Hyperblade

Car and trailer have been found.

Car Trailer (L190Q) and Honda FN2 Racecar (Still stickered from 24hr race) were stolen last night.

They were last seen (after 5:45pm) being towed by light or champagne colored Hilux Surf (no lights on) going past Hellers

$2000 reward for complete return.

PM me if you have any sightings of it.

15 hours ago, kpr said:

one word ->  packaging

they will be aiming for the 3rd harmonic (itb's, the skunk2 maybe even 4th)     im aiming for the 2nd, which is stronger  = more power

tapered is said to accelerate the air.  maybe.    but are also losses in the pipe, so need to go bigger further from head to keep flow the same as.    real world isn't much effective length difference with taper, unless is way too much. or turns into a massive bell mouth, which will act like the pipe ends part way down the bellmouth into the runner, rather than the face.  in your case yeah i would taper out soon as get past the throttle plate.

Example of engine not caring too much if runners are too big;  The runners on the manifold i made are 2.25"  tube.    think its 53 or 54mm id.  half way around the bend it starts tapering down to the port.  so yeah its big.  bigger than the rbc intake and huge compared to the stock k24 manifold.   but still gains power right down at 4000rpm.  close to 10% at that point,  so not a small gain either.

 

Another example. The only place my 4age with 52mm throttles  drops below a stock engine is under 2000rpm.

 

Ahh that would make logical sense.

I'm not sure Skunk2 were aiming for any harmonic it looks more like it's designed for turbos.

320mm long looks close to a lot of things, may have to curve the velocity stacks to fit that in but that's all doable if being 3d printed. Will be another learning experience.

Thanks for the feedback!

5 hours ago, Roman said:

Hey I've got a standard S1000RR airbox - but I bought the wrong one.
It didnt quite fit because it must be the box for the slightly different variation of throttles from the earlier or later ones. 
However it was definitely interesting to look at the mechanism for how it adjusts trumpet length, and the injector positions. 

My consensus was that it was interesting to look at, but I dont think it would have added enough benefit for a car engine to be worth buying another one that fit correctly when adding to a car engine.

What I mean is, the box has shorter runners for higher rpm. But those bikes run to 14,000rpm so "low" rpm might be below 10k haha. 
It's got a massive span of rpm it needs to operate compared to a car engine, which is why I think the dual length runner was valuable.
Also why the outer injectors earned their keep.  

It was also interesting that the position of the outer injectors was so incredibly far from the runners, when the upper trumpets were lifted up for high rpm.
It must have essentially just been fogging the whole airbox. Like maybe... 150mm away from start of the bellmouth.

I will take some pictures and measurements when I'm next over where it is.

Can send it to your for cost of post if you're interested but it wont fit.
 

Those are good points about dealing with the rev range. I've looked at the videos of how it works and it is a very clever design in it's simplicity.

Still want to try it just to see the impact, I'm trying to get everything out of a stock K20 without opening it, so every little bit counts!

3 hours ago, kpr said:

Yup, thats the same inlet test i was referring to.   

Have you looked into s65 bmw throttles?  they are 52mm, spacing should be pretty close for k series.  the also have an oval outlet  similar shape to the port.   Have a separate dbw module  that can be used if wanted to go that way. but is known to crap out. 

I'd  probably target  8000rpm  maybe a touch under for your intake runner length.   about 320mm from port face should get you ballpark.    you want to  get the intake tuning right where the engine naturally wants to make peak power.  will make more power and fatten it up that way.  rather than kinda trying to force it to make more power right up top. like your current intake looks to be doing.    The VCT  (cam timing)  is also your friend here.  you can use it to hang onto the power past peak a bit longer.   If do everything right it should at least match the power it has now right up top 8500- 9k and make a bunch more 7500- 8000rpm plus more through the mid range 

The runner length on the manifold in video is around the 350mm mark, as was targeting bit lower rpm. 

Skunk 2 Ultra Street Manifold Runners

Just measured the Skunk 2 Ultra street Manifold runners as a data point.

These are all rough measurements as it's still on car and I'm not taking it off as it's a full days job (one of the reasons why I want to go to ITB's).

