Long time since the last update, but I’m still here. We’re only 4 weeks away from the start of a new race season, and I’ve been getting the Integra ready.
My dad scrounged up an intake and header for us to try this year:
The brake pads were toast after about 6 hours of track time:
Fresh ones:
I felt that the rear suspension was too low on the car, but the coilovers were at the top of their adjustment. I was thinking of buying some longer springs, but it’s hard to find them longer than what I have with the right spring rate. So, my father-in-law built me a set of spring spacers that we’re trying out this year.
Saturday morning was very wet, and the track was really slippery. I had a few brown underwear moments in practice and qualifying, including almost hitting a Porsche 911 when he slid into the wall in front of me.
For my Saturday afternoon race I started first on the grid since the high powered guys couldn’t get their power down in qualifying. The track dried out for the race, though, so I got passed by a couple of guys in a higher class. Other than that, it was clear sailing for me to get 1st place in my class. Great result, but not a very interesting race to watch :-).
I had two races on Sunday. In the first race, I qualified first in class but the guy who qualified second had a way better start and beat me to the first corner. I was on him for the first half of the race, but then my engine started cutting out in corners. I had to bring it in, and it turns out I had a hole in my gas tank that was leaking fuel!
We fixed that up and I started my second race second in class. A few laps into the race I was closing in on the first place guy when he missed a shift. I had to swerve to miss him and ended up going off track and losing two places. I got one back before the end of the race, but the first two cars were too far gone to catch.
Still, really happy with the results overall, and looking forward to racing again this weekend!
BLKACK1, The spring spacers work ok. They haven’t seemed to affect the handling too much, but haven’t caused any problems either, so I’m leaving them on for now. Sometimes they don’t settle right away when the rear is jacked up and let down, but that’s about the only negative. Maybe I’ll get some new top hats machined that are taller so that I don’t need the separate spacer, but for now I’m satisfied.
Yea, pulled that same move at the end of the front straight during a wet track day with Jeff Remferd and his Datsun 2000 a few years ago, I was sliding, no control and no stopping but luckily I chose the outside also and ended up right where you did. Scary!!!
Did another 2 race weekends since my last post. Finished 2nd in 4 out of 4 races. I just don’t have enough speed to challenge the fastest CRX at the track right now. He’s got a car that is extremely well set up and tuned, and he keeps on getting better as a driver as the year goes on. Not sure what I can do to step my game up a notch, but I’m going to have to find something if I want to get another win this year.
Our next race weekend is coming up on August 7-8, and it’ll be the biggest one of the year at Mission Raceway. It’ll be an awesome weekend to visit the track. Here’s why:
“Children’s Charity Grand Prix”
Some of the fastest road racing cars in the Pacific Northwest battle starting 2:30 PM Sunday August 8. This is the biggest road race of the year at Mission Raceway.
“Honda Challenge”
Two races featuring Hondas and Acuras ranging from Civics to Integras to S2000s competing on the track. There will be at least 3 G2 Integras racing including my car and another 1992 GS-R. These races should feature some of the closest fought racing of the weekend. We’ll be racing Saturday at 5PM and Sunday at 1 PM.
“Hot Laps 4 Kidz”
Show up in the morning on Saturday or Sunday, make a donation to Children’s Charity and get a ride on the track during the lunchtime break in the exotic car of your choice. Don’t miss this chance! Last year looked like this:
Only two weeks to go until the Children’s Charity Grand Prix. See two posts up for details.
Went to the dyno last weekend. Numbers were around what I expected, but less than what I was hoping for, of course. We had to end our session early due to something in the clutch breaking and leaving it permanently engaged, but managed to get an improvement of 6ish horsepower from 5500 rpm on up to redline, which I was pretty happy about.
The red HP curve is the stock ECU, the green is the S300 base map that I was using, and the blue is where ended up when the clutch went.
The biggest gain we got was from retarding the timing 4 degrees. Moving the VTEC engage point up from 5000 to 5200 helped fix that dip in the power curve too.
Anyway, I know I’m low on power compared to what a professional engine builder could get out of the same parts, but I’m happy that I managed to get some improvement. Hoping the results on the track will be good.
“ractive superflow system” filter-on-a-stick
DC Sports 4-2-1 header, glass pack & turndown for exhaust
Compression at 10:1 from shaving the head
Hondata intake gasket
Crank scraper
Hondata S300
A/C removed
No other power-related mods.
I was planning on trying an open header run to see if the exhaust is costing me anything and I also was going to test a few different intake lengths to see if that would make any difference, but the clutch went before I got to that point.
There’s probably a few ponies you can squeeze out here and there, but it’s not going to make much of a difference till you get some other internals. Compression ratio is the big one, it’s nice that it’s higher than stock, but I think for any NA B series you want to be near 11:1. You can definitely go higher, but that compression is a really safe one at which you can still make great power. Obviously cams would be the next big one. At that point you’ll be needing more airflow and you’d be seeing better gains from parts that would improve that (intake manifold, better header…etc)
Getting more power is one of those difficult things where you are constantly confronting a new “weak link” in your build. And if you’re replacing parts which aren’t the weak link, or are getting parts ideal for a more extensive build then you’re not getting the full potential for that part. It’s a vicious cycle.
More cam and compression would be the easy ticket to more power, but I’m really restricted by the rules I race under.
Stock cams only.
Stock intake manifold.
No cold air intakes, short rams ok.
Headers and exhaust allowed.
Allowed to go 1mm oversize piston, but must be identical to stock in all other dimensions, including weight. For the B17, that means having them custom built, because there’s nothing available that meets those requirements. Even Honda doesn’t stock their 0.25 mm oversize piston for the B17 anymore.
Can add a maximum of 0.5 compression from shaving the head and the oversize pistons.
Can do “port matching” on the head and manifold, which is porting within 1" of the face where the manifold bolts to the head.
I know of an engine builder that’s hit 167 whp on a B17 under those rules, but I don’t have anywhere near the amount of money I’d need to have him build me an engine.
