SINISTR
21-08-2007, 03:15 PM
I found this very interesting and usefull to say the Least. Hope you guys do as well...
Referenced from: http://rywire.com/store/faqdesk_info.php?faqPath=4&faqdesk_id=20&osCsid=efb8756b59cd6fee1478e7b6f124ff83
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1. Do not buy a fuel pump for your car unless your car meets these criteria. First, your car is over 300 Wheel Horsepower. Second, your car has an FMU (Fuel management unit) that comes with some turbo kits. It raises the fuel pressure on your car per each pound of boost, and your stock fuel pump won’t work. That’s it. Don’t buy a fuel pump unless you meet these 2 criteria. And if your forced to buy one, always get an in tank one, never an inline one that goes into the engine bay. Those are dangerous and should be avoided. The goal here is we want to keep the fuel system completely stock. Avoid the ridiculous fitting nightmare and the steel braid lines that come undone frequently, leak, and that cost a fortune. They do nothing but create problems. Stock doesn’t have any problems, so take advantage of it.
a. Always upgrade your injectors when you need more power, not your fuel pump. Generally, if you’re under 350 WHP you can get away with RC 550’s, fewer than 300 you can use RC 440’s, and fewer than 220 you can use RC 310’s. Stock Honda injectors from say a GSR or B16A can only make in the high 100’s with a fuel pressure regulator and it’s not recommended. RC 310’s are your best choice with a fuel pressure regulator if you don’t have management. You can turn down the fuel pressure until your air fuel is good again. With management, say Hondata, www.hondata.com it’s smart for any all motor car to get RC 440’s. Not 310’s. The 440’s can handle a turbo later, or can handle a much larger HP number if you go that way. They also have a way better resale demand and price used.
2. Never cut into your wiring on your wire harness unless you absolutely have to. When you’re going Hondata, you should not buy any other tuning devices such as AFC’s or anything like that, because they will not be of any use. They can even hurt you if you have the settings wrong. Do not hook them up at all if you know your going Hondata in the future. Leave your wire harness completely stock, and do not cut into it for anything. Keep it simple. Simple works. Simple is easy to diagnose if you have any problems, because what you didn’t touch will not be broken so you don’t need to even look there. You chop into your harness and your car is acting weird, you don’t know where to begin. If you do have to cut into the harness for some dumb reason, then solder all your connections and then put heat shrink wrap over your work to protect it. Don’t even play with your wire harness. You start playing with it, the pins on your plugs can be affected and then you have to break out the volt meter and a wire diagram to figure out what happened. It’s a headache that leads back to the rule of never cutting your stock wire harness. Follow this rule. Do it. Simple is king.
3. Stick with the stock ignition system unless you meet these criteria: First, if you raise your compression to say over 13:1, or you’re boosting more than 10 PSI you need a SIMPLE ignition system, such as a MSD and a coil, and MSD cap. High compression motors have a hard time with the stock ignition system at very high RPM (9k+) when the compression is through the roof. You’ll notice the car will sort of misfire or stutter when you get up in the RPM with very high compression without an MSD. As soon as you put the MSD, problem solved. Turbo cars around 11 or so PSI start to have the same problem. Now here is a lecture on the MSD and which one to buy and which one never to buy. Buy the simplest one that will get the job done. In most cases, this is the MSD 6A. That’s it. With a MSD coil. Nothing more. DO NOT buy the one with the ignition retard, adjustable rev limits, and all that fancy useless stuff. Your hondata does all that. DON’T GET IT. I can’t tell you how many problems with those I have seen. People think they set it up right and its retarding the ignition like crazy, or the rev limit is setup wrong, and on and on. It’s useless, don’t buy it. Get the simple one. It’s easy. Secondly, do not change your ignition wires and if you must, get the blue NGK wires that are just like stock. Also stick with stock distributor caps, rotors, and coils unless you absolutely have to get something else. Then its MSD 6A with coil and cap and that’s it. Simple setups, easy install.
4. Stay away from aftermarket crank pulleys unless you want maximum horsepower. Most aftermarket pulleys do not have the dampening effect the stock ones have with their internal dampener in them. And some of them are flat out hard to read when setting your timing. The lighter aftermarket ones are linked heavily to broken oil pumps because they don’t have the dampening of the heavy stock ones. Many people have had light pulleys, broke the oil pump and then put back the stock one and never had that problem ever again. ESPECIALLY on turbo cars that put more strain on the motor. Aftermarket crank pulleys will make more power on your motor, after all, they are lighter, less rotating mass is better for more power. However, here is my recommendation. Order up a Civic Type-R crank pulley if you want a lighter one, its stock, and your oil pump is way better off. Even the aftermarket oil pumps shatter, so that won’t save you either. Safer is better. Wait, the theme is “stock” is better unless you want to throw “risk” into your ten thousand dollar motor. Less risk is better, even if you’re 1 HP less.
