Spoon Sports LSD Review - Honda Civic Type R

The UK EP3 Civic Type R was the first Type R to not be equipped with a Limited Slip Differential. Even the Civic 5 door 1.8 VTi had an LSD. Honda had made the sacrafice to manufacture the car to a price. And to add insult to injury the JDM cars were equipped with an LSD despite being both UK and JDM models manufactured in Swindon.

This was something I had to remedy. Although i had never experienced the effect I felt that it was wrong of Honda to exclude it from the UK Civic as this is (IMO) against the Type R philosophy. This was the first modification - make the Civic a true Type R.

Not wanting to be bothered with the hassle of sourcing a JDM Honda helical LSD I thought I may aswell upgrade on that and go for Quaife. All costed out I was all set to order the Quaife ATB LSD unit when I was offered a Spoon LSD for a very good price.

The Spoon item was a 1.5 way clutch type LSD rather than the helical Torsen type as fitted to the JDM Honda Civic Type R or the Quaife unit. The clutch-type differential is fast reacting and can be adjusted for slippage. The downside is that clutch or plate type LSDs require new plates as they wear out, resulting in expensive labour costs to strip the gearbox down again.

Watching Top Gear with JC commenting on the Focus RS being a bit unruly with the Quaife ATB fitted I was pleased not to have gone this route, but none the less a little fearsome that the modification may
1) ruin a car that i am vastly impressed with
2) I had heard of no other CTR owners fitting one (November 2002) so was not fully confident the Spoon LSD would fit a non-JDM transmission.

Having finally found somewhere I could trust my black beast with I left it with them safe in the knowledge that should anything go wrong they know their stuff. Competition Transmission Services provide Milling, Turning, Grinding, Welding, Spark-erosion, Heat-treatment, Jig-boring as well as can offer "one-off" gear manufacture, Shot-peening/Polishing and Cryogenic stress relief. Suffice to say they know their stuff!

Bernie, who fitted the LSD had just come back from taking it on a test run on a very wet evening so I was interested to know what he thought of the car given the Potenzas notoriously poor ability in the wet. "She grips". Well that's something, but was still haunted by the images of the Focus RS squirming across the road on Top Gear. I was aware that clutch type would make some noise and pulling out of the car park I was met with some clicks that could be felt through the steering wheel. Unfortunately it was rush hour so I did not get to try it out any further, other than adjust to the heavier steering - a welcome change from the over assisted setup as standard.

Bedding in the plates in the limited slip differential requires driving in figures of 8 for around 20-30 mins. All was going well until suddenly the steering got ridiculously heavy. The electrically assited steering motor had overheated and cut out. Great. Once again the Japanese import only DC5 Integra Type R was deemed worthy enough to have hydraulically assisted steering.

I wanted to see if the fitment of a limited slip differential made a difference as I began to wonder whether such products served only to shave tenths of a second off a lap and would have little real world impact. With the roads still very wet I knew at what points the car would normally want to push it's nose wide. A nice roundabout in a national limit would let me see the full effect with relative safety. With the lower grip levels due to the rain.

Second gear, pushing circa 5000rpm normally the car would be understeering and have to ease off to turn in. But it's still turning. Ease the foot down a little more (it's one of those really big roundabouts) 6-7k rpm and I can feel the back follwing the turn, in full control. I ease off and the turn in is nice and sharp.

Despite clutch type limited slip differentials being hardcore track items i still did a 60 mile per day commute. On a day to day basis I'd be lying if i said I did not mind the noise. It literally sounds like something is broken driving around town but on the open road it is well worth it. The once over-light steering gains a more weight, no longer do the wheels spin up at 6500rpm in the wet, and the turn in is sharper and each turn met with greater poise and a more neutral balance.

You may never see your LSD again once fitted, but it is worth so much over exhausts, air filters, and hey I no longer need to get some wet weather tyres to replace the shocking Potenzas the Civic is fitted with from the factory.

More articles