Please let me preface these charts with my ordeal from this weekend!

I have had my Toda Spec B cams installed a few months now. At the time of installation, I was still utilizing the OE header & exhaust. I knew these were a bottle-neck power, but I was still unsure at the time as to what route I wanted to take; ie. SMS, HiTech, Spoon, Toda, etc. After the installation the car felt good. Even with the OE system in place I could tell a noticeable difference in power, especially low-end torque. Shortly there after, I decided to go with the SMS ITR 4-2-1 header. It just so happens I live within 2 hours of Dave and was fortunate enough to see the prototype header in action on B18CXr's car. Lucky me, I was actually first on the list to receive the ITR unit. After receiving the header I installed it and modded my OE B-pipe with a 2.5" section piping. The car began to feel like a different beast! After some on road testing I still just felt like the car wasn't at it's full potential yet. I discussed this with Dave and we both agreed that the car wasn't tuned, but that I had a serious bottle-neck still with the modded OE exhaust. It is at this time that Dave fabricated me a custom 2.5" system. Once that was installed the car pulled a lot stronger! Yet, after more road testing, I still just didn't see the results that should have. It is at this time that Dave and I began to discuss other potential problems my car may have that was limiting my potential gains. Now we get to this weekend!

I arrived in Charlotte this past Friday afternoon and headed straight to Dave's for a long pow-wow! We started looking at the obvious things; ie. exhaust leaks, tire psi, etc. and progressed to leak-down, plugs, etc. As we pulled the plugs, #4 looked very bad. The electrode was pretty gone and the bright white discoloration wasn't a good sign. As we performed the leak-down test on my 30k motor, we got the following results; #1 = 2.5, #2 = 3, #3 = 6, #4 = 2. Not good! We were getting some serious air coming out of the exhaust side. Just to let you know, it was 2 am by the time we rapped stuff up and I had an appointment to dyno at 9 am. We decided that I needed to check valve lash first and definitely get new plugs before heading out. Thanks go out to Willard for pulling off the 7am valve adjustment for me! It seems that my exhaust valves had been lashed too tight and not even a 0.1 mm feeler gauge would fit! In addition, the #3 intake valve was also too tight. I stormed out in route to the dyno feeling at least a tad bit better!

(Note: I was unable to repeat a leak-down test before leaving this weekend. It is undetermined if my valves or valveseats have substained damage to the fact of remaining open for over 6000 miles of use! )

My dyno guy, Tom of Precision Performance in Charlotte, is a master at reading plugs and said that it appeared that I had too much timing and that scorched the plugs. He gapped me some new Autolites (yes, you read that right) and gained me 2 whp/3 ft.lbs. Now on with the show!

After spending most of my early pulls testing plugs, timing, and cam settings, I ran out of time/$$ for additional fuel, cat vs test-pipe, and header length testing. The following plot is based on the following set-up:

00 ITR #510
Toda Spec B cams
Toda gears
VAFC (w/ B18CXr base settings) Thank you Jack!
Comptech Airbox (OE air tube)
SMS header
Jegs 2.5" cat
SMS 2.5" exhaust
Timing 16 deg.


As you can see the plot is pretty linear considering no additional time was spent on fuel tuning. Once again, I DO NOT know if the head has received any damage from the lack of lash for 6k+.

Near-future testing includes working on that 4-5k dip and testing a CarSound cat vs test-pipe. I already have a Toda valvetrain awaiting installation and a raised rev-limiter is in my future.

PS: For all those considering my Comptech Airbox choice, look at my other post!



[Modified by RStoR, 7:26 PM 7/16/2001]

 

Good improvement ... but there's a lot more power to be found.

 

I hope all is alright with the head. Good luck and happy tuning

 

Thought I'd throw this up too! This is my last dyno run vs. current set-up.

AEM CAI + 18 deg timing vs Spec B + SMS header/exhaust + VAFC + Comptech airbox

 

Can you share the V-afc setting??

Obviously i know each car is different, however, if I can just compare yours to see whats the variation between your setting and mine. Thats of course if Jack is fine with shareing v-afc settings.

Thanks

 

well your car is still slow...j/k, well I'm sure i speak for the rest of us when i say that i had a great time this past weekend and hope to see ya when i come up again to get my car tuned, Eric

 

So, if I'm reading this right, you got a bunch of whp with the Comptech Icebox?

 

~13hp gain from spec Bs, header, and exhaust - Definately needs more tuning! Hope ur valve lash thingy turns out to fine.

 

You need to up that redline ....... 190 right there WITHOUT even tuning it ....

Keep us posted!

 

I am getting my Toda B's/Valvetrain/ECU installed and tuned on Thursday. I hope I don't have these problems that you ran into.

 

what ecu?

After my install, I can almost guarantee you will run into something... Not to put a dampener on your efforts, but just be vigilant!

Tuning is #1.

 

Thanks for sharing the info. I'd also be interested to see what you have for VAFC settings, and I also realize that every car can be diff, even with same mods

I think a good lesson is to read your plugs fairly often. This is something I picked up from my NOS days.

I finally got my GSR sedan back the rebuild and Toda B Specs.

