CHiLD

Got a couple of nuts I needed/wanted to make everything nice again and I got all 6 new pressure plate bolts since they are super cheap. Waiting on my clutch to arrive and I plan on just buying a new flywheel. Don't like the idea of resurfacing. Definitely want to stay with a light one at 8lbs.




Finally cut a section for the 5th gear lockout to be easily used. The only other random interior thing that's annoying is my drivers side dash vent. Has No clips, so it just falls out when I accelerate quickly.


The Action Clutch 6 puck.


Couple of whp adders


Just like before but fully closed in Springs



Threw it all back together and jumped on those break in miles.


Drove in a quiet area just to check for leaks and what not then put it back in the garage.




Not excited to do my laps up and down the roads to break in the clutch. But it feels good to not be driving my autotragic all the time.


Pics I did and ones I've found from Honda Fetish this past Sunday.









Saw a few instagram pics, but oddly the first photographer I found pics from was also named Kerry and from Houston lol. Small world for sure.





Genuine parts ftw. Snagged it for 100 bucks





Shot of the inner plastic portions to show the differences along with the metal insert. *the outer painted part is a different size from the usdm piece as well. Just a F.Y.I. for the younger generations*





More minor things I've been wanting. Ran across a deal I couldn't refuse. Need to put amber bulbs in the corners. I just pull the stock ones out in place of mine in the usdm ones for a quick install.
usdm vs ctr



















K-Tuned 80mm throttle body




massive


dirty




a ton of porting to do








I could have ported more on the right hand side, but I was happy with what I did. I tapered it inward, i'm no racer




Installed. Need a 3.5" intake tube and v stack now

CHiLD

Had some questions about the throttle cable bracket height. It's a bit lower than most others and flippable so clearance is great


Closed obviously


Open






Went up to JTran Studios to get my cold air intake done finally.





Jose of Jimenez Racing did the custom fab work for my 3.5" intake




Ron Bergenholtz working with Jose to mod my 3" velocity stack to the 3.5" piping. It's a perfect 3.5" opening now all the way through.


tada


nice and simple


Test and tune is next week

Also went to the dyno day on saturday to get some photos and video of the day.


At precisely 9:34 AM, I pulled in and parked


The little motor that shouldn't do what it does according to the internet


Just random snaps as i stood around between passes




The latest mods in question, the K-tuned 80mm throttle body and 3.5" cold air intake with velocity stack. I've heard that throttle bodies larger than 80mm will lose power with a stock motor, and of course the tsx has the worst flowing head, coupled with my ram header that shouldn't work, and the champion of restriction apexi ws2 catback exhaust.








So what we have: The baseline pull was with the 80mm throttle body and 3.5" short ram intake untuned netting 217whp. Next up was 80mm throttle body and 3.5" cold air intake with 3.5" velocity stack netting 228.5whp also untuned! A couple of pulls were made in between to try to get more power up top to no avail, 226-228 over and over with that massive dip at vtec crossover still. Then time was spent to smooth that dip out. Lowering vtec and the upper and lower vtec boundaries helped to clean up that mess and resulted in a 34whp gain in the midrange.


massive gain.


A bit more playing around to get the curve smoother and this is what we got. The orange line is what I went home with, 228.75whp and s*** ton more midrange.




I think I've finally reached the max potential with this 2.36" WS2 exhaust. Very close to 230whp and just as quiet as a stock D series civic while driving is just fine with me. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be seeing 10 to 15 more whp with a 3" catback exhaust added to my setup without switching to E85 or something similar (basing that assumption off of all the other 240whp TSX longblock dynos i've seen, most weren't stock engines). Tuning was done in 94* heat and 54% humidity, so it was fairly toasty lol.

Some photos because Mayweather can't read











going to be getting rid of this valve cover, hopefully soon



planning to go up to the 12.19" BBK with 6POT calipers

Getting some of my new stuff together like old times...polishing

Downstar valve cover hardware


redesigned K24/K20z3 K-Tuned water neck
Dremel sanded with 240 grit


skipped up to wet sanding with 800 grit (it's all I had lol)


wet sanding with 1000 grit


here's the shine with just the 1000 grit wet sanding


then I just did one pass with Blue Magic polish to get this


I normally never sand anything and just polish raw metal, but I figured I'd try it on this piece since it was clear anodized.

CHiLD

replaced all the rear lights and decided to clean my license plate lights for a better output rather than the cheesy LEDs.
Should have done this long ago.


