5speed4life

Ok, I'm frustrated enough to make a thread. The story..

I'm a tuner/builder and had a customer come in looking for more horsepower. It was a stock 88k 2000 GSR, with whale *****, megan racing 4-1 header, and apexi n1 exhaust (with silencer) The car stock as it was, put down 150whp on a mustang dyno.

We sold him skunk 2 pro1 cams, sk2 pro valve springs, and pro ti retaners, tuner cam gears, and a test pipe... Along with converting to obd1 and tuning with eCtune.

After installing everything and using the sk2 quick cam gear settings (to be dialed in further on the dyno) we were really suprised when it only put down 101 to the wheels.

AFR's are ~13.2:1 under WOT, and the heat on the ground strap is on the middle, indicating timing is pretty ok. The plugs look great.

We thought the dyno may have lost calibration so we put a different car on with a known horsepower and it repeated it's horsepower. That rules out the dyno.

Now I'm confused.

I set up our huge degree wheel, and degreed in the cams, hoping to find that I was WAAAYYY off somehow. The quick settings were +3ex -1 intake. After degreeing in the centerlines of the cams (105ex 98in) the cam gears read +4exh +2in.

Pics of the degreeing setup


Vtec is locked.




I have not gotten it back to the dyno just yet, because I feel that this is not the cause of my 50whp loss over factory, let alone factoring in the gains expected from the cams.

The compression is:
1 2 3 4
205 205 210 205

I know people have seen great gains from these cams, even on stock motors. The compression is healthy. Valve lash is set...

I'm stumped, and am hoping someone has experiance with this issue, or one similar and can give me some useful insight.

97CWITR

That's what happens when when you have megan racing parts on your car...jk

Strange! In for more updates...

hillssol95

just a thought...is vtec engaging properly? is there a restriction in the exhaust that wasn't there earlier?

2k.civic.si

holy degree wheel batman....why do i get the feeling vtec isnt working? like he said ^^

Wdbjr12345

i had the same issue in my fully built b16a i pulled my hair out over it i tried every cam setting knoiwn to man degreed and all and i only had 143whp wich was a big disapointment. my pro 1 cams said p1v2 on them idk if the pro 1+ have the same issue. id like to see a solution. i just got ctr cams and said f it now im breaking 180whp with ease

Adi Radoncic

I would try a known good ECU, since you said this one was converted to OBD1 chances are small here but maybe there was some kind of fallout there since this was the only other non mechanical thing that was modified...

The next thing on my list would be a leakdown test, just to see what the procentage is...

The Ogre

Can you post up a dyno sheet?

Furyof4

Bent valve/s?

Leakdown should be done if it hasn't already.

00Red_SiR

I'm thinking VTEC wasn't engaging either. The exhaust has a silencer installed so you could try removing that and see if there's any difference.

cibao2ner

check the o-ring on cam cap #3 when i did my itr cams i went crazy all day cause vtec wasnt engauging and had to take everything apart and the oring was riped but u couldnt see it till i took it off...so if u reused it check that..but 101 is what a gsr engine makes without vtec...ive seen this on a dyno before stock gsr no vtec mafe 101 then 98hp...

5speed4life

The exhaust has no blockage. The stock motor put down 150 to the wheels with the factory cat, and I have since made a test pipe. I do not want to remove the silencer, because I can see right though the muffler, and that is also how the car was when it made it's initial 150. Removing it now will not tell me what the problem was in the first place.

Fury, No leakdown test was done yet. I really doubt bent valves, but it may somehow be possible that one got damaged during the spring instal. very doubtfull because everything went smoothly and I still have even compression across the board (I know that's not a leakdown test, but a bent valve should show me SOME variation in compression)


Adi, I'm about to try the factory ecu. I know my afr's and timing are correct, but something is still very wrong.

Ogre, I'll post up dyno graphs later.

Vtec is engaging. It sounds crisp, and I seen a huge power drop when I had set it too early. I really doubt that it's the vtec activation.

Wdbjr12345, Glad to see someone else had a problem with them. It's comforting... Makes me feel less retarded.

5speed4life

Good suggestion, but I've been around the block with these motors... I know to replace that O ring every time It has a brand new one installed.

Normally it's only my luck that I get rediculous problems that have no real good answer. It's never a "forgot to instal an O-Ring" or "Firing order is wrong"... I get problems like having a new distributor that someone at the factory installed the button wrong on the shaft, and my firing order is 180* out because of it... and finding that out only after tearing the timing componets down to check if the cam somehow rotated 180* on the belt.

Things like that.... and This.

2k.civic.si

just a suggestion....personally i would throw the old cams back in and do a pull just to make sure i wasnt going insane with it being something else.

Garage 808 Hatch

Thats too much cam for a stock GSR, but also, 101 sounds like no vtec to me

00Red_SiR

It would really help to see the dyno graph.

