GruppeM Civic Type R (EP3) Filter Ram Charger

Getting more power from a naturally aspirated car is rarely a simple task - sure you've got all the stages of breathing such as air filters, cams and so on but what if the engine is already producing 100bhp per litre. The K20A engine found in the EP3 Civic Type R needed a little more power. The first few air filters available were the usual cone filter affair. This usually does for most people and their cars but the anomaly with the Civic Type R is that the Intake manifold is at the front rather than the rear of the engine. This meant the the piping for the cone filters forced cone to face the bulkhead - next to the hot exhaust manifold. Not only this but with open cone air filters you lose the vacuum surrounding the filter as found in the big black hunk of plastic known as the OEM air box.

Mugen was a clear choice - with a long relationship with Honda and a renowned reputation. They used an air box that flowed more air through a panel filter in a GRP box. Ultimately it seemed that it was simply a smoothed version of the OEM box.

GruppeM on the other hand were just introducing some new Japanese models to their line. With an enviable reputation for their Filter Ram Charger (FRC) application sfor marques such as Ferrari and Porsche, I'm sure my Civic would be well catered for. GruppeM Filter Ram Chargers are a little more imaginative and use the finest materials. The box housing the air filter was made of carbon fibre. This not only shields the air filter from excessive heat, but carbon fibre has far superior qualities with regards to heat soak to that of plastic or metal.

Both the standard air filter arrangement and the Mugen box take their feed of air from the front grille. A good source you might think, but with the radiator and associated plumbing in that area the could be cold if take from elsewhere...

The GruppeM solution is to replace the left handside lower windscreen panel with their own design with a carbon fibre scoop to feed air into the carbon box. This is then filtered through a special design K&N filter.

So it was decided, this was the way to extract more power from the already highly strung K20A engine. I ordered directly from GruppeM Europe and was to be their first private customer, and the first GruppeM FRC for the Civic Type R in the UK. The package took a few weeks to arrive, the hand laid carbon fibre products are sent to the UK in batches. Finally it arrived in a huge box with all the parts and full English instructions.

Fitting was fairly straight forward, although a little more complex than anticipated. It can be done in around an hour if you're handy with a spanner - but on the initial installation I took my time with the car just 3 months old and the FRC being both costly and in short supply in the UK!

The following day I contacted them regarding the installation as they were keen to hear how it had gone. At the time I worked near to a couple of their newly appointed dealers and the MD was more than happy to come over and take a look. Very impressive - clearly the years of supplying Ferraris has done their customer service the world of good!

But what about the gains? I felt that the car was more responsive, the induction noise could also be clearly heard standing near the car, but the switch to VTEC was something else! i-VTEC has been said to lose the kick of the vanilla VTEC, smoothing the change over. With the manic roar coming from underneath the bonnet you certainly knew when you were in the zone.

While I had a dyno run earlier in the week for comparison, the day after fitting the GruppeM Filter Ram Charger I had a full manifold, race cat and cat back exhaust system fitted. With this setup, gains of 22bhp were seen.

Ultimately you may be able to achieve similar gains for less on the rolling road, but in the real world where heat soak, and closed bonnets are fighting to increase the temperature of air I believe this is the ultimate air filter for the Civic Type R.

Useful Links:

GruppeM Europe - www.gruppemeurope.com

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