Hey, I'll give some short ish history for those who haven't seen my thread and then get into my problem.

95 EG Hatch w 99 B18B1, t3/t4 hybrid ebay, intercooler, 440cc injectors (racetronix) otherwise stock fuel system, endyn catchcan vented w/drain back, fake ts waste gate, copper ngk hr 7 plugs @0.030 w some 8mm yellow aftermarket wires(look nice), stock ignition with relatively new (looked brand new when I got it from the guy) dizzy, eBay bov, running eCtune..

Tl/dr: boosted, ran great w stock plugs at 0.044, started chopping/breaking up under boost, no fun, new copper plugs no help. Regapped to 0,030 seemed to help. Had leaky injector, fixed but didn't seem to make difference in breaking up (but does start up much quicker now from not losing rail pressure when off) .. thinking ignition but reads lean when breaking up (eg will go from 12.3 to 13.5 or something) I'd expect to see rich. No map/tune changes between well before it started til now.
Boosted it a few months ago, haven't really finished tuning because I need a new wastegate and I'm actually building one from scratch and because it's been winter and the roads suck, already smashed the car up once and had to replace the control arm..and it's still not perfect. Close, but still has some positive camber.

Anyway, since boosting the car and running with my basic tune I did up quick, it's been pretty fine, use it as my daily. Can't go full throttle for long without hitting boost cut (7psi) but felt good and strong, decent AFRs (not perfect but haven't dialed it in yet) and still pretty quick even with having to back off the throttle to like 10% to keep 5psi. Am able to hit 5psi off the anti lag at 3200rpm and hit boost cut as low as 2500rpm if I'm moving and load er up good.
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Bypassed the tb coolant line which dropped my IATs like 40-60 degrees C on average depending on outside weather. In winter if it's like -20c, I can see IATs as low as 1c if I'm cruising at low throttle..

So to my problem.. when I first boosted it, ran good, wouldnt break up at all, anywhere, if I hit cut it was hard and stopped til I released.. Car does burn some oil, did so before boosting. Compression was 165-170 on all 4 when I checked before boosting. Considering it happens mostly on high vac (off throttle decel) I think it's mostly valve seals.

Recently (last month or so) it's been breaking up a bit under boost. Annoying as hell, basicallycan't boost at all. Also chops up a bit sometimes if I kick the throttle quickly at idle. My first thought was maybe for some reason boost cut wasn't coming on hard anymore but duty cycling on and off. Quick data log confirmed this is not the case.

I've read a lot of threads and searched and it seems like the most common answer to these symptoms is ignition, which is something I've been considering as well. Duty cycle on my injectors in my logs never gets over 50% really and my AFRs are close to my goals in most cells (14.7 to 16ish idle and cruise, 14-12.8 til 0psi and upto like 11.5 in boost, pretty conservative)

When I boosted, I forgot to change my plugs (I was going to switch to copper for boost) and just did recently hoping they'd help, I didn't bother gapping them - when I first boosted, the platinum ngks at 0.044 as they came worked great upto cut.

Thinking it may be boost cut related I bumped to 9.5psi cut. I regapped to about 0.030. I checked my dizzy cap found a tiny bit of oil not much at all, wiped it out and reinstalled it.

After this it was improved (but definitely NOT fixed) . After logging I know it's not boost cut related so I was thinking the ignition definitely has something to do with it.

The ODD part is, the datalogs and my wideband show it going lean when it breaks up? The threads I read and what I'd expect is the opposite? Spark not good enough to ignite fuel means more fuel to air in exhaust means more rich reading?

It'll go from like 12.1 afr to 13.5 when it starts breaking up. It feels like almost not all cylinders are firing or they're randomly cutting out.

I was going to check my plug wires and go to a smaller gap, I've seen people suggest up to 0.016 and higher but was going to try maybe 0.024 and see if it improves more. If so, I'll definitely check the rest of my ignition system. My wires were used when I got them and could definitely be taking a sh*t, but again I'd expect it to read richer?!?

I also discovered my #3 fuel injector was leaking. Holy sh*t batman! Noticed a hissing sound when I turned off my car (and had been wondering where the f*ck my fuel had been going lately) and discovered the o-ring had eaten away. Tried a few aftermarket ones, didn't fit right, tried one aftermarket with the stock one and it stopped..for a day..then got more aftermarket ones that didn't fit, put two different sizes together and that's held so far (checking often, I have some other stock orings somewhere from my old injectors but I think I'm just going to order a new set from honda). So that's been fixed and the car starts up quick again, but the stuttering persists!