OH_1fstgsr

iTrader: (2)

You said stock GSR right. 10:1 compression isn't the highest but should have yielded some good results.
What Intake maifold is on it? Stock GSR dual runner? Did you add the relay to the wire harness allow for the IAB to work correctly? Also this manifold maxes out at about 170-175whp on a dyno jet.

Wdbjr12345

I'm never buyin skunk cams again ill post a pic of my dyno graph just for shitts in a lil and maybe that could help

00Red_SiR

well you installed them into a B16a which was your first mistake.... Way too much cam for the motor you had and its intended use.

DDTECH

Compression is 1/10th the equation for power, it has nothing to do with making power on these cams.

Just changing cams doesn't yield a 50whp loss unless something is wrong..

No vtec
Cams are out of dial
Or timing isn't set correctly, lemme see the map..

Pro1's centerlines are 98/105

Depending on which cam gears your using?? you might have it set too far and are taking away from the power stroke.. but i dont think that is the case.
Its very possible you have just a bad set of cams....

DDTECH

Define "built. I had a Stock block a2 b16 with a "built head" and bolt-ons with pro1's go 136whp on a dynodynamics and we all know how shitty of a dyno that can be. Numbers are just numbers..

Skunk2 cams are some of the bes ton the market, saying you won't buy them anymore is limiting you to what is actually R/Ded.

You build your motor around which cams your running.. Not the other way around..

A simple gsr with bolt ons, upgraded valvetrain and pro1's shouldn't have a problem cracking 180whp if not more.. Reguardless somethings wrong with this car, and something "Was" wrong with your car.

DDTECH

Uh, no its not.. pro1's are just like the s2s2' vtec's, with bigger primaries..
God, i wish people would get educated on what defines a "overcammed" motor.

You can put pro3's in a b16, will it make power? Yes, it will..alot. Will it be opitum power? No , probably not.. but you will see a great whp increase.. but it probably wont be whats designed for that APP.

You saying this comment, is like saying lsvtecs or b20vtec's aren't good, and won't last long.....

DDTECH

I'ma say this after looking through your pics.

Your header = junk.


Run the car open header and see if it makes a difference.. whats the opening on that header collector 2''?? Your probably choking out.. non the less, we wait for the dyno graph.

5speed4life

That is why we put a different car on the dyno. We have had one instance in the past where we had a high hp (1600+whp) car knock the dyno out of calibration. Just to be cautious, we pulled the integra off, and strapped down the shop GTO that has made 383whp in the past, consistantly... and it put down 382. I atleast isolated it to the integra, and removed the possibility that the dyno just wasn't reading right.

When I start questioning the dyno, I'm stumped.

Other than the cams/springs/retainers, and test pipe I basically did nothing else to the powertrain. Putting the stock cams back in should bring it up to where it was before, but that doesn't solve why it is the way it is now.

Yes stock intake manifold. That doesn't make too much sense to me though, only because the car put down 150whp on stock cams on a mustang dyno. Mustang dyno's read 8% lower than dyno jets, so a dyno jet number would have been ~162. I have personally seen the hp % difference by taking a car that made 714whp on our dyno and then immediately taking it to a dynojet in the area and it then put down 800whp... roughly 9%. I'm not saying your wrong but I figured there would be a little more room to grow.

Also the ecu has been modified so that it outputs +12v from a17. It is wired and works.

As for it being over camed, I kinda agree, but the customer was in the market for cams and I couldn't figure out a better set of for the money. Also it leaves the customer room to grow if he decides to drop some pistons/rods in it in the future.

Even if I have a bum set of cams, and you got a set as well, they are still proven. Every bunch may have a few bad apples. Now If i get 3 new sets of cams, and all of them are the sole culprit to loosing 50whp... I'd be with you 100%. NA setups can be tricky to nail and make good HP. Turbo setups are easy... just add more boost if your not happy.

As for dyno graphs... Here you go.
Stock vs Sk2

Now I know it looks like VTEC is not activating, but here is what it looks like when you activate vtec at 4600 vs 6200

And a closeup of the vtec engagement.


Now The graph looks nowhere close to smooth, but the variation up top is +- 2-3 hp. It just looks severe because of the scaling of the graph.

I'm starting to suspect the ECU a little more now.

I'm going to plug in the stock computer tomorrow and see what it does.

b20vtech

Skank2 cams j/k

5speed4life

The header merge is 2.5" and the car made its 150whp baseline on this header.
Either way, I wouldn't think that a .5" difference in the collector is worth 50whp... Irregardless, It already flowed enough for 150.

The ignition timing is not very different from the USDM GSR basemaps on eCtune. No matter what I did for the timing, the power did not change much. It was not detonating, and I was concentrating on getting AFR's right before getting too deep into it. I have never seen a 50+whp change on an NA honda based solely on ignition timing, especially from the basemap timing.

I'm not saying that ignition timing is not an issue, like if it's locked at 5 deg with a load or something stupid caused by a bad ecu, but I would have seen that on the spark plugs. The heat on the ground strap is where it should be.