Triple the rear spring rate and throw on a set of new tires, and the Fit that was formerly pushy now feels pointy.
Making the most of the car’s strengths has been easy. With a lightweight chassis that’s made predominantly from high-tensile steel, the Fit is a playful, eager car that surprises many who generally look the other way when one rolls down the street.
Once the balance is improved, as this one has had with a set of Nankang CR-S and Silver’s Neomax coilovers with 8K springs at all four corners, the front could be trusted to follow the desired line more often than not. This increased eagerness to rotate changed the basic challenge of getting the car through a corner.
Previously, driving the Fit was about a marked direction change, but with the balance improved, less input was needed to make it turn. This more athletic — dare I say more fit? — version of the Fit took me back to my early karting days when I learned the concept of rolling speed. Essentially, the new task was finding out just how early I could release the brake to keep the momentum up.
Fun Measured in Minimum Speeds
Combining less necessary braking overall and a more neutral-to-oversteer balance provided a challenge that helped me look away from the car’s straightline shortcomings. Finally, the car had more than just party-trick dartiness to impress people. It was genuinely nimble. In fact, the higher cornering speeds now challenged my core strength.
Even before I was sliding off the seat in the middle of longer corners, I may as well have had a vinyl bench seat from an old Econoline in my car. The OEM cloth seat did next to nothing in terms of lateral support, which forced me to buttress myself with my knees against the door and the shifter hump to remain semi-stable.
In the name of being more involved in the cornering process, I had to find a more supportive seat and a stiffer means of mounting it, but I had to be reasonable. Having taken my old Miata with a lousy fixed-back seat on a 2,000-mile trip, I reminded myself how often I had to get out of the car to stretch and help the blood return to my toes.
I started looking around for a fixed-back bucket that would do the dual-duty thing better than most. Speaking to Marco Andreozzi at OMP, a member of an online Honda Fit enthusiasts’ group, I found a solution that could do the dual-duty thing. He suggested that the OMP RT seat would work well in a daily driver while providing the support a track toy requires.
Honestly, I wasn’t fully convinced that any fixed-back seat could be comfortable enough in a stiffly sprung tin can, but the RT’s elegant design and removable cushioning had me wondering if maybe Andreozzi was right. The wide leg cushions and lower sides promised comfort and ease of use on the street, and on top of whatever comfort it might provide, it looked the part. In fact, it looked too nice to be used in a 15-year-old Fit with a bad case of eczema.
Like a Silk Hat on a Pig
The question of sliders was one my friend and I mulled over for a few minutes before deciding against them. In the end, the notion of adding height and dulling the interface between tush and machine did not sit well with me. Without the sliders, I mounted the seat directly to a Planted base made specifically for the second-generation Fit, which brought me two inches lower than I was on the stock seat.
The preliminary tests confirmed Andreozzi’s claim. Ingress and egress were easy enough for a reasonably limber person, and the seating position, though upright, was comfortable enough around town. Never once did I grunt when entering or exiting the car, which is perhaps the best test of age and flexibility. The louder the groan, the more candles on your birthday cake.
Over bumps, the padding insulated me somewhat from the business happening underneath, though, as desired, there was much more information being sent through the seat. Crucially, I stopped thinking about the seat as anything other than a seat on trips to the store.
Perhaps I’m a bit of a masochist, but I felt that a conclusive test of this fixed carbon seat’s streetability required a road trip with a few rules. Without taking any muscle relaxants, I took a combination of I-5 and US-101 from San Francisco to Seattle with the intention of making the trip as quickly as legally possible.
Fortunately, the OMP RT is still comfortable at the end of seven-hour stints. The only time I wanted to stretch was around the time I reached Portland, some 800 miles from my starting point. To be fair, I’d probably want to stretch if I had been driving a Lexus LS430 or anything else that rides on clouds.
The trip helped highlight some other strong points of the RT. Not only is the padding soft, but it also doesn’t get too hot in the sun. The positioning of the legs isn’t terribly upright, either, so I never felt pins and needles in my lower extremities. My two complaints are: I found the most reclined position with the OMP mounts was a hair too upright for long hauls, and the shoulder bolsters, though spacious, still roll my shoulders inward slightly. I’m not sure that would be an issue for narrower drivers, but I am broader in the chest, though not quite as broad as Robert Mitchum.
