codysd1

Alright myself, my friends, my tuner, everyone that is know is at a loss for the issue that I am having with my car. I have a 92 civic with a b16 thats fully built that I've had issues with vtec for the past two years. Heres the deal, the car used to be just a daily driver that was turbo'd.

Heres a little back story, bear with me so I can be as detailed as possible.

The first time I tuned the car years ago with a junk setup everything worked fine. Then the car came apart and I built a different head and rebuilt the block. The head was for an LSV but the plug was removed from the head. So now the car was basically a stock block with rod bolts and a built head. At the time it had an eBay turbo on it. We took the car to the dyno and had issues with the car not wanting to run right in vtec, it would cross and then get super lean and basically hit a wall in power until you let out. We left the car as is with vtec disabled and I drove the car like that on low cam for a couple of years.

I finally came around to building my car properly so just a few months ago the engine came out, and was fully built with a real turbo on it this time. We had originally thought that maybe the turbo I had was just too small and when the car went into high cam it couldn't flow the excess air and would cause the turbo to back up. Obviously this was not the case, as now my car has left the dyno again with the same issue. The engine is fully built minus a port and polish on the head. It has a 5858 precision now so obviously the turbo being too small was not the issue. What I have changed since I originally ran into this issue is: head, turbo, wiring harness, cams, and built block.I have tested the solenoid and verified it has worked along with checking other solenoids and trying them.

The car sounds like it crosses over, but it just hits a wall and goes rich on the afr gauge, but the ecu shows lean. It has no response to fuel adjustments in the tune. I have removed all of the rockers, inspected them and found no issues and then even changed all of the rockers out to different ones with no change. I have looked through all off the oil passages that I can see and cannot find any blockages in oil passages. We cannot figure out why the car will drive, sound like it's crossing over, change to the second map, but completely fall on its face when it crosses over.

We are at a complete loss and I'm hoping someone on here might be able to give some advice or has maybe seen this issue before, but from everyone I have spoken with no one seems to know. I have a video of a data log of what it does if someone needs to see that as well. On the video you can see that as soon as the car crosses over the ecu seeing the Afrs very lean, but my gauge reads 10's. When the car crosses over / sounds like it's crossing over it pulls for like a quarter second and then completely falls on its face until you let off of the throttle.

boosted94gsr

What cams and turbo manifold are you running?

codysd1

Web camshafts and a t3 sheepeybuilt top mount.

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

Assuming that all of the proper VTEC solenoid and oil sensor plugs are in a harness that does not contain any problems, I'd look to the both the specific Web Camshaft you're using (and seeing it even allows VTEC crossover,) and look at the software/hardware interface that you're tuning with. You haven't mentioned these items have changed any, so I'd start there with a better description.

"Fully Built" is a very loaded term, so if you can be specific as to what that entails, that would also help.

JConto

Mac,

The cams are a custom grind that would be similar to a pro1. This engine had the same issue with a set of a crowers as well. On a previous engine, the web cams crossed over with no issue. However, that was naturally aspirated.

codysd1

Engine Block:

0BD0 B16A Sleeved
King Bearings
OEM main bolts
OEM Oil Pump
Eagle Rods
ARP Rod Bolts
CP 82mm Pistons
Cometic Head Gasket .040

Cylinder Head:
93 B16 Head ( previously for LSV, plug was removed)
Supertech Valves, springs, retainers, and bronze valve guides
OEM beehive LMA's
Custom Grind Web Camshafts
AEBS intake manifold
BLOX 70mm TB

Fuel System:

Skunk2 Fuel Rail
AEM FPR
ID1000's
Walbro 255 in tank
6an fuel line from hardline at firewall

Turbo Parts:
Sheepey Built T3 Top Mount
Sheepey hood exit
Precision 5858
Turbosmart hypergate wastegate
turbosmart raceport BOV
Goautoworks intercooler
2.5 Inch Piping

Electronics:
Hondata S300
Rywire Harness
Mac Boost control solenoid
All AEM gauges: Boost, Oil pres., AFR
Brand new Distributor

If you need more specifics just let me know, as JConto stated it did the same thing on some crower cams

codysd1

The ECU was not changed from the previous setup where VTEC would engage. It is the same Hondata ECU as prior, but the Wiring harness was changed along with the other things that I have previously stated.

welfarepc

I would inspect the rocker arms very closely looking for any kind of damage or dirt as well as the VTEC pins and springs and well the whole rocker assembly.

I have had a similar issue with VTEC staying engaged, only with one specific Crower cam. Worked perfectly with OEM cam.

Chance EG

He said in his OP that he inspected and replaced the rockers already.

Curious as to what this ends up being, hope it gets figured out.

codysd1

Yeah the rockers are all good, they have been touroughly inspected and cleaned. The title was edited by someone to say that it will not engage but I'm not sure if it is engageing or not. It definitely sounds like it is but my tuner believes that it may be electrically crossing and not mechanically. As I was stating the car crosses and goes into the second map and it is very loud when it crosses but it just falls on its face. I would say the car pulls for about a qrt second like 100-200 rpm and then the ecu goes lean and my gauge goes rich.

