As certain as death and taxes, the all-new 2018 Honda Accord soldiers on as a rock-solid choice for a family sedan. But there’s always room for improvement, and the folks at Hondata have figured out how to unlock a lot more power from that detuned Civic Type R engine under the hood with a simple plug-and-play device.
Purists gnashed their teeth when Honda announced it would be eliminating naturally-aspirated V6 engines in the new Accord, but at least the company saw fit to offer up a punchy turbo-four in its stead. Slightly softened from the version found in its bonkers hot hatch, the 2.0-liter engine is rated at 252 horsepower and 273 pound-feet of torque in the midsize sedan. Not bad—but not good enough for Hondata.
FlashPro 2.0 Turbo Honda Accord – Stage 1 & 2 Preset Tunes
Using some of the same ECU magic they performed last year on the Civic Si, Hondata has developed a pair of preset software tunes that help the Accord find its inner Type R. They started by strapping a stock 2.0T model to the dyno to get a baseline reading, and the Accord delivered 266 hp and 292 lb-ft on California’s excuse for premium gas (that’s 91 octane). The Stage 1 tune bumps those numbers up by 10 and 40 respectively, to 276 hp and 332 lb-ft, which is already a marked improvement.
But Stage 2 takes things even further, pushing the Accord’s engine to 288 hp and an impressive 377 lb-ft—in layman’s terms, that’s a crapton of torque. And while the horsepower gain is more modest, keep in mind that these are the peak output numbers. In the middle RPMs, where a lot more everyday driving takes place, owners should see an increase of 50 hp from the stock power curve.
Honda sells the FlashPro device for $695, which plugs into the Accord’s OBDII port, or you can take it to a Hondata-certified dealer and have them install one of the stage tunes for about half the price. Either way, it’s much cheaper than a Civic Type R.