Monday, September 5, 2011

MOOOOOOOGEN

Some of you may remember one of my PREVIOUS POST about the Razo pedals that I was using. I wasn’t too happy with them as I found that they were HUGE. I removed them and though they felt better..this time around it was a lil far..and as stated in the same post I planned on installing Mugen pedals and that’s what this post is about…

I got the pedals at RM90 from Momentom Motorsports in Taman Sri Muda in Shah Alam. It’s quite expensive compared to a few other sellers out there. But supposedly those are even lower quality that this one. I cant really confirm that claim but I figured, I’d just buy the pedals since I was already there and install it myself. If I were to buy the cheaper ones, I’d probably end up paying some accessory shop to do it for me (since I can be quite lazy at times :P) so I guess it’ll come up to roughly the same.

Take note that the pedals I bought were replicas… and I have to say the quality of these replicas were pretty good. I wasn’t about to spend the significant amount of money on originals as I’m not really a believer in pedals and spending that much money on pedals just to step on them is a lil heartbreaking. I bought these pedals purely for function. To bring the brake and accelerator pedal that lil bit closer to help ease heel n toe. The stock pedals were a lil too far making heel n toe a lil hard with my shoes…the fact that my brake pedal feel is very firm and sensitive doesn’t really help make things easier either.

Here’s a picture of the pedals




Full package contents of the Mugen pedals
Comes with pedals, screws, brackets, hex screws and hex keys (hex aka allan). Even comes with instruction manual in Japanese! They copied almost everything to the T.




The back of the pedals come with double sided tape to help ease the installation… the double sided tape is only meant to assist! It is NOT the final installation…u still need to screw the brackets in place.

From abit of research, it seems the original Mugen pedals also come with double sided tape on the back though the tape looks a lil different and is placed differently.




Here is a comparison of pedal sizes between the Mugen and Razo pedals..




A better picture to show the comparison of sizes. The Razo pedals is significantly bigger than the Mugens




For installation, you will need to refer to the manual as to how to install it in your car. Different cars has different installation for the throttle pedal. An installation in a Civic is not necessarily the same as an Accord. Don’t worry about the Japanese language, the picture in the manuals is more than sufficient and can be understood easily.

Take note that the manual has installation instructions for Honda cars only.. other cars, you’ll probably end up having to figure it out yourself if you wanna use these pedals…but if your car ain’t a Honda…please….PLEASE don’t use Mugens. PLEASE! Its like putting a “Toyota Racing Development” aka TRD sticker on a Mitsubishi. Or a “VTEC” sticker on a Daihatsu. So seriously…PLEASE DON’T!

For the EG6 installation is VERY simple… all you need is the pedal’s full box content (including the hex keys n screws) and a pair of pliers. The only slightly difficult part was the throttle pedal…which is where the pliers come in and makes the installation easier.

First off, remove the rubber from the brake and clutch pedals…pretty easy and can be done with your fingers.

As for the throttle pedal, you will need to “peel” the top part out (only the top part). Use the pliers for this.. you’ll probably end up hurting yourself if you use your fingers…so seriously, use the pliers. There is a tab on the underside of the pedal, so once you peel the the top part out, you just need to slide the rubber thingy downwards to remove it.




All pedals bare naked.




Installation complete…I didn’t manage to get any pictures during installation…but as long as you read the manual, its all pretty straightforward. I didn’t even use the double sided tape on the back and just left it as it is…all I did was screw them in with the appropriate plates/brackets and screws and I was done. The longest part of the installation was simply aligning the throttle pedal nicely.. the brake and clutch were easy as they just slip on to the pedals and screwed in to tighten.






This last picture is a comparison of the stock pedals vs Mugen vs Razo. In this picture you can see the difference in distance between the brake and accelerator pedal




My thoughts about the pedals…I love them. They’re absolutely perfect for daily and track driving (Yes, ive been on track. Story about track will be on another update). Heel n toe is easily achieved as the distance between brake and throttle pedal is perfect.

The mesh like design on the brake and clutch pedal is also very comfortable to use.. even barefooted. It does not bite into the skin at all. Driving barefooted is comfortable all the way and still heel n toe-able.

Ram (ex-owner of my car) did mention once that the Razo’s huge clutch pedal does make it nicer to depress the clutch, especially if you’re using heavy clutches like Ogura, OS, Exedy or other performance clutches.. and with that, I have to agree with him… I still have the Razo pedals with me and I’ll probably end up re-installing the clutch pedal. But that will be further down the road.