MotorMouth93

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I hadn't really thought about it but I kinda miss the red footwell lighting from the Integra. I think red would look good with my subtle red interior accents but that isn't really an option in this car, the back lights for the cluster, door switches, radio, clock, and HVAC controls are all orange and there's no real way to change all of them to another color barring severely invasive surgery on all of those components. I don't think any other color of ambient lighting would work with that and not look weird or bad, and orange ambient lighting wouldn't go well with the red interior accents IMO.

Also, I bought a set of second hand SoS headers, a full SoS exhaust was dyno-tested and showed gains of nearly 28whp with no tuning on a C30A motor. (the factory manifolds are crappy log style manifolds and incredibly restrictive) I won't have the full SoS exhaust, I have a Pride catback which I'm going to stick with but now I have to decide whether I want to keep the factory cats, go with SoS high flow cats ($700), or Pride test pipes in either resonated or straight pipe flavor ($200). Regardless, it should result in a nice little bump over stock power.

black_EM1

Great work man. There's a few of us owners in Dallas, feel free to visit!

MotorMouth93

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The shoddy dealer work is bothering me too much so at this point I'm just yanking the motor and redoing everything myself. The plan is to pull it the last weekend of June.

A guy on the NSX Prime Facebook group was selling replica's of the Acura subframe dolly so I went ahead and bought one. Very nicely made and I think it will make dealing with a detached motor/subframe much easier when I pull the motor in a few weeks.



I also located a set of used SoS headers for a good price. They're a bit rusty but for my purposes that's fine.



I dropped the headers off at Enigma Coatings in Leander, TX to have them blasted and ceramic coated bronze. These guys do insanely good powder coat and ceramic coating work, some of the best in the state. I ordered new gaskets from SoS and had an extra set of bungs welded in before coating for wideband O2 sensors.





I also found myself at a wedding in Phoenix, so during some down time I drove 30 minutes to the ScienceOfSpeed shop to pick up a few things I'd been wanting, it wasn't too busy at the time so they even gave us a short tour!





I've been wanting the billet door handles for over a year at this point but never pulled the trigger because I wasn't sure how the different color options would look in person. I didn't want the satin aluminum because it wouldn't match my hand brake/shift ****/horn button, and black just looks like stock, but it turns out the titanium ceramic coat color is a VERY close match for the Type S titanium shift ****, so close that you really don't notice the difference unless the parts are right next to each other. Needless to say I bought them and I am very happy with my choice.



The details on these are really cool.



Overall I'm really happy with the way they look and feel. Much nicer than the factory plastic door handles and the fit is perfect.

feck

I love this thread. :-) The doorhandles really work well.

MotorMouth93

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Yeah I'm really happy with how they turned out, I'm amazed that the titanium color ceramic coat was actually close to matching. At this point I'm running out of interior upgrades to do, all of the major touch points have been upgraded in some way or another.

Prudz_lude

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Super cool going to the shop and the coating looks great. Can't wait to see the engine updates.

MotorMouth93

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Engine is coming out this weekend, I have a huge box of parts waiting to go in, I'm basically redoing everything the dealership did plus a bunch more stuff such as previously mentioned headers and a new baffled oil pan.

I've been working on reverse engineering the ECU for a while now, and I've made some progress on that front. I found a bargain on a spare ECU on Ebay so I don't have to hack up my original one.

I started off just socketing the board and installing a Moates Demon ROM emulator. It has no support for the NSX ECU but my goal is to change that.







It works just fine as an EEPROM emulator since those all pretty much work the same regardless of ECU, but it doesn't support any sort of data logging or tracing -- yet.

A few years ago an NSXPrime user sr5guy released an ECU ROM definition with pretty much every single parameter in the external ROM defined and labeled. He also shared some of the RAM addresses needed for data tracing as well as several factory NSX binary files. However, he did not share the patches needed to enable data tracing, so I'm attempting to create my own solution to this problem. I wanted to confirm that I was using the correct binary for my ECU so I used some stuff I had laying around the house to build an EPROM reader and dump the contents of the factory ECU ROM chip. It was a 100% match for the binary I was using so that was largely unnecessary. It's ugly but it works. Yeah I know, probably not normal stuff to have around the house, but it's left over from various embedded systems classes I took in college and I never got around to throwing it away.



