Because LS1

LS motors are just as cheap to buy, cheap to mod and make a ton of power with next to nothing done to them.

If you want to go fast for cheap, LSx motor.

 

You generally speak truth when I see your posts but this post has a few things that I would like to reply on. Firstly, my j35a8 was a daily driver and its a daily driver and made for one hell of a dependable daily at that. Before installing the 3.7, I was throwing 12-15lbs of boost at the a8 in stock form. The 3.7 will be receiving the exact same treatment. I will say that the j-series loves to detonate when heat soaked and under heavy boost however Hondata gave an easy solution to this with individual cylinder ignition trim under knock detonation although was limited to how much it could pull...not to mention add. Never got my last engine dyno'd but with 15lbs, I'd feel safe to say 550-575hp with meth injection on pump gas. The 3.7 from the 09-12 TL uses much stronger rods than any other j-series not to mention lighter forged aluminum pistons with a upper ring land about 1-2mm's lower than the a8's upper ring land but does have a 1/3 of a point higher compression ratio.

And to answer your last question, I know of three people who daily drive their boosted or nitrous injected j-series on a stock bottom end.

 

That would be awesome if the 3.7 can handle a significant amount of boost/power. You bring up tuning a lot and I agree with you completely. Tuning is the most important factor to get an engine to live on stock parts and lots of power. I know this well , I'm running on the stock cast crank, rods, and 2 bolt block. In the early days with my car, to run 12s people would throw a forged bottom end in there. As time went on and people learned how to tune, we quickly learned that the stock engine will go high 10s reliably and there have been a couple running mid 10s on a factory stock short block. I think the J is in this transitionary stage with tuning where people are learning just how much power the stock parts can hold now that they are aware if the evils of detonation and preignition.

I'll still say the other Js won't run around at 6-700hp in a daily for long but my feelings won't be hurt if you prove me wrong. I'll b happy actually because I'm getting a new car next year and the TL won't be my daily anymore and I would love to throw a turbo on it without building the engine.

It sucks about how they went about the knock retard. It sounds like the best bet is to tune for zero knock which is entirely possible with meth and use an audible knock detector so you can lift at the first sign of knock.

I just wanted to make it clear I'm not against you guys that are saying a stock J can hold 700hp for a while but I would like to see a daily driver in the 6-700whp range go for a year.

 

In the final stages of tuning at 12lbs+ boost, I found that the motors gave much more knock at 1700-3400 rpms and that was usually when the boost was at its peak amount. But then past that upper range I gave, things were as if the motor wasn't even seeing boost at all (in regards to knock counts). The mid-range I found was the hardest to tune for. After maybe 6-8 hours of datalogging under careful observation, it was eventually tuned nearly all the way out...even at 15lbs. It was a matter of pulling a few degrees off and adding a ever so slightly fuel charge to the 2-3 cylinders that were playing hardball but in the end I was nearly content with what Hondata alone could do. This time around, especially on this brand new motor, I'll be running J&S's Safegaurd knock monitor which can practically eliminate all chance of detonation by the individual cylinder trimming feature it carries. This will also allow me to go back into Hondata and completely eliminate those pesky knock tables all the way. In other words, the ECM won't be seeing any knock counts at all ANYWHERE because all my sensitivity tables will be "zero'd" out and this ultimately means that full advance will be given to bring full power out yet maintaining complete detonation protection. Anyone that knows the knock system principle behind Hondas ECM's will know the goodness this should bring.

As for your comment about being in the transitionary stage of these motors, for sure! We are all still learning a motor that's been masked from the performance realm due to inability to modify the ECM's parameters but since the release of Hondata, we should all begin to see this motor do some very extraordinary things that most engines in its class will be jealous of.

 

Yessss, should be able to gain some ground on the VQ 3.5s

 

^ you mean 3.7 motor. Vq are too easy for this guy.

 

The knock in the lower rpms is probably because peak cylinder is occurring at those rpms.

Sounds like you have a great handle on the tuning, I'm looking forward to what you come up with in the future.

