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I'll start with just a little bit about the car - Previously turbo'd with a Precision SC50 w/ blox cast manifold on 91 octane. She made 275whp/190lbs tq on 10psi w/ a decent torque curve. This was my first ever turbo car. Had the car for a few years just doing maintenance and doing suspension, tire and wheel upgrades so I could finally get it to hook, always wanted to upgrade and make it my own though. Last summer I gouged my radiator and decided it was time to take the leap. Today, I'm now in the process of mocking everything up and welding my own downpipe/dumppipe, figured now was a better time than ever to get a thread going. Here is my current running log.
This is my first turbo build. The purpose of this thread is for me to gain constructive criticism and insight, so let's keep it that way fellas. This forum has been an extremely valuable resource for me so far, so thank you to all the members that make contributions! I'll try to keep things as turbo related as possible and keep general maintenance, etc out of this thread.
Purpose A street car, driven only on weekends, that can also handle it's own on the track - Auto-x and Time Attack. The main goals are a flat torque line and reliability (Driving to and from track).
Build List
Engine
- Stock B18C (P72)
- Moroso Baffled Oil Pan w/ MyHondaHabit Gasket
- S2 Ultra Intake Manifold & Throttle Body
- HardRace Motor Mounts
- Koyo 1570r Half Rad w/ matching 1700cfm SPAL puller fan Turbo
- STC BB Hunter Turbo .63a/r
- PFab Tubular Log Manifold
- Precision 38mm Wastegate
- GodSpeed Bar and Plate Intercooler (20.5"L x 6" T x 2.5" W) Fuel
- E85
- ID 1000's
- Walbro 255lph Fuel Pump
- AEM Fuel Pressure Regulator & Fuel Rail Engine Management
- Hondata S300v3 w/ BBG
- Hondata 4 Port Boost Controller
- Hondata 4 Bar MAP Sensor Drivetrain
- S80 (P72) LSD Hydro Trans
- Exedy Stage 2 Clutch and Lightweight Flywheel (Have yet to 100% confirm, installed by previous owner)
- Stock axles Suspension/Wheels/Tires
- GS-R Blades w/ Potenza RE71R's 205/50/15
- Koni/GC 440f/350r
- Eibach 27mm Front Sway Bar
- ITR 23mm Rear Sway Bar
- ASR Subframe Brace
- HardRace LCA Bushings
- Energy Suspension Poly Trailing Arm Bushings
- S2 Adjustable Rear Camber Kit Brakes
- Hawk ceramic pads..? (Installed by Previous Owner, Plan to Replace)
- Braided SS lines
- Some kind of aftermarket brake pressure adjuster, still need to research more on this Exhaust
- Unknown 3" Exhaust w/ Cat Delete
- Custom 3" Downpipe
I have a tune scheduled May 9th, so I'm hoping to get everything set by then. My goals with this tune are 350whp, anywhere from 230-250lbs tq, but mostly a flat torqueline.
Last edited by 9TechNine9; 04-10-2018 at 09:18 PM.
Looks good man. 350whp will be a cake walk with that setup. That’s a nice turbo you got there, ask me how I know haha.
Thanks that's what I'm thinking. Question is how well will the stock B18C sleeves and pistons hold the power!? I think one of my most limiting factors with this build is my intercooler. I'm thinking I can push it to 350whp but it probably won't want to go farther than that. I'm reusing a lot of parts from the previous build. Your thread was the deciding factor to go this route, with TheShodans advice too of course, even though we had somewhat opposite purposes for the car. I'm all about the twisty's!
Question is how well will the stock B18C sleeves and pistons hold the power!? I think one of my most limiting factors with this build is my intercooler. I'm thinking I can push it to 350whp
350whp should be pretty easy with a good tune and stock sleeves/pistons are fine at the power
Getting tuned at DB Performance again? Must be a local MN guy I live like 15 min from DB.
And I agree, the Hunter is a sick little turbo. Definitely my choice if I built another Honda. I had a similar STC turbo on my GSR, the GT3251b
Yup, I REFUSE to take my car to any other tuning shop here, Shane works magic! I had 2 other tuners here completely blow me off and DBperformance was the one that came through. I'm hoping to actually get the car out of the garage this year and make it to a few events. I'm really trying to make it to Proving Grounds at BIR June 8th-10th this year!