Runner length 155mm from port face to velocity stack tip (estimated)

Outer diameter where runner goes into manifold is 60.50mm, I think there is a fair bit of wall thickness assume 5mm which would make 50.50mm inside diameter.

S65 ITB's

S65 ITB's are out of my price range at the moment, plus the ones I have are a seriously nice bit of kit in terms of packaging and weight. I'm happy to use these ones to get experience with them, if they work better then what I have then that means I can sell the old skunk2 setup and look at other options. Will only cost me the ITB's and filament which is not a lot in comparison to off the shelf ITB's, plus i'm now sold on electronic ITB's since i've spent time and wired for them (obviously can still run cable if I need to), but not a chance I'm going with dbw module that's know to crap out... 

I had looked at the efi hardware ones back when i was first looking for options, but they add up quickly with all the linkage and accessories needed.

Runner Length

So in terms of runner length for the Jenvey ITB's (EP3 version BUT NOT the Tegiwa compromised version) they look to me

Runner - ITB - Velocity Stacks = Total

85mm - 66mm(tapered) - 90mm(tapered) = 241mm

So I was planning to match that with

85mm - 78mm(tapered) - 78mm(tapered) = 241mm

But based on your suggestion it would be

85mm - 78mm(tapered) - 157mm = 320mm

So it's interesting to see such a big difference between your suggestion and theirs!

How does a tapered velocity stack affect things, my thinking is that as it's expanding it's slowing the pressure waves, so making it behave as if it's a longer velocity stack? How do you calculate that effect into it?

19 hours ago, Roman said:

Okay soooo

They had 184.5 wheel horsepower. 
Then fitted ITB, and now they have 185.6 wheel horsepower. 
So a 1.1 horsepower gain in real life.
But they now for some reason have 60.4 horsepower drivetrain loss instead of 56.6 horsepower drivetrain loss. 

Did someone pour sand in the gearbox when doing ITB swap? haha.
This is why I hate "at engine" power figures.

You have to love the drivetrain loss going up just at the end of the graph to produce a nice curve, very convenient for them...

To be fair the ambient temperature was different on the day.

But yeah, people need to stop with BS made up figures.

16 hours ago, kpr said:

As above,  I have been looking at some of the stuff they post. as been playing with a k24.    They quote all these different gains in bhp,   but the wheel hp on the same graph says something different.  also mega driveline losses.   Ive roughly overlaid the graphs    blue is the wheel hp.    red "engine" power.     light lines stock intake,  dark itb.    

 

Looking at the wheel power.  the stock intake manifold would be a quicker car.    unless you could run between 8000 & 9000 rpm the whole time.  even then  wouldnt be anything in it.

Why,    The itb's   will probably flow more.  but the runners are way to short to make any jam over the whole rev range.   stock inlet will be running out of flow and or slightly too long to make power at 9k
ITB's only work good if you dial in the runner length and have the flow to go with it.

Seems to be super common with K series stuff.  even the factory inlets.   They are too short with big runners.   or long with small runners.

I think those itb's you have will be a touch on the small side.   possibly ok.  but can get away with over sizing the intake a bit.  not so much under sizing it.   if make the runners small enough to gain in the bottom end (talking rpm you will never use in circuit car)  will lose top end.   if a bit too big, not much happens.  not trying to lecture you,  just wouldn't be fun to have to do it twice if you didn't have to.

 

This is the intake i just made for k24. Big long runners.   gains everywhere over RBC honda inlet.  which is spose to make more peak power that the stock ep3 one they compared the itbs too. 

 

Yep, here's another brilliant one from them, I'm sure you've already looked at it.

https://www.tegiwaimports.com/blog/?p=2443

I got caught out by this one when I brought my current ultra street manifold, i'm much more careful looking at these things now.

Lecture away! (happy for anyone too), I always like considering all the possibilities and discussing this stuff with people who have actual real world experience.

I agree slightly larger ITB's would be ideal so that you have a bit of wiggle room, but the feedback I've had is the normal Jenvey ITB's worked the best on a dyno(on built k20 in CRX) when comparing multiple different types, so if i match them in design I'm confident that it should perform at least better than the skunk2 intake I have currently.

But I'm limited by what you can easily get off motorbikes due to the pricing, I had a look around at other options, but nothing stood out.

