spark plug timing mark is a little too far for my comfort, but could be the heat and that is a 7.

never mind, they look fine for just cruising

 

Man I love to see them just to nerd out on them lol

 

I need some thoughts and ideas from people...

Last night I was thinking.... where do I go from here? What's next?

I was thinking about the possibilities of a motor build this winter. I had not been planning for that. I had been planning on Wheels, Tires, Wilwood DPHA Calipers, Front Seats, etc. All things that would enhance the driving experiance, and shead about 40lbs too (30 of those lbs being unsprung weight)

but as im thinking about a motor build Idk if I'm into the idea of a big tear down yet. Plus if I did a motor build it would be the only thing done, with no improvements in other areas for awhile.

Getting back into the Heart of this build... High mileage motor + Boost. Let's talk about motor health & tell me what you think?

if you seen some of the video of mt car on the dyno and street... then you can see the smoke now. The good news is that there's no smoke under load. But when I let off the gas there's smoke under high vacuum/deceleration. At 1st I believed it was gas dumping at Decel, because column 1 had more fuel then needed (hence the fireballs lol), so I tuned that out but still the smoke. So what is that? Valve seals?

i did a compression test today for the 1st time since I've been boosted. Been driving it a lot more under boost and pretty hard too; got about 1000 boosted miles now so it was time to check....

Compression check done Cold, 5-Pumps, Full Throttle.

Cyl.1


Cyl.2


Cyl.3


Cyl.4


So... #1-207, #2-207, #3-204, #4-207
Given that these are cold dry numbers and so close to each other after 5-pumps each... I can't complain about that at all. Very pleased with it really.

so there no smoke under load and blue smoke under deceleration... this pointing to valve related issues then?

how bad could valve seals get? With the shortblock still showing signs of good health seems silly to have the head freshened without going ahead and doing the bottom too, UNLESS the seals just become totally awful.

When i 1st started this build I said I was gonna run it till it wouldn't run no more. I still want to do that. It's been fun experiment and very successful so far. I even have the Tial WG Spring to increase boost to 14psi. We already know I can do about 350hp at 12.5psi with maxed timing. Would be cool to run a couple more lbs of boost but keep timing conservative and with that I could stay around the 350whp mark and be safer then simply running max timing at 12.5psiz

what are your thoughts? Where should I go next?

 

Valve seals would probably be my first thought too, but there are a few things that could cause that. Kinda characteristic of high mileage motors when they're ran hard, even when the power is healthy and compression is good.

 

My stock JDM b18c would smoke like crazy under decel, replacing the valve stem seals did nothing to help. It had perfect compression just like yours too. Thats actually what drove me to build my engine so soon. I think smoke under decel can be oil getting past the rings too not just the valve stem seals.

I say turn that bish up lol !! You ever gonna setup pwm boost control or what? You might be more tempted to turn it up though as it only takes pushing a couple keys on your laptop instead or swapping wg springs haha. You should of installed those arp headstuds when you had the cams out.

 

Rings would be the other possibility, which would also make sense to me. 200K+ miles since the cylinders have last been honed, or rings replaced, things are probably very smooth in those cylinders and tolerances may be just loose enough to where some oil smoke is passing the rings during vacuum. Cylinders may have very slightly oval'd out a bit too during all this time/miles.

Anyway, if the compression test is good I wouldn't worry about it at all in this case.

 

I was having an issue recently on my stock block where the car would dump blue smoke after a hard pull in 3rd and 4th and it turned out to be crankcase pressure issues. Fixed that and it just disappeared. I know you're running a catch can but it's something to keep in mind, never know.

 

Just run it and enjoy it

 

I had some smoke, took head to machine shop and valve seals and guides were loose on exhaust side

 

I have had the smoke on decel issue on my car. Swapping valve stems seals did not resolve. The head had 200k miles. Turns out the guides were just worn and loose. If you take the intake and exhaust manifolds off you can look in the port and see if oil is seeping down the valve stems.

 

Thanks everyone for your input and ideas. Really appreciate it. I think for now I'm not going to worry about the smoke. I drove the car today and it seems healthy in every way. On the street there is smoke during a high-rev 1-2 shift. Also If you look at the dyno video the smoke is only heavy after a couple second of high rpm decel. Except for the high-rev 1-2
shif the smoke is hardly at all noticeable on the street. Also when the car was on the dyno I looked for excessive crankcase gasses blowing out the catchcan filter and nothing out of the ordinary was spotted. There's no smoke under load and the compression check was good so im not gonna worry about it.

At this point I'd like to see a solid 350-360whp. With my 93oct pump gas tune it made 327hp / 242tq. With higher timing It made 346hp / 252tq, but 93oct gas won't hold that much timing. Seeing as im only around 240wtq right now I feel like it has more in it.

THE NEXT STEP.... I'm going beyond strait 93oct pump gas. I'm going to start playing with fuels, fuel additives, fuel blends, and even e85/e40 blends. I'm going to find the best combination of performance, availability, & price... AND THEN increase boost a couple more pounds. The plan is to target the 360hp / 260tq range, all the while keeping the tune conservative and happy.

BUT ALSO staying with the convenience and spirit of a true "street car". I'm gonna set this baby up for Flex-Fuel so that no matter where I am, I'll be able to run any mix of fuel that's available.

Already ordered the parts that I need and can't wait to get started playing with it. Flex-Fuel will be a real nice addition to the car

 

awesome, looking forward to seeing more!!

 

nice sounds good

 

Just a quick check-in.
I've been playing the waiting game on parts. I finally recieved my ethanol content sensor today; the vendor took 5 days to ship out after I ordered it. Then with another vendor my Resistor order for the wiring harness got cancelled; was out of stock. Had to order from a different vendor. So waiting on my Resistors and I'll have everything ready for the moment they arrive.

