September 1997
Ever since my Accord was stolen in August I have wanted a GSR. The funny thing is I have always hated this car because even in stock form they would always beat modified Accord! What I'm specifically looking for is a white 95 GSR with black cloth interior. I prefer cloth over leather because it grips better than cloth in the twisties, plus it's not as hot to sit on in the summer. I also want to avoid OBD-II so 94 or 95 would be the best year. I want 95 simply because it will be 1 year newer.
October 1997
Damn GSR's are hard to find, anywhere!!! I've looked in the paper and the dealerships, new and used. I test drove a 97 Integra. It was okay. I really like the close geared tranny but it didn't feel that fast. I couldn't feel the VTEC that everyone talks about. I know it works though because it pulls and pulls and pulls... From 4000 RPM all the way to 8000 RPM the thing never stops pulling. With a few mods this car would rip. I see why everyone and their brother has one.
November 30, 1997
Well I found one in the paper. It's a 95 GSR, black with black cloth. It has a lot of dings and it has 54K miles on it but it's in pretty good condition otherwise. This one seemed the quickest out of the three GSR's that I've drove so far. I couldn't really feel the VTEC cam kick over but you can definitely hear the second intake open up and the power kick in! I REALLY like this car. I only had a chance to G-Tech it once. I just stopped on the side of the freeway with my hazard lights on and when the traffic was clear enough I launched from the side of the road. I was too busy trying to merge and dodge traffic to watch the meter, but the 0-60 was somewhere in the 7's and the QM showed to be a 15.58 at something over 90mph (I can't remember the speed?). Anyways, that's damn fast for a car I've never drove before in shitty conditions and my gf in the passenger seat. With her out of the car and a little practice I bet I could pull low 15's. Insurance has another offer and I think I'm going to take it. After that I am going to call the bank and see if they will finance me on the 95 GSR. I think they should with no problem since I will be a homeowner soon and I only need about 8-9K. I will find out today. With an intake, header, exhaust, T-body, cam gears and chip this car should have no problems pulling 14's then once I add my NOS... 13's. Then add a Jackson Racing supercharger...
December 2, 1997
Man this deal sucks! I am going to settle with insurance today. $11,646.75. I wanted at least $12K but that's close enough. I'm tired of fighting them and I want this to end so I can get another car. The worst part is they said I could have the parts that are left on the car (i.e. Cam gear, T-Body, Cam, Head, muffler, Front Bec-Techs... BUT!!! The wrecking yard will not let me go in there and work on the car. To get the parts I have to have a tow truck come into the yard, drag it on to the flat bed without wheels, tow it too a shop, remove the parts, then take it back. Not worth it to me! Besides the insurance settlement will pay off my Accord, pay off my credit card and pay for some of the new car so I shouldn't need to borrow much.
Better news is that I found Joe's new shop (pretty nice!) and he gave me a Crane ignition box. He has owed me an MSD 6AL forever but that's all he had and I jumped all over it.
On another note some ass hole decided it would be funny to throw an egg at my gf's car. I was able to wash it off this morning and it doesn't appear to have any paint damage but that is the last straw. I'm a pretty nice person and I don't have any personal enemies (that I know of at least). So far people have tried to steal the wing off my car, it's been keyed, they've solen my CD's, my chrome caps (off the tire stems - several times), my stereo, my pager out of the car and now the entire car (along with even more CD's!). Now someone egged my girlfriends car??? I swear, the next person I catch doing anything destructive to myself or my woman I'm going to shoot! The guy that stole my stereo I shot about 10 rounds into his trunk and back window as he drove away so I'm not affraid to do it. I don't worry about the Police either because they never show up anyway. So, if YOU are planning on doing anything bad to either of us (or our cars) plan on getting a cap in yo azz!!! (I still sleep with my Glock 17 under the pillow) Have a nice day...
December 4, 1997
We bought a new house so while it's being built we moved into a house with some friends. The Civic is parked on the street but I feel it's still safer there, than at our old apt. (thank God we're out of there). The financing went through for the GSR. We will either do the paper work tomorrow (Friday) or on Monday. I really don't care when, as long as I get it.
December 5, 1997
Hopefully all these months of waiting will pay off. I go to the bank today at 4:30pm to sign for the loan. As long as the owner doesn't get in an accident on the way to the bank that car is mine!!!
December 9, 1997
Looking back at a few journal entries in the Accord section I was reading that I said I didn't like the interior of the Integra and also that it didn't have any low end torque. Well I sound kinda like a hypocrite because I think the GSR is quick as hell and actually has quite a bit of torque. I figure it's been so long since I drove the Accord that I can't remember what it was like. Also I've been driving my gf's "NO torque" Civic HX for so long now that everything feels fast! If you haven't guessed already, I got the car. I wrote him a personal check for $3,700 and financed the other $10,000 for 48 months. Interest was 11.5% so the payments come out to be $261/mo. Title transfer and registration was $276. The first thing I did was clean the shit out of it and gave it a good wax job. There is a bolt missing from the passenger seat that I need to replace. The armrest the clip that locks it shut is broken. I went to the dealership and paid freaking $9 for a new one. Doh! I didn't even price out that seat bolt. I'll find one somewhere else. The only annoying things about this car is that the trunk squeaks a little when the unibody flexes and the windows rattle when they're rolled about half way down. Besides those little things the car is great and it definitely grows on you. Maybe it's just whatever car you own you tend to be biased to but I actually like the interior, except the shift knob. Damn that thing is hidious!!! I can't wait to replace that piece of shit. It kinda fits nice in your hand if you hold on to it while making a fist and your thumb rests on top, but it's ugly and way too tall. As far as I can tell everything works correctly on the car except for the gas light. I don't think it works. The car was very empty when I filled up yesterday. I got 12.1 gallons and it only holds 13.2? Most Hondas and other cars the light comes on 2 or 3 gallons before you're EMPTY. I'll have to check the bulb. I would really like to do a wire mesh grill but I don't think it will look good since the bumper has that thing go though the middle of it. I could cut it out but then it might look funny on the sides. Looking at the bumper lenses it looks like they come clear but they insert orange lenses inside to make them blink orange. I will have to pull them apart and see if I can make them clear. Then just silicon them back up. Have a guy that has a DC Header CC for sale for $200. I guess it's brand new. I'll see what the woman says. While I was at the Acura dealership I wanted to humor myself and see how much the Type-R front lip spoiler was. $400 was his answer, Ha!!!
Click here, here, or here to see pictures.
December 10, 1997
Well the quickness factor is already starting to wear off a little. I still think it's quick as hell but now I'm ready for more power. My nitrous kit is in storage right now so hopefully in a couple more months when we move into the house I can install it on this car. I still haven't gotten a chance to test out the top speed of this car yet. Haven't found a good place to do it. I did it on the freeway on Sunday when the traffic was low and actually got it going 120mph in 4th and 130 in 5th but then I had to slam on the brakes before rear ending someone. It was still slowly pulling so I think this car will go quite a bit faster. I'm very impressed, especially since it's still STOCK!!! I can tell that the top speed is going to be drag limited though as I still had quite a few RPM's left.
Yesterday I went to exchange some wheel locks I got. They fit, but the cone ends stuck out too far and looked lame. They had the open style short ones but they where the wrong threading. I will go back today. I also went to Joe's shop yesterday to get that passenger seat bolt that was missing. The threads were a little striped so we had to tap it, but then it went in fine. Now that seat is much better mounted. I want to get some mud flaps in an attempt to keep the car clean especially since it's black. Joe has some for $50. I know the dealer will be mucho more but I'm not sure if I want to even spend $50.
December 15, 1997
Man it is hard to keep a black car clean. Anyway I rotated the tires this weekend and put some locks on the wheels. I know they're stock but GSR wheels are still a high theft item. As some wise guy once said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!". I also installed that a new armrest lock clip. Much better!
December 16, 1997
The top speed of my car with a passenger and the moonroof open (surprised it didn't blow off!) is 139 mph. If I remove all extra weight, close all windows, and fold the mirrors in maybe I could get 1 or 2 more mph. I will have to try for 140+ mph another day.
December 17, 1997
I've noticed that the clutch is not really smooth, or a better way to put it is that it's sticky or squeaky. I checked the clutch fluid and I think that's the problem. The reservoir is bone dry! I believe it's just brake fluid but I will have to check before I top it off. I didn't notice it when I bought the car so hopefully it doesn't have a leak somewhere. I also changed the oil yesterday with Mobile 1 5w30 (55,525 miles).
December 22, 1997
I drove from Phoenix to San Francisco. I drove Highway 1 along the coast and through the twisty's. I love this car. It feels so solid in braking and in the turns. I'm still glad I got this car.
December 23, 1997
Today I made my own clear bumper lights. It was pretty easy. Took about an hour to do both of them. What I did was took the lights out of the bumper, then used a very thin 4" cutting wheel attatched a drill to cut the clear outer lens off. Once that was done, the orange lenses were accessible to remove. The clear outer pieces sealed back on easily with a little silicon! Click here to check out my complete how 2.
The clutch was starting to act up again with the squeaky feeling. I was able to bleed the clutch. It's very easy. Just like bleeding brakes. Have someone pump your clutch while you loosen the bleeder bolt then immediately tighten it back up. So far the clutch feels/sounds better, for now at least!
December 29, 1997
I don't fucking believe it! It's already starting with this car too and I haven't even done anything to it yet. Last night some assholes stood on my trunk and bumper then pulled so hard on the wing that it ripped right off. I'm boiling so bad right now I'm ready to kill someone. I'm glad I had wheel locks on or else those probably wouldn't be there either! I can't wait to get into the new house. I'm thinking of parking the car at a friends house in their back yard and not driving it until we close on the house.
I'm not a jerk with lots of enemies. Honest! This is just bad luck.
January 2, 1998
Happy new year! Looks like my bad luck turned back to good luck somewhat. I ended up getting $1160 from my insurance company for the theft and damages. There was no dents on the trunk, just a small ding and a few minor scratches. A good quality non-OEM wing will only cost $300 max and I called already to get that and my bumper repainted (lots-o-chips) for another $300. This week I bought an Iceman intake, Ultra-Flo muffler, and a shift knob. The intake is freakin' bad!!! I can't believe how much of a difference it made. The seat of the pants was pretty good but after G-Teching it, I found it was even better than I thought. It knocked about a half second off the 0-60 (6.75 sec) and over 3 tenths of a second off the QM (15.21@96.8). The muffler I'm not going to do until I get into the house. The shift knob is MUCH better than stock, IMO. It looks stupid right now though because there's a gap between it and the shift boot. When I do a custom short shifter it will look better.
January 5, 1998
Today I ordered a stock wing from Wings West ($215). I would have gotten a mid wing but I don't like the way any of them look. They were also quite a bit more like $350-400. Then I called NOPI and ordered a 5 Zigen tip, pedals, and the PS-92 Crane coil.
January 8, 1998
Damn! I totally forgot to ask Joe about the wing. I went to the shop yesterday and it turns out he has two stock GSR wings. One of them needed to be painted and the other one was off a black GSR. He is going to sell it to me for $100. FedEx tried to drop off the wing from Wings West. Somehow I need to send it back and hopefully only get charged for shipping. I dropped the car off to get the timing belt changed. Joe seems like a pretty decent guy lately. He's really not into making money with his new shop. He says he just does this stuff because he likes to. He basically gives all parts away at cost and just charges for labor which isn't much. The timing belt is going to cost me $45 and $100 in labor. Try finding a mechanic to change yours for $145! Basically I'm getting mud flaps, timing belt, fuel filter, distributor cap, and a wing for about $400. After this I will be able to concentrate my money more on performance stuff. The only thing I can think of that might go soon would be the CV boots, but those are inexpensive to change. I need to change my plug wires as a maintenance thing since they are probably the original ones with 57K miles on them. I will get performance ones when I do. Either Magnacore or Nology's. I'm not that big of a believer in getting power from wires, but they are a neccesity when running an upgraded ignition. Also I really don't need an upgraded ignition for a NA motor but since I'm going to run NOS it's a good idea.
January 12, 1998
This weekend I sent that wing back to "Wings West". It only cost $15. I thought for that size box it would be at least $20. I also pulled the front bumper off and dropped it off at Wattier's house (painting dude). He is going to cut all the plastic crap out in the middle of the bumper shave the emblem and license plate holes. Then repaint it. I will put that mesh wire in that I have left over from doing the Civic. I also lowered my car. I actually did it at my future father-in-law's house. He is pretty cool. We talked about "hot roding" cars, soaring (he has a glider), woodworking, and women while I worked on the suspension. It looks sooooooo much better and it handles incredible now. The Accord didn't handle nearly as well. The first corner I took body roll was almost non-existent. I love it! Currently there is no front bumper on the car so I really don't want to drive it around. When I get it back I will go out and nail some turns and let you all know how it is. The car now has a lot of negative camber in the front. I will have to call "little Robert" ASAP and modify my control arms as well.
January 20, 1998
Did a whole bunch this weekend. Installed my pedals I positioned the brake pedal so it's closer to the gas so I can heal & toe better. Picked up my bumper from Wattier, looks good except for the emblem holes you can still kinda see. Maybe when it gets color sanded and buffed it will get better. On Sat. I did the mesh and it looks AWESOME!!! The only other problem with the bumper was that Wattier cut the freaking mounts off for the bumper turn signals. Aaaaah!!! So now I'm going to have to find some way to get them mounted. Anyway, that same day I modified my shifter to shorten the height and throw. It works awesome and feels great. Finally on Sun. I got my exhaust done. I'm not too happy with with it. I really wish I had just bought a pre-fab one like a Greddy or an RSR. It's not straight and it sounds like shit. Then on Monday (Holiday) I re-did Dina's Civic mesh grill.