 

 

just looks like it's going to fall apart.

 

What about the trans?

 

My bad fellas, I was half asleep from studying all night, and saw something about mustang and 4.x ..... I just assumed that u we're saying u took. A stock 4.6 mustang motor slapped just a turbo kit and got those numbers. I'll admit it I assumed and made and ass outof myself

 

I've never once had a transmission fail in any of my V6 Honda/Acura's (I have 4 total) with or without boost/nitrous. Its all about changing the fluid on time, using the right fluid and knocking how to NEVER shift under WOT. I at least go part throttle and this lessens the load on the clutches, bands and fluid.

 

I'm still interested in the engine. I would have to see one hold together for a year in a daily to believe it. It's one thing to push some power and heat to 160 degree pistons for a short duration. It's another to put the power down when they're 500F+ from spirited street driving. I have to wonder if any precautions were taken such as ultra low coolant and oil temps. Anyone know what kind of water temps it saw at the beginning of a run; was the engine cold before the run?

You know the answer for the trans. Put it in a stripped down 1,600lb Civic and it will live for a few passes.

Just trying to give fsttyms1 a hard time.

 

Auto or manual, slicks or no slicks?

 

Honda's are notrious for weak trannies when boosted. I do believe that a well equipped supercharger/rotrex kit in the 300-420 whp would do just fine, but once it goes right into 420-550+ whp would need some gears treated.

 

You never shift under full throttle? So you rev the engine to 7k rpms and then let off the accelerator to the point of the needle dropping and then shift? Just curious as I'm a new manual drive myself and if I'm driving spirited, I shift between 6.8-7k rpms without any delay.

redacted

 

"Granny shifting, not double-clutching like you should" lol

 

I'm referring to a very quick, momentary accelerator pedal release at the exact time of shift engagement which is usually slightly before redline. Because the of the precise timing involved, you can time it around 200-400 RPMs before redline because there's about three things taking place all at once actual torque is reapplied to the ground again:

Example:
1. Foot comes off at 6600 RPMs.
2. Engine momentum continues to push the engine revs to 6800.
3. Transmission shifts to next gear.
4. Foot back down while transmission is shifting because if slight delay.
5. Engine torque reapplied

If done correctly, NO time is lost and you just took a great deal of stress off the transmission. I've been doing this for years and each car is different based on mechanically and electrical engagement points not to mention delay points. Works for me.

 

I agree, best way to shift is with no engine torque being transferred and a good driver can do this very quickly. However, there's no such thing as engine momentum, it can never continue to acceleratate once power is taken away. I had the same argument with my dad over his GN. He said the car was so quick it continued to accelerate for a second after he lifted off the throttle. I proved it was the speedo that could not keep up and it caught up when he let off the gas, it's impossible for the car or engine to continue accelerating once the power is cut.

 

"Momentum" was used for lack of a better term. You are correct technically speaking but it was more or less to describe the delay of say an electronically controlled throttle body closing once the signal from the accelerator position sensor is reading 0%. More like a electronic lag time I guess you could call it...

 

I'd wreck my car if I thought about all of these technicalities when I'm driving it. I'm going to pay attention next time I shift at redline and see if the tach hangs over the rev limiter once I pull the clutch in. It should possibly with my 14lb flywheel.

 

It will never cross over the redline. Once the ECU cuts it off, it stops instantly.

Yungone I was just messing with you. I'm bored today l.

 

What the ECM cannot protect against over revving caused by early downshifting. That's generally what causes the j35a8's to to bend valves. Though I have heard a few stories about prolonged rev limiter engagement doing the same...this one happens very easily in 1st gear when redline approaches much faster than all other gears. Though I've never seen either if these issues on 5AT models.

IHC, I noticed your boredom.

 

Yep. You can shut the injectors and ignition off all you want but if the engine is mechanically coupled to the wheels and in the wrong gear it's going to over rev.

Same concept here.

 

how is that motor not siege ?