Car feels great, but I KNOW there is more to be had. I will baseline shortly. Even some minor tweaking with VAFC has helped a lot.

My setup: 95 GSR Sedan, Injen, Skunk Mani, RC 64 mm tb, Toda B specs, Skunk cam gears, Portflow/ITR valve springs, Ti retainrs, ITR valves, PortFlow PnP, JDM ITR pistons, Head milled 20 thousandths (compression ~11.8:1), Neuspeed 4-2-1 header (OUCH!), RT Cat, Greddy exhaust, RC 270 CC injectors, B&M FPR, JR Fuel pump, MSD ignition, NGK ZFR6F11 plugs gapped to 1.2 mm. Yoshio ECU with 9K rpm redline.

Anyway, my cam gears are at +1/-1.

On VAFC VTEC is 6800.

Part throttle is something like:
-15,-12,-10,-8,-5, - 3 then 0 to redline

WOT is something like:
-15,-10, -3,0,+3,+5 then +1 to redline

Does anyone else lean Part throttle and leave WOT rich? This "feels" best per the butt dyno.

Anyway, any input on my settings or sharing setting would be helpful.

BTW, I know my car is not an ITR, but the engine is "similar" lol.

FB

 

Your "ECU" and "270's" will effect the V-AFC settings greatly.......the WOT settings are easy to obtain, volt meter and a few long straights of Interstate, the partial settings...................this is were the work to get 33-35MPG on B's is done.

 

The ECU I am using is from a local tuner who has an ECU for SPEC B's. I also will be using a V-AFC.

General ???
Is everyone who has the B's satisfied? Is it worth the money and head ache? Thinking if I should sell mine.

 

Worth every penny......if you want to sell, hit me up.

 

The only thing, well, one of two things, about the WOT runs on the road, are that as the 02 heats up, the readings vary. It will get you close, a pretty good baseline, but not dialed in. Best bet, and I know Jack knows this, is the dyno with a proper A/F analyzer and a way toplot it against the RPM band.
The other, as everyone knows, law enforcement.


Jason

 

I run the Autolites In the shop truck (turbo b17a) and I love 'em.

 

I hear you

I'm gonna dyno with (hopefully) a wideband O2 that plots a/f vs rpm.

I did not know that about he O2 sensor heating up, this makes sense since as I stated here or in another thread, performance doesn't seem "consistent" all the time?

Oh well, can't wait to hit the dyno.

As for Spec Bs, I have ~1000 miles of break-in and every time I hit VTEC I think it's "worth" it. I say "worth" with quotes because if you knew all the problems, time, and money from my build-up, that would be significant. Yes, the car is not "that' fast, but it was all a learning experience....

Take care,

FB

 

Most impressive, and along the lines as to what I'm looking to achieve.

How do you like the catback? Hows the sound?

I'm liking the pipes and muffler and would like to know what you have to say. I have a Comptech full Icebox installed, Spoon 4-2-1 and carasound cat on order. I am planning on toda gears, a VAFC, Dyno time. Then a full Toda spec B cam and valvetrain setup coupled to an aftermarket catback and wanted to know how yours works.

Oh I also would like to know how much Dyno time you have had to spend so far?

Thanks, and let me know what you setup feels like compared to stock "and Don't just say F*ckin fast Dude!"
Hows the feel and idle for everyday use, Mileage? Any running/stalling problems? And who did what work for you Or did you do it all or was it a little of both?

Thanks from someone who will be following in your shoes soon,

A.

 

1GreyTeg~

Catback: I really do like it. My requirements for it were that it be semi-quiet, look stock, and be adjustable to match my header. Dave achieved all this and came in a great price! He offers the kit for around $360. The car is a little louder than stock under acceleration, but nothing like a lot of the N1 set-ups. It has seemd to open up a bit since I have some miles on it and have the car tuned a bit more though.

Dyno time: I have 12 runs on this set-up. Four of those runs were for plug testing and dyno errors; ie. no tq pick-up. I still need a few pulls to sort some more fuel issues out as well as testing a few parts.

Feel: Everyone's opinion is going to be different. Since getting the valve lash corrected the upper rpms pull a lot stronger than before. Toda's are known for low-end and you can tell that too. On the street I can shift at 3-4k with no pick-up problems. Power is very linear and VTEC is just a noise change now.

Mileage: I usually get about 25-28 in town and 29-32 on the highway. I got 29.5 this weekend after highway driving approx. 190 miles, doing 15 3rd gear highway pulls, and 12 WOT dyno pulls. Not too bad in my opinion for all the VTEC time.

Problems: The cams are temperamental with changing weather conditions. Stalling does occur in hot weather and the car spudders if you don't warm it up good in colder weather. In all, prepare to deal with it a bit. I haven't adjusted my idle screw which may help it. It seems that if you cut the AC on and elevate the rpms to 1k, no stalling problems occur.

Install:
Cams, gears, VAFC Jack (B18CXr)
SMS header Will (Willard), Jason (DarthVadeR), myself
SMS exhaust Pete (pest), myself
Airbox myself




[Modified by RStoR, 8:52 PM 7/16/2001]