Finally Getting My Turbo Set Up Going

ASSISTANCE Forced Induction
281

Thanks.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on here…oops. Not much has happened anyway. Car has been down for a few weeks due to the catch can filling up and overflowing =[ I did a compression test, all was good and I found out it was due to the breather fitting on the rear of the block. Things are garbage and useless. They suck up more oil than a hooker sucks…you get the idea. Anyway I came up with a way to to modify the stock pcv breather box that hopefully will work.

I welded on a big 3/4th barb fitting (-12an equivalent) to run to the catch can, and then welded a block off plate for the other hole that was there.


I’m hoping since this box is baffled it will keep the oil in the block where it belongs and not suck it up into the catch can.

I finally got around to making my own secondary belt “tensioner” as well. I didn’t feel like spending 150-200$ on a real one so made this one for $5. It’s far from pretty and my aluminum welds are about as ugly as possible, but it’s functional. Due to the head being milled the distance between the crank and cam gears becomes slightly shorter which means the timing belt has a small amount of slack left in it even when properly adjusting the stock timing belt tensioner. This secondary “tensioner” isn’t really for tensioning the belt. It’s just there to rest up against it and prevent the belt slap/smack that occurs due to the small amount of excess slack. I didn’t do a before or after video, but there are examples on youtube




Should have the car back up and running this weekend and find out if my little engineering projects have worked…fingers crossed

282

thats interesting man. if it works it works haha

283

Yep…it works lol. Not pretty though, but seems to be functioning as intended. I put the black box on today and hooked it up to the catch can. All seems good with it, but I wont really know until I drive it for awhile and see what collects in the can.

Decided to get a sound clip of me revving while I was checking for leaks

//youtu.be/ud7QABBcvl4

284

sounds so good man!

285

Thanks.

So I decided to put my big boy pants on today…

Ever since doing this whole turbo setup I’ve wanted to be on 13psi. I said anything less than 10psi and why even bother. Well I’ve been on 6psi this whole time pretty much for one reason…I didn’t trust myself enough to tune it to 13. Well I decided to get over that. If it’s gonna blow up on me I’d rather it happen on the boost I want rather than a low boost setting. I did this whole thing for 13lbs, It’s time for me to finally see what that feels like.

I put in my 13lb spring and Omni 3 bar map sensor. Last night I tried to set up my tune for the new map sensor and failed so luckily I had a friend who was nice enough to help me out aka do it for me lol. I fired the car up on it earlier and everything seemed just the same as before which is great. I’m sure I will have to adjust the fuel tables here and there and will definitely have to work with the boost portion of it. Hopefully that wont take too long…if it ever stops raining!!! >=[ Weather has sucked here. Nice all work week, rains on the weekends. Fingers crossed though this weekend is nice.

286

dude yes! haha i feel like i wouldn’t have the guts to tune a car myself. it just seems tedious and anything bad could happen easily. i don’t have a boosted car(yet) but whenever i try and take on that challenge, i would like to learn how to. but yeah man, i can’t wait for this! props to you and your boy for giving you a hand

287

Props on the build and thanks for the help on the other page

288

Well thanks man. Tuning can be a major pain or it can be fairly easy. All depends on how quickly you learn how it works, and what tuning program you’re using. Hondata is a walk in the park compared to what I’m having to do. I’m still on crome and in order for me to make a change I have to pull the chip out of the ecu, hook it up to my desktop in the house using a chip burner, adjust what is needed, put the chip back in the car, go test drive, if it’s not right come back home and repeat that process till it is lol. It suuucks. Not so bad when it’s not summer time though. Doing that when it’s 100+ outside blows. I gotta get hondata SOON!..and a laptop that doesn’t have to stay plugged into a wall.

I’d say though learning to tune n/a would be easier than boosted. I’ve been tuning my car like that since 2012 after I took it to the worlds worst tuner who couldn’t even figure out how to get it to idle properly.

Thanks man. No problem. Trying to figure out which way to do something or how to do something you’ve never done can be overwhelming. Just keep the design simple. No need to over engineer

289

yeah man it definitely seems like it could get tricky and that does suck that you have to come in and out of your house to check your tune time and again haha. must be a lot of work. but i’m sure it’s worth it man! once we see 13 psi it will all make sense haha

290

Well the tuning hasn’t been much fun the past two days. Didn’t expect it to be. I had a few issues I had never faced before…

First off. I fired the car up, and started driving it down my street for the first time on the new map sensor. All was good, afr seemed good at light throttle. About 5 minutes later (still in my neighborhood) I decided to get on it just to see where the afr would go. As soon as I did that the cel flashed about 10 times real fast and then the car stalled out. I pulled over in front of someones house and went to check the code. When I got down and looked at my ecu I noticed it was wet. So I took the cover off and it was full of water =[ Apparently when I had washed it the other day water leaked in. It’s never done that before, but I was pretty much flipping out at this point. I took the ecu out…poured it out, and as I was doing so someone pulled up into the driveway at the house I was at. I told them the situation and they were nice enough to offer to take it inside and hit it with a blowdryer to dry it off. Once it was dry, I put it back in, said a big thank you to the guy for helping me and the car fired right up without issue. I was shocked I didn’t blow any fuses or fry the ecu. I feel I got lucky on that, and that someone was willing to help me.