For now I'm going to tune the Flex Fuel on 12.5psi. That'll allow me to safely increase timing above my "safe-93pump gas" tune. The extra timing will have me back to the 350whp / 250tq range that I saw on the dyno. That was when I had mixed in some114oct fuel to locate MBT. I found that beyond 20' torque Gaines were just a couple ft-lbs (which was within the margin of the dyno accuracy). So with full-e85 20' is where it'll be.

the idea of a Flex Fuel system is what really got me interested in trying e85. I was NEVER interested in simply having a e85 car; being limited to that, having to deal with traveling to fill tanks and all. But having a Flex Fuel system where I can run gasoline, e85, or any combination of the two; the Ecu automatically adjust Air/Fuel ratio and timing accordingly.... now THATS cool! Flexibility is always good, and I think it adds good value to the system. Doing this has got me interested in going ahead and setting up the Hondata boost control.

 

awesome job, I am looking for similar project but with other engine, B16a2

 

So it took a lot longer than expected. Not that it was difficult at all. Mostly because of parts delays, plus I took my time on the wiring. I wanted everything to have connectors. I'm not the greatest wiring guy but overall it came out nice

Here's the one sketchy part. DIY madness I guess but you make due with the tools and skills ya got


Luckily my electrical tape and heat shrink sleeve skills are on par so all is good




It really is a simple install. Anyone running e-85 should do this. The ONE problem I had was so annoying. At 1st I couldn't for the life of me figure out why it wasnt working. I changed ground locations, messed with anything I could. Ended up taking the harness out and rechecking it (even though I knew it was correct) because I was outta options. EXCEPT the one thing that I didn't check which I was sure was ok. It was my power source 😤 For whatever reason the power prong beside my wideband prong was dead. I moved it over one prong and all was good

So note to everyone... make sure your power is good. I would have thought those were all good power sources but idk

 

Also... Today I've switch everything over to Lambda. My Wideband, Hondata Unit measures, and datalog settings, all reading in Lambda now.

Since I'm tuning with Gas & Ethanol now, my "Air/Fuel" ratio would change depending on my ethanol content. it would make reading a "air/fuel" gauge and datalog very difficult having to know where my target AFR would be depending on my E-Content. So starting today I'm training myself to tune using Lambda. The target Lambda will remain constant no matter what my mix of fuel is. The switch won't be too hard, mostly just have to retrain my brain out of 20years of seeing Air/Fuel lol

I also did my 1st startup today and it's e44-e45 right now. Making sure my Flex Fuel scale is accurate in the middle 1st. Then hopefully around Tuesday I'm going to drain what's left in the fuel tank and go strait e85. I'm excited about it lol I love doing new things

 

One bit of advise, you don't have to switch everything over to lambda. What the wideband displays as air/fuel ratio is simply a mathematical calculation of lambda x stoich of the fuel it's programmed to display. For example if the wideband is programmed to gasoline it will take the lambda value and multiply it by 14.7. You would still shoot for 11.5 (or whatever your ideal ratio on gasoline is) on the display no matter what mix of fuel is because the wideband has no idea what fuel is in the tank. 11.5 on the display is the same lambda no matter what fuel you are burning.

 

Yes you're right I could target 11.5 a/f ratio for "gas" no matter what Fuel im using. Targeting 11.5 AFR (gas) is equal to 7.6 AFR (e85), and It would work in the sense of having a "target-number" to see on the gauge and datalogs. It would not be a "correct-value" unless I was using pure gas, but it would work as a "target-number" to tune with.

Targeting 0.78 Lambda on the other hand would be a way to have a target-number, and remain correct in my fuel-values too [0.78 Lambda being equal to both 11.5 AFR (gas) & 7.6 AFR (e85), plus every mix of fuels AFR in between]. It's like the universal number for all mix of fuel. Switching to Lambda isn't going to improve anything, except I just want it to be correct. I'm just nerding out 🤓

 

Hopefully you soldered that resistor splice? I foresee that causing issues in the future if not

 

nope i did not. I debated if I should even show that picture because it's nothing I'm proud of. I have a real cheap soldering iron and it does a horrible job of setting a bead. I decided to go ahead and post it because I'm sure there are a lot of ppl who can't solder. It's not a example of how to do things. It's probably the sketchiest part of my whole build, but it shows how I made it work. I think It's unlikely the wire would come loose and break contact with the resistor. But if it does the worst thing is Hondata would read e100, and I would notice that on the wideband. I gues it's time to add a quality soldering iron to the tool box

 

Keep it up man!

 

I wouldn't be as worried about that wire losing full contact and giving you an e100 reading, as I would it having a poor connection and giving you a less accurate reading.

 

I don't believe the signal is voltage base, its digital. So the single shouldn't weaken. Either it reads, or it won't.

but you guys are starting to worry me so maybe I'll take it out and solder it.

 

So I'm tuning the flex fuel system today and it kicks ***. I started out on e40, and now I'm on e60. Im hoping that between E50 & E60 is what will give me enough octaine to run full timing (around 20'). 20' was where MBT began to show itself on the dyno.

So far so good.
I made about ten 4th gear pulls with e40 @ 17' and no knock. I did seven 4th gear pulls on e60 @ 20' timing and no knock. Without a doubt the car pulls hard. I'm now running timing where the dyno showed approx 350whp & 250tq. Plus I'd like to think the ethanol is adding a bit extra power with it being oxygenated.

I'd like to run strait e85 next just to make sure my flex fuel compensation scale is accurate for all fuel mixes. injectors are at 72% duty cycle right now on e60 so it'll be getting high. But if e60 gets me all the timing i want to use then I should be fine.