I am in the process of trying to get a fitting to allow me to pressurize the system with air and see if it will engage mechanically.

LightningTeg

What RPM is the crossover? My buddy had this problem with Pro 1s, 6266, ramhorn manifold. Hes saying it ended up being the crossover point was just wrong but Im trying to get more details.

codysd1

The crossover is currently at 4800. I have just started trying to diagnose this issue again as our original thought was it was a turbo issue before. My Tuner stated that he had changed the cross over RPM many times and that it does not matter what RPM it is at it does the exact same thing.

Im all for more details though if you find anything out. I'm not sure about every RPM he tried he just stated that RPM didn't make any difference.

khrys771

even if you are using the blocks vtec oil feed, it may not be a bad idea to run an lsvtec feedline as well. there was some info i read about this fron Endyn.
" During the past year, we've experienced extreme rocker arm and camshaft lobe failures on a number of Honda VTEC engines running non-stock valvetrains. Exotic coatings solved the problems in most instances, however, we've found that we could eliminate a large amount of wear by simply plumbing more oil to the head with an external -6 line (in the same fashion as LS-VTEC enthusiasts have for years).

We're now equipping all the VTEC engines we build with the external line, as lengthy testing has shown that additional oil volume in the head dramatically reduces both cam and rocker wear, and it also extends valve spring life through better cooling."

also have you made sure the rockers are lining up mechanically for the vtec pins to engage?

codysd1

I might try that as well because I do have a feed line in the garage I never used before I changed to the b16 build.

The rockers all look look like they are sitting perfectly normal. I even measured the LMA's to see if they were taller or shorter for some reason but they are the same as original factory ones.

2x0

I am wondering if it's not a combination of engagement RPM being off, and the tune being off for the cams.

How much of a jump in injector duration is there at the low to high cam crossover? What about timing?

If engagement RPM is too low, which I'd say it probably is, the tune may be dumping more fuel when the vtec cam is unable to actually flow more air to match because you are below it's efficient RPM range.

Just a theory.

I've always seen people start tuning VTEC crossover in the 5500-6000rpm range.

codysd1

Duty cycle is 12 percent full throttle at 4500rpm, 10 percent at 4800 once it crosses over

codysd1

turbociv910

because your tune is all jacked up, and youre not full throttle, its not even 1 bar atmosphere, still a vacuum. somethings terribly wrong.

boosted94gsr

Is your map sensor scaled right in the tune? Why is it reading vacuum at full throttle at 4K+ rpm?

Chance EG

I'm no tuner but wtf is going on in those graphs?

Car is still in vacuum at 5000 RPM with 99% TPS, and injector duty cycle is just chilling at 10%? I know we're already aware of the leaning-out problem at least. That doesn't look right.

I also second the idea for more oil feed to the head.

codysd1

Yeah I'm definitely gonna do the other oil feed this weekend, and I'm clearly no tuner so we're talking to some people here now checking parameters for the map and making sure that's all right. I welcome all the info you guys have as for the tuning part is completely out of my league.

motoxxxman

I'm a tuner, and several things have stood out to me since the very beginning.
1) your tuner should not be tuning your car. I have more than a few reasons to say your tuner has no clue what they are doing with your car.
2) your engine is probably mechanically fine, same for the previous setup.
3) your tune is jacked to hell. Find a new tuner who is actually familiar and experienced with tuning turbo vtec motors with hondata.

reasons I believe your tuner is clueless and your tune is jacked:
-afr gauge reading rich when ecu reads lean [improper o2 input settings in tune]
-map signal shows lots of vacuum when it should actually be showing boost pressure [incorrect map scaling in tune]
-tps showing 99% at WOT instead of 100% [tps not scaled correctly in tune]
-pics above show it's in 2nd gear. who the hell tunes in 2nd gear? that's ridiculous.
-4800 vtec crossover. wtf? even stock cams don't work very well crossing over that low in a b16, let alone a much larger aftermarket cam.

if the tuner can't even set up these very basic parameters, they definitely should not be toying around with actual fuel and ignition maps, let alone trying to complete an actual full tune with changes to compensations and such

just for haha's, what does the datalog show for map sensor reading at idle? and what does it show with key on engine off? also, what does tps read at closed throttle?

codysd1

I will say it shows not in boost because those pictures were me with the piping disconnected so I could troubleshoot why it wasn't working without being in boost and damaging something if it was too lean. We just uploaded a base map, not the guy who tuned the car. Anyways the base map we had sent for NA with those cams just crossed over at 5500 just fine and pulled like normal. Obviously not crazy hard but it didn't fall on it's face. Just drove it with that base map to see if the tune was the issue and so far this appears to be correct.

it isn't perfect but this is a huge step in the right direction. Thank you everyone for bearing with me and trying to understand what's going on. As for now seems like I'm on the right track and we'll see where this goes. I'll post updates as I find out more and again more than happy to hear what everyone has to say. Thanks a ton for all the help so far

codysd1

It was the tune everyone. Tried an all motor map, got it working. Slowly stepped up the boost, works just fine. Still needs a dyno tune but everything is working just fine now. thank you for all of your guy's input.