I do suppose there's the possibility the #3 may still leak slightly at higher pressures? I revved it up and don't see any leakage nor do I when priming the line which all made it gush with the messed oring. But I would expect that to cause it to run lean only on 3# and cause knocking which I don't hear, and I would think would be more constant (one miss out of every 4 cylinder fires instead of 1 miss out of rand(5) fires as it feels)

Rand(5) means a random number between 0 and 5 for the non programmers among us?

I do have some logs I can post with the break up but I haven't gleamed much from it.

I am going to have my 3 ecu switches wired in tomorrow so I'll be able to switch between maps and see how different timing feels. Unfortunately I don't have an ostrich or demon so I'm stuck burning chips which is a slow process, this will alleviate some pain, but I think I'm going to get a Demon soon since I can use both ectune and Neptune with it, though I also seriously have considered Hondata, but damn.. the price makes me wanna say f* it and get a haltech or something!

 

Everything i read points to your dizzy. 1. It's used. 2. You have oil leaking in it.
"It'll go from like 12.1 afr to 13.5 when it starts breaking up. It feels like almost not all cylinders are firing or they're randomly cutting out." = I had this but it was a ghost O2 issue. So the question here is do you have these symptoms when the car is still and you are revving the engine.

Best of luck.

 

Im going with plug gap and the rest of the ignition system. Most will recommend .028 which is solid advice. My tuner usually has me at .025, Although i have had no problems when increasing the gap. however I do have a brand new OEM coil, OEM dizzy cap, and NGK blue wires.

replace your wires with NGK blues (cheap and every turbo car should use them IMO), new dizzy cap ..again cheap enough, and a replacement accell coil (cheaper then OEM). put some NGK BKR7e plugs gapped at .028 and you should be fine. Other then that you might want to double check the tune as you said your doing it yourself and its not fully tuned yet

and that oil leak is most likely just the o-ring which costs less then $1

get a hondata or neptune...seriously its not expensive I think I paid $650 for a p28 with Hondata preinstalled worth every penny

 

I'm only running open loop at present so no o2 issues.

I gapped the plugs down to 0.022 today and it is MUCH improved.

I figured it was ignition from how it felt but from what I've read and would expect it should be reading richer not leaner!

I was just able to hold 5psi stable at 12.2 afr on my way home tonight after gapping down. The problem isn't COMPLETELY eliminated but markedly improved.

The amount of oil in my dizzy was really miniscule, I'd barely call it leaking. The dizzy was second hand but it looked basically brand new when I got it, no dirt, dust or oil, rotor and cap were brand new, the metal had no chips or dings or oil or corrosion.. basically looked like it was either new and never used or if used only for like 5km. Not 5000km, 5km. If someone handed me at the parts store I wouldn't have questioned if it was used off looks. Funny through the guy brought 3 with him when I bought it and asked me which I wanted..was pretty easy to decide when the other two looked obviously used.

While my plug wires are "better than stock", they were used when I got them too so.. but never had any issues.

In fact, I'd have to say other than whatever part is obviously wearing now the rest was doing great? I mean when I initially boosted it, my ignition must have been decent at LEAST? At first I was able to boost 7psi consistently for like 4 months at a 0.044 gap with platinums no issies. Now I'm at HR 6 NGK coppers at 0.022 now, my gapper only goes to 0.020. Problems started before I switched to copper. Thought I was running 7s but guess I'm running 6s. Stock was 5s apparently. Wondering if I should be running 7s.

I also went to the JY today and pulled a coil..looked through a few, found one off a D series with low km that looked good. I know the d and b dizzy are similar (hell the previous-previous owner of my car used the d dizzy (and ecu) when he swapped the b18! That's how I got the car? Total Zwtf but it ran! Leaked oil cuz only the top bolt fit).

BUT I'm guessing if a d dizzy will run a b and they're pretty similar that the coil should fit? I'm gonna have to double check but there were only 2 tegs in the yard, one missing a motor but had dizzy on the ground (sans coil) and the other had the motor..but no coil..hmm...

 

For my purposes ectune does everything I need. The chip burning aspect sucks but that's all. Well, and the fact the software was never finished and has terrible support. But it's miles better than crome or crome pro.

