippy too with their mix of alcantara and technical fabric. The hip point is 20mm lower than the regular Civic, the floor itself lowered a further 10mm, and you do feel canted back, backside closer to the deck. Despite this, I still reach for the manual adjustment and try to wind them an inch or so beyond the lowest setting. Shame too that the rear seats and door cards don’t even attempt to follow the theme – it’s one of several areas where you sense the spec has taken, ahem, a back seat so money can be splashed on mechanical bits, like it used to be during the great Impreza/Evo wars. Ahead of you there’s a fairly small-diameter, leather-wrapped steering wheel that obscures the digital speedo but does have a red bit at the top to tell you which way’s straight (to be fair, the nav is pretty poor). There’s also a manual gearlever with the shortest throw this side of a wheelchair joypad. Press the starter button and the Civic thuds to a bluff, industrial idle, a result of the turbocharger that’s hanging out beyond the front axle. Now this is different. It’s becoming repetitive to mourn the death of natural aspiration (see our Ferrari 488 GTB drive on 92), but it’s particularly relevant here. Since the beginning of time Type Rs have been torquepoor rev monsters with a highly distinctive kick over the final 2000rpm. That was the variable valve-timing VTEC system switching over to a more aggressive setting; you anticipated the thrill, where an already frenetic experience went even more haywire, like freefall suddenly accelerating. But Honda’s old naturally aspirated 2.0-litre four was never going to cut the mustard; it’d already run out of options when it reappeared in the 2007 Civic Type R with basically the same outputs – 198bhp and 142lb ft – as its 2001 predecessor. So this new engine is the first to combine VTEC with turbo power, and delivers peak torque of 295lb ft at 2500rpm – the last model made its torque peak at 5600rpm – which sounds a dramatic shift in character, like you’ll be short-shifting and spinning rubber all day long. The character is different, but the delivery is not what I expected. This engine is laggy down low. Nothing happens at all until around 2500rpm, and really you need 3000rpm on the dial to get a hurry on. Yagi says they chose a mono-scroll turbocharger because the lowdown performance is already sufficient for urban dawdling, but also acknowledges that more flexible twin-scroll technology costs extra and could have supplied too much traction-troubling power to the front end. So you push on beyond 3000rpm and things start to move very quickly indeed, revs ramping up eagerly, scenery flying past that widescreen windscreen in a blur. Soon, shift lights illuminate in the digital dash, and while your first instinct is to shift quite early, maybe 5000rpm or so, peak power doesn’t actually arrive until 6500rpm, and there’s no need to shift until 7000rpm. This allows you to hold a gear through give-or-take corners, and it’s satisfying that the performance never starts to feel breathless, as it often can when you wring out blown motors. Yet I find this new engine hard to love because the sound remains stubbornly monotone, and that VTEC kick seems lost beneath a barrage of boost. Throttle response is mushy too, but you can press the R+ button to enliven things and, apparently, add more torque down low. I can’t feel the extra pound footage, but right-foot response is immediately sharper. The only problem is, R+ bundles the new engine map together with a reduction in steering assistance for a meatier feel and a 30% stiffer adaptive-damping mode. Predictably, the steering – already a bit lifeless, if perfectly accurate and quick – just deadens, and the suspension becomes ridiculously firm. It’d be nice to individually configure this stuff, like you can with rivals. More pertinently, it begs the question why a car that’s targeted the Nürburgring lap record should default to slushy throttle response at all. We head out of Bratislava, to a fast road that winds its way quickly up a wooded hillside, its flowing corners occasionally interrupted by big stops to keep you on your toes. At first, I can’t get in a proper flow, then I realise I’m driving too slowly; it’s like the Type R senses your lack of commitment, and won’t give its best until you press your own R+ mode. There’s one small section of road in particular that seems to pull the Civic’s strengths into focus, a big stop into a tight-right hander that then whips away uphill in a flurry of gear changes and sweeping turns. Press this and steering and suspension go all Vinnie Jones. It’s too much, but it sharpens the throttle nicely CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | July 2015 69