And just a couple of pics of the econobox


The 80mm that people think you lose driveability with lol


blah


The finally changing things up


And just because I get bored enough to do things like this...


Went to do some testing by dropping the apexi ws2 catback exhaust. No tuning was done, and no other changes. The car made over 250whp easy. This graph is a pull that only went up to 7000rpm lol but still made a big gain over my previous 230whp @8100.

So it is possible to get 250whp on a tsx longblock with the stock head, stock port, stock cams, tsx oil pump, stock plenum and stock runner rbc, and on 93 pump gas.

I don't see many cars with as plain of a motor as mine. I wanted to leave it all stock except the vtc, which is obviously far more beneficial over the 25°vtc for midrange.

I was lucky enough to get the few pulls on the dyno while an employee was being shown how to work it, so the car wasn't ran all out, but this alone showed what it's capable of without all the extras that have become routine to automatically change. Probably not useful info for everyone, but for the people who like to keep things as simple as possible, I think it's helpful.








Well, i've got some smoke at idle and it's burning a bit of oil. I noticed a common oil buildup near the drivers side rear of the head, so I have a new headgasket to go in as well. No coolant in the oil or anything though. The engine will be opened up at JTran's soon so i'll see if I need to do a bit more or not.
supertech valve stem seals and valve guides




All of my original plans have been scrapped, and I was forced to make a move with the car. Oil has been bypassing the pistons and burning up in the head in the #1 cylinder along with some scarring on the cylinder walls from driving around all "race car" status daily. I noticed the burning oil and hoped it was the more common valve stem seals and/or my head gasket. Sooooooooo, my plans for boost are out of the window because I don't want to rebuild my engine to be in stock specs, and I don't want to rebuild a beastly turbo longblock and have so much power that it's ridiculous to drive around. Also, since I don't have a second engine in my garage already, this NA build will also not be as big as I wanted to do.
It will be a very sensible but aggressive build for a street car IMO. A 88X99 12.5:1 CR setup with Supertech valve train to support Prayoonto stage 4 cams. Exhaust will be beefed up with a K-Tuned big tube header, custom v-band 3" exhaust with K-Tuned turn down muffler. The 80mm TB will stay along with a redesigned 3.5" intake and a custom intake manifold from either All-In Fab or K-Tuned if it becomes available to me sooner than later. Most of these parts have already been ordered and should be arriving soon, so this is happening for sure. I was forced to step up the pace with this due to my engine issue. Oh well....it's that car life lol.

CHiLD

My stock RBB head


some of the goods showing up, Supertech 12.5:1CR pistons, supertech dual springs @95lb, Supertech titanium retainers, and Supertech seats










Going to be adding some DPI 650cc injectors into the mix and they should ship out today, so big thanks to Donkey Power Injectors for helping solve my fueling concerns for the next setup!
Got this bad boy in the mail just the other day from K-Tuned, their somewhat new big tube swap header. This thing is pretty damn nice to say the least. Pics don't do it justice, and it just looks mean next to a few other k swap headers we have at the shop. I think it'll do well. Going to add a flex pipe and V-band to the header once I get pricing on those pieces and my exhaust piping arrives. here's a few pics...
​​since everybody is a weld expert









The entry is smooth from the flange to the runners (it looks like there is a rough spot where that shadow is at runner 3, but it's not) bad photography lol. This was one of the first things I looked at since I remembered my first generation ram header had some roughness at the flange.






I need to slide the pieces all the way together later and throw the spring clips on, just mocked this up for a pic


Since we have an old version SSR header sitting at the shop, i snapped a couple of pics for a visual comparison with my k-tuned big tube header.

*no, i won't be able to provide a dyno comparison between the two since it isn't my header*




the bucket...waiting on parts to show up




Picked up a valve cover gasket, some necessary Hondabond, and a HPT timing chain guide from AutoFair Honda.


Also got some BNIbag oem floormats. I need to buy some new carpet eventually, but I figured i'd grab these floormats while I was on Afhkparts haha.



I looked for quite awhile for an Apexi GT spec muffler just to have something everybody wouldn't have but I threw in the towel on it and decided to try out the K-tuned turn down muffler. This thing is pretty lightweight!










