In our first article about the 10th Gen Civic Type R AccessPort, we addressed what it meant for the Honda/Acura community along with a few notes about what the AccessPort is, what it does, and some details that Cobb had released with the announcement. But now that we've been using it on our own FK8 project, we have a lot more to talk about.
To recap, Cobb released the AccessPort for the FK8 Civic Type R in December, 2023. This stock ECU flashing device is well known for it's ease of use, high level of functionality, preloaded off-the-shelf maps, and its back end custom tuning software available to authorized tuners. Cobb Tuning has made modifying as effortless as it can be through the AccessPort. It can give you a few extra ponies or it can be what successfully takes you to the limit of a full build with a big turbo and built engine.
Heck, it inspired us to move up our plans to buy our own Type R to....immediately. In late December, after a few weeks of scouring the internet's classified section (I think I'm getting old) in the western half of the United States, I found a keeper. It's white. Championship White. Score. It only had 11k on the clock too and no bad records, both major bonuses when you're looking for a clean slate of a used car. I hit the road and landed the deal. Per usual, we kicked off the Type R section of our YouTube channel to begin the festivities.
Before any of that happened, I conveniently had an AccessPort in hand prior to the release date so that we could get our hands dirty ASAP, a nice perk of being a tenured Cobb ProTuner. The experience was as expected. Plug it in, flash a map, tune it up. Here are some of our thoughts and notes about our experience so far. Some of it has to do with our experience with the car in general, as it's new to us and we're learning more and more all the time.
Stage 1 Map
The Stage 1 Map from Cobb is fierce. Maybe that's the result of the Type R being fierce to start with. But it also tells us how much the Type R has on tap when you open it up. This is something we knew already, but what we didn't know is how aggressive Cobb's off-the-shelf map was going to be. We're impressed and happy they chose to live a little and send the AP out with a kick ass tune to start. If you're interested in getting the AP for your own Type R and wondering if there's much of a difference between the stock map and Stage 1, we can confidently assure you there is. Like, a lot.
We like to use a Dragy to see what the car is performing like in real world scenarios. Out on the street in my favorite logging spot, a simple flash of the Stage 1 map took our 40-75mph time, basically a 3rd gear pull, from the stock 3.93 seconds to 3.40 seconds. A whopping half of a second was cut down from a single 3rd gear pull! Rad.
What we've also been reminded of is Cobb's high level of support. We actually hit the MAF limit on the Stage 1 map, which is definitely not something Cobb intended to do and is not something you want to happen. It puts the car in limp mode but is quickly removed by just stopping the car, turning off, clearing codes, and restarting. With that said, they were instantly on it and were able to duplicate the issue with their own development car and have since made the corrections to the maps. This is not really a surprise for a recently released product. The important thing is the willingness for the tuning company to discover any possible issues and work on them quickly and Cobb checks that box. They'll continue to make the product even better and refine the offering as time goes on and more Type R's become tuned with an AccessPort.
ECU Unlock Dongle
Since our newly acquired CTR was a 2020 model, we needed to unlock the ECU (necessary for 2020/2021 models) which was convenient for us to learn with so we knew what to tell our customers. It's insanely easy to unlock. Here's a quick step-by-step:
- Pull off the lower dash panel on the driver's side. No tools required.
- Disconnect 3 plugs.
- Start the flashing process.
- During flashing process, when AP tells you, plug in dongle, press ok, wait for AP to tell you to unplug dongle after about a minute.
- Put lower panel back on.
- Continue flashing process.
You'll need the dongle if you ever plan to uninstall the AccessPort so it's wise to keep it in a safe place where you'll remember where it is.
Datalogging
Datalogging has been a straightforward process and mirrors what you can do with other platforms. Obviously, you're able to read what the specific type of ECU gives you based on the tuning strategy of the car. But what's great about datalogging this stock ECU is the logging rate. As advertised at release, it's fast and it allows you to see a wealth of data as you're making a full sweep through an rpm range or monitoring steady state conditions for other various tuning requirements. Even though the end user isn't tuning the car, viewing datalogs is as wide open to the user as it is to the tuner. So it's very useful, even for the end user that might know a thing or two....or three, when it comes to looking at data.
Tuning Control
We can discuss what we see on the back end but to many people it's either irrelevant because they don't really know what we're saying or it's not important because they can't see it anyway. The most important thing is that the engine is running well. However, a big question being asked out there is, "Why would anyone use Cobb if Hondata and KTuner already offer the same thing?" We're not going to dive too much into the differences here. To be honest, there are a lot of Honda tuners out there that have more experience with Hondata and KTuner than us, simply because we don't have a long history of tuning Hondas like some other tuners. However, we believe we're pretty competent and can figure out a lot of strategies when given the opportunity, which is what buying our own Type R has done for us. We've also had our own 10th Gen Si since 2017 and have used both KTuner and Hondata on with it, so we're not oblivious.
We got excited when they announced support because of what we knew they would bring to the table at a minimum. We knew they would be all in for whatever they were releasing. We knew they would support the heck out of it and we could get answers when we need them. We knew they would take the community seriously and address any issues, big or small, to help refine the product quickly and accurately. Since release and before this blog (only about 3 months), they've already released an update with more logging parameters and more tuning tables. We have a ton of flexibility with our ability to tune the car at this point. We can still utilize all the factory functionality for compensations that help keep us within a safe limit during different situations like hot intake temps, too much boost, knock control, hot coolant temps, etc. All the control is there and is easy to access and modify.
Admittedly, we're Cobb fans. The reasons why they are the best stock ECU tuning solution in many other brands is not an accident. We like them for the same reasons a lot of other tuners like them. The customers are getting a great product and we're getting a great tuning solution our mutual customers benefit from too.
Results
Alright, now that you know our thoughts, here are some real world results you can observe. We told you Cobb's announcement of Honda support pushed us over the fence for finally getting a Type R and here is where it stands with our newest shop car, the FK8 Civic Type R.
If you're wondering why we're not on our own dyno, it's because our car is currently out of state which is where most of our modding is happening. JP lives in Washington, the shop is in Denver, CO. So we are using a great dyno shop close by, English Racing.
Looking at the dyno graph, the BLUE LINE is stock, the GREEN LINE is Cobb Stage 1 91 oct, and the RED LINE is our own custom tuning. The Cobb map didn't like something up top and seems to have cut power a bit. Usually, they're not quite as aggressive up top anyway so the custom tuning would have still outran the OTS map but either way, you can see how much more flexible a custom tune has the ability to be. Even in a condition where the stock or OTS tune won't let you go, the custom tuning can overcome that. Obviously, the tuner needs to be competent enough to maintain a good safety margin. This is all done using 92 octane pump gas.
Stock - 288whp/302wtq
Cobb Stage 1 91 - 328whp/358wtq
Edge Autosport Custom Tuning - 337whp/377wtq
If you're interested in getting a custom tune for your Type R, we can definitely help you with that. Although we're discussing Cobb here, we also offer tuning with Hondata or KTuner.
We're only in the beginning stages of modifying our Project FK8 and we're excited to keep pushing! We plan on much more so make sure to subscribe to our blog and check out all the future mods. Hit us up for all your mods on your Civic too!
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