However I do have a couple of other things planned to throw into the mix.

• Outboard injection.
• Variable velocity stacks (I'm on the hunt for a standard S1000RR airbox to get the mechanism)
• Intake will be using ram air to create pressure through filter and into air box.
• I have heaps of room to play around with lengths of stacks (which will be 3d printed so not expensive to make).

Do you have any good calculators you use for working out lengths of intake runners? I also need to find the measurement of valve to intake flange to use in them.

Just for reference car normally runs between 6000 to 9000rpm in a lap with lowest being 4700 rpm at hairpin. Being light and having the torque allows me to use more of the rev range, which helps with not overworking the tyres.

The last club day of the season (I was out in first round so not worried about points) was coming up and it was looking wet 

So I thought it would be a good opportunity to get the the car out for another shakedown of the new wiring, and get some experience in the wet (I've never driven in the wet).

So first time out on a wet track in qualifying, i put it on pole...

Race 1

Turns out it goes really good in the wet. Allowing me to take my first win by 30s over 2nd place (he sand bagged a bit after he accidently hit pit limiter and saw me race off into the distance).

I managed a 1:42.5 which is I'm absolutely stoked with, that's only 7s off my dry time, and there was a little more in it (and that's with no changes from current dry setup). 

Also it confirmed that things like the wipers, lights and demisting (not running any, instead I'm using the heat from exhaust + radiator) all worked as expected.

The wet's i ran are 4 year old ex Michelin TRS, and are absolutely amazing, it really was like driving in the dry, they are super soft and it shows as another competitor who is normally slightly faster in dry then me had older harder different brand wets and was 12s off my time.

But also the weight of the car and it's handling characteristics show it's driveable/chuckable nature.

Race 2

Race 2 was a handicap race and I was 60s behind first pack, unfortunately the guy who came 2nd place in 1st race was 15s in front of me, and he picked his pace up to match mine, i did manage to get within 9s of him on a damp track (rain had stopped).

I came out of the day actually feeling excited to potentially race in the wet in the future, where as before I was very nervous, so that's also a massive win.

ITBS

Interestingly enough Tegiwa have just come out with some Jenvey ITB's to fit an EP3, they are very heavily compromised to fit in the engine bay, but do have some dyno charts.

Check out the dyno results and see what you think about the results and claims...

https://www.tegiwaimports.com/blog/?p=6297

Quote

A run of 251.1bhp with 161.1 lbf.ft meant the kit had improved performance with an additional 13.8bhp! Of course, dyno figures aren’t the be all and end all of everything, it’s largely about the experience on the road. As we all know, there’s not much that comes close to the noise of a set of ITB’s screaming all the way to 9,000rpm which is a huge factor when it comes to deciding what option to go down when tuning your K20.

Before:

After:

Let me know your thoughts in my discussion thread here:

On 01/05/2023 at 16:47, Tiger Tamer said:

I need to reinstall the main water pump housing and they don't use a gasket. I see there is a sealer made by Honda called Honda bond HT. Do I need to use this or will any good RT sealer work just as well ?. What ever has been used seems fairly well bonded to the aluminum so I will have to be careful not to damage the mating surface.

Is copper coat good to use on the bolt threads with aluminum or is there something better I should use ?

Cheers

 

Loctite the bolts.

I have a water blanking plate on my k20, and lost 1 bolt, and had 2 back out (out of 4), there is a lot of vibration with these engines (granted the blanking plate is also not designed great either), I was lucky as the blanking plate runs orings but it could have been a lot worse.

26 minutes ago, Roman said:

Nice work on that DTM panel! Looks good, been thinking about doing something similar. 

However will you be doing anything to index them or add a keyway or something, so you cant plug the wrong plug into the wrong one? 

Or colour coding them or something.

(I'm here to steal ideas)

Yeah so all those thoughts crossed my mind when I did it. At the moment I have none of that.

Each connector is numbered on the loom and the bulkhead plate is numbered, but that's obviously not a fool proof solution.

Keying would be hard, you would have to machine the connectors down to put it in, and I'm not sure how much material is there to do that.

I had thought of printing color coded wrappers for them then glueing them on.

