FL5 Fake Vent Reveal! 

Gotta love this guy's serious inputs for those of us who are planning to eventually upgrade. He's tested the available "upgrades" while rocking the sickest color and aeros! Seems like you're on to something with replacing the fake air vents. Harness the best of what this platform can do! 💪 Let's go!

If this doesn't cut it... there's a guy on CivicXI that did a deep dive into the cooling loop, and his takeaway was: (i) there were too many unnecessary parallel components; (ii) the turbo is integrated into the loop, which causes massive heat soak. He stripped out a lot of the parallel "accessory" items from the loop (transmission cooler, etc.), and he removed the turbo from the loop. Honda includes all those items to ensure everything comes up to temp quickly (since most just drive on the street) and improve emissions. He's had no issues since, and he experiences very high ambient temps (Brazil, I believe). His feedback was, as long as you take your time letting the car warm up and then cool down, you'll be fine (and the turbo, etc. don't need to be included in the loop). You just need to be patient w. warmup and let the turbo cooldown after heavy usage before shutting the car off. (We never used to integrate turbos into the cooling loop... you just let them cool off before parking your car... unnecessary source of substantial heat to the loop.)

I had the same issue with cooling on another jdm car I have and thankfully I solved it by not having any added interference in front of the radiator such as that oil cooler.

Cant' wait to see your new content sir! Hope everything sorted out!💪

Like your videos. Just curious to know if rear suspension components fk8 would fit in FL5 like shocks spring and control arm

With all those extra oil coolers, and secondary rad, one can imagine you certainly wont have any cooling issues then. Def cut out the back of the fender lining where you installing the oil coolers, to allow air to flow into the wheel well for additional brake cooling.

I've been saying for some time....that the Twin oil cooler they did in Hong Kong "TR twin oil cooler" resolves alot of the issues. Couple it with a PWR Track radiator and you are good. However I prefer no oil cooler and all radiator. You can put scoops under your body to feed to your pending twin oil cooler.

What about adding a larger cooling fans? Like spal. Removing the factory ones and getting something in that flows more cfm

Thanks for the video. How are you reading your oil temperatures cause the factory gauge is a derived figure and not measured with a actual temp probe. Additionally, get rid of the PRL intercooler and get acuity's intake solution when it's released

Thanks for showing us this journey. I've got some good ideas that is helpful with my fl5 build. I told myself after building my evo's that I'd never do it again. Now my dumb ass is on ppg website contemplating dropping 7k on anew gears etc. Cars can be worse than drugs lol

Stating the obvious here and I know the overheating is annoying, but you are making significantly more power than the car came from factory. Making way more power generates a lot of heat so it's going to make cooling more of an issue. I'd imagine all your cooling mods would keep your engine pretty cool at stock power levels but making 400+ whp is a lot for track work. It does suck having to potentially add more radiators and oil coolers but it's also a small turbocharged engine so there's some natural limitations there unfortunately with heat capacity.

I’m sure that this on your radar already Michael but supposedly the recent Honda Performance mods applied to the Acura Type S prototype will also be available in some other form for the FL5 platform as well. I’m specifically referring to the new front clip that houses the dual oil coolers…let alone the other options that reduced the car’s weight by 200lbs. Forgive me if your current oil cooler solution is superior aftermarket wise to Honda’s future option…heard you mention on your one video that testing your new system…results were positive…I just haven’t seen the video showing what your choice was. I’ll find it later…

Good progress. Any need to clean up the tune as well? Im sure that played a role

Bro I feel you, enhencing overheating issues without breaking factory layout. larger cooler is a must. Hope to see you're the first to solve FL5 overheating on this planet!

Maybe the problem is there is too much in the way before cool air gets to the radiator (AC condensor, oil cooler, inter cooler, parts of the bumper). Maybe a medium sized heater core , say 16"x12" mounted under the tank with a 12V fan and pump pushing hot coolant through through a -8 AN? As soon as you hit 190F, the pump and the fan kicks in. Just a thought.

Great content! Very informative. Cheers 🍻

If you get a chance, try removing the hood vent rain guard, would like to see if that helps anyhow.

Would be sweet to 3D print a duct or shroud from the bumper opening to the oil cooler for a clean/OEM look also increase efficiency thru the cooler

Maybe worth considering once you get your oil coolers installed, graft large openings on your bumper cover to expose for maximum airflow, not sure how you feel about cutting both corners of the bumper cover, #becauseRaceCar

These "fake" vents everybody calls em actually serve an aerodynamic purpose to create some downforce up front. Thats why there are these support brackets in there. Its kind of a clever engineering from Honda for a street car. Surely the aerodynamics start to work at 100mph and above. But thats what it is for. I told you get all the crap out in front of the radiator to give it a chance to breathe. But if you need the car for convenience drives with A/C you wont inflate the full potential on track. It will always be a compromise.

Homie, nose hair trimmer. Asap! I’m tired of trying of not trying to focus on it. 👍🏼

Stock you likely won’t have these cooling issues. Remember GZ is making like 460+ whp so more power means more heat. Stock guys you should be fine but big horsepower for extended track work on hot days means you need more cooling.

A gentleman with a time attack FK8 swore one of the must-have items for proper cooling was hood vents. My assumption is that it allows the existing cooling to be more efficient with greater airflow through the engine bay.

Realistically I don’t see how the taking fake vents in front is gonna make more cooling….its barely any air

that's where the spoon fl5 endurance car put extra coolers too..

i run a setrab 2.5" thick core for the oil cooler on my 06 sti and ive had great luck with it, my other saving grace was the insulated lines to the oil cooler... aeroquip -10 hose with pyrojacket over the hose because of EJ header location (looked online and it appears the HEL kit just has normal braided lines)

With this fake vent exploration, by removing them and installing coolers back there... what you are effectively doing is all the engineering that BMW did on the F8X, which is why there are auxiliary radiators at both those locations, oil cooler and trans cooler at the bottom. Just yank a bumper off an F8X and snap a photo, copy it to the FL5. A 4-cyl is working much harder to do the same thing, so more cooling is always necessary, bonkers that Honda didn't do this. They should just do it, and charge more. People would pay.

The biggest disappointment of SEMA 2024 for me. Tons of CF parts and exterior mods which looks cool but there was absolutely nothing in terms of cooling that was there. I've been watching what other people do. Seem like the solution will be something grass roots

so pretty much a jason lewis concept.

Maybe its the design of the engine thats flawed which is Direct Injected. I tracked a rotrex k20 before making over 400whp. Eventually went turbo and made as much as 740whp but tracked with 500whp. No heating issues with a simple mishimoto rad and spal fans upgrade and oil cooler BUT it seems with these type r engines with those upgrades, these engines still overheat... so i believe it just comes down to direct injection. Its garbage. Carbon build up, etc. Garbage.

Get a hood spacer 😅

The engineers said that those are not fake vents. It is for downforce.

First?