Went up to the shop to teardown my engine so the block can be sent off
(these are basically my own reference pictures but im sharing anyway)
Stock RBB oil pump dished out 8100 rpm revs daily



RBB oil pump removed

Stupid shaped rod bolts. I thought they would be regular 12 point



Pistons and rods removed. Crank looked clean



A little bearing wear

Lurking


K23 engine build for the CRX and a K25 (i rounded up ftw) for me

CHiLD

I went ahead a picked up a HPT valve spring compressor tool. I like having these little specialty tools lying around to make life easier.

DPI came to my rescue with these nice 650cc injectors, clips, and pins. Now I don't have to max out my little RDX's.





pulled the injectors out the package and threw them in the RBC


Finally got these things

The cam specs for these on the website are different than the spec sheet that came in the box....


Since I have to sit and stare at them, so do you lol

The supertech dual valve spring set


more revs
AutoFair Honda PRB oil pump conversion


Somewhat useless post, I never snapped pics of the exhaust piping from KTeller. Besides lots of filth inside the piping, it's pretty nice for some cheaply priced mandrel bent stainless piping.

It also came with some installation hardware, some hangers and U bolt clamps for the slip fit sections

uh......just the tip

3" straight through

For my own curiosity, I took a pic of the intake cams from the prayoonto stage 3's and the 06-08 TSX.
P3 left, 06-08 TSX right

Some of my random junk sitting on the shelf lol.


Got my v-bands in today for the exhaust...unfortunately one of the vband packs was missing the second collar, but I have another one on the way. Shipped today since I found out early enough. Just mocked the 66% vband up for some photos, my flex pipe should arrive soon.



the ride is getting dusty as hell from sitting still lol

FINALLY got this thing back, I'm getting excited

My little 88x99 (bore and stroke chosen purely out of my own OCD issues)

Hmotors, so you know it's real lol

block was hot tanked, mag check, bored, honed, and decked.

Can't wait until we get to the assembly part

CHiLD

Vibrant 3" x 6" flex pipe with the inner braid liner




Shot showing the inner liner. Hopefully I have no issues with this.


Finally got my replacement cams in the mail, 4piston K600










Finally back together


Longblock assembled by Ron Bergenholtz and Bizzy at JTran put the rest of the swap together and in the car. They did it all in one day. Just a few final touches left before I go to do the break in on and then get it on the dyno for tuning.




Header exit vband. Flares out perfectly to 3"


The big tube header hugs the chassis pretty good.








Thought this thing would never be back in lol.




Started right up, I was relieved.


Also replaced my tired red buddy club bucket with the newest p1 limited seat in all black. I like the feel of this one much better and still only 11 pounds. Got Downstar seat hardware on the way and a new seat rail as well.


finished up the exhaust piping


fixed my 3.5" velocity stack






strapped down








First 3 pulls of the day (3rd gear pulls) compared to the 246whp pull made with my stock TSX setup with open ram header. A ton more power everywhere, as expected.


Had to kill the pulls after maxing out the ability of me STOCK 1997 hx fuel pump (yes I know I should have upgraded it long ago, but i like to test things) After vtec at 4500rpm or so, fuel pressure fell like a rock. The new torque figure though is freaking awesome.


Upgraded the fuel pump to an Aeromotive 340lph, and i'll be back on the dyno whenever I can.

So much happier with this bucket seat as well. Feels much better than the buddy club racing spec I had






I have the muffler using just one hanger at the muffler section because my second vband was lent to another car that needed it asap at the moment, so once I get around to installing the vband at pipe section that goes over the LCA, i'll get the muffler mounted on both sides and properly centered.


everything looking so purty inside




fresh oil and another s2k oil filter in place




swapped out waternecks for this build...very small cosmetic design change on the neck, and i switched the water outlet to the straight version to help with fitment of the ARC box. Also staying to form lol, I polished the waterneck face.


everything back together




Going to swap shift ***** in a little bit


and since I put in the new bucket, i had to get new hardware to go with it. I threw in my brand new oem floor mats....I desperately need to get a new set of carpet!

CHiLD

zoomed in Yellow is final setup, red was baseline pull


Near redline, base pull and final pull. 32whp gain at 103MPH, 236whp to 268. Driving on the map with the 255lph untuned was lacking quite a bit up top.






until next time...


Met up with a few friends and some locals and did a few random runs. Here's a few pics from afterwards





I really need some stickier tires, these drag radials made such a big difference on this K20 EG




Johnny gave me this nicely ported PRB-1 head. The eibach dual valve springs and retainers and valves will go, replacing the springs and retainers with my fresh stuff from my head and I'm going to go ahead and grab a set of Ferrea 6000 valves for this head.





exhaust ports


intake side




it's not all super CNC fresh, but it's very nicely done.