350whp should be pretty easy with a good tune and stock sleeves/pistons are fine at the power
Yeah I think it will be ok, especially having Shane tune it, but like I mentioned before reliability is a huge deal for me because I'm driving to/from the track. My first event at BIR is a 2hr drive one way
Yeah I think it will be ok, especially having Shane tune it, but like I mentioned before reliability is a huge deal for me because I'm driving to/from the track. My first event at BIR is a 2hr drive one way
lol if it makes you feel any better, on my stock bottom end F22 setup with my STC Hunter at over 300whp, it was tuned and then i immediately drove from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada straight to Indianapolis.... it was a bit over 2,000 miles and took like 38 hours and I'm not shitting you one bit, the car was only turned off when i put gas in it. I didn't stop at all. You will be juuuust fine man hahaha.
also great choice on the turbo, i have a pretty flat torque band on mine and attribute it all to the turbo.
lol if it makes you feel any better, on my stock bottom end F22 setup with my STC Hunter at over 300whp, it was tuned and then i immediately drove from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada straight to Indianapolis.... it was a bit over 2,000 miles and took like 38 hours and I'm not shitting you one bit, the car was only turned off when i put gas in it. I didn't stop at all. You will be juuuust fine man hahaha.
also great choice on the turbo, i have a pretty flat torque band on mine and attribute it all to the turbo.
Awesome, that's great to hear! That sounds pretty gutsy. I guess I'm not doubting the equipment I have at all, it's just in the case of something going catastrophically wrong I'm pretty boned.
I will be staying tuned for this. Looks like a nice clean setup!
The stock sleeves will hold fine. Mine have been good for years (before I owned the car til now) at around 400whp. I am interested to see how the stock rods and pistons will handle 350 though, I’ve not heard of them going that high yet.
I also hope to get retuned at DB this summer! I am about an hour and a half south. How far in advance did you have to schedule your dyno day? Please provide details about how the tuning session goes, any issues or things you had to take care if before they’d run it etc.
Will be fun to compare dyno graphs between your Hunter and my t3/t4, being that the rest of our setups are very similar.
Thanks for the support everybody!
My friend came over last night to help me dial in my settings on my MIG welder. Some more practice would do me good before I start welding the downpipe and dumppipe.
Originally Posted by 2x0
How far in advance did you have to schedule your dyno day? Please provide details about how the tuning session goes, any issues or things you had to take care if before they’d run it etc.
Will be fun to compare dyno graphs between your Hunter and my t3/t4, being that the rest of our setups are very similar.
I scheduled it about 3 months in advance because they are a really busy place (for a good reason!), especially this time of year. Everyone wants to get their car tuned for the season. I'll be sure to document the tuning process as best I can, I'll be bringing a knock off GoPro with me. I guess something worth mentioning since you're curious - when I scheduled the tune I told them I'm converting from pump gas to e85 and am opting to have the tank drained and filled by them. Even though I know its really easy to do myself I just wanted to make sure I was getting a summer mix of e85 and I don't want to have to deal with gallons of 3 year old gasoline filled with Stabil. It's going to be just a little bit extra.
Awesome, I will be following along intently! Yeah I am curious, if you are okay with sharing how much the session ends up costing as well.
Understandable that it is busy right now. I still have a few things to check off the list before I’ll be ready to schedule a date, so it’ll probably end up being mid to late summer for me.
Awesome, that's great to hear! That sounds pretty gutsy. I guess I'm not doubting the equipment I have at all, it's just in the case of something going catastrophically wrong I'm pretty boned.
Yeah i hear ya, but if you use quality parts, assemble with care, and get a solid tune (and it sounds like you will have one), you shouldn't have a problem with a 2 hour drive. Like TheShodan said, you'll never escape the anxious thought that this is the time you're going to hear some clanking metal and be towing the thing home. I just stayed out of boost as much as possible on the drive. Idk how true this really is, but after making that drive, I'm of the thought that if you can drive around your city for a couple hours and drive it around town ripping on it etc at operating temp and dont have any problems like over heating or oil/coolant leaks, there's no reason why it would do it on a longer highway drive while in vacuum the whole time. Or maybe i was just lucky... who knows
Had anyone pointed out that manifold is designed to have the compressor facing the passenger side?
I'm aware that these manifolds are usually ran w/ the compressor on the passengers side. However, with my build it made more sense to have the compressor on the drivers side. I'll try to show you exactly why when I get there but for now have faith. I had the wastegate elbow welded to face the passenger side to accommodate this as well.
