Steven's Accord Euro

[Steve D]

Hey guys, My euro is now 2 years into it's build so i'm a little late lol...but with some people asking about my mods etc etc i thought it was about time i made a build thread, so ill get straight into it.

I picked the car up dead stock off a newly wedded couple, it was barely driven hence it only having 47 000km's on the clock, at first sight i could tell it was neat, not a mark on it inside and out, it drove beautifully and it hadn't been in any sort of prang. It ticked all the boxes so i picked it up.




Within about a month i had purchased an Injen cold air intake and BuddyClub N+ coilovers..




So this is pretty much where i thought the modding would stop, wheels to possibly come later on but i was in no rush....it didn't quite work that way.
Work Emotion CR Kai's came a month or so later in 18x8.5+38 in matte bronze.


Not long later i started searching for power in engine mods, i started off with an RRC inlet manifold which is off the civic fd2 type r, i decided to take the plunge and spend the extra $150 on the RRC instead of the RBC because of the slightly bigger inlet and runners...it probably wasn't worth it lol but it may be beneficial later with the bigger internal mods...



I now decided to do a bit of maintenance, a proper service including a valve check/adjustment, really the tappets shouldn't be out of adjustment at only 50 000km's but being a mechanic I checked them for piece of mind.

Next on the performance side came some headers, i chose comptech at the time because they had good reviews, but they didn't make much difference with the standard cat and cat-back, the headers themselves having such small runners didn't help either.
and a small exterior mod...

The Comptech headers only lasted about 3 months 'till i decided they were too small and were only going to be a restriction to power down the track, so i sold them off and bought some PLM 4-2-1 headers with a 2.5" mid pipe and high flow cat fabricated by Jimmy at BYP. Then i chucked it on the dyno for some power runs... 126.8kw was the final number.


So at this stage a tuning option was coming to mind, as most will know the Hondata Flashpro was out for the Acura TSX in America but there were limited options for us in AUS unless you were willing to lose cruise control and VSA and run kpro. One day a guy by the name of Jhim Carlo came into my work place (Peter Warren Honda) and after seeing him and my foreman play around with the ECU and Honda diagnostic scan tool i decided to have a chat with him, he had basically told me that he was going to be the aus euro guinea pig and see if he could program the 06-07 TSX ECU to his car and then tune it using flashpro, and i thought to myself if this ECU programs i know what i'm doing to my car next. My foreman was able to get the immobiliser programmed and Jhim was off to BYP racing to get it tuned. So a few weeks later...


Before tune day came i added a few little extras to the engine...

works fuel rail



50 degree VTC inlet cam gear



Ingalls torque damper and also a J35 68mm throttle body



So it was time to tune, i drove the car to work one saturday morning to program the immobiliser then i was off to BYP, i had flashpro base map uploaded to drive on until monday when the dyno tune would take place, already on this map the car felt so much better, however it was terrible on fuel with vtec engaging at 3500rpm and it had a few flat spots throughout the rev range. Monday came and after a long process the tune was done and the car felt great, it felt very torquey and smooth when revving it out...Final number was 145.6kw and 230nm.
sitting nicely with it's new power



Cusco strut brace installed



type r red rocker cover



got carbon wrapping to get rid of the ugly wood grain...



DC5R rear 'H' badge



So after about 6 months of enjoying my tuned accord euro i decided i wanted even more punch, so I got the rest of my exhaust done, 2.5" Y pipe and lukey ultra flow mufflers and then tossed up wether i should do a k frank setup or just cam the original k24 head. I decided to get some Drag Cartel 2.2 endurance cams with a supertech valvetrain dual valve springs etc. Also i decided to throw in a k20 oil pump to get it revving upwards of 8000rpm.

[t3kNo*]

nice - some big dosh spent on this machine.

with flash pro and tsx ecu - what have you lost? just cruise control?

[antony]

Great looking Euro

[Steve D]

nice - some big dosh spent on this machine.

with flash pro and tsx ecu - what have you lost? just cruise control?

Thanks mate, with flashpro you lose nothing, everything works as well as a standard euro.

[Steve D]

So being at the end of my first year in being an apprentice mechanic at this time, i wanted to install the parts myself but i knew i didn't have the knowledge and experience to do it, so i went and had a talk with Benny at BYP, he told me i could work with jimmy to install the parts for half the labour price, so i agreed and a few days later we got installing. There is a lot of hate going around about dodgey work and whatever from BYP but they have been nothing but help for me and they did me a massive favour by letting me work with them and learn....anyways

Back on the dyno she goes to make a healthy 165kw at 8400rpm and 240nm at 5000rpm.



Heres a video of a run.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGi9cie_H6Y

after a few months of enjoying the car and the new power, the plan was now to make use of the mods and get the car to the circuit, so these mods follow'd...

