Bernardo put a lot of effort into the aerodynamic side of things. Hasport built a custom front splitter that he and Ed Flores of Progress Group fabricated brackets around. The resulting splitter installation is so rigid that Bernardo can stand on it to illustrate the point. TC Sportline trims rear downforce to taste with its adjustable wing. Lap records at every NASA track in Southern California, as well as the one at Mid-Ohio, are a testament to the astonishing level of grip this car displays in every turn it sees.
Braking capability with that amount of grip is equally well endowed. FastBrakes kits and Goodridge lines at both ends are optimized for balance, modulation and durability. Raybestos pads between Wilwood Superlite calipers capture 12.2-inch rotors up front. Custom titanium shims have been machined to sit between the pad and caliper surfaces in order to reduce heat sink. Rear calipers are stock but get extra leverage from Hawk Blue pads and larger, 11-inch diameter rotors. Braking pressure coming from a GSR 1-inch master cylinder is split between front and rear. A Wilwood proportioning valve on the rear provides fine-tuning of the brake bias to suit driver, setup and track conditions.
Bernardo is a minimalist in the cockpit. The Racetech seatbelts are his preferences for comfort and safety. A Sparco wheel was ordered in suede finish to give positive grip and reduced driver fatigue and there are no unnecessary gauges or accessories to distract him from his job behind the wheel. Any information he needs is provided by the AiM MXL Pista digital dash and data acquisition system. The dash has programmable alarms and warning lights for variables like oil pressure and water temperature. It is also integrated with the Hondata ECU to log all the engine data that goes through Hondata's thinking process. Bernardo keeps the driver feedback to a minimum while on the track, using only the water temperature gauge and Christmas tree-shaped shift lights to advise him of momentary engine conditions. The warning lights will alert him to problems, should they occur. All other data such as shift points, wheel speed, braking or cornering force is downloaded to a laptop and analyzed back in the paddock.
Within Honda Challenge, H1 has always been the class least restricted by the rules. Engine swaps are allowed as are hybrid engine builds as long as they use only OEM Honda and Acura parts in the bottom end. H1 has been the home to many built B18Cs and quite a few B20/VTEC engines. When K-motors began getting affordable, they started showing up and running hard right out of the box; so well, in fact, that few bothered to build them to the full extent allowed by the rules. Why bother, right? With an intake, header and a good tune, most K-series powered cars were running competitively with fully built B-series cars allowed to weigh 200 pounds less. The K soon began to take the place of the ubiquitous B-series as the engine for H1. Rules were changed and weights were adjusted to keep the B-series in the hunt and for a while everything seemed fine.