I set up an IDA Pro project (IDA Pro is disassembly software used to reverse engineer computer programs) and created a duplicate of the NSX ECU memory map, but the problem is the external ROM is only about half of the map, the other half, which includes 90% of the actual code that runs the engine, is inside the CPU itself. So, I built an adapter harness to read the internal CPU ROM code, and it's even uglier. (but it still works) Soldering this thing was horrible, it took about three hours total, if it hadn't worked first try I probably would have scrapped it and bought one online. I had an old colleague who runs a professional board rework lab remove the CPU from the ECU so I could read it.





Then I installed a socket on the ECU itself so I could put the CPU back in without having to completely resolder it.



With complete access to all of the ECU's code, I was able to figure out how the data output routines work and start adapting them to suit my purposes. Then I was able to configure the Demon to capture the data output and relay it back to TunerPro on my computer in real time, as seen in this video.


I still have a lot of work to do, the data rate is fairly poor right now and I need to fix some of the conversion routines, but it is a working proof of concept.

Prudz_lude

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And this is the reason I still love the Honda community. You just don't see people doing this kind of stuff with other brands. Sure, companies do but not individuals working on their cars. Wild man, just wild.

hondaslave1342

Wow..just spent 2 hours and read the whole thread..my eyes are strained but in a gooood way..amazing..OCD sucks huh...myself included..spent 2k on nuts..bolts..clamps..hoses.. from the dealer on a 1997 accord special edition with 80k...the best write up ever. Great job

PatrickGSR94

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Holy ***** dude that is nuts! Although I'm a little surprised that nothing like this exists already. Kudos to ya for working it all out! No doubt will be a great resource to the NSX community!

danteisme

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Every time you post something in here or on the gram, i keep wanting an NSX more and more, or an E39...you are a bad influence lol

MotorMouth93

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Thanks, it's been an interesting learning experience, I started out just trying to fix the CEL for the lower temp thermostat I installed in my 540i about 6 months ago and it just sort of snowballed from there lol.

Yeah...I always thought the overnighting parts for Japan thing was just a line from a movie but turns out it's real. (minus the overnight part)

It actually does already exist, sr5guy had it all working 5+ years ago, he just never sold or distributed it publicly for various reasons. I was originally planning on making everything I find completely open source and freely available, but I've talked to sr5guy and he is staunchly against my doing this so I'm not sure what I'll do yet. On one hand, I used publicly available information to do this and it's "mine" to do with as I please, but on the other hand, he did 95%+ of the heavy lifting by creating the ECU definition and making it public, and as a fellow software engineer, I'd like for him to be able to make something off of the decade he spent reverse engineering NSX and Legend ECUs. If he actually had a tuning solution for sale it would be a no brainer to not undermine that, but he doesn't and has been keeping it secret for 5+ years with no indication of that changing anytime soon. So we'll see what happens.

You should do a mid engine RWD conversion on your Integra using a BMW V8 and you'll basically have both. Mid engine Acura and all the oil leakage and exploding radiators of an E39.

danteisme

iTrader: (2)

When you put it like that, how can I say no?!

MotorMouth93

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Engine is out, it only took 3 trips to Lowes, one trip to Home Depot, and one trip to Harbor Freight over the span of 36 hours. Huge thanks to @TracerAcer2.2L for his invaluable help getting it out, it would not have been possible by myself. We started the day off by rounding out a very stuck phillips head screw holding a plastic wire cover onto the glass hatch, but fortunately things went a bit more smoothly after that.



I didn't really know how big the whole thing was until we got it out, I suspect the drivetrain weighs between 700 and 900 lbs but I have no way to accurately measure.



