MrHeeltoe

iTrader: (1)

We've heard the comment a few times over the years. "If Heeltoe is such a specialist in TSXs, why is your own car so under-built and under-promoted?"

To be perfectly honest, it is because Heeltoe Automotive is a company that does all it can to be a really great parts supplier. Against popular opinion, this does not mean we need to be show-offs and brag about all the nutty parts we buy and sell. As a matter of fact, we've never seen much evidence that people really care that much about expensive parts. Most folks are buying much more affordable yet highly effective and quality items, and we appeal to that crowd.

But now is an interesting time. The Acura TSX is becoming more popular with tuners who are increasingly interested in exclusive parts. Meanwhile we are deep in development of a new website which we are looking to promote. Lastly we are just flat tired of having a workhorse around when we would really rather have a project car we can be proud of.

So, car build it is.

Kicking things off: Why an Acura TSX as a performance machine? We already covered that in a past blog on our old Pitboard here: Heeltoe’s TSX Project Introduction. Why the Acura TSX? What is so special about this car? There are more posts on the Pitboard there which you can browse, but this story is about what we are doing now.



That is the car as I got it which was around the end of 2009. It took me quite a while to even start modding it. But here is the car as it stands now:









These images perfectly show what we do with the car. Basically, we use and abuse it every chance we get. Every time we start feeling a little "over it," we get right back into it again. The car has been from Coronado Island to Vancouver, BC, and driven every mile in between. It's only seen 3 tracks but has crossed from I-5 to Highway 1 at least 4 times on different routes each time. It has been in off-road conditions that it should not have been. That snowy pic above? That was part of an 800 mile round trip, 1/3 of it in the snow, and those are summer tires. It doubles as a mountain-biking locker-room. Of course it has been through a series of incidents, and thus has some wear and tear. And since moving to Oregon it spends more time dirty than clean, which is disappointing.

Much, but not all, of this is going to change with this re-build.

The current list of stuff on the car is actually pretty extensive as we have been building up the car a little over time:

Suspension/Wheels
* 949Racing 6ULR 17x9 +48 (been black, diarrhea gold, and now are a metallic/matte grey)
* Hankook Ventus V12 evo, 255/40-17 (on my 3rd set!)
* Tein Street Flex Coilovers
* Skunk2 Front Camber Arms
* Fastline Performance Compliance Bearings

Chassis
* HTSpec Stage 5 Brake Package
* Alutec Front Tower Brace
* Ultra Racing Lower Side Braces

Engine
* Hondata Reflash
* CT Engineering Carbon Icebox
* Unorthodox Racing Pulley Set
* Fujitsubo Legalis R Exhaust
* Innovative Engine Mounts

Exterior
* Honda Genuine EuroR Lip Kit
* Honda Genuine JDM EuroR Headlamps & Inner Taillamps
* Custom Painted/Black Chrome Grille & Black Chrome Emblems
* Fastline Performance Decklid Spoiler, in Carbon
* 06-08 Wiper Arm Update

Drivetrain
* CT Engineering Short Shifter
* Hybrid Racing Shifter Cable Bushings

Interior
* Two-tone (we tossed a black dash and door panels in the tan interior to make a unique look).
* Maven Shift Knob

There are probably other things, but it isn't super important. Ultimately, this is a pretty conservative setup focused on being a street brawler, but lithe instead of brute in strength.

The plan is we want to really step up the car's overall performance and visual impact. We want to change it from a rough and tumble street machine into a classic GT which, according to Wikipedia, "is a performance or luxury automobile capable of high speed or spirited long-distance driving." Only wrinkle is our car is a sedan while a GT is commonly a 2-door car.

Engine:
We are supercharging with a CT Engineering blower kit. Tuning will be via Hondata Flashpro. Plans are for the highest-boost level pulley available from CT, along with upgraded injectors and in a later stage an aftercooler kit. We'll of course need a header as well. Also planned is a much-needed Hytech-pinned VTC and intake cam from a later model TSX to help the breathing. Power goal is to break 300 hp to the wheels. We feel this goal is a bit conservative. Topping it off is a full titanium J's Racing 60mm FX-Pro.

Exterior:
We are going full Mugen with the Aero, but having a preference for the 06-08 Mugen Front bumper we will be bringing it up to that spec. Also being added are a J's vented hood and a diffuser. We are going to repaint the car as well, which regrettably might limit the amount of adventuring we do with it. But we have an OEM Honda color in mind that we thing will be original these days. We've not seen it done, and feel it will compliment the car nicely...to be announced later.