Damn this car handles good with these new springs. But I think they hurt my QM performance. I G-Tech'd it again thinking that it would be quicker because of less front end lift when launching. The best I could muster up was a 15.46 vs 15.21. The only things different are the springs and the exhaust. Perhaps I lost power with the exhaust? The other thing it might be is the alignment from lowering it. Since there is more negative camber less tire is contacting the road. Not to mention perhaps the toe is way out of wack. I will fix the camber and G-Tech it again.
January 26, 1998
Wow a whole lot happened this weekend. I meet three people at the track this weekend from the internet. Some dude named JR that actually only works a few miles from me and lived less than a 1/4 mile from my old apt complex. Small world eh? Also met up with this other guy with a 92 Accord, named Ephraim and his friend Jim. It was absolutely crazy at the track. It was to the point that it was bullshit cuz there were TOO many cars. I was car #202 but I saw cars with #'s in the 250s. I was able to squeeze 2 runs in (both disappointing by the way) but Ephraim Both only got one in, barely. Glad he did though since it was his first time and all. After the track Ephraim, Jim, Dina (gf), and myself went to Denny's and talked for a while. Pehaps the biggest event this weekend is I'm going to be a daddy!!! On Sunday morning we went to the Humane Society and we picked out a little girl. She's the cutest puppy!!! 2 months old, half Lab, half Saint Bernard. I wanted to name our puppy Bernie but since she's a female we named her Berna (with a middle initial of J, get it? Ha!). She's getting spadded and won't be ready to pick up until later this week. I can't wait to hold her again. She is the sweetest thing.
Okay now here's some racing stuff. I took the G-Tech to the track and ran it against the lights. I was only able to make two passes so I still don't know how accurate it is. Both runs the G-Tech showed I was slower. The first run was a 15.5 and G-Tech said it was a 15.9. The second run was a 15.6 and G-Tech showed a 15.7. So here's my theory. At the lights I hit the gas before I see the green. At the track I'm already moving when I pass through the lights giving me a running start. With the G-tech it starts timing the instant it senses the weight transfer resulting in a slightly slower ET. I want to go back and do several move runs to verify this theory.
February 6, 1998
Also while I was at the track I met a guy I used to know from Joe's shop. He now works for Pacesetter and is looking for Integra's for R&D (Research & Development). I just called him and he said he would call back when they can get me in. If things work out perfectly I should get a header and catback exhaust for free. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
My car has not been running to hot lately. It seems to be missing at low RPMs under a load and at high RPM especially the instant the VTEC cams kick in. I replaced the wires with the Magnacores from the Accord (they actually fit! - sorta). I assume the distributor cap and spark plugs are the original ones with almost 59K so I will replace them to see if that makes a difference.
February 9, 1998
Today I went to "Scottsdale Acura" and bought a new distributor cap, fuel filter, and an alluminum oil cap. This weekend I bought longer bolts and a bunch of washers to shim out the camber in the rear. The wheels now positive camber when jacked up and when put down they now hit the fenders so I used a jig saw and cut out a 1/4" to 1/2" of the metal lip off. I also pulled the spark plugs and found a couple problems with them. First they are the wrong plugs! They were ZFR5F-11's (for an Accord) which are too hot of a plug and they were gapped WAY to big. I measured over .060"! (Should have been .044) The stock plug is a PFR6G-13 (damn expensive $18 per plug platinums) but I'm going to go with a BCP7ES-11 which is a colder plug which should be good for high reving and nitrous (I need to go to Joe's shop and get them. Next on the list I pulled the valve cover off and started the tedious process of polishing it. It's a biznitch! I sanded it for 2 hours on Sunday. I'm going to try to do a little each night to help break up the job.
February 10, 1998
I don't think I will ever polish another valve cover myself again. Boy what a PITA! Polishing by hand is not that tough but there are so many little curves and corners on this cover that it is really hard to sand in all places. I have roughed it up all over with 60 grit and smoothed the big flat spots with 220. I just need to keep working my way up to 1500 and finish it with some metal polish. I figure another two days working about 2 hours a day on it and I'll be done.
February 11, 1998
Yesterday I went to Joe's shop and traded him back the Crane Hi-6 for an MSD 6A and four NGK 7's. I know it was not a fair trade and to top it off the MSD was used. But Joe has cut me a lot of deals and I already have a Blaster 2 coil. I didn't want to have to buy the $70 PS92 Crane coil (that never came in) anyway. The problem with the Integra cap though is there is no coil wire post on the distributor cap. I will either get the MSD adaptor or I will try cutting off one of the spark plug wire posts from the one I have now and fabricating it on my new one. I wasn't able to work on my valve cover last night. I really hope I can finish it and get everything back together by the weekend.
February 17, 1998
I never finished polishing my valve cover. I basically got tired of the woman bitching about me being in the garage too much, etc. Plus it was taking too long. I put everything back together again. It doesn't look too hot right now. Very dull looking alluminum. What I've been doing is just sanding it while it's still on the car and rebuffing when I get the chance. It's starting to get shinny. It's been raining quite a bit and I'm really nervous driving in the rain with my cold air intake. So what I did was pulled the bumper off and added fiberglass to the factory splash guard. The factory one is pretty good but there are a lot of holes for ventilation??? Anyway fiberglassing is pretty easy (but very messy!). You just have to clean the area you're going to do, then pour a little bit of the solution in a bucket add a few drops of the hardener mix it up and paint it on with a brush. Then add some fiberglass mat or cloth and repeat. Don't mix up too much at a time because it dries really fast. I used the whole cloth so I did about 7 layers. I checked it the next day and it was probably a good 1/8" thick. Before I put the bumper back on I put a 12v flourescent light behind the bumper to highlight the mesh grill. It looks pretty cool at night but I need another one because the light is too centered in the middle. I need one on each side. Yesterday I went back to Scottsdale Acura because the distributor cap they sold me didn't fit. A Tech looked at it and imediately said that's not even a 95 distributor. He said it was a 92-93 distributor (the one that had the recall). We got a distributor cap for a 92-93 and it fit perfect. Go figure? My question is what the hell else did the previous owner do to this car? So far Accord spark plugs and a distributor from the wrong year have shown up on the car. I'm not complaining because that's the risk you take when buying used and it runs just fine.
February 23, 1998
I finally got my car running again and I have no problems with misfiring or ignition problems. The MSD is in and looks great. I don't know if it made a difference in performance but at least I know the NOS won't weaken the spark like it did in my Accord. I ran into a lot of problems trying to get it wired and actually had to call a friend with a GSR to reference since I got so lost with all the wires. I also started the NOS install. I ran the nitrous line through the firewall to the tank. I also mounted the silinoids. I still need to wire them, run a fuel line, and tap the fogger into the intake.
February 24, 1998
Well someday I will get this NOS kit on. I was only able to work on it for a few minutes yesterday. I drilled a hole in the intake and threaded it for the fogger. Put the correct jets in (I hope 37/22?). I know the exact jets are 37/23 but it's close enough. If I have 30 minutes tonight I should be able to wire them and run the fuel line. Unfortunately I don't have any nitrous so I won't get to test it out. Actually I just called Joe and he said not to run a single fogger system on a GSR because of the way the plenum is. I guess the fuel will actually puddle in it and could blow the entire intake manifold clear off. Okay, damn I wish I didn't drill that hole already!
February 27, 1998
I plugged the hole in my intake with a bolt. I finished splicing into the fuel line. All I did was get a brass Y spliter with 5/16" fittings and hose clamps. I had some 5/16" high pressure fuel line left over from other projects. I cut the line between the fuel rail and the fuel filter. Wear goggles! The fuel almost splacked me in the eyes when I cut it. Also used two relays with a switch so that when the switch is off the horn works, but when I flip it on, it actives the relays to direct the horn to power the nitrous silenoids. Pretty slick eh? Still haven't used the nitrous because I have the wrong fogger. I'm just going to wait until I install the direct port kit. Boy have I been busy because I also did a valve adjustment. It was the first time I've ever done it and it came out pretty good. It will take up too much room in here so I will make a how 2 on this in my How 2 section. After the valve adjustment the idle seems a little quiter. The exhaust valves I can't hear at all but the intake valves are still noisy. I adjusted the clearances to .007" exhaust and .004 for the intake. The factory manual says .006-.008 for exhaust and .003-.005 for intake. Also I removed the rear windshield wiper (I hated that thing). I still have the rubber grommet with some black electrical tape covering the hole. I need to find a better fix. Practiced some launching techniques this week and G-Tech shows a best time of a 14.84@101.7. I don't believe it was that good but maybe I can pull a 15.0-15.3 at the track?
March 2, 1998
G-Tech'd a couple more times this weekend. A 15.32@97 and a 15.22@98. I know I'm going to do better next time at the track. Replaced both blinker bulbs on the passenger side. One was a dual element with one of them broken and the other one was just burnt out. Finally did an allignment on the car. Couldn't figure out why it looked good after lowering it. I read my manual and learned that the rear wheels are closer together than the front wheels. So when I eyeballed the fronts they pointed right at the rear wheels but that was way off. I put some .5" wood against the rear wheels and adjusted the fronts. They were way off, especially on the driver side (???). The rear passenger was also toed in too much. The car drives much straighter now. Also finished up the NOS install. I ran a wire inside the car and to a switch in the center console. When off the horn button works. When flipped on it actives the NOS silenoids. Now I just need the jets. I can't wait!!!
March 17, 1998
Still no jets. :( I did make some Tage-Techs and installed them though. Rides A LOT better and it lowered it anther good .5-1" in front and lowered it about 2" more in the rear. All tires now tuck about an inch. The front control arms now smack the top of the towers so that really annoying. I cut some holes in the top and put some trim around it. It looks nice and I have a little more suspension travel but it still hits. I'm going to try and shorten the nuckles this weekend or next. I need to get this camber fixed in front bad too! I also need to reallign it since lowering it more threw it off again. Bought a finishing sander and started polishing my valve cover again. This thing works much better. I bet I can finish it completely in a day. I also bought a buffer and I'm going to try to polish my wheels. I was messing around a little with my orbital and some wet sanding with 400, 600, 1000, 1500, and 2000 grit sandpaper. I finished it off with some metal polish and it looks BITCHIN!!! But it takes forever. I am going to try to redue the toe allignment, finish polishing the valve cover, polish at least one wheel, AND redue the valve adjustment (I think the intake is adjusted wrong. .003-.005 is for the non-VTEC motor). It should be .006-.007 I think. It says under the hood but it's in metric (mm) not inches. I haven't done the conversion yet.
Hey I just got back from Pacesetter (aka - Paceshitter). That place is freaking huge!!! Pretty cool operation down there. I met a lot of the sales people Erik's boss and the tech guy that makes all the exhaust's and does the R&D'ing. Everyone seems nice. Their exhaust isn't too bad looking except the muffler doesn't look to hot because it's rectangular. It might look better on the car but I don't think I want to spend the money to find out. Still no word on the R&D for a header yet. I guess the guy is really backed up. He currently had some 98' SUV on the rack making an exhaust. Also Erik is going to get me a strut bar for $30!!! I guess he used to work for a place in Cali that makes them and he gets them at cost. Cost is $15, but he wants another $15 for shipping and to make it worth his while. Fine by me!
March 23, 1998
Started polishing one of my wheels again. It's turning out pretty good. This time I started with 320 grit then went to 600. I missed a few spots and you can still see the little grooves the way they came. I need to go back over it again with 320 to get them completely smooth. I want to hit it again real good with 600 then to go to 1000 then touch it up with 1500 before polishing it with some metal polish. It should be about as shinny as they are going to get. I'm only at 600 at it's already way brighter than stock. I spent about an hour and a half on it last night. I figure about 2-3 hours per wheel will get the job done. Not great but not too bad since I'll save myself $125.
Got a full bottle of nitrous from my father-in-law. He has had a full bottle of nitrous sitting in his garage for a long time. He's got a boat with a big block and a 125 shot of NOS. Pretty cool eh? He never takes the boat out anymore so he let me use the nitrous up on my car. The car is turning impressive numbers on the G-Tech but it doesn't feel like I had hoped. I has hoping for G's that would put you in your seat so hard you couldn't pull away from it. Oh well. Either way it still looks like I'll be in the 13's at the track (13.6@115 w/no header even!).
March 30, 1998
Well I pulled my valve cover off again and redid my valve adjustment (According to the sticker on the hood I adjusted not enough gap). While I had the valve cover off I sanded it for about another hour or two and then polished it with some metal polishing cream. It actually doesn't look too bad! After putting everything back together, now it sounds terrible. Tons of valve clicking noise. My car sounds like a disel. It runs fine though. Actually it feels like it pulls harder. I will have to G-tech it. I also got a smoking deal on some strut bars, front and rear for $60, brand new!!! It pays to know people.
April 8, 1998
Well I did it. I shortened my knuckles my 1.5 inches. What this does is reduce the negative camber and give me more suspension travel. The cast didn't like to weld very well so I added braces of mild steel on each side for more strength. I've hit some bumps pretty hard so I think they will hold for the life of the car (I hope). Also re-did the valve adjustment and it sounds MUCH better. Damn I need new tires. The fronts are bald!!! I also bought a used Kenwood CD player. It's cool, sounds a lot better than stock because I think it has more power (35x4) and plus now I can listen to my CD's. As well I bought 2 JL10W1's I'll probably put one in this car and one in the Civic.
April 15, 1998
I had a resonator added to my exhaust and had the tip straightened out so it doesn't point towards the ground. I like it much better and it sounds awesome now. A much more tuned sound and not so raspy loud. Also I now have two wheels fully polished. They look awesome but they take a LOT of work. I'd say about 3-5 hours per wheel. It will be worth it when it's done, but for now it sucks!!!
April 20, 1998
I need new tires in the front BAD! I finally finished polishing the last wheel. I am soooo glad I'm done with that. Never again! I'd say I spent at least 20 hours on those wheels. Called Joe about a new steel braided fuel line for my NOS kit and he has one. He also told me he gave me the wrong jets on my car. It's either for a direct port or a V8 he was saying. Hopefully I can go down there and get the correct ones. So I can haul ass again.
