BB6 S-Spec Build. 5/2: Worlds Most Convoluted Voltmeter Install

[SwiftSez]

Righto, so being on a budget is probably nowhere near as fun as ticking up a loan through Instant Finance to go nuts on a car, but I've got a kid to feed and a mortgage to pay.

The old adage when it comes to modifying cars is �Fast, Cheap, Reliable; choose two.�
I'm hoping to show that a few well chosen mods will increase the 'driveability' of a car without sacrificing reliability or the bank balance. All my mods have been installed by myself to save a bit of coin as well.

My car is a '99 Honda Prelude SiR S-Spec, a bit of an unknown, and due to the 5th gens 'unique' styling, it is very much a love it or hate it car.

The S-Spec has the same 220PS red top H22A as the Type S, but lacks the bulky ATTS - instead using a mechanical LSD. The plus side of this is a curbweight of 1270kg, so not quite as porky as it's Type-S cousin.

More S-Spec info


The car was a grade IV import with less than 100,000km, and came with a untuned VAFC, Mugen Sports suspension and Kakimoto exhaust. I think I payed just over 5 figures for it, which probably seems pricey today, but this was back in 2008 (before this happened, and the ass end fell out of the used car market).


Home sweet home.


'Red Top' H22A


Mugen sports suspension



It didn't take long until I decided to start doing some basic mods to improve the cars volumetric efficiency. First to go was the intake resonator located in the front bumper. This thing seems over-engineered and almost unnecessarily complex, with more bends and chambers than a cows digestive tract. Out it went.


I decided that I'd keep the standard intake arm, Mr Honda had already improved apon it specifically for the Type S/S-Spec, so who am I to argue?




Next up was the throttle body. The standard TB is 62.5mm, already fairly big. I only went with the 65mm TB as it was $150, and I was able to sell the original for $100. It also got rid of the Fast Idle Valve which can become problematic when the TB coolant bypass is done.



Being a cheaper unit, the final finishing of the unit was a little rough. As you can see the screws on the butterfly stick out a couple of milimetres.


Five minutes with a bastard file fixed that.


TB coolant bypass is a free mod which should gain a few HP.


Next in line was the intake manifold.
Again, I had no intention on modifiying this, but when an brand new after-market manifold turned up for $300, I jumped at the opportunity.
Here's a pic of the origional unit.


And with it gone. It's a bit of a bitch to take off, and it managed to smash my knock sensor at the same time. Fuckit.



The paper gasket was also a pain in the arse to remove, but we got there in the end.


Bye bye IAB's


Hello Skunk2 Pro intake


The two side-by-side, it's a poor pic but the Skunk2 runners are fatter and slightly shorter than stock.


Once all back together I found the TB sat about 5cm back from the stock position. A piece of PVC downpipe and insulation tape fixed that. Rangimods au.


The skunk2 manifold doesn't have a place for the ERG, so this was relocated on a blanking plate just above the gearbox.


When Adam brought in some replica hytec headers, I decided to purchase a set. They weren't cheap, but at the time getting a decent set of secondhand headers for the H22A was near impossible. The do look good in the engine bay though.


Prior to installing the headers it was evident the cylinder head was fairly grubby.

I didn't have the confidence to remove the whole head to get it dipped, but I carefully removed as much of the carbon from the exhaust ports as I could. Hopefully this restores a little flow to the head.


After the headers were installed it was also evident there was a decent gap between the collector and the B pipe.


I would have quite happily kept the standard cat, but as it only had a 2 inch ID on both sides, and the rest of my exhaust was 2.5 inches, it was replaced with an 18� resonator.







Stuff that so far doesn't have a place in my car


I also picked up some mint Modulo mags from a forum member along with some Hankook RS-2's and Eagle F1's from others.



The VAFC wasn't going to be enough to tune the H22A if I was going to start changing compression and valve train components, so I decided that an OBD1 system would be the most cost effective.
I picked up an OBD1 PR3-J51 ecu off trademe for $50 which will be suitable of chipping.