The money pit up at the shop


Also put in a nice little order with K-Tuned, so I'll have some new stuff to show off whenever that shows up.

autofair honda ftw


golden eagle/oem 88mm headgasket. Screw Cometic head gaskets lol.


Sold my RBC and 80mm TB...should have my new stuff this coming tuesday. Still going to be awhile before I get everything put together since I want to pick up some ferrea valves and go 36/30 on the PRB head.


Finally got my hands on an intake manifold! I like a lot of the details that went into the design.




them CNC flanges. I like how the ports are on the back side of the plenum instead of sticking out front or on the bottom.


I think a lot of people have seen the velocity stack setup.


The curve to the runners and how the plenum sits is nice. Provides some good hood clearance.


Also picked up a 90mm TB, the new version with the MAP and IACV provisions on it, but i'm using a 3.5" inlet on it. I plan to keep using a 3.5" intake piping to the 3.5" inlet since 90mm at the butterfly is 3.55" anyway, so it's basically a fully matched entry into the plenum.








These next few pics aren't a proper representation of the fitment of this intake manifold. I have to trim my water pump housing down to actually put it on, but I just sat it in the general area and took some pics. Mostly out of excitement that I finally got it lol.

You can see that it'll have good hood clearance here. It should sit a bit lower once it's actually on.


Since I heard a lot of concerns about the radiator hose on instagram, my current upper hose is a chopped up hose that I cut just to fit with the different outlet on my upper water neck for k24/z3 engines. So it sits very much in the way since it has bends that were meant for the other water outlet, plus again, the manifold isn't even up against the head. blah blah blah


Same basic view with the throttle body on and a more clear shot showing that the manifold is just dangling in place for now




just a random shot. I did 1 pass of polish on the manifold and started a second on the left runner in the pic


It might be awhile before I put everything together and get some dyno results with the new setup because I think I'm going to change up a few things all at once when I pull the engine out and swap the head.

CHiLD

well, finally got off my butt and finished trimming up my water pump housing like I needed to in order to clear the plenum and that runner. Didn't get too much of anything else done though haha, poor problems.
Weather was feeling nice, so I think that gave me some motivation to do something without being drenched in sweat


Finally got the intake manifold fitted to the head properly. With an oem TPS or even the older version 2 TPS from ktuned, things would fit fine as is, but with the hall effect TPS, the TPS sits retarded close to the radiator. So goodbye to the big boy radiator




I need to re-cut and weld my intake pipe to fit, basically just remove the angle it has to it since the throttle body is straight from the plenum instead of angled like oem. I just sat my pipe in the bay and tried to take a pic that would give me an idea of the final look


Another look at the crazy amount of hood clearance this manifold has. The plenum is really low.


And I just hate not making any progress at all, so something small just to give me something to do and look at. Downstar vtec solenoid cap




....polished it, of course


A different angle because im sure pics in my garage are getting old lol


I was in Downstar mode and figured I'd catch the lug nuts


and there she sits until I can muster up some cash to buy more things.


Some random things to cure my itch to buy parts and make progress


regular stuff a lot of people have




Figured since i'm doing some AN, might as well do the overflow line as well.




Trying to decide where I want to put the radiator overflow. I don't really care if it's hidden, just somewhere neat and easy to access.
















Got in touch with Vibrant through K-Tuned and they helped me purchase a 3.5" vanjen assembly.


Also got this bad boy in the mail!!!




This fitting was beat to hell right out of the box. I was a bit worried about that, but it threaded in fine and I just teflon taped the hell out of it.


Radiator sat in front of the core support perfectly and sits behind the bumper with no mods. I may trim some of the lower portion of my bumper because the radiator sits on it a little bit when I test fitted it. But that was in a slightly lower position than it will be when I finish mounting it, so I may not need to modify anything at all.






good old zip ties ftw




and that's it, nothing special. Im getting anxious to drive my car.


Changed up slightly, I'm using the 45* outlet instead just to make the upper hose installation a bit easier. The straight outlet works if you remove the little stopper bolt that sits underneath the outlet so that the ktuned outlet will point straight downward slightly. I figured, instead of "making it work" I should just get this outlet and do it the easy way.



Then for the radiator install, I moved it inward just a little bit and cut the center section of the core support out. It moved things backwards maybe half an inch.



