Hi everyone!

just purchased a 2013 Honda Fit base today. Milano red with just over 11k miles. I've driven Subarus for years, but used to ride Honda motorcycles. This is my first honda car and I love the magic seats! Hope that this car is as maintenance free as my bikes were!



Would eventually like to put some nice aftermarket rims on the car, as well as cat back exhaust and maybe cold air intake. I heard these cars can autocross! Any recommendations for any of those?

Thanks,

-Sam

 

Hi and welcome! As for intakes and exhaust, you won't see a lot of performance gains but it will help the car breath a little easier. Because our cars are low on power and nothing short of forced induction will make a dent, a lot of members have focused on hardcore suspension and brake set ups. Do your research on what options are out there, but suspension mods will give you the biggest bang for your buck in terms of performance.

 

If you are interested in autocrossing. You can make your own intake for ~$100 that is the shortest possible by just using the tube that has the MAF sensor is mounted into which is a $20 piece of the stock filter box. This is what they call a "short ram" intake which gives the best throttle response and sounds nice. VTEC becomes audible . Although it is susceptible to heat, but I will worry about that next summer. There is a thread DIY Short Ram Intake.

I can't say much about the cold air intakes. Takeda's cold air intake does not require bumper removal and is cheaper which is nice. Both more expensive than making your own .

For the best cost/weight savings I use 15" Kosei K4Rs which weigh 10.5lb/in and for autocross I used 205/50/15" tires which resulted in 23" OD which was good for autocross giving a 5% wheel torque buff. The package weight is ~29lbs vs 40lbs for a stock sport or 30lbs for a stock base. Got to make the most out of our meager hp. The two summer tires to consider if planning to autocross are the Dunlop ZIIs and BF Goodrich Rivals. The Rivals are better for dry conditions and don't seem to overheat as easily as the ZIIs seem to.

I decided to go with 15" wheels to minimize inertia and the smaller tire size simulates it as a 16" wheel, but I may be a bit hardcore even the 16" K4Rs are 5lbs lighter per wheel than the stock 16" wheels. In 15" the RPF1s are 1lb lighter, but cost an extra $50 per wheel.

The Michellin A/S 3 Sports are the best all season tires, for DDing with some enthusiasm.

Getting some Hawk autocross pads will make a world of difference in braking performance. Unless you track heavily I don't understand why people mess with the brakes. I have no problem locking them up easily with racing pads, going to larger rotors would only add rotating inertia which will only slow the fit down. The only problem with them is they dust a lot.

I would say tires, brake pads, and a rear sway bar make the biggest difference bang for buck. I did 13 autocrosses with stock suspension with tires only and I don't think my times improved much more with the koni suspension I ended the season with. The effect with tires is much more immediate.

There are 2 decent suspension kits to go for. The Bilsteins which are around $1k on tire rack or the Redshift Koni Coilovers. If you plan to autocross a few times a year at most and don't want to ever mess with settings and different springs go with the Bilsteins. If you plan to autocross a lot every year nothing beats the Konis. I will say the konis did not feel better than stock until you load the car with 4 people and then go lift throttle oversteer around corners or go all out on the autocross track. These both provide minimum drop. How much I am not sure but somewhere around 1.25". All the Japanese brands are not worth looking at period. At least according to the fellow who tested shocks and wrote Autocross to win(http://farnorthracing.com/autocross_secrets.html)

With my setup I have no trouble keeping up with fiesta STs on the autocross course.