And made my own conversion harness using a busted OBD2a ecu and the internal loom from a civic, all in all, the conversion harness cost less than $40 to make.




And not long ago this turned up in the mail.



So now I'm in the process of street tuning the partial throttle maps, and will endeavor to get the lude on the dyno early 2010.

[DrRubber]

nice man...Are those Wayne (aka Boostin_it's) old Modulo's ??

[SwiftSez]

nice man...Are those Wayne (aka Boostin_it's) old Modulo's ??

Yup, I just beat you to the punch in buying them if I recall.

[Demon]

Looking good man, very interested to see how your tuning goes

[Monster]

Im liking this. Would be keen to know if the skunk2 manifold makes much more power.

[Horny_Devil]

looking good richard

we need to get together at some stage and do some tuning

[Primowave]

I remember seeing this car on Trademe being sold by a dealer a long, long time ago. Was very tempted to buy it. Glad it went in to good hands. Really looking forward to progress and to see what power and times it can make!

[Green Machine]

Awesome, something different.
Did you read up about the skunk2 manifold? Have they changed the design?? I was reading up about them and Im sure most people said they made no change compared to stock and even lost abit of power on stock engines.

[SwiftSez]

Awesome, something different.
Did you read up about the skunk2 manifold? Have they changed the design?? I was reading up about them and Im sure most people said they made no change compared to stock and even lost abit of power on stock engines.

To be honest, it was a bit of an impulse buy.
This is the second gen manifold, which Skunk2 say flows even more than the original design.
I had heard the manifold doesn't improve HP in stock 'blacktop' H22A's but I couldn't find any data on how well it works with the 'redtop'. I'm hoping the extra compression and cam lift/duration brings out the best in the manifold.

[Green Machine]

Atleast it will make the engine bay look nicer

[lotusboy]

Nice car mate, I use to have a Spec S too, yours is much cleaner though. Good luck, keep NZH posted.

[Lith]

Very very nice, good find and awesome to see its in good hands. I like the way you're going about this and look forward to seeing what it makes when you get some dyno time!

[b_series_power]

i dont like preludes but this one is quite nice

[Lith]

Early 2010!! Should I stop holding my breathe for impending dyno results?

[SwiftSez]

Early 2010!! Should I stop holding my breathe for impending dyno results?

Heh, good call.

I've been super lazy to be honest, I have a few minor mods I could string together as an update but no dyno time yet

Perhaps I should change early 2010 to first 1/3 of 2010.

Updates soon(ish)!

[SwiftSez]

Just a small update, I've not achieved much with the Prelude so far this year.

I had a bit of time off from work in January so I got around to relocating my alarm under the dashboard. Obviously I'm not going to show any pics of the alarms placement, but suffice to say it buried at the back of the dash, and will be a right pain in the ass to access for any potential thief.

While the dash was off, I replaced the cigarette lighter with an engine start button. It's pure rice but I already had the parts laying around from another project, so it seemed a waste not to put them to use.


(yes, that is a cassette player)

So far the start button has failed to drop any panties, but you never know - school starts soon.



I also got around to buying a clay bar. I've wanted one of these since reading a review on NZHondas.
I was a little disappointed with it to be honest. I assumed it would remove the heavy tar spots around the wheels, but actually it appears to be more of a final detailer type product. It does do a fantastic job of removing fine tar spots and road grime though, so all-in-all I'm happy.



I'll just have to find something that gets ride of heavy tar on the paint.





I also noticed a bit of noise coming from the valve train. Mike (Dootdoot) was good enough to adjust my valve lash, which I'm told was quite a bit out on cylinder two and three. "Like throwing a sausage down a hallway" were the words he used. I think at that point we were still talking about cars...



