Can someone give me definite answers for the following:

1. Throttle body - are ported/ tapered ones any better than stock? i.e. Do they make more whp in both near stock and modded itr's?
Popular names I have heard are Erick's and Spoon... Also, there are some proponents of boring the stock one...

2. Aftermarket calipers and big brake kits. Do kits like the Spoon, NSX, Endless, Project Mu, Mugen, and AEM actually shorten braking distance? Anyone tried these and what was the experience?

3. Intake manifold. Is there a good upgrade over the stock itr one? I know many people upgrade to the itr manifold or the skunk copy if they are using a b16 or b18c, etc... But what can we upgrade to? str and venom make high-flow units, but my understanding was that they were good for fi applications... And for those of us who want to keep fuel injection - so the itb solution is a little too extreme... Maybe port matching the intake manifold and head? Extrude hone?

Thanks.

 

Sorry that I don't have the answers but,

I too am interested and want some good technical expertise.
Whats the deal with the Spoon piece? I know it is 70mm or so but it tapers to the stock size so, does it hav any advantages or is it hype?

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thanks,

A.


[Modified by 1GreyTeg, 7:45 PM 9/2/2001]

 

Not really... They provide a little more air at lower rpms so it might seem that it's giving more power, but at WOT, it's almost the same. A fully bored out one may help, but only if you have enough modifications to the engine to flow and make use of that extra air and an intake with less restriction.
If you can lock up your brakes or engage the ABS in your R, you won't get better stopping distances with big brake kits. You can probably still lock up your car with racing compounds too with the stock brakes, but where the big brake kits come into play is when you're at a track and have to brake hard very often. 1. They provide better fade resistance to heavy braking. 2. They provide better modulation when braking at the limit. 3. They allow for more consistant pad wear. And if it's important to you, they're cool to look at.
The R intake manifold is pretty good. I wouldn't spend more money on that unless I'm going for a sheet metal manifold. I can't remember exactly, but someone does make it for the B series engines, maybe STR, someone tell me if I'm mistaken. ITB doesn't necessarily mean you're carburating the engine. You can have itb's and still keep EFI, but chances are that you'll need a new ecu or some sort of ecu replacement to go along with it to make use of the extra air and for fine tuning eg. Electromotive.

Port matching and just basic smoothing of the insides of the intake manifold are probably good idea if you can get machine work at a resonable price. Unless the person doing the work has NO idea what's he/she's doing, it shouldn't hurt.

 

Nice questions, sorry I can't help but...

I think the idea with the Spoon TB is that it increases the velocity of air through the TB, although when the velocity increases pressure drops so thats got me a bit confused. Maybe air pressure isn't as important as velocity and density in a N/A car?????

Help.

Sam

 

i hope i don't screw up here...

[quote]1. Throttle body - are ported/ tapered ones any better than stock? i.e. Do they make more whp in both near stock and modded itr's?
Popular names I have heard are Erick's and Spoon... Also, there are some proponents of boring the stock one... [/i]

tapering gives u better throttle response at most. more hp? not sure. like someone said, velocity increases (hence the throttle response issue), but there is no increase in volume? i thought about the pressure drop too... i wish i stayed awake in the fluid dynamics class back in college to remember what my teach said about that

you can bore it out, but only so much. http://www.illustrix.net is a local place to me that does it with a new throttle plate (and you have to port match to the manifold). u have to realize that if you go too big you lose the taper and air velocity with it. with forced induction it dosen't matter since the turbo is doing all the cramming of air into the motor, but with normally aspirated the motor has to do all the work itself, so at low rpms it would be left gasping.

i went from stock itr to nsx 2-piston to spoon 4-piston. aggressive pads in stock itr calipers can come close in stopping distances to a spoon (or similar), but what about repeated stops? under various conditions, like autox and road race? or just going down a hill? like others just said, pad wear, heat dissapation, and not to mention weight, come into play. i regret not weighing all my old calipers before selling them, but 2 spoon calipers with pads in them weigh less than one stock piston (an estimate from picking them up in each hand).

port matching is prolly the most cost effective choice. if your head isn't built i'm not sure if extrude honing would make any significant difference.

where's steve sakai? he should be answering this... unless his car went *poof* again hahaha

 

ttt

sgT?

 

what jimbob said,


itr mainfold is fine
brakes are fine (buy pads,lines,fluid, ducts)
TB is fine.

 

yaya, i know the stock stuff is fine...

But what I want to know is:

When do these things give you significant gains?

Throttle body, Intake manifold, brakes.

Does the price justify the gains? Spoon throttle body and brakes? Worth it? Significant change in performance? Intake manifold? I'm guessing if you have headwork, cams, etc...

 

1) the stock ITR t/b is pretty big, but porting it more will help, however the intake manifold needs to not only be matched to t/b opening but reshaped right before 4 plenums to conform to the new portflow ... therefore simply opening up wont help nearly as much as having the porter run benchflow patterns to correspond to the new port opening.

2) yes, but IMO, entirely useless if you dont upgrade the MC and booster.

3) the stock R is pretty good, only thing better is individual runners or porting the ITR manifold, screw what skunk2 says, all their manifold is is an ITR.

Greg

 

Believe me, I am nowhere near the limits of the stock suspension/ handling/ brakes... But I have seen a lot of threads about the Spoon, NSX, and Mugen upgrades... Bigger calipers do look nice, but will they significantly shorten stopping distances was my question. It seems like the best upgrade is the one said several times in the past: upgrade pads, fluid, ss brake lines, and remove dust shields. I didn't get any fading until a 20-30 minute session on the track, so with those mods I should be fine.

The other things I was more interested in - I have the toda b package with all the toda endorsed valve springs and cam gears; so I was wondering if other things will help me - such as the spoon throttle body and the ported and port-matched intake manifold and head. I guess it is just like we knew all along: It is a system and to upgrade one portion of the system won't do a whole lot without other parts of the system being modified to suit.

Thanks Greg.

 

I have the TODA B package with the Spoon TB. I can't say how much gain the Spoon TB give alone, since I install everything all at once!! The reason I brought the Spoon TB is because I used to have a B16A engine, and do not have a ITR TB in hand. And it is more expensive to buy a new ITR TB and bore it out to Spoon spec. Also, finding a used ITR TB is almost impossible!!

If you already have a TypeR, I would just bore out your stock one to 70mm and taper it. It will be the same as the Spoon one.