Companies are teams of people working together. Good Companies are made of good teams, this is why building a good team is always stressed upon when striving for excellence. A few companies may pay for their workers to go to the beach together, or play a sport together, but SDRR Hydraulics and Industrial Spares Inc is a little different. Instead of going to the beach, or playing a sport, they decided to build a car. This is a company retreat I can get behind.

SDRR HYDRAULICS AND INDUSTRIAL SPARES INC.

SDRR was founded in 1999, they specialize in the the repair and made to order assembly of hydraulic and air hoses, metal lines and control cables for agricultural, construction, marine, automotive and industrial applications. They also provide spare parts, lubricants, accessories and industrial supplies from industry leading brands such as Aeroquip, Deutz, Tamco Tools, Permatex, Wix and Phillips 66 Lubricants. They were also known for project car they had in the works, for a while now, they were posting progress images for a few years on social media while it was being built. When the guys at SDRR told SF to come down to take a look at their project car, we were naturally super excited.

An unlikely FIt

This Honda Fit wasn’t their initial idea. In fact, they were learning towards something German, but a Honda as a project car was tossed around as an idea in the office for a while and it eventually stuck. This chassis was one of the younger ones they found and it carried the RS badge from factory, which meant it was a 7 speed automatic 1.5 L Ecobox. This didn’t matter though, as they had plans to make this all change.

Now you must be asking yourself “but Maurice it’s just a Honda Fit,how is that special?” well besides the monocoque chassis which makes it very light weight and rigid. The Honda fit, is a biological descendant of the Honda Civic. This is gives it some measure of credence to it’s family occupation, that of being a track day bully.

Engineering a Race Car

Building a race car, actually starts with tearing said car apart and preparing it from the ground up. SDRR did not hold anything back when they were building this car. The chassis of the car wasn’t perfect when they started though, it suffered from front end damage when it was bought. That was fixed.

Looking into the cockpit of the car we can see the changes made which makes the car very track day oriented. Everything is now displayed on a Racepak cluster which covered the OEM cluster, the only thing it’s used for now is the fuel gauge. Making it super easy to track rpms and road speed and other miscellaneous things which are now easy to keep track of.

Bucket Seats and a detachable racing wheel were also added to, as well as a racing harness. these are super essential for safety of any occupant in the car. These seats were imported along with other important bits needed to make this car what is.

For the shifter, it was replaced by a K Tuned Race Shifter, ensuring gears aren’t missed, which can lead to lost time on the track and the easy to reach hand brake is right next to the shifter, for those really really, sharp corners should they show up. A swirl pot tank, was also added to the fuel tank this ensures there’s always positive pressure for fuel when taking high G corners.

And, of course the part that ultimately stops the family from stepping into the rear of the car. The roll-cage, which was actually fabricated here on the island was installed. The battery of the car was moved to the middle of the chassis making some space in the engine bay, but it also helped to change the weight balance of the car. The Honda Fit actually has a really odd layout. It’s fuel tank sits in the center of the chassis, so the weight of a full tank of gas, the weight of the engine, and the driver all sits somewhere in the middle of the car.

“It handles extremely well, despite its suspension layout is very basic.”

— Jabari

Although the Fit wasn’t originally going to be their first choice when looking for a car to build. I’m sure they’re glad they did.

The engine

So, I know you clicked, because you saw K20, and nothing gets a JDM fan, or a Honda lover going as much as that one letter followed by 2 numbers. Creative builders have been finding ways to utilize this engine in as many ways as possible, from standard Honda to Honda swaps, to really weird Toyota and Nissan swaps.

Inside this Honda Fit, sits a 2.0L K20 engine, from a DC5 Integra Type R. Although this is a Honda to Honda swap though, it is rare swap to do so rare in fact, most parts were fabricated so it could work. Although the swap has been done before there aren’t many direct bolt on parts for this swap. The engine harness was built by Rywire. All of the braided brake lines, fuel lines, oil cooler lines and clutch lines were done by SDRR.

Although it’s stock the engine really hauls this car along, Type-R engines are amazing. The car weighs in at around 1085kgs (2392lbs) and with an engine making 214 whp its moves. The engine is managed by a Hondata ECU and was tuned by Fabian Tudor here in Barbados.

How Fit is it?

The car was built for the track and it has been doing well around our local track Bushy Park in both track days and Drag racing events. The car has done about 1:15 around the track and has done 8.9 seconds in the 1/8th of a mile at Drag racing events.

The biggest accomplishment is being able to finish this project. We all know how project cars go, a lot of them are never completed but after 4 years of work this one is up and running. K-swapped Honda Fit.

We love builds like these, putting a more powerful engine into a light chassis, conceptually simple but still complex. It’s always nice to see people getting together through their love of cars and getting things done. It’s a beautiful thing really.