Can't use dummy pins as each connector doesn't have many to begin with.

I have made each connector very similar, e.g. 12v always on pin 1, 5v on 2, sensor ground 3, so it limits the risk a little bit, and coils/injectors are all interchangeable with no risk.

However my biggest concern is swapping the EWP with the ECU ground, if that happens then it's a straight path from fuse to ground.

So no solid solution at present, but open to ideas.

Stick with J160, becoming more popular which is good for parts and some amount of crossover with other variations of it is good. It's a good box. And if worried about torque just do the fix the Silvia guys do something internal which I can't remember specifics of.

On 24/02/2023 at 17:57, kpr said:

If you wanted to try something in the meantime,  you could take the spacers out of the plenum.  Have some thick head flanges cut to space the manifold out at the head end, lengthening the intake runner.   Maybe a couple at 25mm  so can stack them see what works best.  I'm guessing around 50mm would do the trick. Maybe could get them cut from something for some thermal insulation at the same time.  

That's actually a really simple idea to increase the length.

But it would affect my bracing underneath and way more then i want to do to it at the moment.

My plan is to 3d print the top half and straighten up the throttle body + intake for the experience in doing that without having to take the whole manifold off and I want to see if it actually does make any difference.

Then I can get stuck into the ITB's which i know will be much better, but are going to take a lot of time playing around with redoing wiring.

16 hours ago, kpr said:

runner diameter being a bit oversized  isn't actually much of an issue.  unless its way oversized.  
length is probably an issue though. 

you can see its doing something weird on the dyno sheet, which is most likely the intake runner length.    looks like its wanting to work at 8500. which makes the dip at 7500.    if the runners were a bit longer (most likely factory length)   so it was tuned for 7800-8000rpm  would  make more power.   its something that can be shuffled with the cam timing to a point also. your tuner probably should have already tried that though.
 

Ideally get those itb's on and make the intake runners way longer.   nothing off the shelf will get you there either due to fitment issues, or too hard to make. 

 

I'm pretty sure it's quite a bit larger then than stock, but hard to remember now as haven't had it off in a while.

Dave mentioned the same thing about the uptick at 8500rpm, 

He estimated it's down 10 to 20hp at the top end, compared to what he's tuned before with stock manifolds.

ITB's require a bit of a rewire so due to being electronic and pedal changes so I'll plug away at it all and get it to a stage when I can then bolt them on at the right time and see how they go. But my quick measurements show I need to get them as close to the heads as possible.

Thanks for the feedback by the way, really appreciate it!

On 21/02/2023 at 21:56, kpr said:

Oh and the intake plenum size.  probably aren't loosing any power there, unless your loosing some  effect from the intake tube.  bigger plenum damping out the pressure waves, unsure how much of a thing that is.    There will be a little bit in getting the intake tube the right length and size. but wouldn't expect big numbers  from it. 

Agree on plenum size, everything I have read is that you can't really go too big.

But I do agree it's Intake system related.

Which is not unsurprising to me, I knew when I put that manifold on that it wasn't great, but it was the easiest one to do at the time and I knew I could fix it long term by going to ITB's (always the intention).

To be clear it's issues are

• Build quality was shocking, chunks out of the trumpets (which I had to fix)
• Everything was rough as guts
• The runners are HUGE
• Their own thermal gasket they provided actually blocked off the top of the port (yes seriously), so i used the standard honda one.
• It doesn't actually match the head ports perfectly (slightly larger if anything)
• The design of it is clearly more aimed at turbo cars.

The throttle body is 74mm, 

• I don't think that's the issue.
• Although it's worth pointing out just to show how bad Skunk 2 is, that the gasket that comes with it doesn't fit correctly for the IACV port to their own manifold.

The intake filter and pipe

• The filter doesn't really have an internal velocity stack, and I did my best to improve it, but it wasn't a good job.
• The pipe has 2 bends opposite each other, then a 3rd bend after the throttle body for the air to get into the manifold velocity stacks.
• Most Hondas run a significantly longer intake pipe, mine is very short. Length helps the air to build up velocity before encountering obstructions like throttle body, corners etc.