To get it out, we used a 2 ton hoist (thanks Hazard Fraught) that I didn't realize I needed until we tried to use my 1 ton hoist and found that it was too small to reach. First we put the car up on wheel stands in the front and jack stands in the rear, then bolted up the subframe dolly, lowered the subframe to the ground, then used the hoist to lift the back end of the car up enough to wheel the subframe out. It was a scary 5 minutes having the back end of the car nearly 6 feet in the air but no one died and overall it went fairly smoothly with no hiccups. I didn't take any pictures because I was in a bit of a hurry for that part of the process. To connect the car to the hoist I made tabs out of 1/8"x1 1/4" steel stock with a 1/2" hole for the subframe bolt and a 1/2" hole for the chain to attach to. Some rough napkin math puts lifting capacity for these tabs at about 5000lbs each, and since the back end of the car sans drivetrain weighs about 1000lbs I think that's a healthy margin for safety.







The car has completely taken over my living room at this point, all the stuff I had to remove is stacked up to the point that it's more or less unusable.

Anyways, here's the subframe dolly in use. Some of the holes were about 1/4" off and had to be widened but otherwise it worked great.



Here is part of the reason the engine came out, the dealership tech used a whole tube of Hondabond on the cam plugs which are supposed to go in dry per the service manual.



Here is another part of the reason, the factory NA1 NSX headers are dogshit. Aftermarket headers are good for an instant 20-30whp depending on the header because the stock ones are really that bad. They're going in the trash.



Also taking care of lots of little forgotten O-rings and such, VTEC solenoid gaskets, water manifold O-rings, crossover pipe O-rings, thermostat, etc. So satisfying to swap all these parts out, also cleaned up some corroded pipe nipples.



I'm currently blocked because the dealer apparently massively overtightened the crank pulley bolt and I can't get it off with my 1200lbft Mac air impact, so I'm waiting on a weighted socket to arrive before I can pull the timing stuff off and get to the cam plugs, cam seals, and oil pump to replace them. Basically I'm replacing every seal and gasket you can get to without separating the heads from the block to hopefully be completely leak free for the next 6 years or so until the next timing belt service. I'm also waiting on another oil pan, I bought a brand new one from Acura but the flange got bent pretty badly in shipping so I can't use it. I think I'll have to eat the loss though because by the time I noticed the extent of the warping I already had a baffle welded in. At first I thought it might have been warped from welding, then I saw the bottom of the box, that smashed in corner was holding the very bent corner shown in the photo.





With the delay I'm really tempted to have my valve covers powder coated a bright blue similar to this Feels blue color. My original black covers are in fine shape but at this point I'm so far from stock that I might as well just mod to my hearts content. Also thoughts on EGR delete? I can completely code it out of the ECU easily, and I'm of the opinion that simplifying things on a car this old is good for longevity. Same train of thought for the little engine bay fan by the fuel filter, the later NA2 cars didn't even have it and I don't think I've ever seen mine come on.



More updates to come over the next week or so.

danteisme

iTrader: (2)

Holy smokes, i bet there was a ton of instant relief the second your car wasnt 6 feet in the air anymore.

PatrickGSR94

iTrader: (1)

No pics of car at said 6 feet in the air???

MotorMouth93

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lol fine I'll make sure to take a picture of the car lifted up when I put the engine back in.

Edit: After asking nicely the dealership has agreed to exchange the oil pan!

MotorMouth93

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This post will be a long one, and will include some dirty engine carnage pics for you sickos.

But anyways, started off by using my new thick walled impact socket to get the crank pulley off and remove the timing covers. This is so much easier with the engine out of the car. Also the thick wall sockets are amazing, took the pulley off instantly whereas my normal socket just rattled feebly.



I pulled the cams and was not happy with what I found. Very extreme wear for an engine with only 100k miles, my BMW engine with similar miles had a valvetrain that looked nearly brand new. The caps and journals were scratched up pretty badly and very unevenly, I've never seen anything like it.









A lot less wear on the heads, but still some.



In this photo you can see some of the miserable job the dealership tech did installing the cam caps. I have new SoS billet O-ring caps on the way.









After talking to a local machinist who specializes in cylinder head repair he recommended that I just plastigage to check clearances and reassemble if it's close, as there isn't much to be done that doesn't involve spending huge amounts of money at shops with special equipment that are a minimum of 3 hours away. I was delighted to find all of the cam journal clearances within the factory service limit.



