Spoon & Mugen-The VTEC Magicians

These two are the go to Honda tuners, they are the best at what they do.If you want your Honda to go faster, you go to one of these two.They actually have a lot in common: they are both from Tokyo, they were both founded by racing drivers and they have been transforming everyday Hondas into astonishing racing machines for a very long time.However they are quite different as well.So let’s start with

Spoon Sports

I saw a video the other day about a racing spec Honda Fit and I thought to myself:’’Who is crazy enough to take a family hatchback and turn it into an actual race car!?’’, well the answer is Spoon Sports.The brand that brings our progressive ideas and emotions to reality that is the description of Spoon on their website and that is what this blue and yellow factory of insane Hondas has been doing for 30 years.All of this started when a young Honda enthusiast was messing about on race tracks with his Civic.His name is Tatsuru Ichishima, and he eventually became so good at tuning Hondas that he started a whole company about it.The name Spoon surprisingly has nothing to do with spoons, the company is named by a very difficult corner at Suzuka circuit called Spoon.

This is a 1985 Honda Civic and ,as you can see from the colours, it is nothing like any other 1985 Honda Civics.That is because it was built by Spoon, it was actually the first full race car Ichishima-san had ever built.This was also the first Civic to compete in the Japanese Touring Car Championship even before Honda!It was a really good racecar, both reliable and fast thanks to it’s 1.6l 16v DOHC PGM-FI ZC engine which, after Ichishima played with it, made a healthy 230hp@9800 RPM!The car was ultra light as well, just 900kg and there isn’t a bit of carbon fiber or any other lightweight material on it.The suspension, brakes and transmission were all upgraded to handle the power.All of this resulted in massive success and a huge rivalry with Toyota’s Levins.

This is the Fit I was talking about.A Fit I thought I would never see.Lowered, stiffened, gutted, on Desmond Regamasters and with a LSD this is one of the fastest Fits ever!There is some common sense in all of this though.The Fit has a mid mounted fuel tank which means you get a bigger boot, but more importantly a much stiffer chassis.The engine was pretty much stock, the 1.5l was given a new exhaust system and some cooling upgrades which resulted in about 130hp.That isn’t a lot but the car is amazing to drive thanks to excellent suspension work and a custom short ratio gearbox.

Mugen Power

Hirotoshi Honda is the son of Honda founder Soichiro Honda.Hirotoshi spent a lot of his time working on his father’s cars in his garage ever since he was a kid.Masao Kimura is a veteran racer with over 50 victories in racing Honda’s.If somebody knows how to tune Honda’s it’s Hirotoshi and if somebody knows how to drive them it’s Masao.Naturally when the two meet and start a company you get the best Honda racing team in the world!Tatsuru Ichishima has been working on Honda engines since he got his first Honda,he is also a very good racing driver and his company Spoon Sports makes very fast Hondas, but Hirotoshi Honda had been working on Honda engines since he was a kid, Masao Kimura is a veteran driver and their company Mugen makes the fastest Hondas.Mugen means unlimited, so it is often put before power, Mugen Power=Unlimited Power and that is pretty accurate.Mugen was racing anything from small econoboxes like the Honda City to their hugely successful F3000 cars to Formula One cars and it has been doing so since 1973!

Just like Spoon’s, Mugen’s first race car was a Honda Civic as well.Mugen’s Civic was more successful dominating the JTCC in Division 1, 2 and 3(where cars had engines with 2500cc).This was because it had an extraordinary power to weight ratio and because it’s engine was developed by the same people who working on Mugen’s incredibly successful Formula 3000 engine and later their F1 engines.Building this engine was a sort of fun project for them.It was the same 1.6l ZC engine and even though it produced only 225hp it was extremely reliable which meant it was perfect for endurance races!The suspension wasn’t left out either, just like the gearbox, brakes and chassis which all got great upgrades.

What you see here is not a Super GT racecar painted in white, no no no this is the Mugen Honda NSX-RR.It is one of the most insane production road cars I have ever heard of!It is just so beautifully aggressive, each sharp line leads to an even sharper vent or scoop, and all of them together make such a wide but purposeful look.Every line, vent and scoop have a very important job, all of them either feed air to the intercoolers or they cool the brakes or they supply the air directly to the intake valves like that roof scoop.It really is a racecar for the road but it is also only a concept made by Mugen.It is not a concept because of how it looks but because it’s magnificent 3.2l engine is mounted longitudinally just like in the NSX used in the Super GT.Because of this there is no gearbox for the car, the 6-speed sequential transaxle transmission was to expensive for production so it never turned the massively wide 335/30 tires and Mugen was to stubborn to turn the engine the other way around…It doesn’t drive but at least it looks like it genuinely just came of the race track!

These two are the absolute icons of the awesome Honda world and they always will be!Mugen was dominating with Honda’s in Formula 3000 and in the JTCC and in the Super GT, but Spoon is the insane scientist who completely commits himself to transform the Honda your mom drives into a circuit beast.Who is your favourite?

#blogpost #vtec #Honda

P.S
I’ve been writing about these awesome Hondas and not one of them has Honda’s famous VTEC xD