Incremental updates aren't always the most exciting things on their own, but can come together to make something great.
The world of automotive engineering is iterative, with progress measured in incremental improvements. I’ve been an engineer for the better part of 15 years, and trust me when I tell you that it’s mostly boring. Rarely do we see engineering designs that are boldly different and new. When we do, those designs often flop; they’re too early or too creative and not yet ready for prime time. Sometimes, however, a car comes along that redefines a genre, creating a design that everyone else can’t help but copy, immediately and forever.
The 2023 Honda Civic Type R is not that car.
And that’s okay. A good thing, in fact. The best improvements are usually done in systems, not individual widgets. A really good car is typically a lot of fairly boring things that all work well together.
The new Type R is a collection of small improvements. The platform of this FL5 generation car is similar to the outgoing FK8. The engine has slightly more horsepower and torque. The flywheel is 18 percent lighter and the chassis is 15 percent stiffer. By the numbers, it is marginally better.
Perhaps the biggest change is the way it looks. The last generation was sharp and jagged, the styling department wiping the slate clean. It looked fast, but cartoon , a caricature of speed.
The new Type R reels that in. It looks more grown up, but more importantly, it also looks more honest. The previous Type R would never be battling robots in space, no matter how many fake vents or ineffective winglets it had.
The 2023 has a wing, and it’s functional. Sure, the last wing was functional, but it was a designer’s wing. The new one is an engineer’s wing. It creates significantly more downforce and less drag, an accomplishment since more downforce usually increases drag. The down component of the wing force always has a back component with it. More down usually means more back. Unless it wasn’t engineered correctly the first time.
On the outside of the front fascia, there are plastic bits that look like they might be fake vents, but they help kick the air around the front tire. Wheels always churn up a lot of air which causes drag, and sometimes lift. The fascia has been engineered to help the air flow around the front wheel to help mitigate this and increase downforce. The rear door and quarter panel have been engineered to do the same.
The outside corners of the grille route fresh air to the front wheel wells to help keep the brakes cool. This would normally increase front lift, but the added vents behind the front wheel help to pull the higher-pressure air back out. The result is a noticeable drop in front pad temperatures: about 10 percent after 5 laps.
The vent on the top of the hood is a functional exhaust for the radiator, limiting the lift you would normally get with air piling up in the engine bay. This is great, because there is more air going through the bigger radiator. The grille opening is almost 50 percent larger.
Aerodynamic performance is complex and has to be engineered as a system. It’s one of those areas where one change affects ten other things. The new Type R looks like it has less cooling capability than the previous generation, but it has more. It looks less aerodynamically efficient, but it is better. And on any real race track, it is measurably faster.
The design team may have reeled it in, but the engineering team stretched. At first glance, it looks similar to the plebian 5-door Civic. If you look at them side-by-side, however, you start to see the differences. The front and rear fenders are unique to the Type R, flared out and stretched for a 25mm wider front track and a 35mm longer wheelbase. The whole car is 13mm lower and 20mm longer. The larger size and the subdued styling make it look more like an Accord Type R than the previous generation Civic Type R.
And yes, there are a few design elements that are more aggressive than they need to be, but you have to let the designers have some fun. They have to be able to communicate to the world that this car is not just a car, but a Type R. The new styling wants you to know that the car does not belong in traffic. It belongs on a race track.
The engine is essentially the same, tuned up slightly for an output of 315 horsepower. The power and torque curves are nearly identical to the previous Type R up until about 2600 RPMs where it jumps up 9 horsepower and 15 lb-ft thanks to a redesigned turbocharger and easier-breathing intake design. The triple outlet exhaust is a quieter two-outlet during low-speed city driving. Punch the throttle and the center outlet valve opens, adding a little bit more power, and a little bit more engine noise.
Three hundred and fifteen horsepower is a lot for a front-wheel-drive car, but the suspension and drivetrain help to put that power down smoothly. Like the previous Type R, there is basically no torque steer. A typical front-wheel-drive car will have the steering axis several millimeters from the center of the tire contact patch. This adds front-end stability and contributes to steering feedback, but it also makes the car want to pull to one side under hard acceleration when one of the front tires gets a little more traction. The Type R uses a dual-axis front suspension, a variation of the MacPherson strut, that lands the steering axis very near the center of the contact patch, resulting in a scrub radius close to zero. Steering stability and feedback is retained through stiffer components, active dampers, and carefully engineered suspension geometry.