Bronzed Body Control
The one item that has made a massive difference in comfort and compliance has been the Swift springs. Thanks to Tomas Sport Tuning, I was able to get these installed post-haste – fast, friendly, and highly experienced. I cannot recommend them enough for this sort of thing. They’re knowledgeable racers themselves and understand the importance of the right spring rate.
The rates are the same, but proprietary steel used by Swift, called HS5.TW, is known to be faster reacting and more compliant. I would agree.
The car no longer pogos off of bigger bumps. Yes, it’s still a bit lively over rougher patches of road, but for only having made two iterative changes, the car feels much more supple. The body movements are better controlled, and it’s changed the way it puts the power down, too. Due to what must be better compliance, the Fit’s front now claws for traction where it used to spin one wheel freely. It feels like there is more propulsion provided, though this occasionally causes an intermittent tugging sensation at the front end, and I wonder if this hurts the axles like wheel-hop does.
It feels like the car loads up more progressively, too. This, a fresh alignment, and rotated tires have made the front even more trustworthy.
These two upgrades and a couple not yet mentioned promised a real change in character on the track. Sitting lower in the OMP RT seat and feeling at the center of the action, I took the car to Thunderhill West, a tight and technical track that would test its agility.
Under brakes, the rear end moves around more now, but it’s never snappy. It’s somewhat busy when being pushed, but that constant minor rotation helps the car find its happy place a little sooner. It should be noted that the steering inputs needed are far smaller than the ones needed with the previous dampers and springs.
Part of the reason it is never too twitchy is because its movements are better telegraphed. It’s easier to sense an impending slide now with the greater granularity of information coming through the seat. Plus, now that I don’t need to stabilize myself with stiff knees and clenched abdominals, I can focus on peeling off that brake pedal properly.
Unsettling Assistance
Changing the front pads from the G-LOC R10s I had previously to a set of Hawk ER-1‘s, which are milder in their torque rating, hasn’t changed the performance much. It still stops strongly with minimal heat and provides some range of modulation. Also, the rotors have been faring much better than the last pair did.
I will say that, on smooth surfaces, the new pads don’t trigger the ABS as much during trail-braking as before, but it should be noted that I no longer leave the braking quite as late, and I’m also not relying on trail-braking as much to turn the car as I used to.
Where I find the brakes lacking now has to do with the ABS intruding when I’m just using minor braking pressure to tuck the nose and encounter a bumpier surface. I wonder if the minimal pedal pressure required combined with the car’s habit of hopping over more pronounced bumps is causing my foot to bounce on and off the pedal in almost imperceptible amounts. If only there were a way to filter that out.
The improved braking performance has begun to take its toll on the factory hardware; deteriorating the rubber in the braking system. One dust boot has frayed badly and the piston seal on that caliper has started to wither.
There’s one other thing. First, movement from the rear that is due to inducing some direction change with the front slightly loaded needs to be distinguished from a little hopping under braking due to the rears not fully complying with the road surface. It’s not intimidating at all, but I believe that something needs to change to ensure more consistent rear contact patches.
That doesn’t change the fact that, on a technical track I know well, it can run with faster cars in the tightest sections. The direction change and ease with which the Fit dances around is brilliant enough to help you forget about how driving every straightaway is an exercise in patience.
As for the next step, it’s clear that additional suppleness is needed all around, but especially at the rear. I’ve heard a set of snipped rear bump stops from an FK8 Civic Type R can add some rate without worsening compliance for relatively little money. Maybe the right sort of spacers would help there, too. Hopefully, inexpensive and sensible additions like these will show meaningful, iterative changes and illustrate just how much is enough, and how much is too much.
At this rate of change, I have high hopes. With a few pointers from educated suspension gurus and a couple of simple changes to improve compliance over the bumps, I might just find the cojones needed to, as the kids say, “send it.”
For the last installment on the development of this 2009 Honda Fit, visit this link.
Nice job describing the iterative process and results.