I would have to recheck to verify but I didn't see closed loop boost control in Hondata or even neptune? If I'm wrong please do tell. eCtune will (ontop of the normal hi/low or boost by gear/rpm/etc) watch the boost response over time and adjust duty cycle to match not just follow a predetermined map.

One thing I saw about Hondata I liked was the digital inputs on the board, which would allow me to connect my PLX wide band to the ecu and have the wb show up in the logs oh and also Hondata can use that digital input for its wideband closed loop calcs

If Neptune can do that, I'd probably lean that way but I don't think the demon has provisions for that. I do know ectune and probably Neptune can data log a separate serial input from my PLX, but that requires me hooking the PLX serial to my laptop plus my ecu to the laptop (two USB ftdi) and doesn't allow the digital input for the wideband for closed loop.

My readings are about -0.25 afr off, even using an ecu sensor ground didn't improve that but with that correction dialed in it seems bang on from what I see on the gauge. For tuning I may hook up the serial to ectune on a second port and compare the digital and analog readings and see.

I'd also lean towards Neptune/demon because I could buy a demon now, benefit from demon with ectune, then when I have more cash I can grab the Neptune license. Neptune seems to have an edge with support from my quite non objective interweb observations.

Lots of people say use what you're tuner likes..what do you do when you're the tuner and can't decide?! Haha.. I literally have spent hours in both smanager and Neptune (and ectune and crome obv) comparing features.

Neptune cost for the bt is a $40 for a $1 bt device is bit much and s300v3 includes it which is nice.

Hondata Def costs more. Hondata has cop retro and traction control possible. Pretty sure Neptune can do traction control as well though.

My biggest issue is cost. If I buy Hondata, at $650 USD, that's like $800 CAD which is almost half way to a good standalone.

As I'm building this into a rally car, I really don't see me running a stock ecu based ems for long, in fact it's pretty likely it'll be standalone before I get the cars logbook.

If neptune/demon can do digital inputs on board I'm sold. My biggest deal with that is I have a PLX wideband and had planned on getting the sensor modules for oil/fuel pressure, water/oil temp and a few others - they all daisy chain digitally over serial. One serial line to hondata can read (and use for calculations) any of the PLX sensor modules. So if I have the full race setup I was thinking of, that's:

6 EGT sensors and boxes (one on each cyl, one post turbo, one midpipe)
5 or 6 wb02 sensors and boxes (one on each cyl, post turbo and post cat if there's a cat which probably won't be)
2 fluid pressure box (I think these supports 2 sensors each, fuel pressure @ rail, fuel pressure @ pump, oil pressure, turbo oil feed pressure or return fuel pressure or something)
1 or 2 fluid temp sensor and box (I think these support 2 as well, water temp, oil temp, tank fuel temp, rail fuel temp?, radiator inlet & outlet temps?)
3 IAT sensors and boxes (pre and post intercooler and at stock location)
4 to 6 map/pressure sensors (pre compressor, post compressor but pre-tb, post tb preturbine exhaust pressure, post turbine exhaust pressure, vacuum resevoir, pcv)

Now yes, that's totally overkill and nuts and everything.. but it's near you could gather a lot of data..it's also more than a few thousand in sensors (mostly the wb02 and egt) before I ever did anywhere near that much I'd need an engine worth it BUT the point is each of those can be chained in, and I know at least with hondata, it automatically shows up and is usable over the digital line. I think hondata limited to 8 sensors maybe but..No analog issues/noise/offsets, no needing a bunch of analog inputs..) and also allows me to use all the sensors with tunerview or similar and then I don't even have to run the plx touchscreen multigauge..or I could run 3 with different sensors and still have tuner view... but if neptune doesn't support that each sensor has to be attached to an analog input (which spares are few and far between on a Honda ecu, though, yes, I do know the demon has addional an along inputs..might be the saving grace if it doesn't do ttl but damn)

If neptune/demon can read and use the digital inputs directly on the ecu then I'm gonna grab a demon for sure. Otherwise I may still lean toward hondata. But I may also go standalone. Even so, having hondata or neptune wouldn't be a waste - this isn't my only EG, and the other would get the demon or s300 if this one goes standalone.

I've been debating the two for quite a while. I haven't re-checked and sat down with both apps in a bit but I'm going to have to.

And I'm totally ranting.

