The Civic Type-R is amazing. It holds the Nürburgring track record for a front wheel drive car while still being comfortable enough to drive on a daily basis. The Honda Type-R brand has a sterling legacy spanning over twenty years.
Renowned tuner Evasive Motorsports put the Civic Type-R through its paces at Buttonwillow Raceway and ran into overheating issues after one hot lap. Evasive Motorsports CEO Mike Chang described the issue while replying to a Facebook post,
“…water temp peaked at 228f, factory needle was 3/4 way up. Intake air temp was up to 128f. The heat soak was apparent from dramatic decrease in power.”
It was only 87 degrees outside. See Evasive Motorsports’ impressions below.
I decided to dig into the issue further and found two more instances of new Civic Type-R’s overheating. Civic X forum user CarlitosPR noted that at a track day two Civic Type-Rs reached “maximum” temperature after 6 laps:
“Regards,
New member from Puerto Rico here. Yesterday was my first race day in the Civic Type R, coming from a Porsche GTS competing in “Solo Class” and circuit racing on ST class on a E30 S50 swap, I can tell you that the CTR is a tremendous car! Actually I was surprised the way it handles and brakes!
Today we were racing hard two CTRs and in both, the temperature reached the maximum after 6 laps in a track of 1.8 miles. After running for half a lap at medium speed, the temperature returns to normal.
The temperature was at 90F+ and humidity at 80%+ (Normal in Puerto Rico)
In addition, at the end of the day the right front tire of the two CTRs end up in a very bad condition.”
Another Civic X user, Hondanight, also reported an overheating Type-R:
“This is one of the sessions a couple of my friends did at AMP for an SCCA Targa Southland event being held this weekend. Driver is @barkmfors “road and track” and co-driver is @r_tizzle_instagrizzle find them on instagram.
Yes It did end up overheating, threw up a warning on the center gauge display and went to limp mode would only rev to 4500 until it cooled. Brake fade was also mentioned. Take note the Driver was pushing the car very hard. He’s no Mario Andretti, but he can put a car through its paces. Type R is bone stock. I have more pictures if interested and will try and answer any questions.”
See the session Hondanight referenced below:
Lastly, Civic X user Trey forwarded the group a message stating that Honda is aware and is trying to diagnose the issue as fast as possible:
“This is in regards to the overheating issue.
‘Jeff @vtec.net also is saying the same thing. I spoke to some folks at Honda in Torrance about this today.
They’re confident that this is an issue with either a bad part or perhaps a problem during the manufacturing process (somebody installed something improperly, or the wrong part, kinked hose, etc.). Or it could be a part that’s failing under stress – a bracket or a clip yielding and allowing a hose to kink.
In other words, this should NOT be happening, and it would not happen in a Civic Type R that is correct.
They are urging everybody who has experienced this problem to get their Type R in to the dealer so that they can pull the codes and establish a VIN range of affected vehicles in hopes of identifying some common thread so they can figure out the root cause of this flaw.
They have done very extensive testing in very hot conditions (all over the world) and have not encountered this issue.’ Eddie Huz”
The good news is that Honda is aware and is actively looking to address the issue. The not so good news is that there is an issue at all, especially considering the lengths Honda has gone through to prove the Type-R’s track worthiness.
I understand that most people do not take their cars to a race track or even a drag strip, but a high performance car like the Civic Type-R absolutely should not overheat when taken to a track day.
For now, the Civic Type-R seems poised to join the perplexing list of new high-performance vehicles that cannot withstand basic track work without overheating. Here’s hoping Honda changes this very soon.
UPDATE 2/11/18:
Owners still seem to be grappling with the overheating issue in early 2018. User and forum sponsor PRL Motorsports had the following to say:
“We hammered our ctr pretty hard for two days straight on stock tires on PittRace 2.8mile 19 turn track. Having driven there close to 100 times in various cars the type r in stock trim was disappointing. The weather was a muggy 85* Our car over heated after 3 laps each session, the oil temp light also came on. The car went into limp mode a few times which was pretty awful in the middle of a straight when your on the track with 100k dollar cars. We also ran the car with vsa off and normal traction off using the Honda (up down ab ab select start) procedure which allowed the car to get 5-10mph higher exit speeds! Not caring much about the lights, the driver continued to hammer the car in the over heat conditions. We dynoed our car before and after the track days and results were identical. ”
See the source thread here.
PRL Motorsports went on to extol the virtues of the car. As stated, the CTR is a great car, but it still has difficulties on hot track days. Owners are beginning to speculate that there simply isn’t enough airflow at the front of the car. Hopefully Honda addresses this soon.
Image credit: MB-one
daily tōge 
Not surprised…my buddy has a new 2017 Honda Civic Si and we ran it hard in the country back roads…only about 30 mins…maybe less… We pulled into his garage and popped the hood….we were very surprised how much heat was radiating from that 1.6 Turbo… It made me reconsider this gen of Honda as constant expansion contraction of engine and or parts is not a good thing..
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Thanks for stopping by! Yea, it seems like there may be a design flaw under the hood that manifests after pushing the car hard. Hopefully it is something they can easily fix.
Do you remember the temperature that day?
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