Had some extra downstar hardware, so I used that to mount the radiator



Also, in the meantime, I've been polishing up a Ktuned coilpack cover. It's a bit thicker than the original covers, so I need to install it differently so that it will sit flush with the valve cover, it's loosely in place in the pics.



Just some random pic...


A little hard to see with the contrast, but the two derale 8" fans are wired up and it's ran underneath the radiator and leads back to the oem fan wiring





just another hood clearance pic....the plenum sits super low



front bumper back on with no trimming or anything



Well, I tried to use some PTFE hose for my radiator hoses which worked fine for the lower hose, but the upper hose needed too much of a bend in a short space so it would crease so I ditched that idea and went with the usual braided hose.



the lower hose


That little wiggle in the upper hose was what gave me problems with the other style of hose


trimmed up my hondata IMG for the tractuff adapter. Should have that in a few days






I'm still not used to the look of it with the tucked radiator

CHiLD

I grabbed the tractuff adapter I needed eventually and got the car up and running.
















Took it around the block and just made a couple short video clips just out of excitement of having the car running again.


HERE'S A COUPLE OF VIDEOS I POSTED ON INSTAGRAM

2nd gear 3/4 throttle into vtec by Kerry Smith, on Flickr

3/4 acceleration to top of 5th gear by Kerry Smith, on Flickr

Then the start of my troubles.....dyno day. Two things started crapping out on me, my timing chain tensioner and 2 exhaust valves. Early in the pulls we would hear something hit but couldn't figure out what it was. It only happened twice and then nothing and the car was still running fine besides some struggles to get a smooth idle.







Finished the day on the rollers with 281whp. Made more power everywhere with the intake manifold and no intake in place. Power also carried further now, up to 9000 rpm. I wasn't willing to rev higher. I have stock rods still just with ARP rod bolts in them. Power also plateaus around 8000 and sits at 278-281 from 8000 to 9000 rpm. So I think that's where the stock port RBB head is killing me.

After the dyno session, took the car home and it sat there until the next day. The following day, I brought the car out to go play, and after meeting with some friends, all of a sudden I couldn't start the car up. A blessing in disguise, my intake manfold had cracks at runners 2,3, and 4 Towed the car to JTran's and we welded up the cracks a few times over. Apparently, there's too much weight on the front on the intake manifold with the 90mm tb there and it needed a brace like how oem manifolds come. So i'll have to do something about that. K-Tuned was very helpful with the situation and are designing a brace for the manifold and contacted Magnus about making the changes to them.

Guess that's the downside to pre-release parts haha. Thankfully that happened because after we welded the manifold and attempted to start the car, that's when my tensioner completely failed on me and the exhaust valves got bent bad. Luckily no other damage was done to the engine.

so tore the heart out again to get this all sorted out








You can tell which valves to a ****....


Time to say goodbye to this head for the meantime. I might use it for a second setup I have in mind


Just a random shot with my homies clean track prepped ITR he's doing


That beefy K-Tuned big tube header




Huge thanks to JTran, Status CC, and BizzyWorx for helping me to get this rebuild back together hella quick. I brought out my ported PRB head to be used, Bizzy supplied me with Supertech flat faced valves 35/30, and JTran got my machine work on the head done in like 2 days.


Both of these are bent


Ported PRB ready to go


Autofair Honda with the OEM 88mm headgasket. Thanks Ryan and Colin!


moved my valvetrain over to the PRB head


Makes my TSX head look tiny...


Bizzy helping me to get the engine together while I run back and forth doing photo and video every few minutes lol


4Piston K600


Waiting on a new oem tensioner to come in, should arrive today.....while im at work but things are coming together.


uhm.....oem cam gears lol






Just waiting on that tensioner and we can finish up and i'll throw it back in the car and then on the dyno


going for the most carbon fiber lip scratches in one year award




Another small thing I want to fix, I want to tuck my muffler up a bit higher under the car


Hovering over some of the monsters at JTran. Silver single turbo automatic Z making 650 @16 psi....twin turbo custom painted Z in the middle, and the black and carbon fiber twin turbo track jtran sponsored 370 up front......and my little bitty 4 banger lol.


Going to stick with the same old recipe again, no other changes besides the head and valves, 9000 rpm limit, 93 pump gas, and hopefully I keep the midrange I picked up with the intake manifold! I'm happy with the peak power as is.

Soooooooo....the timing chain tensioner arrived while I was away at work and Bizzy decided to put everything together and back into the car. That part was good news....bad news, He mentioned that he couldn't get timing perfectly inline and it made me think back to when I messed with it myself and remembered the cam gear markings being slightly off when it was actually properly in time, so I thought nothing of it.