I got the half rad in today. This was my first welding project ever. I'm embarrassed to post my welds but fk it I will anyway. My biggest problem was getting the settings just right. I did 3 cycles of welding and grinding until I got a decent bead. By the way, I had nothing to practice on beforehand either. It was just hard to get a good angle with a mig gun in the bottom of the bay. I stopped for the day because I didn't want to **** off the neighbors but tomorrow I'll grind down the welds and try to get a better bead.
I also found out I have a GodSpeed intercooler. Like I suspected, it's capable of 350hp.
Today I didn't spend anymore time on the lower rad supports. I have less than a month until my tune and need to worry about getting it together in time and not worrying about aesthetics. Function > Form is the name of the game right now. Instead, I started working on my downpipe, which is turning out pretty good so far. I still need to get the lower flange to fit better and to weld a couple 02 bungs, then weld it all up. Right now it's only tack welded together. I also extended the part of my exhaust that has the resonator to make up for the test tube that I removed to make it a true 3". The weld is absolutely terrible on this because it was my first cut on a tube and wasn't a straight cut so there was major gaps that I tried to fill in, just mounding welds upon welds. I just needed to get it mounted so I could work on the downpipe. Still haven't completely decided if I'm going open dump or not yet..
Originally Posted by 2x0
I also have a Godspeed intercooler, idk what it's rated to and I've heard they are crap. But haven't had any problems with my IAT's yet.
Is yours the same dimensions as mine? You can get a ball park range of what it's capable of by the type of intercooler it is and the dimensions.
Originally Posted by LightningTeg
Biggest things to keep in mind is clean metal, and being comfortable.
I made sure to wire wheel to a clean surface where the mount was going and the mount itself. Still working on being comfortable.. I swear half the time I forget to switch my helmet from grind to weld. I get flashed then I can't see where I'm welding and screw it up. I'll get there though. By the end of doing the downpipe I was getting pretty good at it, and cutting tube nice and straight.
Last edited by 9TechNine9; 04-11-2018 at 09:49 PM.
I spent all of yesterday getting the flanges to meet up nicely on the downpipe. Endless cutting/tacking mocking it up and needing to adjust more. I started on the dump tube. With the placement of my wastegate and everything else in the bay I think it would be stupid to not do a recirculated dump tube. However, I do have my worries. In the picture below I put a red circle where I would like to route the dump tube into the down pipe. It would be slightly angled downstream. Basically my only concern is causing some kind of unwanted turbulence (is this the correct term??) being so close to the turbo's exhaust wheel. Anybody have input on this?
I spent all of yesterday getting the flanges to meet up nicely on the downpipe. Endless cutting/tacking mocking it up and needing to adjust more. I started on the dump tube. With the placement of my wastegate and everything else in the bay I think it would be stupid to not do a recirculated dump tube. However, I do have my worries. In the picture below I put a red circle where I would like to route the dump tube into the down pipe. It would be slightly angled downstream. Basically my only concern is causing some kind of unwanted turbulence (is this the correct term??) being so close to the turbo's exhaust wheel. Anybody have input on this?
Image link doesn't work. try that again. But I understand what you're getting at. The dumptube recirculating needs to be further downstream of the downpipe with a very slight angle going into the downpipe. (Usually winds up close to the transmission casing) But you don't want too steep of an angle into the downpipe, or yes, you will experience exhaust turbulence especially when going from lower to higher acceleration rates.
Image link doesn't work. try that again. But I understand what you're getting at. The dumptube recirculating needs to be further downstream of the downpipe with a very slight angle going into the downpipe. (Usually winds up close to the transmission casing) But you don't want too steep of an angle into the downpipe, or yes, you will experience exhaust turbulence especially when going from lower to higher acceleration rates.
My apologies. I'm still figuring out how to host images. Easiest way is to copy and paste direct link (I'm using Imgur) using the "insert image" button? Used to being able to just post the BB code directly in the reply and it working.
It would be about 3" downstream from the turbo with an angle of about 15 degrees I think. From your response I think you're saying it needs to be farther down, just before the last 90 degree where it straightens out to connect to the exhaust?
04-05-2018, 06:34 PM
STC Hunter B18C Stock Block DC2 Street/Track Build
I live like 15 min from DB.
Awesome, that's great to hear! That sounds pretty gutsy. I guess I'm not doubting the equipment I have at all, it's just in the case of something going catastrophically wrong I'm pretty boned.
I swear half the time I forget to switch my helmet from grind to weld. I get flashed then I can't see where I'm welding and screw it up. I'll get there though. By the end of doing the downpipe I was getting pretty good at it, and cutting tube nice and straight.