First came a Progress 22mm rear sway bar which made a MASSIVE difference to handling

Then to keep an eye on temps while on the track i picked up a defi water temp gauge and control unit for cheap...



some bride low max replicas



Bridgestone Potenza re002's due to the dunlops that i bought with the rims died



Spoon windscreen banner and some new plates


DBA T2 wiper slot rotors



And then it was off to the track for the euro's debut, destination was Wakefield park in Goulburn, I went with 2 mates one driving an ep3r and the other driving a dc2r. I started off the day learning the track in the non timed sessions, the car seems to handle ok but it under steer'd a crap load and trying to get lift off over steer was impossible. So i went into the timed sessions with a bit of knowledge on how the car behaved, i started off in the 1 minute 16 second bracket and by the end of the day i was in the lead from my 2 mates now doing 1:14.1, with my mate in the ep3 right behind me with a 1:14.3. Getting beaten by an accord euro didn't go down too well with him so he went out in his last session and got a 1:13.8 saving himself from embarrassment lol.


On the brakes hard as they started to fade at the end of the day...


Video of some of my laps here...
http://youtu.be/2xm-lT2IY5E

[eur011]

nice bro!!! still waiting for you to take me for a ride !!

[Steve D]

That track day taught me that the stock CL9 brakes to not cope well with stopping a 1400kg car for long periods of time, so straight away i was in the hunt for a good brake upgrade. I had read up about the Americans using the Acura TL-S Brembo callipers on their TSX's and from what i was reading it seem'd do-able. So i was on ebay straight away to try and find some callipers at a good price, i found some for $400 shipped which was a bargain because i then found out that brand new they went for 1k+ so i purchased them and they came a few weeks later. At first glimpse i thought damn these are bulky as f**k...are they going to clear my wheels :/.



So i gave them a good clean up and proceeded to test fit them....



They looked good....until i went to put the wheel on lol. The wheel hit the calliper, i would have needed a 15mm spacer of more to clear them so i decided to put the install off for a while until i sorted out what i wanted to do. I went to BYP a few weeks later and i told them about my problem and we spoke for a while to figure out what i could do to fit them but i then decided it was to much of a hassle so i told them i might just sell them, it so happens that they had a customer that was looking for brembo callipers to fit to his turbo civic and, they had another customer looking to off load some spoon monoblock callipers so i thought perfect, ill sell the brembo's and buy the spoon's because they're a much slimmer design and are sure to clear my wheels..so the deal was set. I went home and ordered some Goodridge coated braided brake lines and received them a few days later from Victoria...



By this time me and my mates had booked another track day with the well known Circuit Club group. So I decided i needed to get some mods in to improve my time at Wakefield, i then went on to order some Skunk2 front camber arms. I had hardrace ones a while back but they were constantly smacking the top of my shock towers so i decided to get rid of them for something smaller in build.




I now had about 2 weeks to get my whole brake setup installed. With 1 week left until the Circuit Club track day Benny from BYP had told me that they had the spoon brakes off the EK9 track car and ready for me to pick up. The whole purchase consisted of Spoon 4 pot monoblock callipers, Ferodo pads and Project MU CL7 rotors, i got installing that night...
I was so keen to install them that i didn't bother cleaning them until after they were installed lol



installed and cleaned up


With the brake setup and camber arms installed and aligned it was now time for a service before the track day...
engine oil
oil filter
gearbox oil
spark plugs
valve clearance adjustment
I also purchased some Spoon magnetic sump and gearbox plugs to replace the standard plugs.



It was time to hit the track again. First session out i could tell the front camber which was set to -3 degree's had made a massive difference to handling, the car had much less understeer and it felt flatter and more planted on the track. The brakes also felt very good, i was able to brake extremely late all day without fail. The second session came and about 3 laps in i noticed my steering wheel was cocked out of alignment, the first thing i thought was my camber arms have slipped out of adjustment and when i got back to the pits i had thought right. so i jacked the front of the car up and re adjusted the arms, however the next session out the same thing had happened. I decided to give up on it and run the rest of the day with 0 camber, it was now going to be a struggle to beat my last time of a 1:14.1, i was basically relying on extremely late braking to get me an improved time. By the end of the day i had cracked the 13 second bracket with a 1:13.9, i was happy although it could have been better.

Heres a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2hjLls6LSk

It's now time that i start looking into an LSD gearbox and shorter ratios.
I decided to change up a part that i thought could be restricting my power a little...I changed from a j35 (68mm) throttle body for a j37 (80mm)...



Stay tuned, Gearbox mod to come next...

[cceebz]

I like the route you're taking with this car! have always appreciated builds that focus on improving the drive/handling, LSD/ratios is always a massive upgrade for a CL9.

[mocchi]

[axispower]

the GOAT

[Steve D]

Damn straight, let's just say when i was planning on buying those camber arms, i didn't expect them to be perfect lol

[EKVTIR-T]

so power!

nice