I reinstalled the cams using factory plugs before ultimatedly deciding to go with SoS billet plugs so I wasted a bunch of time and ended up buying a bunch of new cam seals as well since my OCD self won't let me reuse them for fear of leaks since they way they get clamped into the heads deforms them slightly.

Replacing various vacuum tubes with new OEM tubing. The number of vacuum lines in this car is insane, might as well replace them before they can start leaking.



My replacement oil pan showed up so I put reflectagold tape on the bottom where the exhaust goes since my aftermarket headers don't have heat shields.



I removed the old oil pan and found this. The entire rear of the oil pan gasket was absolutely covered in sealant from when the dealership worked on the car. This is unbelievable, they didn't even need to touch any of this. I guess they pulled the whole rear seal plate instead of just popping the seal out and installing a new one and rather than do it right and drop the pan they just used a whole tube of Hondabond to seal it back up.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And now we come to the root cause of the cylinder head wear, and really the root cause of every problem I've had with the car over the past year.

About 14 months ago, a rock fell off of a truck in front of me and it knocked my oil pan. I was on the way home from the machine shop after trying to get the BMW flywheel resurfaced. When I got home I inspected the underside of the car and the only damage I could find was a very minor dent in the bottom of the oil pan. People drive around Civics with oil pans that look like they got run over by a truck and banged back into shape with a sledgehammer, so I assumed the barely visible bend was nothing to worry about.



I was wrong, not worrying about the dent in the pan is arguably my worst automotive fuckup to date. That minor bend was in just the right place and just severe enough to push the bottom of the pan up into the oil pickup.



Apparently the oil pickup has 1/8-3/16 inch clearance with the bottom of the pan. I never connected the dots until now, but somewhere within a few weeks of that incident was when I first noticed the LMA ticking sound, and also when I noticed my factory oil pressure gauge reading a bit low. Both of those things were just plain old oil starvation as opposed to the rather common benign causes of each. The factory oil pressure spec in the service manual of 10psi at idle and 50psi at 3000rpm are blanket numbers used for pretty much every 90s Honda and not really based in reality, I was seeing 15psi at idle and 65psi at 3000rpm with an AEM electronic gauge so I just assumed the factory gauge was being crappy as they are known to be and didn't worry about it anymore. The valvetrain noise was probably due to lack of lubrication in the heads and not sticky LMAs since it did not go away after having them replaced at the dealership. I was tipped off about the oil pressure after a conversation with a fellow NSX owner who was seeing 20-25psi at idle and over 100psi high in the rev range, my car topped out at 80-85psi and that conversation was what ultimately led to me pulling the motor.

After finding this, I realized that I needed to pull the crank bearings for inspection now rather than wait for the motor to start knocking and likely ruin the crank in the process. In the process of tearing into the block I installed a new oil pump for good measure. The front seal was replaced by the dealer, it was installed noticeably crooked.





Then removed the engine from the subframe and separated it from the transmission.



This was one of the most miserable tasks I've done so far. It was brutally hot that day and the transmission just would not come off. The NSX uses a twin disk clutch so the input shaft is very long and binds very easily if the angles aren't just right, it took a friend and I an hour or two just to pull the thing off.

Afterwards though I pulled the rear main seal plate to redo it due to the huge mess of Hondabond mentioned earlier. With the transmission off it was even worse.



Globs of the stuff everywhere, even on the inside.



Taping up the crank and bearing so I don't contaminate them during the cleaning process.



Everything cleaned, new seal installed, sealed back to the block with an APPROPRIATE amount of Hondabond.



Engine stand plate bolted up. I like how Honda uses a small number of giant bolts instead of lots of small bolts like BMW, makes things easier. Honestly the way Honda engines go together is just so much nicer, things fit right, they don't leak all the time, etc.

Engine on the stand, so much nicer to work on this way. Getting it out of the subframe was a huge pain but everything will be easier this way especially since I need to tear into the bottom end.



Bottoms up, oil pan off. Pictures of the insides of a C30A are fairly hard to come by so doing this was kind of cool.



Crank girdle removed. I didn't know this before, but this engine uses 6 bolt mains.



