About time I updated this…….
So, with the new turbo and manifold, I took the car along to get it mapped, unfortunately there were a few problems, I was not sure if it was just how it was due to the turbo choice, the manifold I’d made, or if there was something else amiss.
It made 300bhp on a gentle run.
and 290 on a proper run.
Compared to the previous map, there is much more area under the graph, particularly torque.
But in the higher rpm's it just seem to drop off.
Effectively I had the boost set at 9 PSI (previous was 11), which wound up really early (about 3,000 rpm) but appeared to start trailing off from 5,000 rpm onwards, effectively reducing down to 5 PSI by 7,000 rpm.
The car still made fairly good numbers and the torque curve was better that it had been previously, though power delivery 3,000 rpm to 4,000 rpm felt wobbly as the spool up appeared erratic and it did not seem to stretch its legs out in vtec as previously.
Anyway, a week later I took the car along to Mimms Honda day at Santa Pod, took some photos and had a grand day out generally.
I did some runs along the strip, as things are not quite right, I had reduced the boost beforehand (let’s not break it!). I did 3 runs at 5 PSI and some at 6 PSI.
The 5 PSI runs resulted in a 14.6 second runs, which is about a second quicker than stock.
The 6 PSI runs resulted in slower times as I could not get the power down without wheel spinning.
Here are the times and results, the last 3 runs are next to a stock lude (wurlycorner’s). He beat me twice (run nr 4 had us mixed up)
The car was stuck in a zone at 6 PSI where there was just about enough power to affect grip, but due to the boost drop off, not enough to make amends later down the strip.
Not great really for the strip, though pretty good on the roads.
After this I did some data logging with Hondata:
Staring at this the RPM signal looked really noisy, bouncing =/- 400 rpm at any point.
This prompted me to crack open the dizzy and take a look. Seems like the little bobbin that informs the crank sensor was loose, throwing variable signals to the ECU. Ah ha!
So, after ordering a brand new dizzy from Amayama, waiting 3 weeks to be told there were none in stock, I searched for something better than ebay quality. I found one made by ‘Dragon Racing Performance’
Their blurb states it’s uprated, though something that’s reliable would be a win.
I took a punt and it arrived in the post and I cracked it open to take a look, it seems ok inside, all the screws are glued to prevent unwinding (which is better than ebay already) and the crank bobbin looked cleaner cut than the ebay/china replicas too.
And on it went.
The rpm signal was now much cleaner.
It made a slight difference, but minimal really.
Sigh.
Anyway, I put that aside for a while as my insurance was due for renewal. As it’s a classic agreed policy, they require detailed photos for appraisal. This meant I had to sort the fire damaged bonnet out quickly.
Going full retard as usual, I also decided to refresh the front bumper, wings and fit a new front lip that I’d picked up last year.
Holy massive bonnet repair batman.
Some painting shots.
Assembley.
What’s next? Well, I found the front suspension a little hard at low speeds. Nothing too bad but enough to annoy around crappy town roads. I run the TEIN Street Advance Z and fortunately you can get replacement springs direct from TEIN UK.
So I ordered some 8kg springs, opposed to the 10kg ones that come with the kit. I also run the suspension higher than recommended (too much lows for my liking) so took the opportunity to get slightly longer ones too. This means that the spring adjuster now sits in the middle of the adjustment collar rather than near the top.
The suspension is now really nice, as comfortable as my daily around town, but nice and stable at higher speeds.
Ive also swapped out the front poly bushes for OEM style rubber (uprated).
I still to do the rear, but that can wait till the winter.
Any more, yes actually, I’d reworked the front intercooler location after the fire so that I could fit front fogs, I’d previously removed them for the turbo bits but knew I could make it work. So, I set about refreshing the brackets and had some spare parts which I used to make a decent set, then got those fitted.
I flicked the switch and nothing…….bugger.
Some probing around the car told me that the fuses and switch were all working fine, and a test on the relay proved it was the problem, fortunately I have a ton of spare parts and had a replacement ready, which did the trick, so now I have working fog lights for the first time in 10 years.
I’m on a roll now, so what’s next, cruise control, that’s something else that got lost in the turbo upgrade, let’s make this work too.
So, I refitted the actuator in the engine bay, needing to also sort out some vacuum hosing to make it work. Then I had to fit a cruise control button setup on a steering wheel that never had it in the first place. It’s a bit of a bodge until I can obtain an OEM bracket, but it’ll do till I prove the concept.
Once that was done, I turned my attention to the cruise control ECU and switch. Did you know that some 4th gens have a totally different cruise setup than most the others, and that it is not detailed in any of the wiring diagrams? Of course, mine is one of those fuckers.
The cruise control switch is a 6 pin type, opposed to a normal 5 pin. Typically, the cruise switch is a physical binary on or off, but on this special type, it’s a microswitch’d rocker style. This is either an early JDM thing or possibly an auto thing.
Normal:
Mine:
Either way it would not play ball, so I went out and bought a ‘typical’ physical switch and spent a little time rewiring the cables to the ECU and to a new clutch pedal switch (remember the car was an auto once).
After all this, including switching out the P13 CC ECU (speed limited to 60mph) for a P14 CC ECU (unrestricted) I had a fully working cruise control setup. The last time it worked was in 2006!
The exhaust I had made for me a few years back was causing me some ground clearance issues. It is a super silent setup, but this is because there are a mass of silencers, the centre one of which hangs really low. Unfortunately, I had been scraping it every time I traversed a speed bump and every time I pulled onto the driveway.
So, I decided to cut it out and weld a smaller diameter piece in there.
I’ve welded a new one in there, but have no pics, but clearance is now great and the car is not much louder actually, definitely acceptable.
I did not like the location of the air intake previously, it was a bit too convoluted, so decided to move things around slightly. I set about fitting a slightly smaller battery, rotating it slightly and using the space created to get an air filter right at the front of the engine bay.
I also made some shrouding to prevent as much heat soak as possible. I used polypropylene sheeting, which is easy to work with and is also the same material OEM’s use to make their airboxes.
At the same time I also tweaked the boost piping for neatness and fitted a coolant overflow bottle from another model Honda, it fits pretty good too.
Somewhere around this time I also upgraded the radiator from a stock model to a Mishimoto ally setup. It was a bit of a squeeze getting it in there, but it does sit nicely now. The coolant temps are managed well now, I even tested it in standing traffic on a (the) 40-degree day.
Right, running out of distractions, it was time to take a look at the boost spool wobble and drop off issue. I’d had the issue in the back of my mind for months, was it exhaust back pressure on the IWG? Pre turbo exhaust leaks? Boost leak? Dunno.
So I did a boost leak test and found one of the clamps leaking at around 6PSI and beyond. drokking hell, that must be it. So repaired that and went for a spin……
No drokking different.
Then I thought why not try a different source for the actuator boost control. Can’t hurt to try can it?
So, I hooked the source away from the compressor housing and moved it to just before the throttle plate, taken off the throttle body.
drokking hell. Fixed.
Both the early spool wobble and the drop off were sorted.
Before:
After:
That’s where it’s at really, I’m off to get a final remap.