Civic Type R decoded Ben Barry breaks the news to the engine that he’s not in love with it. After which he wrung its neck SPEC HONDA CIVIC TYPE R GT Price £32,295 Engine 1996cc 16v turbocharged 4-cylinder, 306bhp @ 6500rpm, 295lb ft @ 2500rpm Transmission Six-speed manual, front-wheel drive Suspension MacPherson strut with dual axis strut front; torsion beam rear Performance 5.7sec 0-62mph, 167mph, 38.7mpg, 170g/km CO2 (Honda internal figures) Length/width/height 4390/2065/1466mm Weight/made from 1382kg/steel Rating ★★★★★ Despite the torque, the Type R’s traction is supernaturally good. Honda ruled out all-wheel-drive from the outset – Yagi says it’s a mechanics-minimum/ man-maximum philosophy thing, but no doubt it’d have been banned on cost and packaging grounds alone. Instead, there’s the diff and Dual Axis Strut front suspension; like the Megane RS and Focus RS systems, it allows the front wheels to turn independently of the suspension strut, optimising suspension geometry through turns and allowing more of the tyres’ contact patches to stay in touch with the road. It’s a killer combination. You can charge into a tight corner very late on the brakes with their fantastic pedal feel and huge stopping power – we did toast them, though – shift to second to keep the turbo spooling, then turn in and power out, noticing not a bit of tyre scrabble or torque steer, and marvelling at how the diff magnetises you towards the apex. Okay, so it is possible to make the Civic understeer – more easily, I’d say, than in the Megane RS – but you just need to moderate your entry speed a little, then power out early and let all that trickery at the front do its stuff. The softest suspension setting is still firm, but the taut body control and fairly robust damping still combines with a level of compliance that’d be alien – and extremely welcome – to owners of the old car, and you can flick through the faster corners with huge amounts of confidence. Often, you’ll find yourself holding a gear for longer than expected, but when you run out of headroom that manual gearshift seems shockingly short with its 40mm throw; you’ll think you haven’t engaged the gear properly, waiting for the sickening crunch, before realising that from now on, you’ll crunch every other long-throw manual you drive. Pity the shift can’t match the precision and tactility of the old model, but it’s effective in getting power back to the wheels as quickly as possible and it’s still one of the best manual ’boxes you can stir. ENGINE HIGHLIGHTS Impressive spec includes electronic wastegate for greater control over induction pressure, impressively high (for a turbo) compression ratio of 9.8:1, cast aluminium pistons, aluminium VTEC rocker arms, forged con-rods and a lightweight crankshaft. No, they didn’t mention F1 much at the launch. VTEC MEETS TURBO Direction-injection 2.0-litre 16v engine is the first to combine variable-valve lift with turbo power. Mono-scroll turbo doesn’t boost until 2500rpm, which is where you get the peak 295lb ft – double the old car’s. The 306bhp arrives at 6500rpm, but you can play to 7000rpm – down 1000rpm on the 198bhp previous gen. It’s clear the new Type R is a very accomplished hot hatch. But something keeps nagging me; I want more fizz, more interaction, more feel. I miss the sound and ferocity of the old engine, I want more steering feel, a sweeter gearshift. I’d trade outright speed for more involvement in a tenth of a second. It’s the same when we get to the Slovakia Ring. The Type R works exceptionally well on track, with speed, stability and excellent braking, but I just never quite click with it. Here, it also throws another curveball into the equation: the R+ suspension mode is too firm; in corners you can feel it loading up onto its outside front tyre and a frequency starting to po-go through the body. Yagi doesn’t dispute this, but says that it’s perfect for the Nürburgring. He’s responsible for engineering the fastest front-drive car ever to lap the place, so I’m not really in a position to argue, but that makes no sense to me; don’t you need compliance for those German lumps and bumps? So, funny one the Type R. There’s a depth of engineering talent that’s genuinely impressive, but in a package I find hard to engage with; a Megane RS would still scratch my trackday/B-road itch far more satisfactorily. Someone’s just found phone signal in Wales, though; seems I’m in a minority. Turn over and get the counterpoint from Steve Moody and co… @IamBenBarry 70 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | July 2015
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Cover story: Honda Civic Type R

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