I'm currently dealing with some gremlins... I'll post my story at the bottom but here's what I want to hear from everyone else...

Has your car ever had some kind of mechanical/electrical/suspension problem that you just couldnt figure out? It could be a rattle in the interior... a random misfire.. a code that comes and goes when it feels like it, a suspension clunk you couldnt find etc... and then one day you finally figured it out and it was at that point the best day of your life? What was it? Share your story!!!!

... well I want that feeling too.. and maybe your experience will help me feel that way

The story with my car is this.. it just doesnt pull like it should.

Passed leakdown and compression with flying colors, mechanically it is 100% Just had valve lash as well.

Has some basic bolt ons (JDM 4-1, aem intake, wires, TP, sk2 pro 1's/gears, s200, etc) and it has been tuned 2 times now and neither time has seen much success. It made 145whp the fuel filter, plugs, oil change etc.. all the obvious things have been replaced at least once...

The car is using the ckf bypass trick but I dont think that would be causing the problem.

My next steps to find the missing power are going to be...

(comptech icebox and RMF narrow replica are on the way but I dont believe the intake or the header is the issue)

Spoon TB for the sake of the map/tps.. i have checked the tps and it seems fine
Intake air temp sensor OEM
Hondata intake manifold gasket
02 sensor NGK
Oil pressure sender for the idiot light (I dont have one :/ ) OEM
Plugs.. again NGK R's
Last but not least... might be forced to buy another dizzy... that makes me sad cause I would like to stay OEM but that's big bucks I've spent 10k on this car in the last month bringing it back to life and I'm very frustrated... this business of fixing other peoples hack jobs is starting to get depressing.

I dont think it is the dizzy because it came off a very healthy motors... but it has a fair bit of the red dusty goodness inside... spun pretty nice by hand? I just dont know...

Anybody got any ideas for me. Consider that both places that did the tune didnt notice anything funny or acting up... everything seems fine and there is no codes... timing has been checked over and over.

i just want my ITR to go as fast as it should... right now I would probably get slaughtered by a stock EM1.

Jason

 

I should also mention that my PCV case on the back of the engine is just capped off.. so the only venting of crankcase pressure is the one from the valve cover to the intake. I never really thought much of it and had planned to get my hands on the appropriate honda OEM hoses to put it back to stock. Anyone think that might have something to do with it?

 

i had one on my type r , it would make this grinding sound when i applied the brakes so i changed pads rotors and didnt fix it i didnt know what the hell the problem was . so one day i decided that i would look again and what i found was that that little metal shim that goes on top of the brake pads was bent just right so that when i hit the brakes it was rubbing on the rotors

im haveing another one tho my car ghives off a retarded amount of brake dust and i hate it ive changed my pads to ebc green stuff but that didnt help you guys know of anything

 

Sorry to hear about that BoarderFatty. All tuners have hit this wall at one time or another. What year is your car? Just curious.. not that it would have anything to do with your problems. If this car has been mucked with that much before you got it make sure someone didn't swap out the cam for a GSR cam or something. I've seen that shady trick before. What does the car run like at idle etc? Are you getting any codes?"

 

if it makes you feel anybetter, my itr is always sick
soon as i fix one thing another thing gets f***ed up
and right now my vtec not working

 

That's right. People even take the R pistons out and put GSR or even LS pistons on the block, swap the R's head with a regular B16 head, take out the R's cams and put B16 cams in, etc, etc.... Shady people $uck!

 

Same here. I fixed an exhaust leak and I blew a headlight ballast.

 

Do pads and rotors all around and go OEM... i just did the same thing and couldn't be happier. Even going to the oem nippon pads will help, but if your rotors have a ridge on them that is going to make the new pads create a lot of dust at least for the first little while, if not forever. I was so sick of the brake dust from my endless cc-x pads...

As far as my car is concerned, it has the following parts... all confirmed by me.

15k on RDOT acura short block b18c5
Freshly decked PR3-3 ITR head with new valve seals from another engine... my old head was toast.
Skunk2 pro 1 cams
Spoon gen2 cam gears
AEM SRI (not the best, icebox on the way)
Spoon throttle body
Golden eagle pro rail
OEM injectors
B & M regulator
OEM dizzy in good shape as per todays inspection/ NGK wires (new) and plugs (new)
JDM 4-1 header
Blox test pipe
Apexi ws2 exhaust
ACT clutch and flywheel
Tuned on S200

Cam gears at IN +1 EX +2
Prior set up of the gears was 0 IN +4 EX and I think it was better then... I might go back to that setup. We've played with the cam timing on the dyno a fair bit.

The car feels more or less exactly like it did before I did the new head/cam/tune. When it had ITR cams, jdm ecu, and head with a bearing falling apart it pulled just as hard as it does now. Having said that though, from day one the car has never felt as fast as it should have been and was in terrible shape when I got it.

Maybe ITR's are just so heavy and I'm used to having light chassis cars with swaps? Cause even my EG with usdm GSR and no mods feels waaayyyy faster than this car.

Any ideas?

Jason

 

I had a similar set up as you and I faced 2 things when I went to dyno the car.
1)I had a nasty Vtec lump from a "replica" header
2)I lost power due to a lack of fuel.

I would ask the tuner how your injectors and fuel pump are holding up. I would also like to see the dyno sheet.
Have you asked the all motor section? They are very knowledgable as well....atleast some of them are...<Shrug>

 

Mine has had the chicken pox before from a beach trip (pictured below) but I don't think it's had the flu yet.

 

I'm having the same problem with my r. Except mine is In a civic coupe. Compression looks great and it runs great no smoke or anything out of the ordinary. Im on stock p73 ecu. I'm thinking mine prolly makes abt 145hp the same as you because I ran it at the track the other day and all I could manage was a slow 15.0 @ 90. The type r in the heavier integra chassis runs way better than that.

 

Well, when you figure it out send me the cure hahahah FACK

I'm gonna try to get another good tuning shop to go through it and see what hey can do with degreeing in the cams/new map.. after I get the icebox and the new header on :D Wish I just knew what was wrong with it already

RC injectors only come in obd-1 plug form correct? I would love some 370cc drop in for obd-2 style clips...

 

Did you check your FUEL PRESSURE yet? My car with I/H/E/Cams put down 152whp. You should crack the nut open on your fuel filter and see if any fuel squirts out.

 

152 wheel. I thought they put out 200 flywheel and around 175-180 wheel.

 

Was there something wrong with your fuel pressure?

I have a gauge on the rail and the injectors would have been at a very high duty cycle if that were the case.. I think they were around 70% duty cycle.

 

In regards to the RC's, yes they are only available with a OBD1 style tang off the injector, however most shops offer Plug-N-Play Jumpers that allow you to install them on a OBD2 vehicle with no cutting or wiring.

Few questions for you:

What are your cam gear adjustments at? What compression pistons? What is your valve lash at? Who tuned the car? Is the catalytic convertor still on?

 

Apexi ws2 exhaust that could be one reason....

 

Car was tuned by a reputable shop...Stock usdm ITR bottom end... cam settings are at the top of the thread... teat pipe.

Its strange that with the mugen ecu on my car it ran a lot better than the hondata tune so that tells me its in the tuning for sure at least a bit.

I'm thinking the next time it's on a dyno I will try a run with just test pipe back and then back to back run with the exuast on and see the difference.. I had a ws2 on my EM1 with jdm b18c and it didnt seem like it was robbing power that bad... and I had a cat for gods sake lol.