When you hear the name Honda Jazz (Or Honda Fit in other parts of the world), you often think of an economy car, a slow car & a car great for retirees or first-car buyers, and you wouldn’t be wrong. When Honda launched the Fit in Japan in 2001, it was clear that the target market was not the young track day attendee with motorsport dreams.
In this post we will go over some of the things we have done to improve the ergonomics for what we do and have helped make the Jazz a better motorsport car.
A comfortable driver is a confident driver, and confident drivers are fast.
STEERING
When you sit in a Jazz, it’s quickly apparent that your arms are at an angle that is not optimal for sporty driving. Therefore, one of the most common steering modifications is to fit a steering hub extension.
In our car, to get the steering wheel in a comfortable position, we use the following parts:
- Momo Monte Carlo 350mm
- HKB boss kit for an EK
- Works Bell Rapfix II
- 40mm Hub Spacer
SEATING
A standard Honda Jazz has a high and upright seating position. If we had to pick one thing that ‘changed the game’ ergonomically for our car, it would be the super low seat bracket we developed. Initially, this car had a rail kit from a popular Japanese brand. Still, we thought the seating position wasn’t low enough, contributing to a driving impression where it felt like you were not truly sitting in the car and connected to the chassis. The low seating position fixed this.
The current seating setup is as follows:
- Velo GP90
- Honed Seat Bracket – To be released mid 2024
- 6 Point Velo Harness
SHIFTER & GEAR KNOB
Aside from not being fans of the Logitech G27-esque knob that Honda gifted the Jazz with, we found the gear knob was too low and too far away. Having the gear knob closer to your steering wheel reduces the time your hand is off the steering wheel and, in our opinion, makes changing gears more enjoyable.
We also addressed the lack of feel in the OE shifter mechanism by changing to an aftermarket shifter and installing aftermarket detent springs in the gearbox:
BRAKING
As a stock car, the brake pedal in a Honda Jazz requires very little pedal effort. This makes sense given the demographic Honda had in mind when designing the car. We found that when driving on track there was very little modulation in the brake pedal (the brakes were either on or off) and this was a limitation when trail braking or left foot braking.
From Honed’s experience with the older Honda chassis, the solution for this was well understood and we converted the Jazz to manual brake by installing a Booster Delete Kit.
This, combined with fitting a high-friction front brake pad, resulted in a night and day difference for on-track driving, improving our ability to feel how hard we were braking (or releasing the brakes) and enabling us to reduce our lap times by finding improvement in braking and corner entry areas.
The brake setup on the car currently is as follows:
In summary, the above modifications were made to the Jazz to pursue better driver ergonomics and reduce lap times. When taken together, these modifications transformed the car from feeling like a cheap commuter car (which it was) to a car optimised for performance driving and improving our driving skills.
Want to see how all this looks when driving around a track?