So I’ve been enjoying going through your guys set ups and builds. I learn a lot, although I may not post on them a whole lot, it it’s nice to see there are a good amount of us still left messing around with these. So I figured I would share my first FI build.

ive done a few stock engine turbo installs, kept under 10lbs, but not going in deeper than that. I stepped away from cars due to work and children, and once things mellowed out a little and I started working 40/hrs a week instead of 60+ I decided I wanted to get back into another project.

I bought the car last year off of a HT member, drove from Dayton Oh to a city in NY. Around 9 hours one way. Towed it back home and have been plucking around every since.

The car in question is a 98 civic ex, I’m the second owner and has been in storage since 2008. It’s prior life was an NA build, then decided to start piecing together FI components and he lost interest and sold it all as a package, that included a engine that was already assembled and ready to go and other new in box parts.






so many of the parts were new in box, just old. The engine was already assembled using eagle rods and CP 9:1 pistons, the cyl head was ported and had flat faced valves, dual valve springs and retainers installed at Endyn.

Turbo is a garret TA3405. JB 63ar 57trim. With a straight line specialties log manifold and tial 38mm WG. Rc 750s, Eldebrock Rail, aeromotive FPR, and a walbro 255.








I put a CC stage 4, ordered a new OEM T belt kit, although what came with it was new, it was a few years old lol.

got the engine pay painted using paint match aerosol and the aresol clear and it tuned out pretty decent. I thought I had a before and after, but I don’t lol. I pressure washed the JDM gsr trans with LSD and gave it a coat of paint. And slid it in from the bottom





the biggest issue I had with the car, was rodents. They nested absolutely everywhere in this thing. It has honestly been the most time consuming part of this entire endeavor. I had to gut the entire car. Including dash and hvac housing. Bleach the whole body on the inside. Pressure wash and scrub what I could. Replace what I couldn’t. Bleach and scrub heater box and replace heater core. Then reassemble and put the ozone machine in it to take care of the now overwhelming chemical smell. But as of now, the smell is gone and now it just smells like my garage which is where it lives.

I got it running, and there was a decent amount of bugs to work out as I expected.





once on the dyno it had a lot of problems. So much that it had to have vtec disabled and made 260whp201/wtq at 14-15psi no vtec. I was running some BC stage 2 cams, but removed them and replaced with GSR cams. The BC probably would have worked if I would have degreed them, and both cams were retarded a couple degrees due to my head being decked.

So now it’s just waiting. For me to get with the tuner and get it retuned now the engine is properly in time and with the GSR cams installed. I do have a VC with two 10an bungs in front I plan in getting powder coated and add another breather in there somewhere.

the car needs a good wash, clay bar and paint correction. But that will come when I get the engine crap lined out and the weather gets nice.



My older son wanted to help with the cams


but that’s about it for now. Just kinda waiting it out and tinkering with small stuff here and there. I did order a pre painted bumper from a company called MBI. 170 shipped came a pre painted bumper to my door step. It’s not show quality, but I’m not complaining. Since local shops wanted 300+ to spray a bumper for me.

 

Your build looks nice. What grill is that?

 

Build is looking good. I’m going to have to see if they have bumpers that come in champion white as mine has a bit of drift stitching going on lol.

 

Thank you. Yeah check them out it’s called MBI auto. They are out of Michigan. They sell on amazon and eBay. They fold the bumper on its ends. Look right under the headlight. You can still see the crease. I took a heat gun to it. But that’s a smooth as I can get it. But for a weekend kinda car, I’m good with it.

and the grill is just a factory grill that was taken apart, and some mesh added. It came with the car. I just took the mesh out and painted it black.

ive got the charge pipes hitting the bumper a bit. And I think it’s destorting it a bit. But you’ll have that I guess.

 

They fold the bumper ???

 

yeah fold it about flat. Then you set it out for a day or two and it retakes it’s shape for the most part. And I did have to take a heat gun to it to get the creases smoothed out a bit.

 

Clean!

 

Nice job on the resurrection. That's crazy how they fold the bumper like that.

 

that’s crazy I don’t know why they just don’t charge more shipping and not fold it lol.

 

Thank you. But yeah it don’t make much sense to me. It’s not show quality, or even OEM quality. But it’ll do lol

also picked up a demon v2 tonight. So that’s pretty exciting. Hopefully here in about 2 weeks or whenever my arm heals up I’ll be able to drive it and get it retuned.