The shitty pod filter velocity stack, bends and shortness of the pipe means the air is moving very slowly and never gets a chance to speed up so by the time it gets to the manifold and with that the runners being larger than they should be, the air never gets the velocity that the high RPM needs to fill the cylinders.

That's my current thinking anyway.

30 minutes ago, kpr said:

Yeah you can see  the actual timing (yellow) misses the target (pink)   by a little when you get back on the gas.  but by the time your at full throttle its matching the target. 

top one is your current  "vvt"  map.    since race car and assuming you dont care about fuel economy,  I'd  run something more like the bottom.  or a less aggressive ramp at least.   so your always on target when get back on the gas.  Not really much of an issue in your case but thought would explain it better. 

 

Ive compared mine, which essentially mimics at 1j/2j   setup vs @Roman daves  1nz setup and seems to react pretty similar.   yours seems a little faster.   either a honda thing or the control is a little better in g4x

That's brilliant, I understand what your getting at with the changes now. Even if it was 15 to 25 (assuming degrees) then it would take a big chunk of not being on target out of that curve.

58 minutes ago, kpr said:

I was going to comment  about probably changing the cam timing map. so  it doesn't go to zero cam advance when throttle is closed.   due to the mechanical time it takes the cam to re advance when get back on the throttle.
but looked in the log and looks like it keeps real well. nice one mr honda.  so isn't really that much of an issue. possibly a little more crisp on the throttle if changed it.

As for  what cam timing it needs. will need to be done per engine.   unless 100% stock to 100% stock.    as changes to the intake and exhaust will change what cam timing it likes.
The shape of  the cam timing map  looks  right.    starts to retard at high rpm etc

This as part of the log   @Hyperblade  posted.   cam stuff at the bottom

 

 

The vvti control works real well even on my old g4 link. 

 

Thanks for posting that screenshot, helps me understand what you are all talking about!

15 minutes ago, cbDrift said:

Had to sign up just so i could reply after i got your youtube reply and saw you uploaded your map.

Its a very similar tune to my jdm civic k20a timing wise - very close all the way through under load - a few deg more at the top end than me but im paranoid about not wanting any knock. generally within 2ish deg of mine under full load with mine running a bit less than you 99% of the time

But your cam angle map is totally different to mine - and on these k20a engines - it makes all the world of difference getting that right in all conditions with an n/a engine.

i gained a "buttload" (technical term) of top end when i got the target cam angle to actually match up with actual angle using this target cam angle map on my haltech

 

this is from my jdm type r k20a in a 2005 civic ep3 - the engine is untouched apart from intake and injectors and a decat

the difference between accurate cam tracking and having it waffle around vaguely in the range of the target is amazing - I got a tonne of drivability and my top end power when i had good control of the cam angle. 2deg can make a difference to how the car feels when driving - and cold oil heavily affects the cam angle tuning vs up to temp oil.

having said that - it looks like the link handled pid stuff totally differently to the haltech so i have no idea how accurate the link will track the target cam angle.

Either way - if this helps to improve your drivability - mint!  if it doesnt - just as mint

Have fun - your starlet is an awesome build and thank you for posting your map to take a look at

I'd be really interested to see how accurate the link is able to track the target cam angle with the actual cam angle (even a screenshot of the two traces overlaid)

Welcome to the forum!

Unfortunately your talking way over my head, i'm just not up to speed technically on all of that stuff as much as I want to be, I just haven't had the time to really sit down and understand it all and be able to tweak it.

I should mention Dave said he usually has the timing backed off a couple of degrees.

The other thing to mention is that on the Dyno Jon struggled to get temp into it including the oil (5w40) which sat at about 80 degrees if i remember correctly (on track oil is hitting 120+)

Due to:

• The sensor reading 9-11 degrees lower than what the engine temp actually was
• The electric water pump control just not working well at all (hence I put in new thermostat + bypass hose)

I can do you one better though, here's the full log from session 4, i basically have everything logged as it has heaps of memory.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x3suRFYwUip95PEAx97Et83RMrr0hbNC/view?usp=sharing

I haven't updated the main thread, but current plan is to redo intake piping to be straight which means new 3d printed top half of the manifold so I can straighten throttle body, this should at least eliminate that from being a possible issue as I think the triple bend for the air to get into the runner is actually the main issue vs the plenum volume. I want to do that first as it's just keeps niggling at me(and I would like to know if I'm on the money or not around that stuff) and and it gives me more time to plan the quad throttles to get best results.