April 22, 1998
Yesterday I went down to the Acura Dealership to look at the 98 Integra Type-R. I actually wasn't all that impressed. The seats were just GSR seats with different cloth. The same goes for the rest of the interior. The differences were a leather wraped GSR steering wheel anyone could buy at Pep Boys, a leather shifter that was okay, of course the 8,400 RPM redline tach, and lack of a moonroof. :( In the trunk there wasn't a rear strut bar but there was a brace at the very rear of the car where you would lift up the hatch for the spare tire. The engine wasn't anything impressive to the eye expect for a cooler looking strut bar. The wildest thing was even though there were people that had been on a waiting list for months they guy said it was still a first come first serve. BUT, it would have taken my GSR, $1000 down, and $415/mo for a 3 year lease. DAMN!!! The guy said I could take it for a test drive but I actualy declined (what am I? Stupid!!!). The reasoning is I didn't want to pay that much for a car that is not that much quicker and they were already putting the pressure on for me to buy. If they let me take it for a test drive then I really would have been under the pressure and I can't stand that. Especially from ass hole salesmen like these guys.
April 23, 1998
Last night I polished my muffler. It looks much nicer and definitely an eye catcher. Ultraflow's are polished stainless but only the sides. The back where the tip comes out (the part you can see) isn't. It's just kind of brushed or machined looking metal. It only took about an hour to sand and polish it with a detail sander and a little by hand. This car is looking better all the time.
May 13, 1998
Last night a guy from work came over and we traded wheels. My polished GSR's for his 16" Konig Tuners w/Nitto 40 series. I also gave him $300 so it wasn't a bad deal. Two tires in the rear of mine are totally blad. His tires still have good tread all the way around. They are noisy as hell though. I think his car had an allignment problem cuz I noticed they are worm really weird when I put them on. My car looks much better but I still kinda miss the GSR's since I put so much time in them getting them polished. They rub on the fenders when I turn real bad so I will have to work on that next.
May 14, 1998
I think I have a leak in my clutch line somewhere. This is now the second time I have found the resevoir dry. I added fluid and bleeded it real good. The clutch feels better and it's not so squeaky. I wonder if the squeak was air in the line??? I also painted my pedal inserts black since they were kinda dark gray. I painted my spark plug cover red as well. Looks kinda funny cuz it stands out so much but it will get better as I add more red stuff to the engine.
May 18, 1998
I am not changing the oil in my car myself anymore. It doesn't save me that much and it makes a mess! Cut out the 1/8" inner lip on the front fenders and raised the front about .25" for more turning clearance. We it works for slow speeds but when you get moving faster or hit a bump while turning it gets ugly. I hit a bump this morning and the sharp edge totally grabed the tire and folded my fender over on top of the tire. It looks like shit because I had to take a screwdriver and pry it back out so it didn't rub. This sux!!! But not I have an excuse to get a new paint job as there's several dings and minor things wrong with the paint as well. I rotated the tires and now it's much quieter (still loud though but better than before). And I pulled several brackets and braces and painted them all red. I am going to make red my theme color in the engine. It's looking pretty cool. I will have to post pictures soon.
May 19, 1998
I thought I forgot to mention something. I went to the track this weekend as well. I met with J.R. and his friend Justin and we went together. Firebird was of course bullshit again and I only got two runs in the whole night. Both starts were real bad cuz I bogged the motor. I think this was due to increased traction from gripier wider tires and not compensating for that. I used to launch at 3,000 rpm with the stock wheels and tires but if I try that now with the 16's w/Nitto rubber it just doesn't have the torque. I will try to go again this weekend and try launching at 4,000+ rpm. I am dropping the car off at Joe's shop Thursday to get a CV boot replaced. He said he would let me borrow his slicks for this weekend.
May 25, 1998
Didn't go to the track this weekend. Or even get my new CV boot. Joe was out of town (big suprise). I'm at my wits end again. I'm sick of working on cars. There's always something wrong them. This weekend I shortened both control arms to give me a little more negative camber, then I raised the front to give me a little more positive camber and added bump stops but it still rubs on the fenders pretty bad.
May 28, 1998
I raised the car another 1" all the way around and boy what a difference! It is so nice to drive now. I can actually turn and the car handles worlds better. I took the car to Joe's shop and it turns out the driver side CV joint was completely shot so that and both CV boots were replaced. The passenger side is still okay though.
June 29, 1998
Not this weekend but the weekend before I went out to PRP (Phoenix Raceway Park) better known as "Speedworld". Turns out you have to wear pants (no shorts) to race or be in the pits. What kind of bullshit is that?!?! The tech advised to go to Kmart or Walmart and go buy some since they were the closest thing around that track. I actually tried to go to Kmart but it was so far away by the time I found it the gates would have been closed by the time I got back. Anyway, needless to say I just went home. This weekend I started installing that Clifford alarm that's been sitting in my garage forever. Since I didn't have a wiring diagram I've just had to guess on what wire does what. So far I have all of them figured out except one. I assume it's the kill start but can't figure out how it works.
July 9, 1998
I got a bunch of stuff done last night since the woman was gone. I finally was able to finish installing that Clifford alarm. I got everything working correctly but I think that last wire is for the second output but it doesn't work. :( I guess that means no trunk release. I also installed an MTX electronic crossover and Kenwood amp to my highs. Bass is next but I need an amp first. Actually I would like to get some decent tweeters first as the stock ones sound like shit.
July 23, 1998
WAHOO! I've got some money to play with so I ordered a Random Technology Hi-Flow cat. Don't know if it actually works but I heard some guy giving them props so I'll try them out. I also have an appointment on Friday morning to get an ACT (Advanced Clutch Technology?) clutch put in by Scottsdale Acura. They have quite the speed shop setup in their parts department and pretty decent prices as well. I didn't feel like dealing with "Twin Cam" or Joe on this one. I need to find a decent header. With everyone talking about this or that it's hard to know what will be best for me. I know a guy with a DPR Stage VI setup on a 95 GSR and he went from making 180 HP to the wheels with a DC and after going to the Kamakazi 4-1 lost 10 HP! I'm either thinking DC, RSR, Comptech, or Jackson Racing. The new SCC came out and the JR SC kit is out and it made 230HP to the wheels with the kit, intake, exhaust, and a JR header. Looks like a good combo to me. I think cylinder #1 isn't sealing very well due to some valve damage (too much nitrous???). The kit I could just barely afford right now, but I need to get the head fixed first so it will have to wait. :(
July 24, 1998
My bad. The JR SC HP figures is to the flywheel, not the wheels. Still quite a bit. Anyway today I dropped the car off at Scottsdale Acura to get my ACT clutch put in and I bought a Comptech header as well. I'm at work right now and I can't wait to drive it! I just called and it will be another hour before they're done. The guy said they decided to install the header as well for free. I actually didn't want them to so I could see the individual results of each one. Now I really won't know if my QM times are improving from the clutch, the header, or both. I'm sure it's got to be both but I wanted to know which one made the bigger difference. At any rate at least I won't have to get all dirty this weekend. Actually I'll need to break the clutch in a little before G-Teching or any track time so that will kinda suck. I think I burnt or bent a valve. I took a hose and put one end to my ear and the one on the exhaust ports of the manifold. The noise is clearly coming from cylinder #1. The valves are very noisy and they are adjusted correctly. I am having them do a leak down test as well while the car is there. I have the money to pull the head and get the valve(s) fixed but not really to get any work besides stock. If there is damage I think I will just wait until I can afford a mild port/polish and at least a 3 angle valve job. It's noisy and it's probably not making as much power as it could but the car runs just fine for now.
July 27, 1998
Leak down tests show that cyl #1 is leaking BAD (I need to call DPR :)). As a result I think it's not letting the header work as a "tuned" mod. I could not feel any gain in low, mid, and I don't think there was any change in top end. There could have been a gain or even a loss up top but my butt dyno is not that sensitive. I am fairly sure there was no losses down low or in the mid range though. If there was, the losses are VERY small. I can't say how happy I am with the clutch. It's awesome! Easy to operate and tons of grip.
August 6, 1998
Installed a Random Technology Hi-Flow cat. The installation was simple as the flanges were already welded on the cat so it was a direct bolt on. I ordered new gaskets and all the stainless steel bolts as well. Butt dyno says it actually made a difference I could feel even with the problems in the head. It didn't look like it was any more free flowing and the pipe (inlet and outlet) diameter was the same size as stock, but the honeycomb was shorter allowing a slightly (18% said the salesman) "free'er flowing" exhaust path. I would say this is worth the $250 I spent on it. Last night I added the trunk release to my alarm. Since the trunk release is control by a cable I had to install a silinoid as well. It works good but the silinoid is a bit stiff for the stock spring to put it back where it was so the trunk doesn't always latch correctly. I will need to go to the hardware store to get a stiffer spring for it. As well, last night I called DPR and ordered my head. It is nothing fancy just an upgraded valve train and the gaskets. It's going to cost me $1000. I'm going to pull the head off this weekend and ship it out to DPR in CA on Monday. Bill the salesman says he can do the work and get it back to me by Friday (hopefully). All that's going to be done is a 3/5 angle valve job to house .5mm oversized stainless steel valves with stiffer competition valve springs and titanium retainers. Maybe if it looks easy I'll even try to port and polish the head myself (MAYBE).
August 14, 1998
I got a spring for the trunk and the trunk release works well now. On Sunday I pulled the head off the car. Pretty straight forward. I had my Helm manual out and started off doing it step by step but it was so simple I found myself not even looking at the book and just having the complete head off in only a couple hours. Several of the steps I skiped since I wasn't taking the intake manifold out of the car. The hardest part was reaching up and loosening the bolts for the intake manifold brace and the bottom bolts of the intake manifold. Actually now that I think about it. It was a REAL bitch to get to those bolts. scrapping the intake gasket is a real bitch as well as it was stuck good and half ripped on the runner flange and the other half stayed on the head. Took a screw driver and a lot of patience to get it all off. The exhaust valves on all the cylinders looked like shit. They didn't have any black carbon build up. They all looked burnt similar to light rusted color. I spent about an hour cleaning up the head with gas to get all the oil off and then boxed it up to ship off. From the time I started until the time the garage was clean and the head had DPR's address on it was 5 hours. A bit longer than I thought it would take but then again I wasn't trying to go fast. Dan called me at work the other day and was asking me if I needed any other gaskets besides the intake manifold and head gasket since they are supplying them when they ship the head back to me. I said no since I wasn't taking anything else apart. We kinda BS'd for a while and talked about motors. Man I wish I had the knowledge he had. Looks like reinstalling everything will be fairly easy. The only things that worry me are a few O-rings and oil seals that the manual says to replace. I'm not sure if I should or not. It says to replace the exhaust manifold gasket but no one does and that never leaks so I don't know. Maybe I'll do it for the piece of mind. It will suck if I find out I didn't really need to cuz I'm sure buying all those little things from the dealer will not be cheap. I called DPR a little while ago and the head still hasn't been shipped off yet. They say they will catch UPS tonight. I really hope so. I was hoping to be able to put it back on the car this weekend but now I'm just hoping for next weekend. When I get it back I would like to take some very fine sand paper and see if I can just sand the ports so they are smooth. It would just be guess work it I tried to make them bigger as well. We'll see. Maybe Joe or someone will let me look at a head that's been done and I can try to duplicate it mildly.
February 1, 1999
Been a while. I wish I could update more regularly. Been at the track a lot more lately. This coming up weekend with be 4 weekends in a row. Trying to win the "Street Trophy" class in bracket racing. It is not easy as the majority of the guys hit their dialin within the hundredths. Also their reaction times are always a .5xx. I started sanding my intake manifold in an attempt to get it to a polished state. It's going very slowly. My distributor bearings when out on me again. I shouldn't have bought that used one from Joe. I went to "Scottsdale Acura" and a new one only cost me $128 with tax. It's just the sub assembly so there will be a little labor involved vs just swapping it in but I don't see it taking any more than 30 minutes. Not having very good luck with my newest mods. Ran a best of 14.89@92.0 with the stock cams and gears. With the ITR intake cam and cam gears set to (+1 / - 3). I've only been able to muster up 14.95@92.0. I say this is mostly due to weather contions and lauches that vary by a few hundreths (60' time). I played a little with ignition timing a little last at the track and I clocked a 92.252 mph speed and that was during the day (92.476 was the best and that was on a COLD night). So it appears that I'm making more power but I still think I should be pulling at least consistent 14.7x-14.8x times (even during the day). Shows that I need a lot of tuning. I've not been impressed with the Comptech header since I got it. I'd almost like to put the stock manifold back on and see the differences in times. I'd be intersted to slap an RSR header on there as well as I notice the primaries are slightly longer which in theory should increase low to mid range without affecting top end TOO much if any.
February 22, 1999
Haven't been to the track for a couple weeks. Went autocrossing though and it makes me want to work on handling instead of power right now. A few weeks ago I bought the Energy Suspension P.U. bushing kit. So far I have installed everything except for the steering rack bushings. It was a LOT of work and I am actually kinda disappointed in the performance, or should I say lack of. I guess the only advantage to these is if the original ones were worn out to begin with since these made very little difference in handling. At least the ride and noise didn't change like a lot of people claim. I also added some Porterfield R4S brake pads in front. Need to brake them in before I can give any comments on them though. I have a problem with a sinking pedal that is bugging the shit out me. I'd say it's the master cylinder seals but it's not all the time. Only when VERY light steady pressure is applied to the pedal. It sinks to the floor slowly. If medium or firm pressure is applied the brake pedal stays nice and firm??? I bleed my brakes again and again so I am fairly sure that's not the problem. The other part I got was a Type-R rear sway bar. The end links work just fine but the frame bushings need some fabrication before they will fit so I've been working on them. Hopefully by the end of the week it will be on. I've heard this makes a huge difference so I'm dying to get it on the car to try it out. Also this weekend I noticed one of the rear shocks is blown. There is shock oil leaking all over the place. I need to go buy new ones today cuz it's starting to bounce a lot. Luckily my custom coilovers use shocks that are only $20.