 

Got it dialed in as good as the tuner and I can. I have a lot of boost control problems with my manifold. It flows poor, and creeps very bad. With the 8lb spring I opening at 13 and creeping to 15 pretty consistently.

anywho, it got to the point of where yes it was creeping, but it was acceptable. So we bumped it up with the boost controller to get it closer to the 17-19psi I desired to run. We did achieve that, but at 8krpm it would always hit boost cut at 20psi. So rev limit got bumped down to 7800 right before the creeping ramped up again at 8k. Long story short, my manifold is a tubular log, and once it got 18psi pretty steady, it wouldn’t not achieve any power increase above that. The pull with 19.5ish psi yielded no hp/tq gains. So turned back down to 18 where it seemed to work well.

it seems to run and drive out pretty well. Maybe in the future I’ll try a mini ram or ramhorn and see if I can get the boost level cooperate. I mean running an the 13psi spring I had was still cranking out like 20psi on the top.

 

That should make for a really fun car to drive, I think there is more power to be had, but I think you probably have a nice conservative tune

 

yeah I’m thinking so too. It’s cold in Ohio and it’s been wet. So I haven’t had any chance to see what it can do. But yeah, it’s nothing that pushes limits by any means. And with it being on stock sleeves I didn’t really want to take it but to 20psi. I’ll enjoy it this year and maybe make some changes next winter. Either way, the power band is nice and it runs out very well I think

 

So I had the chance the past two days to get the car out and drive it a bit. Under a heavy accel, but not a full WOT pull I was getting a lot of compressor surge under boost. Just that odd pulsation sound. It took me a sec to realize because it was masked by tire noise. Before I was pulling my WG vacuum source directly from the housing. I plugged that hole and switched it to my intake manifold to hopefully get a more stable source of air and I was trying to remedy my creeping problems.

So for the sake of science. I swapped it back. I started pulling my vacuum for wastegate off the compressor housing again. And behold, the issue resolved. No more pulsation or surging from the turbo at 60-80% accelerated event.

I know I’ve read many of you guys pull vacuum from your IM on your gates without issue. I’m not sure if there was a underlying issue with my set up, but from everything I’m reading, a few have ran into issues like this. It just seems a little odd to me. I mean I get the idea of having excess pressure in the charge pipe that the engine isn’t using considering the throttle plate is partially closed.

meh, it’s fixed now. Just thought I’d share for future reference

 

Thinking it was a fluke fluke. The WG shouldn't cause turbo flutter. Sounds like a BOV issue.

 

You think? It’s just throwing me off because it was during an accel event at higher throttle. I didn’t think the bov was supposed to open until you let off and it sees vac

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GR-ywr...ature=youtu.be

 

I wouldn't see the WG causing this. I may not have the best technical explanation, but I don't believe that's your issue.

 

What psi are you seeing?

 

I don’t go past about 18-19. I notice that noise happen starting around 14-15 on the gauge. AF stays fine. My gauge does read a little off, but close enough.

 

I've been trying to find a compressor map for your turbo and it seems to be a doozie. Lol! Shodan may have more info on this little snail's efficiency range but, that's plausible. What psi are you trying to run? Were you going over when you had your WG reference hooked to manifold?

 

it’s an old dude lol and from my understanding it “should” be good for 450 crank HP, and it’s been running 18.5psi and getting around the 19.5 range towards the top of the RPM band. And at WOT I don’t have an issue. And no, I wasn’t going over at the IM, the pressures have been staying pretty constant with just a little bit of creeping. Scroll up a bit and check my dyno graph, it seems to stay fairly decent. I do know that the car didn’t benifit from a power increase (20psi) on the dyno. I believe the exh manifold causing issues.

but as of now. When running from the IM, I had a surging effect at part throttle. I changed the reference for the WG back to the compressor, it’s poof. It’s gone.

with myset up, I was trying to get 350whp at 20psi with this turbo. Which I’m fairly confident when I get a new manifold I’ll get it. I don’t quite think I have this turbo maxed out just yet. I’ve heard about guys with similar setups able to squeeze about 22psi before they choke out.

I hope I’m making sense. I fee that I’m taking myself in circles lol

 

Nah, not in circles. The hamsters are turning on the wheels and I'm trying to rationalize. Lol! You're under the advertised hp, with 20% loss, you're still less than 400 to the crank. Looking at the dyno chart, boost seems to climb pretty steady til about what would be 6920 rpm on the graph, then recovers a little, only to spike at about 7410 rpm. Is your VTEC point set somewhere around between those 2?

 

Dumptube goes right to ground before traction bar

 

well that’s good! Lol

vtec is set at 5000, I have zero explanation as to the dip in pressure between 69-7200. I do know with the 8psi spring the WG would open at about 13 and creep till about 17. That was with no controller in place. Just the spring. The higher the boost level the less creeping occurred. There was always a little last second creep towards redline. That’s why we bumped it down to 7800 to catch it before it happened.