 

 

Lmao, I love that video...

 

It did seize once. Did you see when they popped the clutch a couple times and it just locked up and smoked the tires? They got it freed up it looks like at the end. The reason it likely lasted that long is there was no cylinder pressure or heat from combustion. You could see the oil squirting up so while pressure was probably very low, it might have been enough to feed the rod and main bearings which only require oil to be fed to them but not pressure. What probably caused the siezing in the end was a lack of oil after it pumped the contents of the pan out or not enough cylinder lube from no oil slinging off of the crank from the rod bearings.

It gives a new appreciation for how quickly things happen. Just think, each time one piston had gone up and down twice the spark plug and injector have fired, intake and exhaust valves have opened and closed and let in and exhaled air and exhaust. Think about how quickly the air/fuel mix has to burn to force the pistons down and the science that goes into camshaft design and induction tuning to make all of that possible at those speeds.

 

Not sure if any of you guys saw this one, but here's a J32 being run entirely by the MS3X from some guys at RPM Systems.

Obviously not practical in the TL since it would mean a total loss of the B-CAN & F-CAN network in the car.

But here it is, a 3.2 with DBW removed and a cabled throttle body run by a megasquirt 3.

 

looks pretty badass

 

There honestly nothing special about this. ^^^

There's literally dozens of standalone engine management systems (EMS) that can run just about any engine that's not a DBW. It actually would have made it more interesting to see the DBW still installed and functioning properly than this. Anyone can replace a electronic throttle body for a cable driven one and make it work.

To be even more straight forward, with overwhelming array in the available aftermarket electronics of today, it's not very surprising to see any engine being controlled by an EMS and still have 100% functionality in stock form. This is especially true for manual transmission powertrains. Automatics, due to their complexity and design indifferences, can be much more difficult to operate using any aftermarket controller but is still VERY possible.

 

Hadn't seen anyone else do it yet with the J32.

There is the megashift/GPIO for auto transmissions, but that would be quite a bit of research into the inner workings of the transmission, which solenoids are open at which time and such to get it to work right. I think all of that info may be in the SM though. I don't think it'd really be worth all of the work.

http://www.msgpio.com/manuals/mshift/4L60e.html

While not explicitly designed for the Acura ATs, I'm pretty sure with enough time and effort it'd work, it looks like it could support it since it supports up to 8 solenoids.

With the MS3X as a standalone ECM they would've still have to figure out the VTEC & IMT circuits to get the MS3 to control them, so I don't think it's really all that straight forward since there isn't much in the megamanual on those but they are really simple circuits. I'm pretty sure I saw some info on getting MS3 to control VTEC on DIYautotune somewhere though, or one of the associated forums.

I'm sure the cabled setup made it quite a bit simpler though, but they may have been able to use one of the MS3's extra outputs to try to control the DBW throttle body that would be an experiment in itself though. Probably be better to get it working on a cabled setup and then start playing with it to try for the DBW if it was really desired. I think in their swap, putting that engine in a different car, there's little purpose in having DBW anymore.

 

I'll take a traditional throttle cable any day over DBW. I want to be in charge, I don't want the ECU to adjust my inputs, it can slow you down and it can even be dangerous in a higher powered car.

I would imagine the biggest reason for no aftermarket support of DBW is the liability. An aftermarket setup is not likely to have the failsafes and redundancies built in and I would imagine it's just not worth the R&D and the potential liability of run away engine claims and all of this for a dumbed down throttle response.

 

With enough money any thing is possible, but if you can choose between cable and DBW I would go cable all day long.

 

Its an interesting project and will be cool if he gets it done. But why in the hell would he use parts from a 93 mustang to do this. I just don't get it

 

Probably a matter of cost, he probably had those parts on hand already is my guess.

 

Back in the day, the Mustang II front end was used in EVERYTHING, especially drag cars. It's a shame the majority of the TLs front suspension couldn't be used. I consider the Mistang front a downgrade but I'm sure he had to do it.

 

 

 

Radiator in