Lude Generation

Got myself a trackday booked at bedford towards the end of July. Love the track, except that back straight is pretty long and the old girl is starting to show her age now power wise. You can really feel the power drop off as you go through 4th.

Never been interested in any engine mods before, but since i'll have some time off work around that time, it's a perfect opportunity to get a few more horses out of the old girl.

Its a H22a8 , 100% standard setup all round except some insulation on the airbox/inlet and someone removed the resonator in the inner bumper area.

What have you got? I'm trying to resist a full rebuild as I'm a bit space limited here and that would probably force me to buy another car in the meantime (but never say never).

In a h22a8 that's easy, euro r intake manifold or skunk2 manifold, something like a plm header and suitable eggsauce to match, upgrade panel filter if using OEM h22a8 intake as it's already good and then get a p28 ECU and hondata remap. Should see you around 230-240bhp.
A remap alone on the a8 will take you to the 220bhp of the Type S as it's essentially the same engine.

K20 swap :

RattyMcClelland wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 27, 2021 11:21 pm

In a h22a8 that's easy, euro r intake manifold or skunk2 manifold, something like a plm header and suitable eggsauce to match, upgrade panel filter if using OEM h22a8 intake as it's already good and then get a p28 ECU and hondata remap. Should see you around 230-240bhp.
A remap alone on the a8 will take you to the 220bhp of the Type S as it's essentially the same engine.

this.

Time to start hitting up ebay then.

Annoying that the PLM headers don't come with matching systems - requiring fab work to get it mated up to anything else. What have people been going for, the 4-2-1 or the 4-1? I suspect for the effort and cost, its go hard of go home really. the h22 torque curve is pretty flat and not peaky as standard, so loosing a little torque lower down wouldnt really hurt.

Also annoying the 5th gen ECU cannot be modified. I would probably take the plunge to replace it , but the idea of a socketed p28 with second brain seems backwards. I guess the choice is limited in this day and age for plug and play replacements? Megasquirt was a thing 15 years ago? I don't mind making a custom harness to wire it in, but I don't fancy hacking any of the original loom or sensors etc. I suspect support for mapping older ECUs is becoming more limited also?

I'm on the fence as to the mods - the car won't last forever, but I'm keen to keep on top of jobs and fix/improve as I go.

A hondata v3 socketed p28 replaces the OBD2 ECU so it's 1 brain. Plug and play obd2a to obd1 harness too, no hacking.

RattyMcClelland wrote: ↑

Sat May 01, 2021 1:20 pm

A hondata v3 socketed p28 replaces the OBD2 ECU so it's 1 brain. Plug and play obd2a to obd1 harness too, no hacking.

Yes and no - i looked at it, but its a daughter board inside the original ECU, so doesn't really replace it. Whilst it controls most of the functions it's slightly limited in that all the additional channels are only for datalogging (its limited by the original ECU design). To me it seems slightly backwards to replace my 20 year old ECU with a ~25year old ecu just so i can shoe horn a 400quid duaghterboard in where the ROM would be.

Also didn't get much confidence from the hondata website, says it fits the up to 2000 year prelude but as we know the later ECUs aren't the same as early p28 (no separate rom chip to socket and accept the hondata s300).

I'll investigate some other alternatives - likely to be more expensive though.

P30 or a P72 will also work with a Hondata

Scott560 wrote: ↑

Tue May 04, 2021 12:03 pm

Yes and no - i looked at it, but its a daughter board inside the original ECU, so doesn't really replace it. Whilst it controls most of the functions it's slightly limited in that all the additional channels are only for datalogging (its limited by the original ECU design). To me it seems slightly backwards to replace my 20 year old ECU with a ~25year old ecu just so i can shoe horn a 400quid duaghterboard in where the ROM would be.

Also didn't get much confidence from the hondata website, says it fits the up to 2000 year prelude but as we know the later ECUs aren't the same as early p28 (no separate rom chip to socket and accept the hondata s300).

I'll investigate some other alternatives - likely to be more expensive though.

I have the s300v3, it is a solid piece of kit and absolutely the best solution for your Prelude.

https://www.hondata.com/s300-help

It's not limited to the original ECU design parameters as you can re-programme ECU pinouts to perform other functions, for example I have the EGR pinout reprogrammed to control my MAC electronic boost controller to enable variable boost by RPM.

if i look here:

https://www.hondata.com/?_route_=s300

it says Prelude 1992-2000 ECU P06, P28, P30, P72, P74, P75

I'm not sure which ECU is in the 2000 h22 prelude, but i don't believe its one with a DIP ROM that you can replace with this?

It may well be that i go for this over a different solution - but the hassle of sourcing an original old ECU seems imperfect to me (despite the outcome being a perfectly tunable solution).