Just lately I picked up some new iridium plugs from another forum member. The 'lude already had HAMP iridium plugs in it which were in excellent condition, but where the equivalent of a NGK heat range 6. Since I'm about to start dicking around with timing and plug reading it seemed timely to get some new plugs a step colder.



And finally today I did some more dicking around with Crome.



Yes, those are photos of a computer screen, I am that lazy.

The low cam map is nowhere near complete, but you get the idea. I'm toying with a 'hi-resolution' map, I thought I might be able to squeeze a little more economy out of it by having more resolution, but as you can see most of the lines are parallel to each other, so the ecu would interpolate the ideal amount of gas anyway.
Jase warned me against the high res map, but I'm committed now and too stubborn to start again.

Timing is best guess from reading articles on the net. There is no heavy knock that I can hear, and the porcelain on the plugs is still bright white. As soon as I can get it on a dyno (looking at March at this rate) I'll know for sure.

While I'm here, does anyone know if you can put on a low cam rev limit using crome? As you can see I run out cells by 5000rpm on the low map. Should VTEC not engage for what ever reason I'd end up running off the map. I know Neptune can do this, but I'm unsure about crome.

[d16a7]

you should allways have map up to redline on low cam, even if you only have one per 1000rpm so one at 5000, 6000 and so on.as there will be times when vtec might not engage due to lack of load / throttle position, launching at drags etc and youl run into issues if you dont.

you can make a low cam launch control so to speak its very rangi, and i guess would work like a rev limit, il try find the thread for ya. but you will need to have the rows that i speak of above anyway, so not gonna help you there.

your not gonna gain by having such high resolution. as the ecu will make its own decision anyway if anything itl make things slower/buggier as it tries to calculate so close between the two inputs.

[Brent]

your not gonna gain by having such high resolution. as the ecu will make its own decision anyway if anything itl make things slower/buggier as it tries to calculate so close between the two inputs.

Thats why you don't run the o2 sensor, so it runs the fixed map all the time

[d16a7]

Thats why you don't run the o2 sensor, so it runs the fixed map all the time

yes brent but it still has to calculate how much goes in between the revs on your map!

so lets say fueling was 40 (for eg) at 3000rpm, and your at 3250rpm your next row might not be till 3500 rpm and its say 50 the ecu still has to calculate between those two settings as to how much fuel is going in(45), same for timing.

so if you have multiple increments so close together its still has to calculate from the inputs on the tables between the gaps,

its too early in the morning to be trying to explain and post up pics but im sure swiftsez knows what im getting at.

[SwiftSez]

yes brent but it still has to calculate how much goes in between the revs on your map!

so lets say fueling was 40 (for eg) at 3000rpm, and your at 3250rpm your next row might not be till 3500 rpm and its say 50 the ecu still has to calculate between those two settings as to how much fuel is going in(45), same for timing.

so if you have multiple increments so close together its still has to calculate from the inputs on the tables between the gaps,

its too early in the morning to be trying to explain and post up pics but im sure swiftsez knows what im getting at.

yeah, interpolation

I've increased the increments on the low cam map X axis up to the redline, so there should less of a safety issue should the high cam map not engage for what ever reason.

I'm not allowed to take the car for a drive today to tidy up the map, stupid valentines day.

[SwiftSez]

Righto, time for another update.

Still no tuning, but this time I have an excuse. This months achievements;

1)Picked up a P08 OBD1 ecu off Trademe for $20. I've started chipping it, but still waiting for a surface mount 74HC373 to turn up on back order.

2)Bought a Pioneer GM-3000 amp off Matt for $20. An old classic which puts out 75w into 4 channels. Two ohm stable too.

3)Whilst at Matt's, saw this and ended up buying it shortly after.

A Lynn Rodgers ported P13 head. Has been milled 0.020” which should bump up compression half a point. It will be slow going over the next month, as I've never taken off a head before or clayed an engine for valve/piston clearance. If all goes well I'll have a Crome chipped P08 and a redtop head up for sale shortly.