5. Never purchase a head that is missing the cam caps, or the caps and head area is scratched up. This goes without saying, but it must be stated as crucial. When buying a head, put the cam caps on it before you buy it, and torque a set of cams down in there and make sure they spin, but are still tight. Then when you take the cams out, make sure you can’t catch an edge with your nail on the cam caps where they meet the head. This is a quick check to verify they are the original caps. The caps also might be a certain shade of color, make sure the head is the same color. Nothing like getting gold colored oil stained caps and the head is bright silver. Then you find the caps are not from that head and the seller is trying to pull a fast one. Junk yards are known for switching parts all over the motor and trying to pull a fast one. Its way too common. Take the time, and be a jerk about it when you’re checking it over. If the seller starts balking with “that’s not nec, trust me, or that will take too much time” then just leave right now, you’re being taken.
6. Never purchase a block without the crank caps, or if the caps and block are scratched up. Pay particular attention to where the thrust washers are. Make sure that part is perfect and not hammered or scratched. Then put the caps on and make sure where the caps meet the block, it’s not a ledge, like what we talked about with the head. If you can put the crank in, put the bolts on hand tight and try and turn the crank. It better turn. If it doesn’t walk away, your being taken. Also be wary when you’re buying a block and its bare. Why would it be bare? Try and get one that’s stock and assembled, so you can take off the oil pan and spin the crank and look at it. If it’s bare, you can’t check anything really, and it’s iffy. Also, pay close attention to the deck of it, bring a head stud and tighten it down in each hole, check the tranny bolt holes too. I see way too many blocks with stripped head stud holes. People are using B16A head studs on GSR, LS/VTEC’s and type-R motors thinking its working when all its doing is stripping every bolt hole because it’s too short.
7. Stay with the stock fuel rail if at all possible. I can’t tell you how many aftermarket fuel rails I have seen that are flawed, don’t fit right, have metal shavings in them or are generally just 1 big problem. What’s wrong with stock? You can make 600 + WHP on it? How much do you need? They don’t do anything the stock one doesn’t do for 99.9% of cars. Plus, notice the injectors sometimes don’t even fit right in the holes and you have to machine that too. Then you try to put it on the manifold and they almost never fit like stock, and you have to get bigger washers, or the like to get the angle right. There is not any practical purpose to them. Just use stock. In addition, you’re headed to the fittings store to buy a few fittings you would never need with stock. Count those 2 fittings as just another “risk” in your build, because they break, or leak worse than stock, which I have never seen leak or break. Sometimes the steel braid line will just fall off the fitting over time. With no practical purpose power wise, why would anyone want to put more “risk” into their 10 thousand dollar motor? Stick with stock.
8. Stay with stock cam gears unless you meet these criteria: If your cams are large, say for a GSR like 12+ MM lift with a lot of duration then you are allowed to get cam gears. You’re not buying the cam gears for way more power; they might only make 2 WHP in a small part of the graph, your buying them to reduce your valve to valve contact. This is a must when you have larger cams, such as Wicked Stage 2’s, Blox stage 2/3 or larger Skunk 2 stage 2 cams with oversize valves. You could have a situation where your valves touch each other with stock cam gears using oversize valves. You need to dial out the overlap buy advancing the exhaust cam gear to like +2 to avoid the valves touching. You need this to avoid a problem which can blow up your 5 thousand dollar long block. If you’re a turbo car, or an all motor car with mild cams, stick with stock, they work, they don’t slip, they don’t eat timing belts like some aftermarket cam gears do from a slight imperfection in the grooves in very few cases and it’s going to work. Furthermore, stock cam gears are much easier to install and know its top dead center on. Aftermarket cam gears can sometimes fool you. And you don’t know for sure if it’s manufactured perfect like stock. Then of course, the dreadful bolt coming out and falling down into the timing belt cover problem, which is rare. NO slipping problems with stock, it can’t slip, it’s not adjustable.
