I have a 1995 civic eg hatch that's gonna be boosted, however there is a problem. Before I started everything I tried looking up any local tuners that can tune hondata or any honda ecu, but there were 0 results. Every local tuner shop I are only muscle car tuners and 1 or 2 euro tuners, no honda tuners at all. Does this mean i can't even modify my honda that requires a simple tune, like a mod that requires a small tune (not talking about the turbo). Can someone suggest something to me please?

Thanks in advanced!

 

You have 2 options. Chipped ECU purchased from somewhere like phearable.net, or installing hondata or demon rtp unit. I am in a similar situation as you; no tuner within hundreds of miles.. I installed demon and have been tuning with Neptune all on my own. It's not incredibly difficult. And for simple mods.. Your ECU can actually compensate on its own for much of what you can throw at it that is not forced induction, in other words, chipping/tuning isn't really 100% necessary for anything less than boost applications.

 

thanks for responding. so will i still be able to boost and have a safe tune when doing it myself? or will it blow up?

 

This goes both ways. You CAN tune it yourself at risk of blowing **** up. Lol. If you're careful, you can tune it out pretty well. Dyno tuning is recommended for a more complete tune of your system but honestly, other than being able to hit specific engine loads, nothing else is done much differently than street tuning. You still need to monitor engine knock and all the **** you've gotta listen for, etc..
I HIGHLY suggest you start studying up on tuning. First, pick what program you will use.. Neptune, Hondata, etc.. Then start reading. You should learn what a/f you should shoot for, learn where your best ignition timing should be for those ranges, and so on. It is a fun learning experience for sure!
Now as my own disclaimer, it should still be taken as soon as relatively possible to be assessed by a proper dyno tune.

overall, can it be done? Yes. Is it totally safe? That part is wildly debatable..

happy tuning!

Edit.. The dyno will also determine where power is made and declines.. The dyno will let you know where you stop making power per the changes you're making to your tune.

 

Thanks for the suggestion

ill definitely do some research on tuning since there is no tuner near me. I hope having a rolling road(dyno) is a major factor though.

 

The dyno helps 2 ways. It makes it MUCH easier to tune your entire map by helping put load on the engine you may not otherwise hit (or not often) on the street. It also shows where you're making power. If you're making changes to your tune on the street, it is difficult at best to determine where you're making the most power, or where you start to lose it. You can **sorta** determine that just in the feel of the car, but its not definitive in the least. The dyno let's you see exactly where you stand per the changes made. In essence, it makes for fewer headaches in the tuning process

 

i wonder if doing pulls on a highway is the same as dyno pulls

 

Kind of a yes and no answer. While it does simulate road-like conditions, it can not factor for aerodynamics. In other words, airflow is not impacting your vehicle in the least while on a dyno. There may be some setting(s) in the programming that have some factors on this, but I wouldn't bet on it since that would be incredibly hard to calculate.

 

Hondata isn't a very hard system to learn off of. Just make sure you take it slow and understand the maps that you're going to be messing with. If you plan on doing this all yourself, I highly suggest you also purchase a good knock detection. Do not rely on the car's knock sensor. That thing works off of threshold values and you can actually knock a few times before triggering a CEL that'll prompt you to pull back. Under boost, a few knocks is going to be ugly real fast.

A dyno is best for dialing fuel and ignition in properly (2 degrees behind MBT), the road is the best to verify that your tune is going to work fine in real world situations.