March 4, 1999
Well ain't this a bitch. The shocks I normally get they don't make anymore. The part number is the same but they changed the design so the cylinder is larger, so it no longer will slide into my coilovers. I will have to do a little hunting to find a replacement. They are REALLY starting to annoy me. I think both of the shocks in the rear are now blown. I got the sway bar on it's it's nothing short of spectacular. At first I wasn't very impressed with it, but the more I drive the car the more I like it. It takes some getting used to because it changes a lot about the way it handles. Sometimes it neutral, sometimes it oversteers, and sometimes it understeers. I think I almost drive LESS agressive because I'm still learning how the car handles with the bar on. I guess I'm just not confident knowing what will happen with certain steering inputs. The Porterfields are now broken in and I've done some pretty hards stops with them. Cold the pads are fairly close to stock. When they warm up they are closer. But when you really hammer on the brakes is when they shine. I know they have more grip because I can feel the ABS working immediately at high speeds showing speed and heat don't limit the grip these pads put on the rotors. I have a feeling I'll be replacing a set of front rotors real quick! The only thing that sucks about these pads besides the price is the amount they dust. It's a LOT! For normal or even aggressive street driving I wouldn't recommend these pads, but if you race as well as drive your car on the street I would recommend them as the brake dust is an acceptable trade off. I put the stock header on and took the car to the track last weekend. Times were .2-.3 seconds slower and well as trap speeds down 1mph. I think the stock header made the car slower vs the Comptech but I also think a lot of that time was due to the weather as it was a little warmer than normal. I'm going to do one more test this Friday night, but this time I'm bringing the header with me and I'm going to swap it out while I'm at the track so I can make back to back runs. I also have an auto-x race this Sunday so this weekend will be fun. I've been messing with the allignment a little this week. Mostly just playing with the toe in the front. I've adjusted it for 1/16-1/8" toe out. That should help make the tires point straight under acceleration for drag racing as well as help turn in for the auto-x. I may return it to zero toe if there is noticable increase in wear though.
March 9, 1999
Went to the drag strip and found out exactly what I wanted to know. The Comptech header does indeed make more power. Where I do not know, but it does indeed decrease my QM times which is all that I'm concerned about. I was able to bring my tools and jack along and change it right there at the track so that I was able to make back to back runs so that the variables would be kept to a minimum. I was also able to make a few passes with the 60' time being within a few thousands of a second so comparisons are as close as they will ever be. The header shaved off .1-.2 seconds from the ET and over 1mph on the trap speeds. I'm happy with it, but now I'm curious if a DC, Greddy, or RSR can do even better??? I put the stock shocks back on in the rear. It raised it up about an inch or so which sucks, but now the car handles a quite a bit better??? I raised the front up to match the ride height of the rear so it doesn't look goofy. I like being low but I have a feeling I'll keep it this high because it handles so much better and it's not as much of a pain to drive over stuff and into driveways. I wonder if the handling came from the increased dampening or from the increased ride height??? I know if you lower a car too much it lowers the roll point to where it does more damage than the lower center of gravity can make up for. I can't wait to get some Koni adjustables. I will be buying a friends used set. The rears are blown but they have a lifetime warranty so I'll just send them back before putting them on my car. BTW, only one of the Tage-Techs was blown. Then I also had an autocross race this weekend. I did really good for having to drive in the FREAKING RAIN AGAIN!!! I think I got fastest raw time in the novice class including those that got to race in the dry. Unfortunately one of the stock cars that ran in the dry got a quicker PAX time so I think I may have taken 2nd place this event. Boy that Type-R rear sway bar really works. I looked like the Dukes of Hazard out there on the course. I really need to ditch those Nittos soon! I also need REAL shocks bad! I've got two more events to this season. I think I stand 2nd or 3rd overall in the points so far. Hopefully I will do well enough in the next two events to put me in 1st.
April 5, 1999
Well I got those Koni's on the car. It ended up being 3 of the 4 shocks were leaking oil. I sent in all four for the hell of it. Hopefully the last one was going soft cuz they will make me pay full retail if there's nothing wrong with it. Either way I got a sweet deal. $250 to my friend for the used shocks (but Koni ended up sending me 4 brand new ones anyway). Even if I have to pay $125 for one new shock that's still less than $400. They handle great but the ride has definitely suffered. I never thought Neuspeed race springs were harsh until these shocks. Goes to show how much shock dampening can effect ride. Even at the softest Koni setting, it's WAY rougher than the Tage-Techs at any level. A lot of the ride quality has to do with the amount of suspension travel I now have (or should I say lack of?). I'd like to modify my lower forks in front to make my own "ST Drop Forks" and then raise the perch for the springs. This will give me more suspension travel but the drop fork will lower it back to where it was. In the rear I will do the same but instead of going with a drop fork I may just cut out where the shock mounts and weld a higher mounting point. I know the rally racers do this and it's pretty slick. I really don't have the money to buy a new pair of Yoko's right now for the rear so I removed the last washers from the rear for my "custom camber kit". So I'm running a lot more negative camber. This has helped make up for a lot of the Nitto's weaknesses in the turns. Looking at other lowered Honda's it doesn't appear to have any major wear problems either. I currently have the suspension tuned in for slight understeer even with those crappy Nitto's. I just hope it will be enough to take 1st place at the next auto-x. I ended up only taking 3rd place again. I didn't notice there was another stock car that ran eariler that day in the dry. When I first put on the Koni shocks my car was all uneven. The driver side was about 1/4" lower than the passenger side and the rear was about 1/2" higher than the front. I kept all the hardware from the original set of Koni's so I just doubled up the washers for the spring perch on the drivers side and for the rear I cut 3/8" out of the spring perch and rewelded it up. This way I didn't have to permanently modify the shocks nor cut the springs. The result is much more level car. Everything sits pretty good and even except for the rear passenger which still sits about 1/8-1/4" higher than every other corner??? I plan to move the battery back there so that will help some but then I supppose the front passenger will be too high. Either way I plan to get a set of GC's when I have the money. I found a place to corner weight the car so I will tune the suspension in for a compromise between weight cornering and ride height.
April 28, 1999
Something is wrong with my car or it is way out of tuning. Went to the NIRA event at Firebird this Sunday and was only running 15.3's??? I have since removed both the cam gears and ITR cam and returned it all back to stock. That is the setup I ran when I originally broke into the 14's as well as my best ever 14.89 second run. This will tell me if the engine is slowly dying. I'm almost thinking of buying an extra B18C to always have build up so I'll have a spare and can minimize downtime to a weekend. I got 2 new tires. I got the Yoko A520's again so now I have four of them vs those two shitty Nitto 450's I had in the back. I rotated the half worn Yoko's to the back and put the new ones up front. Car has a lot more stick now but it actually doesn't rotate as well. There is much more grip in the rear so now the front is pushing again. Not sure if I'll reduce the negative camber in the rear or add some negative camber up front. Maybe this Sunday at the auto-x Victor will let me borrow his pyrometer and I'll be able to determine the best compromise between tire wear and handling..
August 9, 1999
Hey finally an update. Sheeez, lots happened. I bought new knuckles and control arms so the front is once again stock and I'm running a lot more negative camber. The car is rotating and handling tons better. Unfortunately the knuckles I bought came off a wrecked 94 GSR. I think the passenger side got bent in the wreck because there is over 2 deg more negative camber on that side vs the driver side. I bought an Ingals kit (-1 to +1 deg) and it fixed a lot of it but I have it set up funky. The driver side is set to full negative and the passenger side is set to full positive. It's pretty close but the passenger side STILL has more negative camber! At least it drives straight now. I also raised the car up about a inch since my last entry. I liked the way it looked before better but having the clearance is nice so I don't hit everything in the road. The other thing is the car handles a lot better at the height I'm at now. I went out to Rosamond, CA and did some road racing at "Willow Springs" and had a blast. Road racing is definitely the most fun I've had in the car yet. Having more power is still nice so I was able to sell my Comptech header and replace it with an RSR (much better IMO). Now my focus is on the brakes. I had a hell of a time with fluid fade at "Willow Springs" and I'd like to get it so that I don't have to bleed the fluid after every session. I got some Motol 600 DOT 4 fluid as well as cut the dust cover (heat shield) off so we'll see how that works. I'm also going to get a set of dedicated racing pads. I'm going to continue to use Porterfield R4S (the "S" stands for street) for the street and autox, but when I do track events I'm going to try their R4 pads up front. The lady I talked to at Porterfield said they would last a lot longer due to them being able to withstand the heat better than their "Street" pads. I'll just swap back and forth between the pads. Shouldn't be a big deal. My rotors are also almost dead, so when they die I'm going to try Powerslot. I also want to get SS brake lines soon. If these mods don't prove to be able to stand up to road racing abuse I will most likely slap some Prelude VTEC brakes and rotors on my car. My wheels are universal lug so going to 4x4.5" won't be a problem. I'll just have to get new 15" wheels for racing. Damn this hobbie costs a lot!
October 4, 1999
Not much has changed with the car. I've played around a little with toe settings and the car seems to handle a lot better. It's extremely responsive to inputs now and rotates better for slow corners. I recently had an autox and my car was handling better than ever. Unfortunately the brakes were giving me problems though. That really surprised me as I've never seen speeds go over 70mph on an autox course. The fade may have been due to "green fade" since the pads were less than a week (less than 200 miles too) old and I haven't fully broken them in yet. I hope so. When I put my new knuckles on I also cut the dust/dirt shields in hopes of improved cooling. If it wasn't "green fade" and I was indeed experiencing pad fade at the autox, there is no way they will stand up against road racing demands. There is a road race out at Phoenix International Raceway next weekend. It's with the NASA group which I hear are really laid back but I'm not sure I want to put my car through that abuse yet so I haven't decided if I'll go yet.
December 27, 1999
Well the pad fade is no longer. It must have just been the fact that they weren't bedded in yet. I also did two local events here. One with ASRA (Arizona Speed Racing Association) at FIR (Firebird International Raceway) on their 1.6 mile course, and one with NASA (National Auto Sport Association) at PIR (Phoenix International Raceway) on their 1.51 mile road course. They were both a blast and I had very little brake problems. FIR started showing some fluid fade towards the end of the last session but that was after over an hour of hard beating on the track. I've also upgraded the brake fluid to Motol 600 as well as Brembo cross drilled rotors so I may be okay for now with brakes. For Christmas I got a set of Goodridge SS brake lines which helped out the feel of my brakes tremendously. There are a few kits out there I hear that are coming out that will use 11" rotors that I may go with. They will be similar to the AEM kit but 11" vs 12". I want the smaller rotors so I can continue to use 15" wheels for my race tires.
December 31, 1999
I've noticed that my motor mounts feel somewhat sloppy, so instead of buying new ones from the dealer ($60-90) I got the Energy Suspension motor mount inserts. They say that they will work even on broken or torn ones so I decided to go that route. I started installing them a couple nights ago. Like usual, ES provided extremely weak instructions so I just figured I'd figure it out as I went. There are actually 5 motor mounts for the engine in a GSR (not sure about other models or year Integra's). The kit only comes with inserts for 3 of them. The ones you don't do are is the obvious one near the cruise control box and the one mounted on top of the transmission. The three that you need to do are the one coming off the AC compressor bracket, the lower transmission bracket, and the rear mount (PITA to get to!). The first night about 45 minutes later I discovered the two that don't come with the kit - DOH!). Once I get on track it takes me about an hour and a half to do the two lower mounts in the front. The transmission side one is pretty simple. I did need to drop the mount bolting to the transmission though to give clearance to slide it off. The one off the AC compressor was the same deal. It was kind of a pain though because I had to remove the compressor from the bracket to get access to one of the bolts. That was all I had time to do that evening. Today though I tackled the rear mount and boy was it a HUGE PAIN! Reaching your hand down to the bolts didn't work and either did accessing them from the bottom. I just about gave up when I found that if I used all my extensions (about 30" worth!) with a U-joint I could use my impact wrench from the top. It made life a little easier but figuring out how to get the mount out of it's little cubby hole was a chore. Once again I had to take all the bolts off the bracket going to the engine to give a little play as well as remove most of the other motor mounts and then jack up the engine to provide enough clearance. I also removed the two heater hoses (not as easy as it sounds) that I found later didn't need to be removed. All in all I'd say it took me about 6 hours to do these mounts. They made a huge difference though so I'm glad I put the work into them. My only complaint is they are a bit too stiff because at idle things rattle quite a bit and when accelerating from a low RPM you can really feel all the vibration from the motor. I can put up with it for now though, plus I figure they will get looser as time wears them down.
January 6, 2000
Hey something major I forgot to mention. I'm storing some corner weight scales for my auto-x club (SCCA)! They didn't have room in the packed equipment truck and wanted someone reliable and close to the track to keep them in their garage. NO PROBLEM I said! With a 1/4 tank of gas, no spare or other misc stuff in the car it weighted in at 2505 total. With me in it it went up to 2702. This put 1704 on the front tires and 997 on the rears. With me in it this put the front to rear ratio at a 63/37 split. Not great but not bad for a FWD either. I figure with a half tank of gas or more the ratio could change too which is more realistic to what I'd be road racing with anyway. Left front was 893 and the right side was 811. The rear was 512 (left) and 485 (right). Not too far off but when I get coilovers I think I can get it a lot better. Plus I plan on moving my battery to the rear which should help out even more. With those changes and tuning I think I can get pretty close to a 60/40 split with some fairly closely matched corner weights. Someday I may even get a race fuel cell and mount it where the spare tire which would be behind the rear tires and I bet the split could be in the 5x/4x ball park then.
