mcflyguy24

Why is everything for the J motor so damn expensive? You'd think with all the accord and civic people swapping this engine prices would start to come down a bit. $1200 rods? This isn't some big American drag racing engine.

Doom878

^Because J series is nowhere near as popular as the Civics. For years we had nothing but bolt ons and only one company that did headers, Comptech.

civicdrivr

iTrader: (9)

The popularity is beginning to grow but its still in its infancy. I dont know if the J will ever reach K series levels though, but being able to get a standalone (AEM EMS) for the Js is one very big step in the right direction.

I hate cars

That's actually more than you would pay for a basic SBC rod upgrade and that's 8 rods...

Why not contact one of the major companies directly and give them the specs. They may have an off the shelf item and if not you should still be able to get them for $800 or less.

e30cabrio

iTrader: (6)

If you think J parts are $ try Z parts!

4.1 stroker kit is 5500!

Doom878

I don't know. The J has been out since 98. I think with the tuner industry way down in popularity compared to 10 years ago and the crappy economy the J might have passed its time. I used to see wayyyy more hooked up cars. Aren't the tuners focusing on the new Civics?

civicdrivr

iTrader: (9)

The K series (in the new Civics) are the big ticket items, but damn near every motor you can stuff into a Civic has good aftermarket support. The J is still new in the swap world and companies are just now realizing its potential.

MoneyPit

iTrader: (1)

Haha, thanks for the interest man. I know I let this thread die, but I basically stopped working on the car the day I started medical school, and I've been in debt to time/money ever since.

I did manage to get the car to two dyno appointments, but unfortunately gremlins reared their ugly heads to prevent what we have all been waiting for: numbers.

Dyno Cliff's Notes:

1st dyno appointment the car made 320whp/320wtq at 4800rpm on only 3psi. Looooooooong story, but we couldn't rev the car past 4800rpms d/t a voltage drop in the MAP sensor that was creating erratic lean conditions up top.

2nd dyno appointment the car made 358whp/343wtq at 5000rpms, this time on 4psi. Prior to the appointment, I grabbed a new MAP sensor and I had spent eight hours going through every single soldered e-manage connection to ensure that the issue was not my wiring, but unfortunately the MAP voltage was still dropping which prevented us from revving the car any further than 5000rpms.

Throttle percentage (%)
Injector Duty Cycle (%)
RPM
Boost (kPa)



I grabbed my voltmeter and chased the currents around, and found that the voltage drop is actually inside the e-manage. With this info, I called Greddy and spoke with a representative for two hours, discussing some of the jumper settings that had supposedly been *successfully* used with this setup. I made a few changes and am ready to set the car back on the dyno.

The numbers are right in line with what I expect from the setup. With another 4-5lbs of boost and a full range of RPM, this thing should be making impressive numbers.

I haven't given up on it, but the forward progress has been interrupted a bit by my education. I'm hoping to have some time over Christmas break to go at it once more.

Aman

Med School = Lots of money later in life. We'll wait

Congrats on getting in though, and IMO those numbers are still pretty good considering your gremlins.

Majofo

Damn MoneyPit.. you really live up to the name.

Thanks for the update! And best of luck with your endeavors. Happy Holidays and a prosperous New Year to you! Whatever you do, dont buy a convertible cherry red vette when you get out of med school. You might get maulled by cougars..

civicdrivr

iTrader: (9)

^

iam_nas

beautiful car man, i love that stance... flat black them wheels yourself... i think black eyelids would look better too... idk maybe personal preference, but the silver ones have always bugged me... dope car tho

Doom878

Mauled by cougars

MoneyPit

iTrader: (1)

Biggg update. AEM Series 2 standalone. I decided that after $$ wasted on trying to make the EMB a viable tuning solution, I might as well get a top-notch method to ensure I don't waste anymore.
Let's do this!

05TLdcc

win

TCM 01 CL-S

Awesome, I'm excited to see how the standalone system will work.