Take a breath, step back, study it, think about it objectively what other issues are going to crop up if it's not positioned where you were originally planning e.g. steering, cooling etc.

Think back to your original goals with the swap, will it still meet those?

Now's the easy time to pull out if you think it won't work. If to fit it you need to cut up the car, that's a pretty major step and easily spirals into a lot of other things.

Whichever way you go I'm all in and following!

This is going to be so fucking awesome, and for what your doing which is not an all out racecar, makes a lot of sense.

And even if it doesn't work out, I'm along for the ride!

You are mid mounting it right? 

7 hours ago, Roman said:

It's been bloody awesome fun alright. 

But also it's a bit tapped out now. 
You cant get any 1NZ cams bigger than 264 deg, and there were only "admin" sorta jobs left to do like sort out an air filter or tidy it up. 
Things which made the car nicer but fundamentally didnt alter the recipe any further.

I'm actually really happy to end a project on a high note.
It seems a lot of projects end up being sad to look back on if they ended when a car was crashed, or motor blew up, or sold to have kids or whatever.
This has just been grin factor 10 nearly all the way through.

Also I've managed to infect some other people with the concept of vitz pesting, and the parts from this car are going to be used in some cool setups.

Also worth noting that back when this car was standard I came incredibly close to just giving it away as I no longer used it. 
What an absolute adventure it's been on, at the tail end of it's life instead. 
How good! 

 

I think what you have done is bloody amazing! 

It's been so cool to watch as you have progressed with the development and tried things.

I agree it's reached it's natural conclusion without a lot more major work.

I don't believe you can ever work on 2 project cars at the same time and give them both serious attention, so it's going to be awesome to see you get back into the carina.

10 hours ago, Roman said:

Ahh man there's always something eh!

Drive from last shakedown looked good, stoked to see it's making steady improvements. 

Would love to check out your car one day, love it. 

Anytime your down here in Chch (or anyone else who wants to see it) just give a yell.

Clutch:

So the aftermath of a clutch spring letting go.

Bit's also made a small hole through the bellhousing.

That was a new Exedy HD S2000 clutch, there were warnings on the internet about using them, I thought it would be ok as light weight car, and previous Exedy with the BEAMS handled a ton of abuse.

Wow was I wrong, DO NOT use this clutch, after taking it out we could see wear on the posts and clutch springs where they were binding, it's just not designed correctly for the loads.

Decided to try an Action Clutch (Considered Xtreme Clutch, but had a friend who's plate exploded on his car and made a bigger mess...) this time, at least the springs shouldn't be able to come out...

Adapter Plate/Flywheel

So while we were swapping that we found the input shaft bush was showing a lot of wear and was no longer concentric. 

I run a standard adapter plate (with flywheel to suit), they say on their product page "Precision machined from 6061 this adapter features perfect dowel pinned alignment and all hardware needed."

Of course when I went to bolt it on one of the dowel pins wouldn't go in, I was in a rush for various reason and it become a one is in, that should be enough...

Turns out yeah no, you really do need 2, we think movement between gearbox and engine has caused it to wear, which damaged flywheel where the bushing sat.

The adapter plates also don't have a huge number of bolts holding everything together, especially at the bottom where their is the highest load.

Adapter Plate

Originally the gearbox bolted up to the adapter flange with 3 bolts (yeah I wasn't to impressed by that at the time, but a lot have been sold, so figured it would be ok), it's now been all modified to have 7, and more coming in from the engine side. We also managed to get one bolt at the bottom to go all the way through from the gearbox to the engine sump bracing (highest load). It won't be moving anywhere now...

We machined the flywheel to fix it up and put a proper bearing in it (2032 6 series - I think from b series), so that should also take some mis alignment better.

Engine mounting points, top of adapter plate sits above the top ones.

Gearbox Shifter Linkage
For any one interested, here's a good photo of shortening a gear lever linkage on an Honda S2000 AP1 gearbox to move it forward which i took while it was out.