I found out later, like after the engine was in the car and on and off the dyno, that the timing was actually closer to a half a tooth off. I'm fairly certain I had some chain stretch and I'll be replacing that when I get the chance. During the time I was away, JTran decided to do a quick back to back test on my engine with my K-Tuned manifold and Bizzy's Skunk2 Ultra race manifold with the cnc 156 port job. This is something we 3 discussed doing awhile back but now we finally had the chance. I arrived at the shop just as the pulls with the Skunk2 Ultra had finished up...

skunk2 ultra race with the cnc port










Some have asked me why I didn't choose a Skunk2 intake manifold for myself, and honestly the only real reason why I didn't is because I don't like how it looks. Anyone who has followed my thread knows that I like shiny stuff regardless of how it works lol. That's just me, I'm weird like that.



and some shots with the K-Tuned manifold on. Both were tested that same way, open throttle body, my same fuel rail and injectors and everything. Literally just swapped manifolds.






A couple things first, I'd like to make it clear that I have no bias towards either product, the test was done initially out of my own curiosity (as you've seen I like testing every little thing I can). My personal speculation was that the K-Tuned manifold would do a little better in the midrange and then be beaten out on the top end. Everyone else at the shop and friends I spoke with about the test all figured the Skunk2 Ultra would beat out the K-Tuned manifold everywhere. This test on mine peaked the curiosity of others at the shop and we may have more tests to show later on.

Here was the uncorrected results (Gotta throw that uncorrected in there since I became satan all of a sudden because JTran didn't use a common correction factor when he posted it)

Johnny Tran's quote from the test
"
Ktuned manifold vs ultra series intake manifold this morning. Zero cam angle. Afr at 12.9 on 31 degrees of timing. Vtec engaging at 6750. K24 with 12.5 pistons and k20 head with k600 cams with a mild port. Ktuned in blue and ultra in red. Posting results for purely comparison. Will be trying the Ktuned @bizzy625 engine next and have a complete comparison on two totally different setups so you can reference later! We support both @skunk2racing @skunk2dave @ktuned . Both products are awesome! @heychildstar thanks for donating your vehicle for testing!!!!!"



Bizzy's engine is a 10,500rpm 2.3L stroked z1 with Skunk2 ultra 4 cams, Skunk2 full valvetrain with flat faced valves, 4Piston 156 prb head, CP 12.5:1 pistons, Carrillo rods, s2k oil pump, running e85. He previously made 306 whp with his skunk2 ultra race on with open throttle body just like tested here. So we'll see how things look on his setup since I'm willing to pull mine off for the test.

My thoughts afterwards, I believe the skunk2 ultra with that cnc port and the 1L spacer they offer will make a pretty even match with the K-Tuned manifold (on my setup at least). The power difference down low could be contributed to the rise in temp and humidity, but the power difference up top got pretty big. I'm no scientist, these are just my thoughts.

The VTC being disabled and 0 cam angle was due to the timing issue. If I was there I would've stopped the engine build to correct the chain problem before proceeding but oh well. I'm pretty excited after seeing how the car performed with no VTC, so I know power will just go up from here. Looks like I may coincidentally make a 300 hp 93 pump gas car lol.

After all that, JTran welded up an intake for me. Same as before, 3.5" piping with 3.5" velocity stack. My old intake wouldn't work because it had a bit of a twist to it. Johnny preferred to make a new intake rather than chopping up the old one to make this one








I still need to do a few things like, fab a bracket for my intake piping. I never used a vanjen before and the weight of the filter and vstack makes the intake droop down. Also I need to finish making an overflow for the radiator. So i'm right back to standby mode now until I get this stuff sorted out...chain, overflow, intake, and a few misc bolts that I want to replace.

CHiLD

Then I didn't really do anything for awhile except drive the car as is with VTC disabled. I was just happy to be driving again and I was in no rush to get my replacement timing chain and all.

After about a month I picked up a couple of things, K-Tuned timing chain tensioner (figured I should start changing tensioners as routine maintenance to avoid future issues) and also an oil cap.









Since nothing really note worthy was going on, that's when I started falling off on the forums.

almost another month later I grabbed a new oem timing chain thanks to Autofair Honda




Got ahold of the new billet post mounts and swapped out my oem one. My addiction to bling continues.











slapped some wheels, coilovers, and replacement hood dampers on my TL and actually started to daily drive it because I want to really take my civic apart and fix up all the minor issues I have been bandaging or ignoring.