After driving around with the new motor mounts I'm starting to really like them. You can definitely feel a difference in response which I like enough to put up with the added vibration which doesn't seem as bad when I first put them in. I think part of it is the fact that I'm just getting used to them though. I have a race this weekend so we'll see how they perform at the track. One of my friends said they suck because they fall out all the time. This would be true if I didn't put some big ass washers on the sides to hold them in. We'll see if the washers are good enough to hold them in under the extremes of racing though.
January 19, 2000
I think I finally figured out my oil consumption problem. My autocrossing buddy told me to take the K&N PCV breather off and return the stock hose to the intake. Well I did it and no more huge cloud of smoke when I accelerate now! WAHOO!!! I will monitor my oil level over the next few weeks but I think that's all it was. This is VERY good news because if that's it then now I won't need a new bottom end and can use that money for other go fast stuff.
March 6, 2000
I spoke too soon. The car still burns oil pretty quickly. At least I no longer leave a cloud of black smoke behind me, now it's just blue smoke! :) I talked with Shawn Church (an ol' Honda buddy) and he's convinced that my oil rings have gone bad. Currently debating whether to just replace the rings or do an entire rebuild since the motor does have 91K on it. In other news I had a small crack on a weld of my exhaust causing a small leak. I had it fixed, but while it was up on the lift I noticed one of the straps that holds my gas tank was broken! Needless to say I ordered a new one ASAP before the other one breaks and my gas tank falls off the car.
March 9, 2000
I just found out that contrary to popular belief, Koni single adjustable shocks do not adjust compression, they only adjust the rebound dampening. This defintely changes the way I'm going to approach shock adjustments from a tuning perspective. I also, finally (after a week of waiting/worrying) got my gas tank strap. Installation wasn't too difficult besides having to move the exhaust heat shield out of the way a little to gain access to one bolt.
March 24, 2000
I did another track day at FIR with the Viper Club and ended up frying the rest of my Porterfield R4S pads. So in an attempt to save myself some money I went with some generic Raybestos pads from Checker. The reasoning behind them is they have a lifetime warranty. They work better than the R4S pads on the street and I'd imagine they'll work great for the autocross, but I'm curious on how well they will work on the big tracks. I figure they will not have nearly the fade resistance that performance pads will, but as long as they work somewhat I'll just keep wearing them out and getting new ones from the warranty. Hee hee!
March 30, 2000
According to the Helm manual when you pinch the tube running to the PCV valve while the motor is at idle, you should hear a "clicking" noise from the valve. I tried this and did not result in any "clicking" noise so I replaced this $14.99 part. The idle now seems to be a little funky as it's a bit lower than before and it does go up and down slightly by a couple hundred RPM. That should be easy to fix, however I have noticed that I don't leave nearly the cloud of smoke behind me that I used to when I really get on the gas! I'm going to check oil consumption at the end of the week to see if this was the source of my oil burning problems. Keeping my fingers crossed...!
September 16, 2000
Wow long time since I last wrote! The PCV valve wasn't the problem. I could run a leak down test to determine if it's the valve seals or the piston rings but I'm pretty sure I want to rebuild the entire motor anyway so it won't matter what the actual problem is. It now has 95k miles on it and I have no plans of getting rid of it anytime soon. I'm going to see if I can drive the car until it has 100k. I'm hoping for a year end bonus in Decemeber/January to pay for it. Since I've last wrote I've added a Mueler 8 lb aluminum flywheel, Sparco race seat and steering wheel. Check out my modifications page to read a quick summary on them. BTW, I've moved to Rockford, IL which is near the Chicago area for a job promotion. Racing is not going to be quite the same while I'm here but it won't be completely dead either. There is several autox regions but they are a bit more of a drive than Phoenix. Blackhawk Farms Raceway is the local track here in Rockford so I'll still be road racing. Mid Ohio and Road America are the two tracks I'd like to do as well since they are within driving range in less than a day from here....!
June 30, 2001
Man I am getting really bad at updating my journal. My job here in Rockford is really close to home so I've only put on 5k miles since the last entry which was almost a year ago! The car just turned 100k miles last week sometime. Still haven't rebuilt the head or motor. I got a bonus but I ended up spenting it on other misc bills and stuff. New mods on the car would be relocating the battery to the back with a cut off switch located where the key hole used to be for the trunk. I also fabricated a cold air box where the battery used to be and modified my intake so that the filter is located there as well. Cool air is able to coming in through a slotted hole I cut into the cowl near the top of the hood. It cleaned up the engine bay, seems to work pretty well and now I don't have to worry about water. I had a plate welded to a metal pipe and bolted it to the floor behind the armrest. Then I used hose clamps to mount a camera tripod to the pipe to create a cheap video camera mount. I video tape all my autocross runs, now I just need a way to convert them to mpeg and post them online. Items on the horizon is I just ordered a new clutch as the one I have now is worn out. I also have a Quaife differential in my garage waiting to be installed by King Motorsports. The transmission is one part of the car I think I'll just leave to the experts. Racing out here is a lot better than I thought it would be. There is a ton of autocrossing. In fact there is one every weekend and sometimes even double booked. I race with the Chicago Region SCCA, Milwaukee Region SCCA (sometimes), and with a local group called TSSCC (Tri-State Sport Car Council). I am undefeated in my class (DSP) in all three and currently running 8th RTP/PAX in Chicago and 6th RTP/PAX in TSSCC for the season. In Chicago there is one ESP car that is slightly ahead of me but in TSSCC I have the fastest "Street Prepared" car in the region which is a pretty cool bragging right. Once I get the Quaife installed I should have a good chance of getting a FTDI (Fastest Time of Day Index) or even just an outright FTD raw. Both regions generally have around 110-180 entrants so I'm definitely getting faster in my car. I'm really looking forward to the Solo II Nationals in Topeka, KS this year.
November 14, 2001
The Solo II Nationals in Kansas was quite the experience. Not only was it my first time to Nationals, but it was a very dramatic experience. They announced the NY Tragedy right after my 1st run. It got everyone down but we finished our runs before the SCCA called it a day early and kicked everyone off the base. I ended up taking 7th place out of a field of 35 I believe. Fairly happy with the results but I know I could have done better. My first run was a DNF, followed by a hit cone in my 2nd run so I had to take it somewhat easy on my last run to get a clean run in. Look in my "autox" section for the full story. BTW, right after Nationals I moved back to Phoenix Arizona! My engine now has 105K miles on it and still haven't rebuilt it! It's smoking REALLY bad and people really make fun of me when I'm on course. Since I'm running really well though they don't make THAT much fun of me. :-) In Chicago I believe my best finish was 2nd on index (next to Jason Saini in his AS S2000). My 1st event here in Phoenix was a 2nd place PAX finish next to Mark Huffman. Then the Cactus Corvair Club was a 2nd place PAX and Raw time next to Mark Huffman again! Then in Tucson I had a 2nd place PAX finish next to Steve Burger in his SS Vette. Finally the last Phoenix event I took 2nd PAX next to Mark Huffman for the 3rd time in a row! I don't think I'll ever beat this guy. While 2nd is very good, it's very frusterating too, especially when it's always the same guy. I definitely don't feel bad about it though since he is the defending ASP National Champion. The only major changes I've made to my car are a set of split star ADR 17" wheels. I think they look a little better than the 16" Konig tuners I had. Unfortunately they make the car accelerate a little slower. If I get a bonus at work hopefully I'll be able to use the money to rebuild my motor. I was thinking about jumping to the Street Modified class but that will cost a ton to get it competitive again. I'm pretty sure I'm going to rebuild the motor back to stock specs vs swapping in a B20 bottom end. Who knows though, I seem to change my mind a lot these days.
July 3, 2002
Well I finally made up my mind and changed classes to Street Modified. My PAX scores aren't nearly as good as they used to be but they're still not bad. The last few events I've done have resulted in top 5 finishes in both Raw time and PAX time so I'm pretty happy with that. There's been quite a few races where Mark Huffman didn't show up so I'm sure I could have taken 1st place in PAX if I was still in DSP. Not a big deal though as I still have quite a bit of mods I can do to my car. I upgraded the front brakes to 11" Prelude rotors (redrilled) and Accord V6 calipers. I also installed a Type-R head and Jun 3 cams which definitely forced me into the SM class. To reduce a little weight I took out the rear seat. The other night I put in a B&M Fuel Flow Modifier but haven't had much of a chance to play with it yet. I figure when I put the 2.0L LS block that's sitting in the garage I'll run lean without it. I'll probably start the install this weekend, I just have to find some motivation to go out in the heat and start working on it. I have the head gasket, seals, head studs and SS oil line which is all the parts I need and since this is a 4 day weekend for me I should have time to complete it. The biggest barrier will be if the machine shop can get the head done in a day or two on Fri/Sat.
July 17, 2002
Man what an adventure! I spent the majority of the four day weekend but didn't get it running. In fact I didn't get it running until just last night. Since I didn't have the resources or man power to pull out or drop down the motor as one unit I decided to remove the engine in stages so it would be lighter and more managable. On the first day I removed the head and took it to Basko to have the dowel pins relocated and the oil hole plugged. I was told it would be done on Friday or Saturday but didn't actually didn't get it back until Tuesday the following week. Anyway, the next day I removed the transmission and the day after that dropped the block out of the bottom of the car. Here's where things got tricky. I figured I'd just swap over all the GSR parts from the block and get the new block bolted up the same day. Wrong!!! The first thing I noticed was the plumbing coming out of the block for the oil cooler from the GSR was going to be too small for the LS block. A quick run to Ace Hardware solved that issue without too much drama. Next up was the oil pump. First I put the LS oil pump on and used the GSR oil pickup and oil pan. The only problem I ran into here was the oil pickup didn't bolt to the girdle correctly since Basko put it on backwards. I removed it reinstalled the correct way without too much issue. After I got everything installed I remembered I forgot to shim the oil pump with the 1/8" spacer I made for more oil pressure. I removed the oil pan and oil pickup again and I installed the spacer before putting everything together again. When trying to get the timing belt tensioner off the GSR, the bolt stripped. I ended up just griding the head of the bolt off to get it off and bought a new bolt which required another trip to Ace Hardware! Next up with the PCV system. The breather box on the GSR did not fit on the LS motor. First thing I noticed was the hole was a different diameter on the LS block and then looking closer I found that the hole was closed off anyway! So basically I ditched the stock PCV system and breather box and bought the Endyn breather kit from Innercrew in TX for something like $150 after shipping. The plugs that the kit uses is a 14mm allen wrench. This isn't exactly a tool you can go to the hardware store or Home Depot to get. In fact the Snap-On tool truck doesn't even carry one in stock and is only special order. Luckily a friend down the street (Locash) had one for getting these very same plugs out. I believe the rest of the equipment swapped over to the LS block without issue and I bolted the block in the car next. After doing that I remembered that I forgot to swap over the oil piston squirters from the GSR block. So off came the oil pan again for the 3rd time. That's when I found that the LS block doesn't just not have them, there's not even a hole there to mount them. Doh! I thought there would be at least a plug or something there but no dice. I'm really kicking myself in the ass for not checking before the block went to the machine shop so they could have been added. Next I'm putting on the timing belt and when I go to put on the timing belt cover I realize that the cover is different for the LS oil pump vs the GSR one. Instead of spend more money than I already have on this motor project I decide to use the GSR oil pump and cover instead. So off comes the oil pan for a 4th time! Next I install the flywheel, while doing so it accidentally slipped out of my hands and lands right on the hard part of my nose. Thank god it was a lite weight aluminum one and break my nose, but it hurt bad enough to let have a few non-friendly words with the flywheel and leave it brused for the next few days. Next up with the transmission which went on fairly normal however one of the bolt holes in the block is totally stripped out. Next time I remove the tranny I'll get those threads repaired but it's not worth it since it's just one of the bolts. To save myself time I decided to get all the plumbing for the oil line locally. Big mistake, I should have just ordered it online because I spent several days running around town looking for the proper fittings and whatnot. When everything was said and done I have one extra bolt left over and I can't figure out where it goes (besides the one tranny bolt). What's concerning is it's a very large, very beefy looking bolt. Definitely not good. When my car falls apart at least I'll know where it belonged. It took about 3 days to figure out that the cam timing was off and the ground wire that attaches to the thermostat housing was not connected, but after I figured those things out the car runs! I let it idle for about 15 seconds before I shut it down after seeing a very large pool of oil on the garage floor. Turned out I forgot to tighen one of the fittings for the oil line. I tightened that one and it seems to be fine but now it's leaking out of the fittings on the head. It's a very slow leak but still leaky. I kept tightening it and tightening it but I'm affraid it's going to strip out soon. I'll try adding some more teflon liquid to it this week/end. The compression ratio is slightly over 12:1 and it's very apparent when driving around on pump gas. I keep retarding the timing more and more to get it to not knock. I'm just about at full retard and I think it stopped but that is crazy! Hopefully I can retard the crap out of the timing in the lower RPM's and run "normal" timing in the top end. Even with timing retarded a ton the car definitely feels stronger everywhere from idle to 5000rpm. Haven't rev'd past 5k yet... I don't plan to get on it hard or rev it high until it's broken-in in another 500+ miles or so.
July 18, 2002
Tightened up the oil line fitting on the head but it still leaks. I'll try taking it off and putting more teflon liquid on it and then I'll put it on nuclear tight and see if that will stop the leaking. Drove the car around for about 40 miles yesterday and it still feels strong but I may need to retard the timing even more to get rid of the pinging.