Later that night I was going about my business tuning doing my normal process and finally got to the point I could get into the new boost range. Well…I hit 8psi and the car fell on it’s face, sounded like it was making popcorn, and then went super rich. I knew immediately that it was spark blow out. So I came home gapped my plugs down to .28 and went for another pull. Unfortunately the results were the same except now at 10psi. So I gave up for the night. I was tired.

Now today. I started out by gapping down again to .24. Leaned the car out a bit more and tried again. This time success! No more spark blow out and I hit full boost. Full boost should of been 13, but my gauge is reading right below 15. More than I wanted, but I’m ok with that. I still need to lean it out quite a bit to get the afr up where I want it, but other than that everything seems to be ok.

Here is a clip while I was tuning. It was suupper rich when I did these pulls. Afr in boost should be around 11.8 not 10.0 lol

//youtu.be/tzxAQQDojx0

291

Sounds mean, man.

292

Thanks.

Well sad news, car can’t handle that much boost =[ Let me rephrase that, the clutch can’t handle that much boost. At 14-15 lbs anything above 5500 and the clutch just lets go and slips like crazy. It’s an Exedy oe disc and pressure plate and exedy light weight flywheel. I’m not sure what the torque rating is on it or how much i’m making, but it’s too much apparently. I put that clutch on in 2011 and it has less than 10k miles on it so I know it’s not bad. It just can’t handle that much torque. Funny to say something can’t handle the torque coming from a b16 lol

On a side note after it started slipping last night I lost all my gears on the way home. Pedal felt weird, I couldn’t get it in or out of the gears. Thought the clutch was toast. Got home, popped the hood and noticed this. The bolts on the hydro to cable conversion kit had backed out and the whole thing was wobbling around. I was thinking no wonder I couldn’t grab any gears. I’ve never had that happen before and that thing has been on the car for 4 or 5 years. Strange and weird new issues keep coming up lol. I tightened it back up and the clutch felt great after that. Went right into gear and I was able to drive it in my garage.

My plan now is to run less boost until I can afford to upgrade the clutch. I’ve got a friend who has a 10lb spring he’s gonna let me use. If the clutch still slips on 10lbs then I will put it back on 6. Fingers crossed it’ll hold 10. Wont know for a few weeks. Car is gonna sit during the holidays. Got too much other stuff going on to mess with it. I’ll post back as soon as something new happens

293

more power you will need more supporting mods. clutch is deft 1 of them, and i think when you making bigger power its better to have a heavier fly wheel.

294

A clutch that can handle more power means up grading the axle which aren’t cheap at all.

295

True on the first thing. When I put the clutch on in 2011 I wasn’t expecting to have my car boosted so quickly afterward. The second thing…I’m not sure on that. I’ve heard it before that boosted cars need the extra weight on the flywheel, but I haven’t noticed any need for it. I didn’t notice any difference with rpms dropping faster or anything during shifts after I put the lightweight on. It’ll be something I keep in mind though whenever I do go to buy a new clutch

This is true. Wouldn’t want to be doing any launches or dig runs on stock axles with a lot of power. My car wont ever see a track as long as I own it though. No launches, no dig runs. Any type of extra activities it sees will be above some agreed upon speed limit. I shouldn’t have any issues with axles snapping at speed. If I do, I’m making too much power for my own good.

On to the updates and not so plesent surprise I found in my car today

So I went ahead and pulled the manifold and turbo off to replace the gasket (manifold to head). The oem one I got from the honda dealer for my motor was complete junk. It’s had an exhaust leak on it since day one. It was only a single layer for some reason and was terrible. I got a Cometic 3 layer gasket to replace it and hopefully that one will seal properly. If not, I’m gonna guess that the flange on my manifold isn’t perfectly flat even thought it appears to be when checking with a straight edge.
I haven’t actually put it on yet. Just took things apart today to get it ready

After pulling the turbo and manifold off I decided to go ahead and replace the oil pan gasket. It’s the only thing that leaks on my car and it drives me nuts. I hates leaks!