[S SPEC]

wow i have an s spec and i havent seen many with much work done internally watsoever to be honest. most people are just headers and an intake call it a day but your doin somethn with yours

[SwiftSez]

Just another small update.
I managed to make some progress today since the missus was good enough to take the ankle biter to the mall and leave me at home alone. I'm supposed to be doing a literature review for some work related research, but flag that.

Firstly, I found an old “under drive” crank pulley in the back of my wardrobe the other day. I forgot I purchased this shortly after I bought the prelude. I then went on to learn they have a habit of lunching big end bearings, so never actually put it on.

However with the dyno day coming up, I'm tempted to put it on for the extra 0.5hp.





I also managed to get the cylinder head off today, which I think is pretty good going for some noob who's never done this before.



The pistons were dry, but coated in soot. No marking on the bore that I can see. I assume this is ok?



Here some comparisons with the standard Type S head versus my Lynn Rodgers head. Truth be known, I don't know a quench pad from a sanitary pad, so I'll just post up pics of obvious differences between the two, and people who know what they're talking about can comment.

Cylinder #2 of the Type S head


Cylinder #2 of the ported head (plus my oily thumb print)


Combustion chamber of Type S head. Note the sharp angles around the intake and exhaust valve.


Combustion chamber of ported head. Note the sharp angles have been removed


I'm now in the process of moving the valve train over to the new head.



Does anyone have a valve spring compressor I can borrow?

[SwiftSez]

Quick update.

Missed the dyno day by 24 hours, mainly because I fucked around too long with DIY valve spring compressors that didn't work.
A big thanks to Lotusboy for his help.

Got the new head back on last Sunday, only to find the 'lude sounded like a Massey-Ferguson when I started it. Assuming i'd stuffed up the valve lash I decided to leave it until this weekend.

Today I adjusted the valve lash to 5 thou' on the intake and 6 thou' on the exhaust.

Started it up, still sounded like shit

Decided this would be a good point to RTFM.
Google tells me the LMA's on the H22a changed in 1999 and this is probably my problem. So now next weeks job is to shim the '99 spec LMA's up to '96 hight using washers.

[SwiftSez]

Just because a picture paints a thousand words, here's what I've done to the lost motion assemblies (LMA) in my cylinder head.

Basically, the issue is that I transferred the LMA's from my '99 Prelude into an older head. Honda, in their infinite wisdom, changed the LMA's in the same year, making them 40 thousandths of a inch shorter. This seems like a small gap, but it's enough to make the rocker assembey rattle against the cam lobe. Sounds like shit really.
The cure is finding a suitably sized shim to raise the hight of the LMA enough to stop the rattle but not cause premature wear of the rocker or cause the LMA's to coil bind.



Too short LMA



LMA out



The cure.

In the US it's common to use a dime placed under the LMA, turns out our old 1c piece is also a good match.

Truth be known I didn't use the 1c pieces because I couldn't find 8 of them, so used washers instead.




I also finished chipping my P08 ecu. Here's a quick how to.



1)Find a suitable ECU




2)Remove front and rear cover



3)The area of interest is the bottom right corner, Mr Honda has out lined it for you



4)Desolder where the 28-pin socket and ZIF will go



5)Solder on the surface mount 74HC373 (forgot to take a photo before I soldered on the socket above it



6)Solder on a 28-pin socket and the push in a ZIF. I had to file off a few millimeters of the start of the circuit board to get it to fit.



7)Find J4 and remove/keep the jumper



8)Place the J4 jumper across J1



9)As my ecu was an auto, covert it to manual by removing RP17 and placing a resistor over RP18



10)For datalogging, find CN2 and add a four pin header to pins 1 to 4.



11)Connect this to your USB to TTL converter


Now I've not actually had a chance to fire this up, but here's hoping I havn't arsed it up.
If it's a good'n I'll be looking to swap this with some adjustable cam gears in the future.


That's all for now.