Then after valentines day and my daughters 1st birthday passed, it wasn't until nearly mid march before I finally pulled the engine and did the maintenance so it could be fully tuned.

engine swap lapse by Kerry Smith, on Flickr

Thanks to JTran for letting me borrow some space to work on my car at his new shop. Made things a breeze.
















went ahead and swapped the tensioner again for the hell of it




Then finally came dyno day









Luckily JTran is a cool dude and he let me look through his laptop with the previous dyno pulls to pull up the best pull from before. I posted my results from the manifold back to back tunes on Facebook and it was like the most dramatic thing ever since both pulls were uncorrected But I grabbed my K-tuned best pull and switched it show STD correction factor with 5 smoothing to match ALL my other dyno sessions on this dynojet and the results were about 5whp less. Both graphs between the K-Tuned and Skunk2 ultra were just the same with both losing 5whp peak and the same shape throughout the entire rev range but whatever. I caught so much **** like I had the most unusable or skewed results ever over that post lol.

So the baseline from the best K-Tuned manifold pull before without VTC and yadda yadda...


and the final tune made 295WHP just below 9000 rpm. The best we could do on 93 pump gas.


Johnny didn't do anything extra aggressive to pull out more power or to try to break 300 on pump gas, but we came pretty dang close. The car felt much better after recovering tons of midrange power. It's really hard to feel the difference in peak power for such a short period in the rev range but the car did pull much smoother up top.

Not long after that came TX2K, and my buddy let me borrow his skinny 15x6.5 TE37's that were wrapped in Nitto NT01 so that I could go play. The car felt good but I'd definitely need something wider than those 205/50/15's. The car would hook midway in 2nd gear which was much better than my S drives obviously.

Looking like a wanna-be kanjo style car







After a couple of nights of TX2K and street fun, I decided to genuinely stop daily driving the civic and actually take the car apart and fix my issues. From time to time, things that I neglected were biting me in the butt and it just made the car less fun and more of a worry. So I threw it on jack stands, sold some things, and after my birthday April 19th, I'm going to start repairing the car and gathering up parts to do a high compression turbo setup. I'll be living up to the "slowest updating" thing once again haha.

intake manifold will be staying the same, but i'll chop off the water pump housing smooth, new water pump, finish my coolant overflow, replace bumpers, fenders, and hood, some interior changes, bigger brakes, new wheels, new coilovers......I don't see myself finishing any time soon.

CHiLD

MOST RECENT UPDATE AS OF MAY 10TH, 2016

Header was sold for obvious reasons, sold my coilovers just because I wanted to upgrade from the many years on function and form type 1's to the K-Tuned suspension. I may end up using their K1 street setup rather than waiting for the K2 circuit coilovers they have in the works. Also sold my wheels to put something nice on there and I plan on upgrading brakes to the 12.19" BBK from Wilwood with the 6pot calipers. I'm sure i'll find more and more to change up along the way. I don't expect to get much done very quickly.

However, I did kick start things....


Thank you man! :new_slayer:

Not very much going on, recovering from bday spending and the sheepey purchase lol. I was in the midst of selling my 4Piston K600 cams when Luke happened to cross my post and he spiked my curiosity so to speak. He mentioned that some high hp cars actually used these cams in their boosted setups. That made me interested in trying them out in mine because that would be inline with the lower boost levels that I wanted and also because that was a big chunk of change I invested in my car and the look of some oem K20z1 cams just disgusted me lol.



I had swapped out my K600 for the sale and put these K20z1 cams in (ewwww)


and a few days later after hearing from Luke, I swapped them right back in lol


So much like before, my little build or whatever continues to make slight changes as I move along.

Picked up a few random goodies from k-tuned. Some replacement parts, and some minor things for boost.


Grabbed some -10 fittings for my valve cover since the intake manifold sits crazy close to where the PCV goes and there's no room to run a fitting and line there like some have suggested in the past.


Also picked up some stuff from Autofair Honda


wanted to try the race springs in the trans


New water pump




uhmmmmm, just a picture




new water pump on the left. There was a bit of noticeable play in the old pump as well as coolant leaking from the weep hole when running recently.




installed


4bar MAP




another random photo, my MRacing mirrors holding up well to plenty of road abuse


Impatiently waiting, because that's what you do when you're broke


figured I'd take some pics from similar angles so that I can have comparison pics for myself


The up pipe and dumptupe I asked for were meant to clear the battery in the oem location


and then I finally got bored of having nothing to fix or take photos of

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

Wonderful setup like an adult would. Spent an hour reading this, definitely worth subscription.