July 23, 2002
Couldn't get rid of the oil leak on the fitting so I just used some JB weld on the threads and now it seems to be sealed. Unfortunately now the car is leaking oil somewhere else. Initially I thought it was the rear main seal but now I'm starting to think it's the oil pan gasket. I sure hope it's the oil pan as that is a lot easier to replace. Car still pings no matter what the timing is set to. If I retard it more than it was it runs super rich and blows black smoke, if I advance it more it pings more and runs lean. On the bright side of things the car absolutely rips! I've hit VTEC a few times in 1st and 2nd gear and the car is real strong. Just need to take it easy until I can get it properly tuned on a dyno. I bought a set of 310cc RC injectors used off the internete yesterday. I'm running my stock injectors and I'm already at 60psi of fuel pressure and run lean at only 5-8 deg BTDC. Hopefully 310cc's will allow me to run stock pressure to keep the car as reliable as possible. I'm looking into purchasing the Hondata Emulator and chip burner before I head to the dyno. I'm also looking into purchasing bulk race gas by the 50 gal drum which is quite a bit cheaper.
July 24, 2002
One thing I've noticed since completing the motor is the Quaife works a LOT better. I'm not sure why that is or if maybe it doesn't start locking the driveshafts together until more torque is applied but now when getting on the gas in a turn it seems to pull the car the direction the wheels are turned vs washing out the front end with wheel spin to both wheels. Can't wait to try the car out at the Autox in a couple weeks.
July 25, 2002
I replaced the oil pan gasket last night and it still did not resolve the oil leak. This morning I ordered a new rear main seal and I'll do that this weekend and hopefully solve the leak once and for all. I got some more info on the race gas too and it's pretty expensive. 50 gal drum for $300. $6/gal but I'm going to imagine it's high quality stuff. I may consider doing it if it's 110+ octane. At that rating it would only take 3 gallons mixed with 7 gallons of 91 octane to bring the mixture up to 96.7 which should be enough to run stock timing (16 deg BTDC).
July 29, 2002
I removed the tranny this weekend and I think I got the leak at the rear main seal fixed. It wasn't the seal but the metal cover that was leaking where one of the bolts was stripped out and I wasn't able to tighten it up. I put a lot of Hondabond in that one area but obviously didn't work. I just retapped the hole with the next larger standard threading and put a larger bolt in and was able to tighten it up pretty good. I also redid the oil pan gasket but it still leaks. AHHHH!!!! I'll reseal the oil pan gasket with a crap load of that high temp liquid gasket maybe sometime this week. Overall though the leakage is substantially less now so that's good news. I also put in those RC 310cc injectors. They don't fit nearly as good as OEM. What you have to do is remove the plastic spacer in the intake manifold and just use the rubber seal and tighten the fuel rail and the injectors will squash against the seal. Seems to work for now. I know that when you go with larger injectors they take longer to open and close which might be the cause of the car not feeling as responsive. Whatever reason, the car feels a lot slower now with the 310 injectors. It might just be A/F ratios off and the car just needing tuning. I E-mailed Joe (Locash) to get a price for the Hondata Emulator so I can start tuning the car this weekend.
August 2, 2002
I JG welded the fitting on my power steering pump and the stupid beee-otch still leaks, just slower. I also totally freaked out the other night when I was running the car really hard through the gears. Right around 7,000rpm in 2nd gear I lost power and the RPM's dropped. I left off the gas right away and the car was stumbing and wouldn't idle without throttle. Luckily I was less than a mile away but what a terrible feeling. Turns out when I got it in the garage that all it was, was one of the spark plug wires popped off the distributor cap. Whew!!! So to complete this saga I still have to stop the leak from the oil pan, stop the power steering leak, tune the motor and figure out why there's so much smoke coming out of the Endyn Breather Tank.
August 5, 2002
DOH!!! I blew up the motor this weekend. On Friday driving home I was getting on it kinda hard and the motor just wasn't running very good and there was a LOT of while smoke coming out of the breather filter. I was about a 1/4 mile from home and I floored it hard in 1st gear around 4,000rpm. It started accelerating and at around 7,000rpm there was a loud "POP!", the hood cracked open and coolant flew all over the hood and windshield. I shutoff the engine and let the car coast down to a stop. Inital inspection showed the engine didn't have hole in the engine. The only visible damage was the top plastic piece of the radiator had cracked in half. I was able to get the car started and limped in the other 1/8 mile home and coasted into the driveway. I called Joe (Locash) and he was like, "If your radiator exploded, that's not good. You probably blew the head gasket which pressurized the cooling system." What he said made sense so I borrowed his compression tester and verified that at least cylinder #2 had zero compression. After removing the head it was pretty obvious what the problem was. The #2 cylinder had completely split apart at the top and cracked about 75% of the way down the cylinder wall. For all you reading this out there, beware detonation!!! I would also recommend that if you have a highly modified engine to get a "Blockguard", even if it's not technically needed. Even though my motor is "only" naturally aspirated, it appears that the damage could have been prevented if there was bracing at the top of the cylinders. I called down to Basko this morning and I'm probably going to go with a set of 85mm Darton $leeve$. I'll have them get me a custom 85mm copper head gasket thick enough to lower compression a little and have them take a look at the head to reduce the sharp edges to reduce detonation too. While the block is there I'll have them machine a place to install my VTEC oil squirters too. On the brighter side of things I'm getting pretty good at removing my engine. It only took me about 30-40 minutes to get the head off. Then last night I removed the radiator and started working on taking the engine out and in 45 minutes I was basically done besides the motor mounts and drive axles. When I get home I'll take another 30-60 minutes to completely pull the motor and then I'll run it down to Basko tomorrow.
August 14, 2002
Basko called and let me know that the motor is junk so I found another LS core block off car-part.com for $100. Of course it cost $200 after shipping but I don't have a lot of time to jack around and find one locally for under $200. The block should be here by early next week.
August 21, 2002
Got the block on Monday. I disassembled all the extra stuff off it, clean it up and took it down to Basko on Tuesday. Turned out the main caps don't interchange between blocks. Doh! So today I brought the main caps down to Basko as well as the crank. Ray gave me an ETR of 2 weeks. We'll see how accurate that actually is. Machine the VTEC oil squirters, install Darton sleeves, high temp coat the pistons and do a mock assembly.
September 30, 2002
Well it's been over 5 weeks later and of course Basko still isn't done with the motor yet. We moved into the new house so it's not like I don't have plenty of projects to work on so I guess it's not that big of a deal but it still sucks. I borrowed my friends welder so I've been working on a custom trailer I'm making to tow behind the Integra that will carry my tools, air tank, race supplies and wheels/tires. It should be done in less than two weeks.
October 30, 2002
I don't remember the exact date I got my block back but it was only a couple weeks ago at best. Took them roughly 2 months on a 2 week estimate. They also high temp coated the pistons, or at least tried to. They did a piss poor job cleaning them and the crap didn't stick. I could take my finger nail and scratch all the coating right off. I was pissed! Went back down to the shop and demanded my money back for the piston coating. Ray was VERY reluctant and just wanted to redue the coating but I told him I would never give him anything of mine again. He finally gave in. Taking a closer look when installing the Darton Pro kit sleeves they cracked the outter remaining alluminum cylinder sleeve. This shouldn't really matter since they're not load bearing and if it breaks off it will just be floating around in the water jacket but still pisses me off they weren't more careful. Another thing they didn't do right was when they decked the block they didn't do it parallel to the crank! There is .008 deck height on cylinder #4 and only .005 on #1. So now I will have a Compression Ratio of 11.67:1 & 11.77:1 respectively! Another thing was they couldn't machine the VTEC squirters into the block after all which really made me upset. I would have not gotten an LS block and spent so much money putting in Darton sleeves ($1300) had I known this in advance. Needless to say I will never go to Basko again and recommend anyone reading this does the same.
On to brighter things I got the block, transmission and all the other little details installed in the car and now I'm just waiting on the head to return from Endyn. I sent them my head last week and have been completely satisfied with their (Larry's) knowledge, friendliness and service. Larry has been great and offered me all sorts of information and really spent time with me on the phone to make sure I knew what I was getting. I had him open up the chambers to 85mm to match the cylinders, do some quench work and some exhaust porting to help the motor breath. He says with the work done and smoother chamber it should not be a problem running 11.7:1 CR on the crap 91 octane pump gas we have here in AZ. It should be here this Friday and I plan to install it on Friday night and Saturday morning. To protect my investment I also bought an MSD knock sensor. It doesn't automatically retard timing like the J&S doesn't but it's also a fraction of the cost and I can just use the Hondata to pull out timing and tune it properly.
I traded my friend Brandon my GSR calipers for a set of STR cam gears. They are all alluminum and supposedly they wear out pretty quickly when daily street driven so I'm currently having the outter gears hard anodized at a local chemical place. It's being done somewhat under the table so I don't want to say where or get anyone in trouble.
Novemeber 6, 2002
Got the cam gears back and they came out nicely. Also got the head back and put everything back together this last Saturday. The motor even started right up on the very first try! Woohoo! So far it hasn't blown up yet. I hooked up the MSD knock sensor and according to it, it still pings like crazy. The EPROM I'm using has way too much timing so it should just be a simple matter of burning a new chip. When I put the chip burner in and powered it on I actually burned up the burner though (transistor fried on the board). How ironic huh? I sent the burner off to Transtronics to be repaired so hopefully it won't take longer than a couple weeks to get it back. In the mean time I created a EPROM that I think will work a lot better than what I have now. Joe/Locash has a burner but he's currently in Vegas at the SEMA show so I won't be able to try the new chip until Monday evening at the earliest. For the time being I bought 5 gallons of 100 octane race fuel and it seems to run a little better but not much. I'm just being extremely careful driving around. I haven't given the car more than 25% throttle and I can't physically hear any pinging going on, just the knock sensor is detecting a slight amount so I think I'll be fine until Monday. There's still quite a few problems I need to work out with the engine though. The first is a leaking oil pan, again. I also can't seem to stop the power steering fluid from leaking out of a line. It seems like I smell coolant each time I stop the car as well. Can't tell if it's just burning off the motor where it spilled somewhere or if coolant is getting into the combustion chamber (I hope not). I need to work on the brakes too. After driving my wife's BMW M3 for nearly two months off and on the Integra brakes feel like crap. Hell even the brakes in the Expedition have a better pedal feel to them! Updates to follow...
Novemeber 15, 2002
I don't seem to be loosing any coolant and I'm not smelling it anymore so that's great news. The oil pan leak is still there. I still haven't gotten my burner back yet so still no plans for tuning yet. Joe burnt me that chip finally yesterday and it works better than the one I had. There's a lot less timing but it goes lean between 2500-4000rpm when more than 25% throttle is applied. Knock sensor says there's some knock at that RPM and I'm thinking it due to it going lean so I'm being real careful until I can richen up the mixture there. I did get the car into VTEC tonight on the way home from work. Larry from Endyn said I would have valve clearance but I did a real world test. I didn't want to be hard on the engine yet so I got the car up to 5000rpm slowly in 1st gear and watched to A/F gauge to make sure I didn't go lean and slowly increased throttle until it activated the VTEC cams. I took it up to around 7000rpm and quickly pushed in the clutch. Like I said the car's still running so, so far so good. As soon as that burner comes in, now I feel confident doing some WOT runs on the dyno. I've also been monitoring my oil consumption very carefully. It's still using a tiny bit of oil at just a tick over 1000 miles. Not sure if the motor is burning oil or if it's the leak though. Then another thing to add to my list of things wrong with the car is my alarm is no longer locking the doors automatically. Lovely eh?
December 7, 2002
Finally got the oil leak fixed! Turns out it wasn't the oil pan at all. It was the front seal on the oil pump. Wasn't too difficult to change out but fairly time consuming for just a simple seal. I got my alarm fixed to so that it automatically locks the doors. Just a loose wire so no drama there. Since the car isn't leaking oil it does still appear to be burning oil though. Grrrrr! It doesn't smoke nearly as bad, and when it does it's only at WOT at high(er) RPM's which is to be expected I suppose. I took the car to the dyno/Technodyne and Brandon and I did about 11 passes. I didn't have my burner back still so I was just real careful in the lower RPM's to not put the engine under much load. Making some fuel pressure adjustments, ignition timing (via distributor) and cam timing adjustments we were able to get 211 WHP and 153 ft/lbs at 7500rpm. Impressive numbers but also about what I expected. What I didn't expect was power to fall off at 7500rpm. I guess Larry/Endyn was right that I would need a larger header and exhaust. I did get my burner back on Thursday this week. I figured out my lean mixture was due to the "injector multiplier" being set too low on the Hondata. I got that corrected and burned a new chip on Friday morning and the car ran good. Today I spent an hour or so driving around and fine tuning it the best I could with my knock sensor and a/f ratio gauge. I think it feels quite a bit faster and I'm happy with the results so far. I just went online and ordered the DC JDM 4-1 ceramic coated header in hopes of getting even more top end power. With that installed and another dyno session with the Hondata programmer/burner this time I'm shooting for 230+ WHP (fingers crossed). About the best news besides my motor running good is my brakes. They work awesome now! I was reading through my manual and found out that when you replace the master cylinder (like I did a 2-3 years ago) you're suppose to adjust it to the brake booster. I had no idea it needed or even could be adjusted. Sure enough after I got it adjusted properly the brake feel and response it absolutely amazing! It's like I put a totally different set of brakes on my car. There is still too much bias in the front so the rear brakes will need to be upgraded next. The car pulls slightly to the right under braking, however I'm pretty sure this is due to the steering tie rod on the drivers side. The ball joint is pretty worn and there is a little 'play' in it and I think it's causing it the wheel to shift to the right under braking, causing the pull. I ordered a new steering tie rod online (www.acuraautomotiveparts.net) tonight as well. Even if that doesn't fix this minor problem, it's still needed as it's worn out.
