TOVA SUPER EXCLUSIVE New FD2 CIVIC TYPE-R K20A Spec R Engine !
In March 29 2007, Honda launched the FD2 Civic
TYPE R for the japanese domestic market (only). Honda's Type R models are already
a legendary household name amongst car enthusiasts, whether Honda or otherwise. They
are specially tuned to take full advantage of the potential of the base model, to push
the performance boundaries to their limits using generous doses of technology gleemed
from Honda's passionate involvement in motorsports. Consequently, the greatest seduction
a Honda TYPE-R offers is its racing car-like character and driving feel. First offered on
the NSX-R in 1992, the Type R range was extended to the DC2 Integra in 1995, and the EK9 Civic
in 1997. The EK9 Civic TYPE R was renewed in 2001 by the EP3 Civic TYPE-R. This new FD2 Civic
TYPE-R is the third generation of an already mighty name. It is a result
of the distillation of 15 years of technological progress and represents the latest expression
of Honda’s “Challenging Sprit”.
All is not a bed of roses for Honda's most fervent fans, unfortunately. While Honda
fans, especially the TYPE-R fanatics, have been extremely vocal and strong in our
admiration and support of Honda TYPE-R effort, in direct contrast, Honda
have never reciprocated this favour. This of course has been the major cause of
frustration amongst the most fervent of us who are from outside of Japan - that despite
our support and fanatism, Honda was never willing to give us the JDM-spec
TYPE-R machines as an official model. We always had to resort to the parallel importers,
for those fortunate ones who have such a resource. For those who don't, well we can
only drool in frustration. In the absolute term this stubborn stance of Honda is of course
totally illogical, to borrow a phrase from my favourite science fiction character. Indeed
if I am to be more bluntly honest, I would personally say it is a rather silly and stupid
stance to take, especially against one's most fervent supporters. It is something that I
admit I have never understood the rationale for. Fortunately however, from a chance
meeting with Honda's CEO Mr Takeo Fukui, coupled with the good fortune of interacting with a group
of very pro-active Honda Malaysia staff, all these is about to change very, very soon.
In August 2007, Honda Malaysia will go down in history as the first overseas
Honda country office to succeed in getting approval to launch an original-spec JDM Type R
model into its local domestic line-up - the new 2007 FD2 Civic TYPE R !! Finally,
15 years after the first Type-R model was launched by Honda, and after 15 years of begging,
Honda fans in Malaysia at least, will be able to truly enjoy an original-spec JDM Type-R,
the FD2 Civic TYPE-R.
In conjunction with this monumental occasion, TOVA will be publishing a series of short
technical overviews on this incredible machine, from now and leading to the official launch
later this week and continuing after that. We will look at all aspects of this incredible
new machine. We start off the series with this TOVA exclusive look at the technologies that Honda
put into the K20A Spec R engine. The materials for this article are derived from two main sources.
The introduction is based on the 'Type R Spirit' article (engine section) published on the special
Civic TYPE R page of Honda's corporate website, automobile section. This article was supposedly
written by the Civic TYPE R's engine development engineer. The main technical section is a best-effort
translation from the engine section of the 'Civic TYPE-R Factbook' that is made available only to
Honda's media members. Both resources are available only in japanese and of course I am not
able to read japanese. However, good fortunes are smiling on us full-blooded Type-R fanatics.
Because japanese is an 'oriental language', like chinese, by using the web-page translation
from Google, I was able to more or less understand the unusual 'colourful' article from the translation
and derive a more intelligible article. Help also came from another source. Honda's english-language
media site for the FD2 Civic TYPE R includes a package of photos, some of which are
the same photos in the factbook engine article but properly translated into english. By using
these photos and my best-effort attempt to translate the text of the factbook engine article,
I have completed the short technical overview of the new K20A 2007 Spec R engine below. That
photo package actually contains a few additional photos which are not even in the factbook. As they
contain useful extra information, I have included them into the factbook translation,
using them to augment the actual factbook information.
The translation of the Factbook engine article is put into a JPEG file for publishing here
on this page. While this will mean long-ish loading times -and I apologize to long-time readers for
this- nevertheless, it is the best means I can think of to watermark and thus copyright this article.
It is a TOVA exclusive after all. I hope owners, potential owners and just plain fans of this
mouth watering new FD2 Civic TYPE-R will enjoy and appreciate this article.
