Saturday, May 28, 2011

Spoon Sports (Honda Tuner) parts for my car? Rigid Collars

That’s right… last weekend I took my car down to a world famous Honda tuner…the Spoon Sport’s tuning shop, TypeOne.


http://www.spoon.jp/eng/

For good reason – I was to become their first ever R33 GT-R customer for their revolutionary product, their Rigid Collars. This is a product that they make not only for Hondas, but other brands as well – and it’s been a hot seller in Japan, reviewed favorably in the Japanese motoring press – so much so that Spoon Sports set up a dedicated website just for this product.

http://www.rigidcollar.jp/

The concept is this – by necessity of the factory manufacturing process, the subframes and the body are attached by way of bolts. However, due to the need for speed (versus precision), there is considerable leeway in the space where the bolts go in. This means that the subframe is not always perfectly aligned with the body.

This video explains it better than me.



Yeah, right. Hard to believe it works, and the video is a bit hokey. Plus, it's a Prius they use to demonstrate, of course that car needs help in the handling department. So would it work with a GT-R?

Anyway, I got to the shop a bit before the appointment time, and found these interesting Hondas there.

That's a fully tuned Spoon S2000 with hardtop, as well as carbon hooded Euro Accord!


Spoon-tuned Fit... wonder if the wife would let me get one of these, seems very practical!


The process to install the Rigid Collars was simple, but it did take this lift and an engine support/lift thing (in order to allow for enough space between the subframe and the body… or you could get a strong friend to help??)


They did the front first.
Before:


After - you can see the silver ring, those are the collars.


Here is one of the rear places where the collar goes in. Huge gap huh.


I took a picture of the instruction manual they had (this is for the R32/R34 GT-Rs, the kit which they had developed the week before). You can see that up front, 8 collars are needed, and 4 in the rear.



Here are the collars – not all of them are round, some are the half-moon shape. Necessary, as some bolts are not designed to be completely removed.


After they finished, they took some photos for their blog


Here is the link:
http://blog.eirigidcollar.jp/?d=657507

And then it was off to get test driven, to make sure everything felt right.


My impressions – well, as it was raining when I got back in the car, I expected to not feel any difference – but I did immediately.

First, the ride of the car seemed more secure, more direct. I had not adjusted the coilovers, but somehow the ride seemed more firm.

Second, feedback from the steering wheel was much improved. I am not sure whether this is because the “numbness” that I had noticed on-center is gone, or whether the off-center feeling comes on quicker, but either way, feedback is much better.

Third, after the roads dried a bit (after a short trip to Nissan Shinagawa – see next post), I went for a drive on the expressway. Lane charges are much sharper, and accelerating on a curve is not as nerve-wracking – just point and shoot.

So the overall result is that the car feels much more agile. Not so much at low speeds, but it gets better the faster you go. In conjunction with the Nismo Performance Dampers and all of the body stiffening, I’ve probably done all I can to improve handling, short of replacing all of the bushings with steel and spot welding the body.

I then dutifully posted my impressions on the UK GTROC forum…
http://www.gtr.co.uk/forum/151834-rigid-collars-spoon-sports-r32-r33-r34-gt-rs.html

but was met with lots of skepticism. Which, I suppose is to be expected. My feeling is that anything new and unusual, will be met with doubt. And, yes I suppose for many people the price is expensive – as we know many people can barely afford to own, let alone properly maintain and tune, Skylines (including myself, LOL!).

But, in the end – I have them installed on my car, I felt results, and I’m happy with the results, so who cares about what others think, especially when they haven’t even installed them on their cars (armchair GT-R tuning? LOL)!!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this article on the collars had them installed on my 95 gtr and it has fixed many problems with steering and wheel alignment once again many thanks

Aki said...

Awesome to hear! Sometimes it's nice to know it's not just me who feels a difference or becomes a believer.... lol

Skodajocky said...

Hi Aki,

Six years later, I dig the article ( Ok, seeing the NSX project on speedhunters equipped with them remind that those exists for skyline too ).

Just a question:

On a picture of the rear, there's a big bushing on the frame (I I understand well the rear frame have foru of them verticllay + 2 horizontally).
Does it had not more sense to replace those bushings before placing the collars or could I place the collars and replace the bushings later?

As my car seems to have hard times with previous owners I fear that those bushings are not in a good shape and I was wondering if I can still place the collars and change the bushing later without having to buy new collars afterwards.

What do you think?

Aki said...

Skoda,

Well I think it won't change the ride, but it will change the precision. Lots of people, because it is so much hassle and thus expensive to replace those bushings you are talking about, simply insert alum spacers and move on.

But, because the collars do get crushed when installed - if you really want to do it correctly then replace the bushings with OEM rubber or poly, then insert the collars...

Aki

Skodajocky said...

Hi Aki,

Thanks for your answer (I only see it now :( ).
I received the collars today but after some thoughts I came to the same conclusion as you.
So I will order some Nismo bushings for the rear and replace all in the same time at the end of the year :).