Suspension:
We really like these Street Flexes. The provide a great comfort level for the daily grind, have plenty of travel and compliance for the mild off-roading, but are tunable to handle really well for those spirited drives. We'll compliment this set with an EDFC Advance with GPS, add a rear camber adjustment option, and probably upgrade the sway bar in the rear.

Wheels:
We need something for more of a GT setup, and what better than a GT-spec Volk? We've located some GT7 wheels in a nice size that we think compliment the TSX quite well.

Chassis:
More bracing! We have an old Carbing trunk brace and middle brace that will go in to enhance our already stiff chassis. We'll add more bracing as it presents itself because a stiff chassis is ultimately the best thing you can do to enhance the road-worthiness of your car. Plus the front brakes are going to be changed out for something with a bit more flair. We're thinking, Endless 6-pots.

Interior:
We have an 09 TSX steering wheel here we'd like to see installed on this car. It is so fat and grippy, but has the luxury and radio/cruise buttons you just can't get with a racing wheel. Really there isn't much else to do, as we're trying to keep the luxury feel of the car.


So there you have it. We have some definite plans for this HTSpec TSX Redeux, and our goal is to get the car out and seen at some prominent events this year. Of course, we want to do this without compromising our current customers' satisfaction. We'll do the best we can.

Sit tight! We'll be doing updates as regularly as possible!

MrHeeltoe

iTrader: (1)

Sometimes all the planning in the world can’t prepare you for circumstances of life. In planning to build the HTSpec TSX, we decided to go ahead and get the body pieces ordered and the Supercharger on the way from CT.

Then, we started getting a horrible sound from the drivetrain. We blogged about our investigative effort in determining the source of the noise a few weeks ago. After getting the car in the air, it became obvious that the trans needed to come out. It could be worse, though. Last year we attended an HPD event in which it became obvious that the car needed a Limited-Slip Differential to help put power down in the corners. With a supercharger increasing that power, an LSD is going to be more important than ever. The old "two birds" adage is always a good way to turn a frown upside-down.



In determining which LSD to use, we strove to find a good balance between performance, durability, and value. JDM brands and Quaife from the UK are known to be quite solid, but cost a considerable amount of money. We were definitely opposed to putting something in that didn’t have a known performance endorsement. We zeroed in on a helical MFactory LSD which we sourced from Synchrotech Transmissions.



Knowing we’d be doing a full rebuild, we also got a set of the Synchrotech carbon-lined synchros to smooth out our shifting, which had gotten a bit chunky of late. A full set of bearings was purchased as well. The only question that remained was: What was actually wrong inside the transaxle?





After getting the trans out of the car, we benched the Magnesium case and cracked it open to find that our ring gear looked like it just got done with 9 rounds with Iron Mike. Apparently this is a relatively common failure in performance Hondas, where if one side of the suspension is fully and abruptly compressed, the axle can bottom out and cause the gear teeth to mis-align. Crunch. See if you can spot the missing teeth...





Seeing this means that a complete tear-down is absolutely critical. Small bits of metal will find themselves in oil orifices and ports in the shafts and case, which need to be removed.



So here we were; transmission apart and in need of a new final drive. Many people would go ahead and change the final drive to a shorter set, providing faster acceleration. Knowing that we’d be boosting the car, and had no desire to have a higher RPM on the highway, and we were not tuning the gearing for any particular track, we opted not to go this route. The decision was made to simply replace the broken ring gear and compromised counter-shaft with a new one. And as luck would have it, we had received some incorrect final drives years ago when we had ordered DC5 ones, which happened to be very suitable replacements for what the TSX needed. Who knew the AWD CR-V final drive gears were the same as in the TSX? The only difference we noticed was a couple millimeters of mounting-offset on the ring gear, which proved to be no issue at all as we assembled the transaxle.

Our tranny exploded. It is really important to stay as clean and organized as possible here. We are not going to get into specifics and how-to's because the factory service manual has all the important information you need in it, and you should have one if you are looking to do anything remotely as complicated as this.



Here is the difference between the Synchrotech carbon synchros on the right and the standard ones on the left. Actually, our synchros are in pretty nice shape, but why wouldn't we change these out while we are in there? Check out Synchrotech's site for details on these bad boys. Spoiler alert: The HTSpec TSX shifts butter.



