Improving Honda Fit/Jazz (GD3) Driver Ergonomics

When you hear the name Honda Fit (or Honda Jazz as it’s known here in Australia), you probably think of something slow, practical and economical, a great car for retirees or first-time buyers, and you wouldn’t be wrong.

When the Honda Fit was launched in Japan in 2001, it was clear the target market was not young track day attendees with motorsport dreams, yet it’s a great, affordable platform, especially with a few tweaks.

In this post we will cover some of the things we have done to improve driver ergonomics to make the Fit/Jazz more suitable for track work.

A comfortable driver is a confident driver, and a confident driver is a faster driver.

When you sit in a Honda Fit/Jazz, it’s quickly apparent that the driving position not optimal for sporty driving thanks to a lack of reach adjustment. Therefore, one of the most common 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 steering wheel
HKB boss kit for an EK
Works Bell Rapfix II
40mm Hub Spacer

SEATING A standard Honda Fit/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, but we still didn’t think the seating position was low enough to feel like you were sitting ‘in’ the car and connected to the chassis. We’ve now solved this. The current seating setup is as follows:

Velo GP90 seat
Honed Seat Bracket – Link
Six-Point Velo Harness

GEARSHIFT 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:

Honed Gear Knob – Link
Honed CDV Delete – Link
Hybrid Racing Shifter Assembly
Hybrid DC5 Shifter offset (Bringing the shifter closer to the driver)
Hybrid 170mm rod (Bringing the shifter closer to the wheel)
Hybrid detent springs
Hybrid shifter bushings
MTEC shifter spring
Swain Racing Shift Plate

BRAKING As a standard economy car, the brake pedal in a Honda Fit/Jazz requires very little pedal effort, which makes sense given the original target demographic. However, when driving on track there is very little modulation in the brake pedal (the brakes were either on or off) and this is a limitation when trail or left-foot braking. From Honed’s experience with older Honda chassis, the solution for this was well understood and we converted the Jazz to unassisted brakes by installing a Booster Delete Kit. Combined with a high-friction front brake pad, this resulted in a night-and-day difference on track, massively improving brake feel and modulation and reducing lap times thanks to improvements in the braking and corner-entry phases. The brake setup on the car currently is as follows:

Honed Booster Delete – Link
Winmax W3
ATE fluid
Braided brake lines
Honed pedal set – Link

The above modifications vastly improved the Honda Fit/Jazz’s driver ergonomics, transforming it from feeling like the cheap commuter car it was originally designed to be to a car optimised for performance driving.

Want to see how all this looks when driving around a track?