The rev-matching on the transmission is faster. The flywheel is lighter and has less inertia, allowing the rotating assembly to reach its target RPM 10 percent quicker. I will admit that I’m not the biggest fan of manual transmissions. It’s my engineering thinking; I look at a good dual-clutch and wonder why anyone would want to shift slower. But this transmission is impressive and fun. It just works, and works well, every time. A good thing because you can’t get paddle shifters in the Type R, or an automatic. You get a six-speed manual, or you get a different car.
The outgoing R had 20-inch wheels, but the new one is sitting on 19s. This is a step in the right direction, I promise. A 19-inch wheel is more aerodynamically efficient, churning up less air and creating less drag. The new tires are 20mm wider, increasing the contact patch by about 8 percent. While they have the same aspect ratio, the extra width means more sidewall. More sidewall means better ride quality. It also allows the engineers to design lighter outboard suspension assemblies because forces are reduced thanks to the extra spring of the sidewall.
Anything outboard of the suspension spring is considered to be “unsprung” mass. Race car engineers often say that one pound of unsprung mass is worth several pounds of sprung mass. If that unsprung mass is rotating, like the wheels and tires, it is worth even more. On a race track, your suspension needs to keep the tire contact patch pressed onto the surface. Lower unsprung mass will have less inertia, so it’s easier to keep that patch contacted. Less rotating mass means lower inertia. Designers want big wheels, but engineers want smaller ones.
The chassis is stiffer thanks to a significant increase in structural adhesives. Yeah, it’s glued together. And it’s better. Riveted panels are bonded along the entire mating surface, helping to make one continuous structure. The result is improved handling, ride quality, and NVH. Weight was kept down by using lighter and stronger materials around the chassis and body. The hood is aluminum and the tailgate is resin. Yeah, it’s plastic. And it’s better.
The new Civic Type R boasts a long list of slight improvements, but a lot of slight improvements do not necessarily mean a slightly better car. Those improvements must work together to make for an overall better experience. At this, Honda did excellently. A car is more than the sum of its parts, and the 2023 Civic Type R is better than the sum of its improvements.
This is a significant challenge in engineering. It’s also a lot harder to do with a lower-priced car. Parts-bin engineering usually kills well-designed systems. The new Type R is not inexpensive at just under $43,000, but it is still a Civic. It’s born out of a $25,000 car. The fact that Honda has managed to take a relatively inexpensive compact car and create such a well-engineered system is the most impressive thing about this car.
I got a chance to drive this car on track at Sonoma in both the wet and (mostly) dry. A wet race track is not the best place for a front-wheel drive car with 315 horsepower, and this became clear on every corner exit. The car would understeer with the slightest throttle application. But after a couple of laps, I started to get the hang of it, and I started to have fun. Even in the wet, the car rotates very nicely. A hard, balanced corner would get the back end to just start to step out off throttle. When I pushed too hard and started to lose it, the stability control would step in and gently straighten me out. Not too soon, and not too aggressively.
Later in the day, the track began to dry and I got to push it hard in a few dry corners. Braking feel and performance is good, powered by four-piston front Brembos squeezing down on 13.8-inch, two-piece front rotors. The car rotates nicely and feels balanced at the apex. On corner exit, the drivetrain is very good at putting the power down when there is traction to be had. It will start to get sideways if you throw it in, and it will push on exit if you’re unruly with the throttle. But if you’re a little bit judicious with your driving, the car will stay composed, and fast, all the way around the race track. How fast? Faster than any other production front-wheel-drive car at the Suzuka Circuit in Japan. Maybe also at the Nürburgring; Honda has been spotted driving the new Type R around the Nordschleife in what appears to be an attempt to take back the FWD production record. We’ll have to wait to see whether they break it or not. But either way: it is very fast.
Engineers seem like boring people, but that’s not because we’re dispassionate. It’s because we know that great things require a lot of boring effort. There is no single outstanding thing about this car, but it is an outstanding car. There was a tremendous amount of boring effort put into the new Civic Type R. It was put together by a team of engineers who knew the previous version was close. They spent a lot of time finding the few percent here and there that were needed to put together an excellently engineered system. The 2023 Civic Type R is the best at what Honda has always been good at: Small, fun, practical, reliable, and great at reminding you that you don’t need an all-wheel-drive or rear-wheel-drive car to have a lot of fun.
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Keyword: A Lot of Boring Updates Made the 2023 Honda Civic Type R Outstanding