Hello Ladies and Gentlemen (and the rest of you too).

I have a 91 GS that I am going to be racing in a long term endurance race. What inexpensive and effective mods can be done to the car? I can't spend too much on it and the car will probably get destroyed.

I have a budget of about $300 for motor upgrades.

Cams are out of the question at this point. Head work probably won't happen either depending on cost....

I have some inexpensive headers on it, no cat, cai, and thats about it.

What Engine Control Systems actually work? I can't believe that the $6 "chip" on ebay will do anything.

Do adjustable cam gears work? Can't go too far on the timing advance as I want to keep it on pump gas (91 here in Cali).

I'm not looking to turn it into a 300+whp car. If I can pick up a few hp here and there then I am game for that.

Again, the car is going to be brutalized on the track.

Is there anything else I can do?

Thanks!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by lemonteg &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">...I am going to be racing in a long term endurance race....

I have a budget of about $300 for motor upgrades.
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If you're only spending $300 and going to do an endurance race, I'd vote brakes, front/rear wheel bearings, and axles for $500.

Otherwise, for $300, I'd replace the cap and rotor, spark plug wires, spark plugs, air filter, water, oil, t-stat, and run through the wiring for anything that could come loose.

 

Good call. With $300 you're not going to get much if any noticable power. Get the thing running great and ensure that it will last all three hours.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ProMotiveConcepts &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Good call. With $300 you're not going to get much if any noticable power. Get the thing running great and ensure that it will last all three hours.</TD></TR></TABLE>

thats what i was going to say. spend the money to keep it running. like you said it will likely get destroyed. spend the money to make it last the whole race, that way it'll be more fun for you, sitting in the pits with a broke down car isn't near as much fun as driving.

 

Excellent advice.
So, lets say I had done all of that and still had $300 left in the budget for "performance" items for the motor's performance (not the suspension). Is there anything that will make a noticeable difference for that amount of cash?

 

Shawn Church and Doug Macmillan (Hondata) tried a LOT of different stuff when tuning my stock-cammed B20 a couple of years ago. They found exactly ZERO gains by playing with the cam timing on the stock cams. With the BC Stage-IIIs cam timing made a big difference. But not with the stockers.

I agree with the others. Spend your $300 on pads and rotors. Or tires. Or beer. In a night time enduro, $300 worth of lighting improvements would probably yield better lap times that anything you could do to the engine.

If, however, you're determined to spend it on the engine, see if you can find a dyno/tuning shop with an emulator and give the thing a proper tune. Then they can burn you a GOOD chip that'll give you're engine exactly what it wants. I don't know who in Fresno is up to the task, but if you travel to SoCal, either Church Automotive Testing or Bisimoto would do it right.

 

Being that this sounds like you are doing the 24 hours of Lemons, I would worry about engine reliability and suspension soundness before even considering spending money towards improving engine power levels. Since tires, wheels, and brake components are safety items they don't count against your budget so you don't have to sweat those and spend whatever you wish on them. Make sure the transmission, axles, and bearing are good. 3M Windoweld all the transmission/engine mounts, and change out fluid in the tranny at a minimum. Check the clutch and clutch cable to make sure they are in good shape.

New spark plugs, cap, and valve cover seal (if original is in bad shape) would be good to do. I'd highly suggest replacing the stock rubber exhaust cam seal with an aluminum/silicone O-ringed Arizona Race & Machine cam seal and RTV'ing the valve cover and seal very well to seal it up to the head for zero leaks up top (adjusting the valves before you seal it would be a good idea too!). Make sure the coolant system is as good as possible (good hoses, good thermostat, and radiator in good condition). To get a more responsive motor, get rid of everthing upstream of the airbox, use 3" diameter dryer hose or similar cheap solution to route air from the bumper lip to airbox bottom intake, and replace the air filter with a K&N, or cover the airbox intake with metal mesh screen and something like cheesecloth if the budget is tight. To get a more responsive suspension 3M Windoweld the rear trailing arm bushings if they are totally shot - works great with the stock anti-roll bars. If the shocks are really worn out I would look for some better condition used Tokico Illumina/ KYB AGX shocks on ebay...If that fails step down to used Tokico Blues/KYB GR2's.