The last time I pulled my oil pan off when I started this whole turbo setup I got an unpleasant surprise in the way of coolant inside of it. Well this time when I pulled it off I once again got an unpleasant surprise. This time in the way of this…

Yes yes those are bolts…in my oil pan. Oh and a nut too. All but one bolt was holding up the splash shield. The rest of the bolts and nuts fell into my oil pan. I don’t remember specifically torquing those down. It was months ago. I had torqued a lot of stuff that day, but whatever either way they came out. No big deal to me. It happened, I caught it. Rather it be that than the oil pickup bolts coming out or something worse. I went ahead and put some blue loctite on all of them and torqued them back on to spec. Everything is good now with that

After that I put the new oil pan gasket on which I got from Myhondahabit.com. It’s a composite gasket and stud kit. Supposedly much better over the normal rubber type that can and most always does squish out and leak. I read nothing but great things on other forums abouts it so hopefully it works.

Hopefully I can get the manifold gasket on and have it all put back together this weekend.

296

Wow, good thing you had to drop the oil pan again! That could have been worse!

I’m interested to see your results with the oil pan gasket. I’ve bern debating getting one of those instead of OEM since I always here they do a better job of keeping a seal than OEM. Good stuff!

297

lucky you pull of the oil pan. lol

298

[QUOTE=rollinmyda;2322958]Wow, good thing you had to drop the oil pan again! That could have been worse!

I’m interested to see your results with the oil pan gasket. I’ve bern debating getting one of those instead of OEM since I always here they do a better job of keeping a seal than OEM. Good stuff![/QUOTE]
Well I’ll let you know how it does. I put oil back into it, but haven’t fired the car up yet

lol seriously. I need one that’s see through…and clear oil lol

So last night I went ahead and put the Cometic manifold gasket on and put everything back together.

I haven’t started the car yet to see if the leaks have been fixed. I’m waiting on my new wastegate spring before I can put that back on

299

good luck man.

300

Thanks.

So after driving the car this past weekend I learned two things. One, the car officially has NO leaks anymore =]!!! I couldn’t be happier about that. And two, the car is staying on 6psi and going back onto the stock map sensor…=[

I’m gonna contradict myself here from what I said previously, but the realization has set in.

I wanted the car to be on at least 10psi. I said doing all this turbo stuff would be pointless at anything less than 10. Well…I change my mind. There are certain mods that just aren’t up to the task of handling 10+ psi right now. The clutch, the tires, and the biggest one of all…my tuning.

I know this is going to sound strange, but I was having way more fun with the car when it was only on 6psi. I didn’t have to worry about the clutch slipping. I didn’t have to wait until I was going fast enough to prevent the tires from spinning. On 6psi I could get on it at low speeds in 1st and 2nd gear and pull without issues and it was a blast. Upping the boost was just too much for right now. Obviously the clutch couldn’t handle it, but also not being able to get on it at low speeds because of the tires sucked. What’s the fun of only being able to really get on it at certain speeds or on certain types of pavement. 6psi I could get on it anywhere, anytime, any gear and it did nothing but put a big smile on my face.

Back to my point about contracting myself saying “it’s pointless to go through the effort of boosting the car to not have it on at least 10psi”. Like I said I’ve changed my mind. The point of boosting the car was to have fun and to enjoy it as much as possible. I want the car to put a smile on my face when I drive it. If that means running a lower boost pressure than I wanted, then so be it.

Now onto the issue of my tuning at higher boost. I’m not dumb when it comes to tuning. I clearly I don’t know everything and I never will, but I’ve had a few years of experience tuning my car n/a, then n/a e85, now boosted e85. It’s not all that complicated when the concepts are thoroughly understood. What makes it complicated is how you go about doing it. This pulling the chip each time and making educated guesses and adjustments just can’t cut it for higher boost levels. Things happen WAY too fast and without any real way of data logging to look back on each time, or seeing things in real time as I’m driving it’s damn near impossible to get it done with any real degree of accuracy.

I’m not knocking or blaming Crome for this. That is a good program and with all the proper equipment to impalement real time tuning and data logging I’m sure it would be a lot easier. I just don’t see the point in me buying all the needed stuff for it when I could just buy Hondata and it’s all in one package. That being said I’m throwing in my towel on tuning my car myself on Crome. :surrend: I’m just completely sick of having to do it the way I do. It’s time to buy Hondata.

It’s also time to part ways with one of my favorite and very special parts on my car…:pupeyes:

I’m about 90% sure I will be putting my RSR Exmag cat back up for sale soon. It’s the full stainless polished version.

It’s on the car still, but is doing absolutely nothing right now because I’m open downpipe. It’s too small for turbo applications and I think it’s a waste being on a car and not being used. I hate to get rid of it because its one of those items that’s so hard to come across, but at the same time I feel it deserves to get used. I feel its time to let someone else enjoy it as much as I did.

I’ve got a rough idea of what I can get for it, but I’m gonna pull it off and see what condition it’s in first.