The issue we did run into, however, was that the main-shaft and differential both needed to be shimmed to eliminate thrust (play), and we didn’t have the shims we needed. With an 800-mile road-trip planned the following week, we had run out of time to get the perfect ones. However we were very close to having it spot on, and the decision was made that 7 days of downtime was going to have to be enough and the transaxle was reassembled.





It would be silly to have the transmission out of the car and not install a new clutch, even though the old one looked ok. Looking for a higher performance quotient, the stock flywheel was ditched in favor of a billet aluminum piece from AASCO Motorsports. We choose AASCO as our flywheel supplier because of the racing heritage they bring to their every-day products, and the uber-light weight. This flywheel weighs little more than 8 lbs! Some people ask “is there any reason not to get such a light flywheel?” We say; yes, in cases where you don’t want the maximum horsepower gain and fastest revving possible. Definitely more weight is a compromise in performance and not a benefit.



The clutch itself we elected to do a bit of an experiment to test a hypothesis. We figured that a rigid-hub disc, as we had in the past, was going to give the absolute best drivetrain response possible because sprung hub discs add excessive movement. Clutchnet is a supplier not only of clutches, but clutch components to some of the biggest brands in the industry. We ordered a custom package from them, using a heavy-duty pressure plate offering a 60% increase in clamping force, and a full-face organic disc. The special addition here is a rigid drive-plate in the disc, which removes the springs adding a direct, non-dampened drive and lighter weight. We’d used a clutch with this configuration in the past and absolutely loved how direct the power transmission was. We hoped this setup would not be too twitchy or sensitive as our goal with this car, not to be forgotten, is to retain a fair bit of refinement.



Modern Honda/Acrua drivetrains are held in place by a subframe that cradles the engine, transmission, and suspension. So to remove the transmission, a significant portion of the under-carriage must come out as well. This provides a lot of space for more “might-as-well” projects. While waiting for miscellaneous paraphernalia to come in for the trans re-assembly, we took the opportunity to give a good scrub to the engine, subframe, and anything else we could reach.







The exhaust manifold was replaced with a shiny, new header from CT Engineering. Known to provide a nice bump in power while being very reliable and CARB legal, this header was a great choice for our street-performance, no-hassle machine.





With the transmission going back into the car, and our Hybrid Racing shifter cable bushings cleaned, inspected, and re-attached; tension mounted as the car was to be started the day before our long journey. Any sort of a shake-down period is ideal, but ultimately when the light turns green you just have to trust in the knowledge that you made the right calls and no detrimental compromises.

A short test drive was taken and initial impressions were truly awesome…right up until 4500 rpm when the engine just would not rev any more. The worst part was there was a lack of a CEL to help lead us down the path of discovery. After poking around online, we learned that there is one common pitfall in rebuilding K-series transmissions which we had overlooked on our re-assembly. The countershaft speed sensor is a magnetic pickup that is very easily damaged.



Frustratingly, this discovery was made on a Sunday morning, and our trip was starting out early the following AM. We would pass about a dozen Honda and Acura dealers on the way, and thankfully had found a new sensor not too far off-route. Even more thankfully is that this sensor is not buried deep in the depths of the engine, and so with a trusty 10mm wrench it was changed just as rain started to fall.


Interesting factoid: When you reset the ECU on there is an idle-learn procedure that should be followed, and in order to clear the code that comes up from the speed sensor the car must be driven at highway speeds for a steady period. The light extinguishes itself.

We’ll blog a bit more about our impressions of our mods in an upcoming release. Suffice to say, our road-trip was excellent for us to get to learn the new nature of our GT. For now we will leave you with the knowledge that we were successful in upping the sportiness of Acura’s greatest model without causing detriment to that which makes it a “nice car” in the first place.

Many thanks go out to this experience being a great one:

• Evan from 360 Imports in Vancouver, Washington. Without whom, we would not have had the tools or tutelage needed to get our build done in short time.
• James and the crew from Synchrotech Transmissions, for proving to be another unparalleled phone-a-friend.
• Vince and Jordan at AASCO Motorsports, for their quick turn around on an excellent product.
• The parts guys at Dick Hannah Honda in both Cornelius, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington, for having good stocking levels and quick turn-around.
• Mista Bone and a bunch of other friends on Facebook for giving us more tips where needed.

integraguy04

Just read this on Tsxclub lol - good progress!

amasianasian

This is neat...now I want a TSX. lol