For basically free you can get rid of the powersteering and depower your rack to minimize that failure point (the DA powersteering provides no assitance above 30mph anyways...). And do everything you can to keep the brakes cool...that is the weak point on the DA....front brakes get cooked! Need to get the cars weight down as low as possible as well. 2300lbs or less would be a good target.

Also sell whatever you can off it and get money back into your budget. Sell the moonroof (has to come out anyways since it's glass), any good interior pieces, rear window wipers, etc...


Modified by Vracer111 at 12:58 AM 2/8/2008

 

Are all the performance stuff that you want to do legal within the sanctioning body's rules?

 

Excellent info Vracer!!!!

We have already sold a bunch of stuff but I never thought of the moonroof. Great idea.

Anyone else need parts from a 91 GS?

We have the basic tune up items taken care of. I did not do any shocks, etc. Safety items are not charged against us, you are correct.

So, the axles are a weak point as well?

A/C is out but we havent pulled the power steering.

We will make some sort of ducting for the front brakes for sure.

How do you do the 3M Windoweld? Take the bushing out, goop it up, let it dry and replace it?

Thanks Thawley. I go North more often than South but that may put us over budget. I'll call some shops and find out...

So from Vracer and Thawley it sounds like there is not much else you can do to the stock engine without going big.

Does anyone know if putting a resistor in the intake air temp sensor will add 2 degrees of advance to the timing like it does on some other small motors? Is that even worth doing?

Thanks again.

 

I don't have much experience with CV shafts other than Raxles I know from this forum that Genuine Honda CV driveshaft in good condition are good. Maybe pickup a spare set of CV shafts at a salvage yard to have a spare set if you have budget for it?

For the 3M windoweld, you wash the bushing/mount and clean it with mineral spirits. Then you place the windoweld tube in a caulk gun and build up from the inside out on both sides...it's pretty thick stuff. Make sure to wear gloves though...kinda of hard to clean it off your hands. I then take a hair dryer and go over the pieces until the surface firms up (takes a while...probably 30 minutes). Then let it sit for 24 hours and you're good to intall it. If it's a rear trailing arm bushing instead of letting it cure I would stick it on the vehicle right away and let it cure with the suspension loaded.

Picture of a new transmission mount with windoweld:




Modified by Vracer111 at 10:40 PM 2/8/2008

 

I'm having trouble finding used struts.
Any ideas? Anyone want to part with theirs for an upgrade?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by lemonteg &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Anyone else need parts from a 91 GS?
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do you need the tranny? can I trade you a GSR for it?

 

Lemonteg-

You don't need to do anything motorwise to the integra. We recently (while oct. 07) we raced a 92 integra gs 24hours at altamont. We were not the fastest but we surely were one of the "faster" cars on the track.

**Remember what ever you can sell off the car can be reinvested back into the car.**

Our mods were minimal at

Engine
* intake (made from old diesel truck exhaust)
* headers (traded for some really dented cheap ones)
* Removed rear section from stock exhaust
* 3m window welded motormounts

Suspension
* Old SkunkWorks coilovers (with cracked sleeves)
* KYB GR2 shocks (came on the car)
* ST rear sway bar bought for $70

Braking
* autozone front rotors
* hp+ pads front and rear
* ATE Blue brake pads

Saftey
* 6 point cage with drivers side nascar bars
* Cobra Monacco seat
* Impact 5 point harness
* Autopower window net
* 2.5 lb. Fire extinguisher

What track are you running this year?

We might see you and it would be nice to have someone out there with the same car.


-Jon

 

Thanks.

Ebay has a lot of super cheap knock off stuff. I don't know about the performance/quality of a lot of it. They have no-name imported suspension parts but I dont know if that would make it better or worse.

I'll keep searching for used stuff....


We are running Altamont. How long did you run each driver? seems exhausting....

 

Not gonna try a tranny swap at this time.

Thanks.

 

We started at 50 minutes each driver and then went to about 1:20 or so per driver.

 

I have some used EG struts without top hats (free)............. i live very close to the altimont. This sounds like alot of fun!