Were you aware that the Honda Civic Type R uses a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries TD04 turbocharger, running up 23 pounds of boost to make all of the car’s 306 horsepower? That’s great information, but it’s not even close to making the cut for the five things you really ought to know about driving this front-drive driver’s car. The important thing to know about the new CTR is that it’s fun to drive, but that’s not exactly, like, a fact. So these are the five things that stand out to me, a guy who has driven the Honda Civic Type R. 1. It Has A Brake Pressure Readout The absolute very first thing that you notice about a CTR is that, hey, is that really a gauge in the dash that tells you how hard you’re pushing the brake pedal? Yes. Yes it is. It is fascinating. 2. The Triple-Tip Exhaust Actually Has Some Trick Engineering Lots of performance cars these days use a little flap in the exhaust to go from a loud mode to a LOUD mode. This is complicated. Honda solved this with an even more complicated solution. Well, it’s kind of complicated. It’s also sort of simple. As you can see, there are three exhaust tips at the back. The middle is a low-restriction exit, so under light throttle exhaust routes naturally through it and you get a bassy nice exhaust around town. But where any other tuned Civic would then get boomy and buzzy on the highway, the CTR does not. This is because as you get more gas flowing through the exhaust, it hits a resonance on the middle exhaust exit and stalls, then naturally routing through the two outer exhaust ends. These have bigger mufflers and keep the car from droning on the highway. No flaps! Smart. 3. The Shifter Is Good This is a simple one. It’s good. Good to use. Nice feel from the clutch, too. 4. Every Pothole Is A Well Of Anxiety Because You’re Riding On 30-Profile Tires The CTR is a modern performance car aiming for good lap times, and as such, that means it gets a lot of its work done with its tires. The ones on the CTR are 245s, which is wide but not super wide. More important to your driving experience: They are a very low-profile 30-section items, and every bump and pothole makes you think you’re about to blow a whole wheel right up. 5. There Sure Are A Lot Of Type R Badges After the shooting of this video, our social team counted up all the Type R badges for the car as part of another video and tallied up eight, which is a good big number. Are you sure this car is a Type R? Yes you are. You have the badges to key you in. So those are five things to tell your friends about the CTR. Please now go find them, in person, and yell them into their faces. They need it. That is how they go from friends to Friends Type R.