December 9, 2002
I forgot to mention that last week I had to replace the starter. My car was sounding really weird one morning so I pulled to the side of the road and turned the car off. When I did that the starter started cranking over the engine like I was trying to start the car but it would never fire. I pulled the key completely out of the ignition but it kept doing the same thing. When I turned the key to the first on position the motor fired right up. Very strange indeed. The motor was not sounding healthy at all so I pull the key out again and the same thing happened where the starter was turning over the motor. I hit my circuit breaker to kill the battery to get it to stop. However as soon as I closed the circuit breaker again the starter started spinning the motor over. I put the key in, started up and drove back home. Thankfully I made it okay. Since I had been having problems off and on for at least a year with starting the car I figured it wasn't a bad idea either way to just replace it. Checker Auto Parts ended up having the cheapest in town at $129. After installing it I wish I had got a factory one even though it was over $200. The new one works everytime but doesn't turn over the motor as fast or as easily. It's got a lifetime warranty but it just sounds like it's hard on the motor when it fires up at a fairly low RPM. Since I rebuilt the motor the coolant temp hasn't looked quite normal since. The temp gauge needle would point straight at the coldest level and only raise to maybe 1/4 of the way when sitting at idle for long periods. Before it used to be near the middle at all times. Thinking that the thermostat was stuck open and not letting the water or engine heat up. Not wanting to waste $70 on a 160 Mugen degree thermostat when I just planned to go to Pep Boys and get a cheap 180 degree one to see if that was what the problem was. The cheapest one they had was $11.99 which was a little more than I wanted to spend to just "test". Then I saw it, low and behold a 160 degree thermostat for $6.99! It looked fairly similar in size and shape to the replacement 180 degree one so I bought it. It was slightly larger in diameter but after about 2 minutes of grinding and sanding it smooth it fit just fine! The car now warms up to normal operating temperature but it doesn't hold near 160 degrees??? It runs around 178-185 degrees now according to the Hondata Datalogger. Not exactly what I expected but at least things are back to normal again. For $6.99 hell maybe they just said it was a 160 degree thermostat when it's really just a "normal" 180 degree one. :-)
March 3, 2003
Dang I'm lazy when it comes to updating this thing. My car still burns oil but it doesn't smoke nearly as much as it used to. There is a slight amount of smoke when I really get on the gas. Most recently it went through 1.5 quarts of oil between oil changes. Hopefully as I put more miles on it, the oil consumption will drop. I switched to Mobil 1 10w30 synthetic a little early so that could be part of the problem. The motor now has approximately 8k miles and it's still running fine. It doesn't seem to have as much power as before but maybe it's just me getting used to the power. One thing I did notice was there's oil coming out of the filter on my Endyn breather tank. Seems like there's a lot of pressure coming from the engine block. Perhaps I'll hook up the PCV valve and see if it reduces the oil consumption. I put the JDM 4-1 header and the only thing that I could tell was the noise is a little more ricey sounding. Didn't notice a significant difference in the top end power. The good thing is I didn't notice a decrease in power either. Someday I need to get the car on the dyno and retune with the new header. About month or so ago someone broke into my car. They jacked up the passenger side door handle and when they couldn't get in they just broke the window. They took about 80 CD's and ripped the tach off the dash. I ended up getting quite a bit of money from insurance due to all the cosmetic damage they did but I'd just as soon it never happened. I bought new knuckles to replace my bent ones and I bought new front wheel bearings too since mine are just about shot. I bought a new clutch as well since mine is slipping slightly. I still haven't installed it yet though. I also upgraded my rear brakes with 10" discs and calipers to match. It's a "secret" brake setup and I swore I wouldn't tell what parts I used so don't bother asking. I also upgraded the front pads to Carbotech Panthers. They work really well but dust a lot unfortunately.
March 23, 2003
I replaced both front wheel bearings. The driver side one was totally shot and making some aweful noises. The passenger side one wasn't as bad but still needed replacement. Pretty costly since I replaced both front knuckles at the same time. The used ones I bought from some dude over the internet were both bent slightly. I tried to buy some used ones again from a junk yard and got two bent ones again so I just said screw it and bought brand new ones online from Acura Carland in FL for around $400 after shipping. $160 for new wheel bearings from the local dealer and another $150 to have the hubs pressed out of the old knuckles and the hubs and bearings installed in the new units. The car now drives and brakes straight and camber is even on both sides when adjusting the Skunk2 control arms the same. I'm running about -3.5 degree camber in the front and -1.25 degress in the rear. With the toe set to zero there is surprisingly very little tire wear. I'm going to go another 1k miles or so before having the tires flipped around and I should be able to get 20-25k street miles on a set of these Kumho 712 tires which is the best I've ever gotten out of a set of ANY tires. Last weekend I went to San Diego for the SCCA National Tour. The weekend pretty much sucked overall as it rained just about the entire weekend. Friday's practice day actually was a lot of fun and I turned a lot of heads as I think I was posting the quickest SM times from what I could tell. Amazingly my engine/exhaust was over the 93dB limit of San Diego so I had to get a 4.5" metal tube that directed my exhaust/sound to the ground to make it a little quieter. A quick run to a nearby Lowes, $7 and a few minutes of labor and my car was only emitting 89dB on the sound meter. Saturday morning is where things went to hell. It rained off and on all day and with my ground running at the very end of the day there was hope that it would stop. Fat chance as when our group started it was absolutely pouring and nearly 5pm (and 6pm was the cutoff time). Just about everyone was on race tires and some were switching back to their street tires as there was SOOO much water. I just said screw it since I was cold and wet. I could barely see and there wasn't much traction but I posted the quickest time in SM on my first run. My second run was 4 seconds faster somewhere in the 66's which I believe was again the fastest SM time by a second or more. By this time it was now 6pm and due to city regulations we had to shut the event down and stand on our 2nd runs which I was perfectly happy with. The following day however, there were several cars with DNF's or cones on both runs and some had timing light problems. Because of this they nulled Saturday's runs and decided to determine the event by Sunday's runs only. Damn, there went my lead! Sunday actually turned out not being too bad as the rain stopped by the 4th run group and was just about completely dry by the time we went. My 1st run sucked and I got a DNF. The car was also emitting a ton of mystery white/blue smoke. Definitely not good. I just said screw it and did my 2nd run anyway with the smoke. When I came in I had the fastest SM time again but there were several two driver cars that hadn't gone yet. About 2-3 two driver cars got quicker times than me so the pressure was really on for my 3rd run to not only go faster than their 2nd runs but by a little more to beat their anticipated 3rd runs as well. The engine was still smoking as well I figured I killed the oil control rings again but since the car was still making decent power I went for my 3rd run. I was absolutely flying through the first part of the course and the car was handling great until I overcooked the first slow speed turn. The car was in a perfect 4 wheel drift and I had it under control but the drift slide the car a little too far and I knocked out a few cones. Dang, there went 1st place. So the rest of the run I just went balls out. Late braking, wipping the car through the slalom, etc. It felt REALLY fast but it actually ended up being around a half second slower. I guess smooth really is the fastest way around the track. So the end result was 6th place out of 21 cars and I ended up grabbing the last trohpy in the class. If I had a clean run on my 3rd run and kept it smooth I'm pretty confident I could have placed in the top 3. Oh well, I'll try my luck at Nationals this year. On the drive home from S.D. I was smoking out my friends Duane and Cyndi so bad they had to pass me and lead the way. They said they couldn't see any smoke anymore but the fumes were really bad. At the first gas station only 175 miles or so I had burned through a quart of oil. Not good. When we made it all the way home the motor had gone through another quart of oil. Still not good. This week driving to work and back I put on about 500 miles and it's burned less than a quart of oil so it's reduced consumption but it's still not normal. I'm going to try to run the motor until the next Phoenix event and then pull it (since I'll be in Mexico on vacation for the May event) again to have Endyn build it this time. Larry is a great guy and he's pretty confident that he can coat the pistons to build up their diameter to get the correct piston to wall clearances and then put new rings in it. Oh, one last thing I figured out as well. In the two front corners of the head/block, my motor has always leaked oil there. Well turns out it's mostly likely because my head and block have been milled/decked and I never shortened the dowel pins which is basically holding the head up. When I pull the motor next month I will shorten those and hopefully that will fix that small leak.
June 15, 2003
I pulled the motor out today. My friend Kevin came over and helped me. I've done this so many times it's really just a one man job. He pretty much gave me someone to talk to while he made the process go much quicker by keeping the parts organized while I removed them from the car and handed me the needed tools. There wasn't too much drama except for the transmission. Since I had an extra hand this time I decided to just crawl under the car and yank the tranny off and rest it on my chest. Well it got pretty stuck and there wasn't enough room for me to slide out from under the car. Not sure how we eventually got it off me but the only damage was a dirty greasy chest. :-) I'm going to disassemble the block and get it shipped off to Endyn hopefully by next weekend. I'm also considering shipping him the head again to do some additional head work.
June 25, 2003
I got the all disassembled and shipped to Endyn and they received it w/o issue. However I received an email from Larry today that made my heart sink. Once AGAIN the block is completely destroyed. Basko did an absolute crap job machining the cylinders into the block which cracked the main webing, split the aluminum cylinders surrounding in the water jackets, cracked the outter block near the water pump and didn't line-honed the crank so the bearings and possibly the crank got beat to all hell as well. The only saving grace is a good thing I shipped it to him when I did since it wouldn't have lasted too much longer. Additionally for some odd reason Basko drilled holes in the weakest part of the piston (the pin boss. Larry says the pistons are questionable but did agree to reuse them if I felt comfortable with them. So I'm once again up against a wall and pretty much out of choices unless I flat out give up which I don't plan to do, yet. So now yet another project is in the works. This time it will be a 2.0L (85mm) GSR block with the proper oil squirters, ITR oil pump that's been reworked, properly machined block, honed cylinders, and custom matched main and rod bearings. Needless to say the additional head work and intake manifold will have to wait until next summer. The saga continues...
July 13, 2003
Just a quick update that Endyn still has the motor but I believe it's close to being completed. I bought my original GSR block back from Brandon. I stripped the internals from it and shipped the core block to Larry/Endyn as my core. Today I dropped my flywheel off at Joe's house to see if he can get someone to resurface it. I took it to a local shop and they wouldn't touch it since it's "aftermarket". I also picked up a new set of Magnacore spark plug wires. The goal is to have ZERO issues when the car goes to Nationals this year. Hopefully things will go together nicely.
July 29, 2003
Joe finally got my flywheel resurfaced it took so long because he kept on forgetting that it was in his car. When he did remember, he didn't have any money with him to pay for it. His flywheel resurfacing guy didn't really want to do since it was "aftermarket" as well but Joe got him to do it anyway. During the resurface and him pulling the 3 locating dowel pins he dropped one of the pins and lost it. I'll just go to Napa and have them pull the pins from my stock flywheel and use those instead of stressing about it since I can't find another pin locally. Speaking of flywheel issues when I removed the pressure plate off the car I broke the head off one of the bolts. Joe also gave me one of those that he had laying around his garage so that problem is now solved.
July 30, 2003
Got the motor delivered to work in a crate. Opened it up to take a look at it and Larry forgot to include the spark plugs and more importantly the water pump. Instead he sent me a distributor cap. Not wanting to destroy the custom engine crate, I had my friend Brian borrow his work truck and help me get it home.
July 31, 2003
What kills me is that I've known about this race for over a year and have been preparing for it a little each day yet I'm still rushed and things are really coming down to the wire. I've got an autox practice day on 8/10 and I haven't even started installing the motor in the car yet. Work has been crazy so I won't get a change to start on it until Saturday. From that point I'll have 8 days to get the car back together and put 1000 miles on it to break it in.
August 2, 2003
I do a little prep work on the block and install a few misc items and then Brian comes over the help out. Before putting the block into place I wanted to get the flywheel completed so could immediately mount the transmission into place as well. Brian and I head down to Napa and it sucked to say the least. The line looked worse than the DMV and they even had the same system as the DMV with that annoying computerized woman stating, "Now serving number C578... at window number 12...". I swear it took at least an hour of standing in line to get the 3 pins from my stock flywheel removed. At least once it was our turn, it only took a few minutes and the guy didn't charge us for the labor. The stock flywheel pins didn't quite fit in my aluminum flywheel so I just used some JB Weld and hammered them into place. They seem like they will hold. Man I love JB Weld!!!
August 3, 2003
Brian and my other friend Kevin came over to help and we got the block and transmission in with very little drama. As I'm putting on the flywheel cover I notice that one of the bolts for the clutch is longer than the others. Damn, it's the one that Joe gave me. Obviously the longer bolt weighs more and with the flywheel spinning nearly 9000 RPM that weight can really add up. Being the lazy ass that I am and not wanting to pull the transmission off again, I decide to just cut the excess bolt sticking out of the flywheel off to accomplish my DIY flywheel balancing. :-) Close enough for me. I figure I take apart the car so often than next time its out of the car I'll get the right bolt and have the flywheel and clutch balanced anyway. By Sunday evening I have the head on the car. I torque it down, install the cams and pour ample amounts of oil all over the valve train. I then finish up all the little detail work. I'm just about completely done except for the timing belt and water pump when I notice a large amount of oil leaking from the two front corners of the engine. Damn! My heart sinks... All I can think about is that I have to pull the head off again and buy a new head gasket. I'm pissed and I'm calling it a night. Thinking about it more I'm just going to try and drive with it leaking and fix it after Nationals.
August 4, 2003
I get home from work and the water pump and spark plugs are at my front door. Woo woo! I install the water pump, timing belt, get the timing set and the belt tensioned. I got to put on the upper timing belt covers. Damn! I forgot you have to put the covers on before the camshafts. To make things easier I just removed the cam gears and get the cover on. I finsh up the rest of the motor and go to start it. It's been a while so it's a bit slow cranking but it actually fires up on my second try! I check for leaks or anything major wrong and things seem okay except for a check engine light. About 30 minutes of troubleshooting I find one wire from the wiring harness of the O2 sensor popped out of the socket. Once I get that fixed the check engine light goes out and everything else looks good. Additionally I notice the leak at the head gasket seems to be leaking significantly less.