The best to you and your family for this.

Time for Grundy insurance to stop the 16 year Olds from totalling your works of art.

Scott.

iTrader: (1)

this. I feel liked you've built this car like 10 times already!

r_Senik

I follow you on ig, I love your car

Prestonubc22

Beautiful car.

92TALTSI

very cool build

GrantMC2

Mental build. Took me nearly all afternoon to get through this!

In for updates!

pearl

iTrader: (1)

holy crap. this is amazing.

JoshTheJerk

CHiLD

Thanks for all the kind words. Going to be moving a bit slowly as I collect turbo parts and replace a lot of things on the car.

Hahaha, I know right! I've taken this thing apart so many times, but I'm just happy to be doing it to one car instead of several new projects
Thanks man!

b20hatchek

Followed your build thread on club civic and nwp, still wish you would've ran the work wheels. Your run in the daytime at 170, where you north of Houston?

StreetLethaleg6

Wow, unbelievable build bro, great work.

edit: how do you like the k tuned intake manifold? It looks gorgeous and i am sure it performs well but the price they're asking for it is outrageous. I cant imagine it would outperform a 4 piston ported sk2 ultra and that is cheaper.....i have no clue how they came up with the figure they are charging ....I mean what? because its shinny? lol

edit2: and you're crazy for not having a front bumper support, especially on a car that clean with that much money invested. I don't see the point, only saves like 12lbs, and this car clearly isn't a race car at all. A lil 10-15+ mph front end collision would cause very serious damage.

CHiLD

Everyone says that about the work CR01. I would've like to have ran them as well. Buying those wheels before considering all the brake and height changes was the issue. Those wheels are 15x8 +22, the BBK I'm on right now makes them sit at +16...that's if they cleared the brakes without a spacer. So now you can imagine how far out they would sit on the car. The center disk spokes stay flat regardless of the sizing, so to buy a CR01 in 15" that would clear, i'd have to buy a T-disk that adds an additional 25mm (another inch outward from the car). Then I chose to wait on the 16" versions I had heard about, but once I got info on those that they would not clear the larger brakes I planned on upgrading to, i scrapped that idea. They just aren't ideal for BBK setups.

and yes, that daytime pull was way north of houston where it becomes flat and straight.

Thanks. I love the K-Tuned intake manifold. It does perform well, I and a friend of mine both did a back to back test with it on our K's and it made more power and power picked up sooner with the K-tuned manifold over a 4piston pro 156 cnc ported Skunk2 ultra race. So without imagining, we tried it lol. We, along with our tuner JTran, honestly thought the same thing, that the skunk2 would outperform it.

The pricing for it makes sense. I believe retail is $1280 for it. After testing against the skunk2, first obvious advantage for the ktuned manifold is the plenum size. I'ts a 4.78L. The Skunk2 is 3.5L. So that's one thing to consider, along with the fact that the Ktuned manifold comes with a fuel rail as well. When you add the cost of a:
Skunk2 Ultra race $820
a cnc port job $300
1L plenum spacer $130
skunk2 fuel rail $185

to get an equivalent to the Ktuned intake manifold, the price comes out to be $1435 (based off of vendor pricing, even more at retail). The cost of the Ktuned maniold makes sense and is actually cheaper overall, considering I've seen vendors selling them for $1150. The base price of just the skunk2 ultra race alone makes it seem like a much better value but you're left with less kit as well.

As for the bumper support....that was removed because I won't have space for it with the intercooler anyway. I may or may not fab a support for it later. With all the stuff sitting up front, a small impact is going to be costly for me regardless. The last time I had a front end impact in a previous car, the damage took place at my hood and nowhere near that bumper support lol. Low car problems, damned if i do, damned if i don't.

StreetLethaleg6

hmm interesting, def noted. I was very curious about the manifold and how it performs because there aren't many being used while the sk2 ultra is the benchmark of performance when i comes to k intake manifolds. Ohhhh and that makes sense why you don't have a front support, didn't know you were boosting it. Gorgeous build with serious attention to detail, keep up the good work homie, i'll def stay tuned.

JDMarv

wow what a beautiful build man looking forward to updates whenever that is !!