9. Stay with the stock water pump at all costs, advice on radiators too: We have dyno’d electric water pumps vs. stock, and we can’t tell if it makes even 1 HP. It doesn’t seem to make a difference. Leave the stock one. Don’t forget, your fuel map on your ECU works off water temperature. With the electric water pump, I have seen the water temperature fluctuate way too much, and you have to constantly turn it on and off. It’s such a hassle. For no purpose at all. There is one need for the electric water pump and that is for motors with deck plates or custom timing belt needs. You have to put fake water pump on that’s offset to get tension in the belt, so electric water pump is necessary. Also, leave in the thermostat in your car and don’t remove it. The only case to remove it is when your radiator is too small to work on the motor you have there. Sleeved blocks require larger radiators as well as turbo cars that run hotter. Dual core radiators are nec. If you have a single core radiator, one of the only ways to drive around without overheating is to remove your thermostat and just drive around with the fan on all the time. But this method does not work well because the water does not sit around the sleeves long enough to draw the heat it should, like a larger radiator would do operating normally. So get that thicker radiator.
10. WHATEVER YOU DO, USE A FUNCIONAL, STOCK HONDA GUAGE CLUSTER! Talk about problems. Your in for a nightmare if you hook up some ghetto gauge cluster than does not have a check engine light, oil pressure warning light, alternator light hooked up. Also an accurate tach and Speedo is critical. You need the tach to avoid hitting the rev limiter because that’s bad for the motor, and you need a Speedo to avoid speeding so you don’t get pulled over and it leads to thousands of dollars in fines and possible impound for most of you! Back to the check engine light. If you don’t have hondata, you can’t really see what’s wrong with your motor if you have a problem right? Well, its way harder. And way harder in English translates into frustration, time and no sleep which makes you crabby and irritable. This goes with my theme of keep it stock whenever possible. If your wire harness is not cut anywhere, and all your sensors are on the motor, you should not get a check engine light unless you have a true problem. With the check engine light, you can diagnose it and start working to fix it within 5 minutes or less. The check engine light is actually worth money to have working because about 15% of the cars I tune, which is a huge number, have had check engine lights. I was able to see what they are right away from the Hondata datalogging capability so it was a quick fix. But without it, the clock is ticking on the money you owe for the dyno. Every minute generally costs about 2 dollars. That’s 2 Big Mac’s every minute! I know you like Big Mac’s too, admit it. Back to the tachometer now. I was in a guy’s car, tuning it and it hit the rev limiter at 7600 on the tach. I immediately knew his cluster was not stock, because I had set the rev limiter at like 8800 RPM. This is a problem. A problem that could be avoided by using the stock parts and not putting on the fancy bullcrap aftermarket gauges from the wrong model on your tach!
Referenced from: http://rywire.com/store/faqdesk_info.php?faqPath=4&faqdesk_id=20&osCsid=efb8756b59cd6fee1478e7b6f124ff83
__________________________________________________ ____
1. Do not buy a fuel pump for your car unless your car meets these criteria. First, your car is over 300 Wheel Horsepower. Second, your car has an FMU (Fuel management unit) that comes with some turbo kits. It raises the fuel pressure on your car per each pound of boost, and your stock fuel pump won’t work. That’s it. Don’t buy a fuel pump unless you meet these 2 criteria. And if your forced to buy one, always get an in tank one, never an inline one that goes into the engine bay. Those are dangerous and should be avoided. The goal here is we want to keep the fuel system completely stock. Avoid the ridiculous fitting nightmare and the steel braid lines that come undone frequently, leak, and that cost a fortune. They do nothing but create problems. Stock doesn’t have any problems, so take advantage of it.
a. Always upgrade your injectors when you need more power, not your fuel pump. Generally, if you’re under 350 WHP you can get away with RC 550’s, fewer than 300 you can use RC 440’s, and fewer than 220 you can use RC 310’s. Stock Honda injectors from say a GSR or B16A can only make in the high 100’s with a fuel pressure regulator and it’s not recommended. RC 310’s are your best choice with a fuel pressure regulator if you don’t have management. You can turn down the fuel pressure until your air fuel is good again. With management, say Hondata, www.hondata.com it’s smart for any all motor car to get RC 440’s. Not 310’s. The 440’s can handle a turbo later, or can handle a much larger HP number if you go that way. They also have a way better resale demand and price used.
2. Never cut into your wiring on your wire harness unless you absolutely have to. When you’re going Hondata, you should not buy any other tuning devices such as AFC’s or anything like that, because they will not be of any use. They can even hurt you if you have the settings wrong. Do not hook them up at all if you know your going Hondata in the future. Leave your wire harness completely stock, and do not cut into it for anything. Keep it simple. Simple works. Simple is easy to diagnose if you have any problems, because what you didn’t touch will not be broken so you don’t need to even look there. You chop into your harness and your car is acting weird, you don’t know where to begin. If you do have to cut into the harness for some dumb reason, then solder all your connections and then put heat shrink wrap over your work to protect it. Don’t even play with your wire harness. You start playing with it, the pins on your plugs can be affected and then you have to break out the volt meter and a wire diagram to figure out what happened. It’s a headache that leads back to the rule of never cutting your stock wire harness. Follow this rule. Do it. Simple is king.
