Specialty File
The old Honda Fit—there is a new, more rotund Honda Fit—has already slalomed into our hearts as the hatchback that Ayrton Senna would have built. Though suffering the tall and narrow dimensions of the Dorksville squad car, the frugal Fit actually corners like a front-drive Miata.
Still, not many goose pimples are raised by the stock 109 horsepower. This is where HKS fits into the Fit picture. The Japanese tuner named for founders Hiroyuki Hasegawa and Goichi Kitagawa, plus the Sigma Automotive Company that supplied HKS with startup capital in 1973, has a new bolt-on turbo kit for American “first-gen” Fits.
HKS knows turbos. Aside from its many racing achievements, the company has adapted force feeders to a range of modern Japanese iron and spends big to make them 50-state legal (though your car’s factory warranty becomes gerbil food). The basic Fit kit runs $3495 and includes a wee Garrett T25 turbo and an aluminum air-to-air intercooler that rides in the radiator hole; new intake plumbing, gaskets, and wiring; and a computer-signal modifier that piggybacks onto the engine’s stock control unit.
Except for a larger aluminum oil pan with a bung for the turbo-oil drain-back line (HKS prefers to include a new pan rather than have shade-tree numbskulls drilling their stock pans), the Fit’s 1.5-liter engine is untouched right down to its stock injectors and 10.4:1 compression ratio. To avoid catastrophic knocking on mandated 91-octane fuel, the kit limits peak boost to a gentle 5.7 psi breeze.
So gentle, in fact, that the claimed output increase is only 30 horsepower. The HKS Fit Sport pulls to 60 mph in 8.6 seconds, 0.4 second quicker than our last Fit stocker, and the 16.7-second quarter-mile is but a 10th quicker. Before pronouncing the HKS kit unfit, however, note that the 50-to-70 passing time drops from 13.0 seconds to 12.2.
So what, you say? The turbo does pack some much needed torque into the 1.5’s lower registers. It gives the Fit an extra kick for moonwalking easily through traffic. For sharper footwork, HKS also fitted this SEMA showboat with its own Hipermax struts and coil-over rear-shock package ($1695—well worth it), Volk Racing TE37 wheels ($473 each— oof!), and Toyo Proxes T1R rubber ($165 for each corner— yow!).
Less exotic rollers would save dollars, but the HKS Fit’s go-kart responses might be dampened. The regular Fit is a minx on a snaking back road. The 2480-pound turbo Fit is so much fun that a chili-pepper enema wouldn’t stop you from smiling.
We would also thrift out the $535 HKS Camp2 system of multicolor Max Headroom digital gauges and info screens. It allows fine-tuning of air-fuel mixtures and other parameters (we were admonished not to fiddle with any parameters). We found it, uh, campy.
Returning 24 mpg under heavy stomping, the turbocharged HKS Fit is a mini monkey barrel.
HKS USA, 13401 South Main Street, Los Angeles, California 90061; 310-491-3300;www.hksusa.com.