Rod bearing cap removed, so far so good.



Cap bearing looks fine too.



Factory spec for rod bearing clearance dictates 0.04-0.06mm with a maximum allowable clearance of 0.06mm. Plastigage says right around 0.04mm, so nearly perfect results. You have no idea how much relief I felt after seeing this.



I checked one from each row all with the same results, clearances are all at the tight end of the allowable range. Perfect. Looks like the bottom end survived this ordeal.



I suppose it makes sense, looking at the oil flow diagram in the manual, 100% of oil from the pump goes straight to the main bearings, then everything else gets oil from the main bearing channels. Since the rod bearings are okay I'm not going to bother with the mains since they are extremely difficult to remove and should be fine if the rod bearings are okay. I can finally start putting things back together instead of taking them apart, right after I place a couple more orders for parts I didn't know I needed lul.

danteisme

iTrader: (2)

Wow, REALLY tearing into it. I can't believe the globs of hondabond. I mean, i know the stuff is magical, but thats a bit overkill lol.

PatrickGSR94

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Man the best part of any job is when you get to start putting stuff back together!

MotorMouth93

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I spoke too soon. The head gaskets are just barely seeping coolant, not enough to cause any serious internal issues yet but just another thing I need to address before I can reassemble. It's not a particularly uncommon failure for these cars, the C30A motors use a graphite composite head gasket instead of an MLS gasket. I'm just swapping in a new factory gasket, MLS requires a finer surface finish which would require the heads to be milled which isn't something I want to do yet. The factory gasket lasted 25 years so I'd rather just kick that bucket down the road until I do a full rebuild, hopefully in 10-15 years.

MotorMouth93

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After pulling the heads I found the cylinder walls to be in much worse shape than expected. Lots of pitted in rust spots and some nasty scoring. I知 not really sure how it got that bad but I suspect the previous owner let the car sit for long periods of time. I can稚 put the car back together like this.

Long story short I知 completely rebuilding the engine and boring over 0.5mm to clean up the cylinders. I値l post a ton of photos of the process over coming weeks.

danteisme

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Well that escalated quickly!

PatrickGSR94

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MotorMouth93

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Yeah....

When I pulled the heads I found that someone else had already done the head gaskets at some point in the past, I suspect in 2012 based on some writing on the subframe. The head bolts that didn't double as oil passages were wet (one had started to rust) with coolant and one of the dowel pins had gotten wet and seized into both the head and block and took over an hour to separate. Then getting the dowel pin out of the block was another hour or so.

The oil pathways on the factory graphite head gaskets have rubber O-rings around them so no substantial mixing of oil and coolant was taking place, the compression rings around the cylinders showed no signs of leakage, there was no detectable warping in the block or heads, and there was no evidence that the heads or block had ever been machined either so that's good. I suspect the crappy graphite gaskets failed on the previous owner and was caught before any substantial overheating occurred so they just swapped them out for new ones and did a crappy job cleaning up the mating surfaces.

I'm having a local machinist who specializes in cylinder heads and does a lot of high performance Honda heads do the head work. Should be a fairly basic check of the valve guides, valve job, valve stem seals, and then shave off a few 0.0001" for a perfect finish for the new Cometic MLS gaskets. When I pulled the headers I found that several of the exhaust valve guides were covered in oil, indicating that the dealership lied about changing the valve stem seals, I can't say I'm surprised at this point, they obviously didn't expect someone to check their work and valve stems seals aren't exactly easy to change with the heads on.

For the block work I'm having Engineered Performance in DFW bore, hone, and resurface the deck for the MLS gaskets, then timesert the head bolt holes. ARP head studs require more torque than the factory bolts and the heads have been off before so at this point timeserting is the wise choice or I risk the studs pulling out of the block. That is a few weeks out though as I am custom ordering pistons from Wiseco since all of the off-the-shelf options are 2618 alloy and 4032 is much better suited for my purposes.

If I can get a good 15-20k miles on the rebuild with everything going well, I'll start thinking about a mild supercharger. The pistons are the weak link in these engines so with forged pistons I should be able to run 350-375whp and still be very reliable.