3. Stick with the stock ignition system unless you meet these criteria: First, if you raise your compression to say over 13:1, or you’re boosting more than 10 PSI you need a SIMPLE ignition system, such as a MSD and a coil, and MSD cap. High compression motors have a hard time with the stock ignition system at very high RPM (9k+) when the compression is through the roof. You’ll notice the car will sort of misfire or stutter when you get up in the RPM with very high compression without an MSD. As soon as you put the MSD, problem solved. Turbo cars around 11 or so PSI start to have the same problem. Now here is a lecture on the MSD and which one to buy and which one never to buy. Buy the simplest one that will get the job done. In most cases, this is the MSD 6A. That’s it. With a MSD coil. Nothing more. DO NOT buy the one with the ignition retard, adjustable rev limits, and all that fancy useless stuff. Your hondata does all that. DON’T GET IT. I can’t tell you how many problems with those I have seen. People think they set it up right and its retarding the ignition like crazy, or the rev limit is setup wrong, and on and on. It’s useless, don’t buy it. Get the simple one. It’s easy. Secondly, do not change your ignition wires and if you must, get the blue NGK wires that are just like stock. Also stick with stock distributor caps, rotors, and coils unless you absolutely have to get something else. Then its MSD 6A with coil and cap and that’s it. Simple setups, easy install.
4. Stay away from aftermarket crank pulleys unless you want maximum horsepower. Most aftermarket pulleys do not have the dampening effect the stock ones have with their internal dampener in them. And some of them are flat out hard to read when setting your timing. The lighter aftermarket ones are linked heavily to broken oil pumps because they don’t have the dampening of the heavy stock ones. Many people have had light pulleys, broke the oil pump and then put back the stock one and never had that problem ever again. ESPECIALLY on turbo cars that put more strain on the motor. Aftermarket crank pulleys will make more power on your motor, after all, they are lighter, less rotating mass is better for more power. However, here is my recommendation. Order up a Civic Type-R crank pulley if you want a lighter one, its stock, and your oil pump is way better off. Even the aftermarket oil pumps shatter, so that won’t save you either. Safer is better. Wait, the theme is “stock” is better unless you want to throw “risk” into your ten thousand dollar motor. Less risk is better, even if you’re 1 HP less.
5. Never purchase a head that is missing the cam caps, or the caps and head area is scratched up. This goes without saying, but it must be stated as crucial. When buying a head, put the cam caps on it before you buy it, and torque a set of cams down in there and make sure they spin, but are still tight. Then when you take the cams out, make sure you can’t catch an edge with your nail on the cam caps where they meet the head. This is a quick check to verify they are the original caps. The caps also might be a certain shade of color, make sure the head is the same color. Nothing like getting gold colored oil stained caps and the head is bright silver. Then you find the caps are not from that head and the seller is trying to pull a fast one. Junk yards are known for switching parts all over the motor and trying to pull a fast one. Its way too common. Take the time, and be a jerk about it when you’re checking it over. If the seller starts balking with “that’s not nec, trust me, or that will take too much time” then just leave right now, you’re being taken.
6. Never purchase a block without the crank caps, or if the caps and block are scratched up. Pay particular attention to where the thrust washers are. Make sure that part is perfect and not hammered or scratched. Then put the caps on and make sure where the caps meet the block, it’s not a ledge, like what we talked about with the head. If you can put the crank in, put the bolts on hand tight and try and turn the crank. It better turn. If it doesn’t walk away, your being taken. Also be wary when you’re buying a block and its bare. Why would it be bare? Try and get one that’s stock and assembled, so you can take off the oil pan and spin the crank and look at it. If it’s bare, you can’t check anything really, and it’s iffy. Also, pay close attention to the deck of it, bring a head stud and tighten it down in each hole, check the tranny bolt holes too. I see way too many blocks with stripped head stud holes. People are using B16A head studs on GSR, LS/VTEC’s and type-R motors thinking its working when all its doing is stripping every bolt hole because it’s too short.