August 5, 2003
It's a little scary but I drive my car to work and things seem to be running okay but it's not idling very good and does die if I don't rev it up a little before coming to a stop. That should just be in the Hondata ECU program so I'll have to tune that part later unless I have time before Nat'ls which I doubt. I check the oil level when I get to work and as expected it's either burning a little or leaking a little.
August 6, 2003
I'm continuing to monitor the oil consumption very closely and I figured out my oil leak at the head gasket was actually just left over oil from the head that had seeped in between the gasket layers and squirted out when torquing it down. Whew! It should have dawned on me when the oil that leaked out was black (old oil) and not brown and clean. The motor is consuming a little oil though but it's only got a couple hundred miles on it too and the first 1000 miles or so it will burn oil until the rings are completely seated according to most engine builders.
August 10, 2003
With only 750 miles on the car I just say screw it and I run the autox practice day anyway. The car seemed like it pulled fairly strong however I seem to be loosing oil pressure in the turns which is NOT good! Kevin watched my car and said I was blowing blueish colored smoke slightly when getting on the gas while in a sweepng turn. My best guess is it was smoking whenever I was loosing oil pressure. I told Larry about this and he basically said I'm an idiot and to stop doing that until I get the oil pressure problem fixed or else I'm most definitely be dealing with a spun bearing. He recommended I got with a custom z10 oil pan made for high G's and road racing.
August 13, 2003
I received the Z10 oil pan today. I noticed there's two bung holes for temp and turbo return line but no plugs for the holes.
August 15, 2003
I go to Home Depot to get brass plugs but since they were out of the size I needed I went ahead and got some POS galvanized ones. The Z10 oil pan looks pretty bad ass but was kind of a bitch to install. It's definitely not an OEM piece as several items didn't quite fit right. There was cutting, trimmed, sanding and grinding to get the damn thing to fit on the car. I had to hack up the header bracket for it to fit too. I filled up the car with 5 quarts of Pennzoil 5w30 (Larry's recommended oil) and then go for a drive. The OEM oil pan would only drop oil pressure in super high G-force turns with R-compound tires so I wasn't expecting the drive to tell me much. HOWEVER, the problem is worse than ever now! With street tires a moderate left turn for more than a split second the oil pressure drastically drops. Fearing bearing failure I immediately lower the RPMS and straighten the car out and the pressure returns quickly. I couldn't duplicate it with right hand turns but didn't try that hard either. The car is now parked while I think what to do next.
August 16, 2003
Knowing that the Z10 pan doesn't fit very well on the car and the stock one definitely works better I install that one back on the car. Before doing so I make some custom baffles out of aluminum in hopes that will help with my oil problems. Taking the car for a test drive show positive results. I can't make the car loose oil pressure driving as hard as I can on my street tires but I'm still back where I started.
August 18, 2003
I call Larry and tell him my situation and he says I can return the Z10 pan for a full refund so hats off to him for standing behind his products or at least refunding my money when stuff doesn't work. He recommends I try the Mugen pan and/or getting an Accusump system. Since King Motorsports doesn't have a Mugen pan in stock it's a good thing that I modified my own pan while it was out of the car. Not wanting to take a change at the practice day I go ahead and order an Accusump system from Racerwholesale.com (http://www.racerpartswholesale.com/accusump1.htm) and have it shipped 2 day air.
August 20, 2003
Got the Accusump today from UPS. The bastards at Racer Wholesale quoted me $20-25 for shipping but it ended up being $41!!! Grrrr...
August 21, 2003
Went to Technodyne tonight after work to dyno the car with less than stellar results. The car only makes 2 HP more than last time after about 90 minutes of dorking around in the Hondata playing with the fuel settings and a small amount of changes to the timing curves. 213 WHP and 155 TQ was the best I could muster up. I'm pretty sure the car can make significantly more power with a less restrictive exhaust. Currently the car falls on it's face at 7,500 RPM and the Jun 3's should easy make power and keep pulling at 9,000 RPM.
August 22, 2003
After work I went to Lopers to get some steel braided line and fittings for the Accusump. I also stayed at home while my wife went to a party tonight so I could get the Accusump installed on the car. Ran into all sorts of problems with the first one not being able to figure out how the hell to get the sandwitch adaptor on the car. It seems like they forgot to send me a bolt or piece of hardware to get the adaptor to fit on the block correctly. Additionally I'm still not sure where I'm going to mount the Accusump and exactly how I'm going to do the plumbing. I worked on the damn thing until 11PM and then just gave up as I didn't have all the correct pieces.
August 23, 2003
The practice was a big disapointment as the car experienced it's fair share of problems today. Oil pressure was still an issue even with my custom baffles. I took Chucks advice of adding about a quart of oil over the full mark which was a huge mistake! I think the oil sloshed up the entire block and up onto the lower cylinder walls. Once the pistons came down into the oil it was WAY more than the rings could handle and sent out HUGE clouds of smoke out the back. Then with a little oil in the exhaust pipes it smoked until basically the next time I ran and the cycle repeated. At least by the end of the day most of the oil had burned off and the car is no longer smoking or smoking very little. The car didn't seem to loose pressure too bad but now it seems like the oil pump isn't keeping the pressure as high as it used to be. It might just be me being paranoid too. I could have sworn the pump would do 70+ psi at 3k RPM but now it needs to be 4k+ to reach 70 psi. At any rate, the car was also misfiring extremely bad around 7,000 RPM through the slalom. I'm not sure what's up with that but I'm suspecting bad gas or a dirty fuel filter. It definitely wasn't a fuel pick up problem as I had way more gas than I normally do in the tank. The last and most annoying problem is the car runs like ass between 5200-5800 RPM which is near the VTEC switchover point. If I drive the car in that RPM range which is where it was when going around most of the turns the car sputters and jerks and just doesn't want to run very smooth. I can't tell if it's the VTEC kicking on and off because of oil pressure or if it's the ECU doing it. Yet another thing to add to the list. AHHHH!!!
August 24, 2003
Changed the fuel filter today. I also changed the fuel pump. Man what a royal pain in the ass to get the much larger than stock Bosch fuel pump into the stock location. It took a lot of grinding cutting and massaging to get it in place but at least it's there. It really wasn't needed at all as the stock pump kept up fine even in the upper RPM but I got it for reliability sake. The stock one had 135k original miles and I'd hate to see something like that fail while driving to work, road trip, racing, etc. So hopefully one of those items corrected the misfiring problem. Additionally I think the changes I made at the dyno to my ECU are the source of my problems with the car running like shit near the VTEC switchover point. I'll explain later when I get the Accusump working first.
August 25, 2003
Last night while cleaning up the garage I found the missing bolt for sandwitch oil adaptor for the accusump so tonight after work I finished up the instalation. I also reinstalled the factory oil cooler. What a PITA to get the coolant hoses and especially the clamps on again for the oil cooler! A little hot coolant and oil in the eye balls won't kill you right? So I go for a test drive and the system seems to work but there's not nearly as much reserve as I thought there would be. I think the site advertises "an oil supply up to 20 seconds...". Well they should really emphasize the "up to" part cuz set at 60 psi it only lasts for about 4 seconds at 60 psi and then pressure drops very quickly. Hopefully that should be enough pressure for any autox manuver though. On my way back home from my test driving around the neighborhood I smell excessive oil and look in my rear view mirror and see a cloud of smoke. I pull over and smoke is pouring out from under the hood. I'm only a 100 yards or so from home so I drive back and pull into the garage. Big mistake! The garage is full of smoke before I can even get out and get the fan turned on. Turns out I forgot to tighten the hose fitting to the sandwitch adaptor. Doh! I'm too impatent to wait for the car too cool down so I go ahead and reach carefully between the header and block to tighten the fitting and of course burn myself a couple times in the process but I do get it tightened up. The oil is all over the exhaust so takes about 20-30 minutes for it to all burn off, but now that it has I think it's ready to go. The one thing that I will need to do is make some heat shields. That damn Accusump pump and the steel braided lines get hotter than hades so I'm thinking about running the lines under the car next to the exhaust and the pump where my back seat used to go so no one gets burnt, like me! For now at least it's in the car and functioning without any leaks (I think). I think it will work well enough to do Nationals with.
August 26, 2003
Feeling confident about the Accusump, I drive the car to work today and unfortunately there's still a leak somewhere. There's smoke coming from under the hood when I get to work again so the additional oil pressure of highway driving (70psi) must make it leak where it's not apparent when idling (<20psi). When I get home from work I pull the fitting off and redue it, this time making sure the hose gets cut very clean. Additionally I tighten the manual valve on the pump itself some more since oil seems to be leaking on the inside carpet. Doh!
August 27, 2003
DAMN!!! It's still leaking. I go to Lopers at lunch and get a new fitting. This time I get a 45 degree fitting so the hose isn't stressed as much. When I get home I tighten the fittings on the actual pump again and redue the fitting at the sandwitch adaptor once more and go for a test drive. It's still leaking??? I check it out and I tighten the fitting more, say a bunch more cuss words and go to bed.
August 28, 2003
Woo woo! I think I finally licked the leak. :-)
Sept 6, 2003
The car is running pretty dang good and I'm actually writing this while in the car on the way to Topeka, KS for Nationals (cell phone modem/laptop). Brian is co-driving my Integra. Brian's brother-in-law (Adam) let us borrow his Chevy full size truck and we borrowed my friend Randall's car hauler. Check out the details of Nationals in the autox section.
Mar 10, 2006
Holy shit time flys! Since Nationals the car has gone through a ton of changes. The tranny needed a new input shaft bearing and countershaft so I just bought a JDM 4.785 final drive since that included a new countershaft. The car was insane with that final drive but the gearing was too low and most autox courses I'd be on the rev limiter in 2nd. Just a couple months ago I traded a guy for his stock 4.4 final drive and some other parts to get the revs down so I didn't need 3rd gear and to increase reliability by lowering the overall revs of the motor. At Nationals 2004 Kevin Gleaton co-drove with me in my car and we ended up spinning a rod bearing at the practice day. He found a ride in an ASP Porsche 944 turbo and I hooked up a co-drive in an FM Zink. I drove terrible on the first day (first time ever running a car anything like that was my 3 comp runs). On day two after getting used to the car a little, my time for that one day was good enough to trophy but when combined with my crappy time from the previous day, it made me a mid-packer. Back home I had the crank grinded, put in new rods and fresh oversized bearings and things seemed good. I took the car to the San Diego National Tour in March 2005. Brian Weikert co-drove my car with me and Saturday things seemed fine. Sunday however, after Brian's first run, the car/engine came back with some rod knock. Not wanting to pack up as a DNS, I threw caution to the wind and said screw it, "I'm just going to make ONE run to get on the board". Big mistake because about 100 yards later the rod exploded and shot through the front/side of the block. Millions of pieces of metal dropped into the oil pan which seized the oil pump. The piston shot up and smacked the top of the head which put a dent into the combusion chamber. It also bent the valves and also snapped the exhaust camshaft in half which in turn bent the rest of the valves. When I got the car home, the bottom end was a complete loss. Talk about an expensive mistake. It took until December to buy a new block and get it resleeved, source a new crank, rods, pistons, windage tray, oil pan, oil pump, fix the head (i.e. new valves, fixed combustion chamber), new camshafts... The good news is this is the best the engine has ever been. The head had some combustion work done to increase quench along with .5mm oversized intake valves. I also went with Endyn's new camshafts which are a huge improvement over the Jun 3's as they deliver a seamless VTEC crossover as well as tons more midrange power with similar top end performance. I also had the engine properly tuned by Joe/Locash racing. He was able to get 225whp and 169ft/lbs of torque measured on his Dynapack. A Dynapack typically measures 7-8% lower than a Dynojet. I'm estimating the engine will measure read 240whp and 180ft/lbs on a Dynojet! Another thing I discovered is my Accusump system was setup incorrectly. The prefilled air pressure should have only been around 7-10psi instead of the 50-60 psi I was running. This explains why I didn't have shit for capacity and it didn't seem to work right. Now that I have a properly working Accusump system in addition to a heavily baffled Canton oil pan, modified Canton windage tray (<-- so it fits along with my OEM GSR girdle), and THREE catchcan breather systems in place I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my oiling problems will no longer be an issue (<-- loss of oil pressure has been the root cause of my last two motor failures).
Mar 30, 2006
So the car has been running great and the motor is strong at the autox with no loss of oil pressure. I went to Tucson to do their autox event. The car drove down there just fine but when I got to the gate to sign the waiver the engine died. It restarted but it kept dying unless I held my foot on the gas. I ended up resetting the ECU and it seemed fine after that. Strange. The car ran great for the event. On the way home I'm about 5 miles from my house cruising on the freeway under a medium load and suddenly the motor sounds/feels like it's running on 3 cylinders. I'm able to limp it home. A compression test reveals there's a problem in cylinder #1 with only 190psi vs 250-260 in the other 3 cylinders. I get a leakdown tester and I've got 30% leakdown in cylinder 1 and about 1% in the other three. From the sound of the escaping air clearly heard through the intake, I'd say it's a problem with the intake valves in cylinder #1. Not sure how they were damaged as I was simply driving on the freeway (i.e. not racing). If there was valve contact I would think that would be due to overly aggressive cam timing or valve adjustments way out of wack but everything was in line and should have been a safe setup. The only thing I could think of is that when the motor blew up in San Diego, the piston did hit the head in cylinder #1 and maybe somehow the head wasn't fixed correctly??? If that's the case I probably shouldn't send the head back to Endyn again but I'm still going to simply because they're the only shop I half way trust with any of my engine internals. :-( Hopefully it's just a valve job and maybe they'll find a defective valve guide or something like that which caused the problem in the first place. On a brighter note, at least this won't cost too much and I'm not having oiling issues.
