Rep Power: 709

OK, so I’m a little behind on my reviews for stuff - I’m just getting around to writing one now. I've had the Buddy Club Spec III+ cams for the last 2 months. Those who have read my reviews in the past know that I write out everything. The good, the bad, random thoughts, everything.
So to save you the trouble of reading to the end, I’ll give you the Coles Notes version right here: I’m quite impressed with them. It’s a mild cam that works with the stock valve train and puts down a solid extra 5-8hp and flattens the torque curve very nicely, making for more useable torque in road race applications.

I originally went to go pick up a set of Buddy Club Spec IV cams from John Young at OptionJDM (www.optionJDM.com), along with a full Buddy Club valve train and retainer upgrade. But as I was standing in the store, the last set just walked right out. Well, that was crappy. Had a big Mosport event coming up in 2 weeks and wanted more power to be competitive. For those that don’t know Mosport big track, it rewards horsepower. I didn’t want to wait for the next shipment, so I grabbed a set of BC Spec III+’s instead. On the upside I didn’t need a valve train upgrade and I didn’t need to rev the snot out of my car to make power, on the downside, it was milder cam didn’t make as much power.

The motor is a 2001 JDM ITR motor. It came from the factory with a slightly larger throttlebody and the slightly more aggressive CTR cams. Paul Bhawan at Splitfire Performance in Brampton did the install and tuning for it. For those that don’t know Paul, he runs one of the fastest turbo Civics in existence and has been working on and tuning my car for the last 4 years. He does suck a great job setting up my car at the beginning of the year, I hardly seen him all season. He pulled out the CTR cams and the BC Spec III+’s went in. On his valve adjustment he noticed that there was no valve adjustment required on the intake side just the exhaust side.

Then onto the dyno it went. The car put down 5 more horsepower than the previous tuning session that I had, but it’s not really a fair to say the cams made 5 more horsepower. Since the last tune, I capped a pretty much a straight pipe exhaust with an OBX Twin-Loop muffler. Though, much quieter it is far more restrictive than my previous setup. I would guess I’m losing between 3 and 5hp conservatively, 6-9hp if I was stretching it. Meaning I would estimate the cams themselves added about 8-12hp. Horsepower aside, what I did like was the torque curve – it had completely flattened right out. Meaning I had more torque throughout the rev range. Man, I was really looking forward to trying that out at the track.

Finally, got the car ready and have a couple days to relax before the event. How nice. On the Friday before the event I dropped the car at Shinzo Media for a quick fix to the car’s decals. They do amazing work BTW. As they were working on the body, I figured I might as well put on my race brakes so I don’t have to swap brakes at the track. As the wheel was off I noticed the boot to a lower balljoint was torn. The balljoint seemed OK, but I’m not about to go run a high-speed track like Mosport hoping that the balljoint holds up.

I had trouble bedding a set of Gransport GS3s race pads and had uneven pad material distributed onto the rotor. Great pads, but the uneven distribution resulted in heavy steering wheel shake and glazing at my last lapping event. So I know the ballljoint was exposed to a fair amount of extra abuse - so I wasn’t going to take any chances with that.

I start calling around to local Honda dealers to see if they have time to fit me in to replace the balljoint, but no luck. By this time it was well past 6. Shinzo is in Scarborough, Splitfire is out in Brampton – in rush hour, that’s an hour and half - and my event is 15 hours away. I called John at OptionJDM, figuring this was his neigbourhood and he would know someone nearby that might be able to swap in the balljoint. He put me in touch with Dave at Defcon Racing in Pickering. Dave’s been building and tuning Buddy Club cars for some time and had developed a good relationship with John building up some of his sponsored cars. I called him up and sure enough, he had one in stock. Sweet.

 
Rep Power: 709

I headed over there. The old balljoint came off and the new one went on. While the front end was apart, Dave noticed the driver’s side bearing was super loose. Sucks. But he could get me another one. Sweet. But what kind of bearing was it? I run a CRX with ITR brakes. I told him to order an ITR bearing, but it was too big. He ordered the CRX bearing and it fit, but the hole for the spindle was too small. I needed a CRX sized outer bearing with the inner part that would accept the ITR spindle. There was one in there, but it seemed like that was the only bearing like that in existence. I couldn’t order one. The knuckle had to be bored out, the old bearing couldn’t go back in, it was Friday night and the shop had been closed for hours with only on my car in it being worked on. Crappy.

Dave said it had to get done, so they started machining the knuckle by hand. Hours went by. It was getting super late. Finally around midnight they got it bored out enough to press in the new bearing. They pressed and pressed and pressed and just as it was about to go in, the bearing broke. Crap. No car for the next day. Talk about stress. They’ll have to try again in the morning with another bearing. I got a ride to the subway and started my long painful ride home. The next morning I dusted off the winter beater and put some R-compound tires on it. Since this was the first SoloSprint event ever, you needed to signed off on Saturday before they let you compete on Sunday. I got signed off right away in the beater since I’ve run on Mosport several times over the years.

I went in at noon to see Defcon and picked up the car with a new bearing in it now and went back to Mosport to try to get my settings sorted for the next day. I had 2 practice session left and managed to squeeze them in back-to-back on the last 2 sessions of the day. My personal best for Mosport was 1:44. I did my first hot lap of the year that day. I still had bedding issues with the GS3s. They gripped really well, but I had to deal with some pretty severe wheel shake braking into turn 5 and 8 – the 2 really hard braking zones on the track. Still, on my very first hot lap I recorded a 1:44. Wow. The car was hooking up nicely. Did a couple more sessions to finish off the day and clocked a new personal best time of 1:42.

The power pulling me out of corners was amazing and torque really pulled me up the back straight. The top speed I hit was a hair under 215 (on speedo) with most laps averaging at or just over 210. But it was the apex to corner exits that these new cams really shined.

Of all the SGT2 cars that ran on Saturday, I had clocked the fastest times earning me a spot on top of the grid list for our group Sunday. My first set of laps on Sunday went well. I put down consistent 1:42s in the morning. As the day went on I slowly started to chip away at the times till on my third session I recorded a time in the high 1:40s. With more seat time and a cleaner line through turn 2, 3 and 9, I’m sure the car would be capable of 1:38s without sweating it. Not having the seat time on the track I was more than happy with leaving the day with a whole new set of personal best times. I finished the event second in class, being beat by a 400hp super-charged, banana yellow V8 2003 Mustang Cobra. His back straight speeds exceeded 235kph. Since I only put down 180 at the wheels and half the cylinders, and no blower I was pretty happy with my finish. Plus, knowing with more seat time I could’ve beat his times.

Finishing second however now put me in first place for the overall. The guy who was previously in first finished the event well behind me which meant I leap frogged over him to first. The next event was at Dunnville, a very Honda friendly track, with tons of tight twisty bits. But that’s another story.

Last review: Buddy Club Racing Spec Full Coilovers

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