 

Back to the main focus, and still my main real question in the thread (now that my experimentation has confirmed the validity of my curiosity)

What I've read from searching and finding people with the exact same symptoms, they suggest ignition but also that it should be rich if ignition is cutting out. My logical brain theory-ism says the same, that if you inject fuel into a cycle but can't ignite it, that the o2 sensor should read richer, more unburnt fuel (for the same air) going down the line to the sensor.

Can someone explain why in my case it read leaner?

Pretty sure one of the threads I read with someone describing the exact same issues to a T, even the hesitation when kicking from idle, but was reading rich when happened and turned out to be ignition.

My problem seems to be ignition related for sure now, I gapped down to 0.022 and now my AFR is solid. Before at 5psi it'd be 12.1 then break up and bounce to 13.5. Now I can hold 5psi and it's solid around 12.1 or 12.2.

And no.. the issue isn't RPM related at all. Not that I can go above 3200rpm at standstill anyway (launch control), it revs there fine and once going fast enough to turn off launch control, I can Rev it fine to limiter (6500) in neutral. Even light loads didn't make it break up at any rpm. Only over 3psi would, or kicking the throttle at idle made some hesitation/cutting out.

 

A.) Get rid of the 6s, put 7 heat range plugs in. Part number 4644. Start at 0.024 Gap or so
B.) Get rid of the aftermarket plug wires. Nothing beats OEM NGK blues from my experience. I've worked on a car that had brand new autoparts store wires and wouldnt fire up. I swapped my 6 month old blues on their and it was night and day. NGK 8041
C.) Fix the oil in the distributor issue.
D.) You need to get the AFR consistent at < 12.0. Ignition miss shouldnt change AFR much, so what you are seeing is what you are getting.

Im making ~650whp on a stock ignition minus an Accel internal coil, which you can buy at O'Reilly autoparts or online for ~$50. But unless you have some chinese reman, the bone stock ignition dizzy shouldnt have any problems.

 

^this^
BUT, misfires do cause unburned oxygen in the exhaust, which will create a lean reading. doesn't mean the engine is running lean. get ignition operating correctly, then dial in the tune.

 

 

You're right

 

Yeah I meant to get 7s, the guys at the part store I was at were dumb as ****, had to pull out the NGK book to find the ones I got even.

4644 I've read are non resistor? And much electronically noisier? NGK themselves says this bad.

At the same time I've seen several people on here suggest using them anyway.

They are Accel wires, yellow. I have some ngk blues laying around I think maybe, not sure but that's what I go with when I buy them new.

Working on that. Got a good condition oem coil from pnp, may try it.

Unfortunately I have to disagree with you there - it can't be what I'm actually getting. Making the gaps smaller, 0.022" now, got rid of 90% of the breakup and I'm also not seeing the AFR lean spike. AFR is pretty smooth now ramping up as boost does. I can post data logs or screenshots to show, but the only change I've made is the gap, problem is almost gone and the AFR isn't jumping anymore. TBH if I was actually hitting as lean as it was reading, I'm sure it would have detonated, I wasn't super conservitive with my timing settings with the basemap. I've read people saying 1.25 to 1.5 degrees per pound, I'm on about 1?

I've read this a lot - and initially I was fine without even having to change my gap, so since changing my gap "fixed" it, something is worn.

Going to get new wires, maybe some 7 range plugs, a new dizzy o ring. Actually I just acquired (well, haven't picked it up yet) a whole other b18b1 that was knocking. Going to use the head from it as it's in good shape, it should have a spare dizzy.

Will throw that on soon with a new head gasket, timing belt, alternator belt, arp studs, arp rod bolts and throw on my UR adjustable cam gears and maybe throw in my lightweight flywheel.

 

I thought this might be the case, but makes me wonder why other people with similar problems saw rich. The lean reading and problem are mostly gone with a regap, so definitely ignition.

 

 

Notice in the second pic, it was saying 13.51 @ 8.24psi @ 5500rpm and 18.75 degrees timing..

First was at 5500rpm @ 5.28psi @ 11.63 afr 21 degrees timing..

If I was really at 13.51 I'm sure I would've heard some knock or blown up! Someone else wanna hit 8psi at 13.51 afr to find out..at any timing..with any fuel? Didn't think so!

 

I hit 14.5 afr on the dyno @ ~21 psi no knock, on E85 though lol

 

Ya that doesn't count..obviously your windband is set for gas afr not e85 or it'd be reading around 9.5!

 

Car is tuned to same AFR's as gas. 11.5-12 is where I shoot for. Fuel pump was going at the time it leaned out