7. Stay with the stock fuel rail if at all possible. I can’t tell you how many aftermarket fuel rails I have seen that are flawed, don’t fit right, have metal shavings in them or are generally just 1 big problem. What’s wrong with stock? You can make 600 + WHP on it? How much do you need? They don’t do anything the stock one doesn’t do for 99.9% of cars. Plus, notice the injectors sometimes don’t even fit right in the holes and you have to machine that too. Then you try to put it on the manifold and they almost never fit like stock, and you have to get bigger washers, or the like to get the angle right. There is not any practical purpose to them. Just use stock. In addition, you’re headed to the fittings store to buy a few fittings you would never need with stock. Count those 2 fittings as just another “risk” in your build, because they break, or leak worse than stock, which I have never seen leak or break. Sometimes the steel braid line will just fall off the fitting over time. With no practical purpose power wise, why would anyone want to put more “risk” into their 10 thousand dollar motor? Stick with stock.
8. Stay with stock cam gears unless you meet these criteria: If your cams are large, say for a GSR like 12+ MM lift with a lot of duration then you are allowed to get cam gears. You’re not buying the cam gears for way more power; they might only make 2 WHP in a small part of the graph, your buying them to reduce your valve to valve contact. This is a must when you have larger cams, such as Wicked Stage 2’s, Blox stage 2/3 or larger Skunk 2 stage 2 cams with oversize valves. You could have a situation where your valves touch each other with stock cam gears using oversize valves. You need to dial out the overlap buy advancing the exhaust cam gear to like +2 to avoid the valves touching. You need this to avoid a problem which can blow up your 5 thousand dollar long block. If you’re a turbo car, or an all motor car with mild cams, stick with stock, they work, they don’t slip, they don’t eat timing belts like some aftermarket cam gears do from a slight imperfection in the grooves in very few cases and it’s going to work. Furthermore, stock cam gears are much easier to install and know its top dead center on. Aftermarket cam gears can sometimes fool you. And you don’t know for sure if it’s manufactured perfect like stock. Then of course, the dreadful bolt coming out and falling down into the timing belt cover problem, which is rare. NO slipping problems with stock, it can’t slip, it’s not adjustable.
9. Stay with the stock water pump at all costs, advice on radiators too: We have dyno’d electric water pumps vs. stock, and we can’t tell if it makes even 1 HP. It doesn’t seem to make a difference. Leave the stock one. Don’t forget, your fuel map on your ECU works off water temperature. With the electric water pump, I have seen the water temperature fluctuate way too much, and you have to constantly turn it on and off. It’s such a hassle. For no purpose at all. There is one need for the electric water pump and that is for motors with deck plates or custom timing belt needs. You have to put fake water pump on that’s offset to get tension in the belt, so electric water pump is necessary. Also, leave in the thermostat in your car and don’t remove it. The only case to remove it is when your radiator is too small to work on the motor you have there. Sleeved blocks require larger radiators as well as turbo cars that run hotter. Dual core radiators are nec. If you have a single core radiator, one of the only ways to drive around without overheating is to remove your thermostat and just drive around with the fan on all the time. But this method does not work well because the water does not sit around the sleeves long enough to draw the heat it should, like a larger radiator would do operating normally. So get that thicker radiator.
10. WHATEVER YOU DO, USE A FUNCIONAL, STOCK HONDA GUAGE CLUSTER! Talk about problems. Your in for a nightmare if you hook up some ghetto gauge cluster than does not have a check engine light, oil pressure warning light, alternator light hooked up. Also an accurate tach and Speedo is critical. You need the tach to avoid hitting the rev limiter because that’s bad for the motor, and you need a Speedo to avoid speeding so you don’t get pulled over and it leads to thousands of dollars in fines and possible impound for most of you! Back to the check engine light. If you don’t have hondata, you can’t really see what’s wrong with your motor if you have a problem right? Well, its way harder. And way harder in English translates into frustration, time and no sleep which makes you crabby and irritable. This goes with my theme of keep it stock whenever possible. If your wire harness is not cut anywhere, and all your sensors are on the motor, you should not get a check engine light unless you have a true problem. With the check engine light, you can diagnose it and start working to fix it within 5 minutes or less. The check engine light is actually worth money to have working because about 15% of the cars I tune, which is a huge number, have had check engine lights. I was able to see what they are right away from the Hondata datalogging capability so it was a quick fix. But without it, the clock is ticking on the money you owe for the dyno. Every minute generally costs about 2 dollars. That’s 2 Big Mac’s every minute! I know you like Big Mac’s too, admit it. Back to the tachometer now. I was in a guy’s car, tuning it and it hit the rev limiter at 7600 on the tach. I immediately knew his cluster was not stock, because I had set the rev limiter at like 8800 RPM. This is a problem. A problem that could be avoided by using the stock parts and not putting on the fancy bullcrap aftermarket gauges from the wrong model on your tach!