Aman

Can't wait to see what it'll do with a proper tune

civicdrivr

iTrader: (9)

Are you running the 6MT or auto sensors?

nspec_ya4

iTrader: (38)

nice.
very nice

nf3d0149ab

iTrader: (5)

MoneyPit

iTrader: (1)

Yeap, pretty much how I feel!

Me too man. This setup is waaaaaaay overdue for a "real" tune. Can't wait!
You and me both brother
Auto everything. I currently run Richie's harness, and am looking forward to getting rid of all the "piggyback" junk. Way too many weird issues going on with this ecu that nobody understands...

You should convert over to auto shtuff and get this. I'd imagine you could sell your ecu/harness for about $400 to help pay for the new parts.
Thanks!

civicdrivr

iTrader: (9)

Im going to be getting the EMS, but Im not going to be the guinea pig for it. Im waiting for Paul to finish up the swap for someone else then Im hopping on it. I want 340whp on motor. I need to clean up my AFRs and see where I stand after my new headers to see if just tuning will get me there (or at least close) or if Im going to need cams. I made 295whp with my AFRs running down to 11.5 @ WOT and cracked/leaking headers (could be a contributing factor to why Im running rich).

ST-Accord

Money Pit, your car is amazing. Going with a stroker myself one day.

MoneyPit

iTrader: (1)

Spaced on this thread, here are a few updates since I've been gone. Nothing is "good" though

After my last dyno:

Where do I start? Me and the hoe have had a rough year. I've personally seen to it that every aspect of the hoe has been done with the utmost precision, but this car has fought back since day one. Here we go (long read).

★ Dyno Session 1, 8/2009:
Tuner: K-Falls
Setup: J36/5AT/Turbo/AT ECU/E-manage Blue
Gremlin: Third pull roasted the trans.
Failure: Slushbox 5AT
Numbers: 368whp/380wtq @ 8psi, never completed the tune

★ Dyno Session 2, 6/2010:
Tuner: Shawn Church
Setup: J35/6MT/Turbo/ AT ECU/E-manage Blue
Gremlin: MAP voltage drop causing lean conditions over 4900 RPM's
Failure: Greddy E-manage Blue
Numbers: 320whp/320wtq @ 4psi only revving to 4800 RPM due to lean conditions

★ Dyno Session 3, 9/2010:
Tuner: Shawn Church
Setup: Same as session 2, except E-manage jumper setting altered (original cause for MAP voltage drop seen previously)
Gremlin: Same as session 2, less severe. Unable to maintain any AFR's as stock ECU was overriding all E-manage changes
Failure: Greddy E-manage Blue
Numbers: 356 whp/320wtq @ 4psi only revving to 5100 RPM's

★ Dyno Session 4, 4/2011 (today):
Tuner: Shawn Church
Setup: J35/6MT/Turbo/AEM Series 2 Standalone
Gremlin: Lost a cylinder on our first 8psi run.
Failure: Not sure until I break the motor down, complete loss of compression in cylinder 1.
Numbers: The last successful run I saw was at 7.5psi and it yielded something like 388whp/412wtq only revving to 6000 RPM's. Still had another 1000 RPM's to rev and was planning to boost 9-10 PSI. Was shooting for ~420whp/450wtq at 9 psi, which seemed to be well within reach.

Today was a tough day for me. I had prepped/double-checked/re-checked every aspect of my car prior to taking it to see Shawn at Church Automotive. The first 8-10 runs were going amazing - the car was making great power, there was ZERO knock, the AFR's were super consistent, we were pulling a minimal amount of timing. Each bump up on the boost controller yeilded great gains, and at 7 psi, we were onlly at 70% duty cycle on the injectors, so there was definitely a little room for more boost.

The first 8psi run, I was sitting in front of the car, and I noticed some exhaust from the bay. Shawn saw it as well, and he asked me if I saw where it was coming from. Initially, I thought it was wastegate dump as it happened later in the RPM range, but it wasn't. He ran it again, I peeked in the bay and saw the exhaust coming from the PCV. Bad sign.

At this point, the exact cause of the failure is unknown, whether it be a ring/piston/cylinder, or all of the above. Based on the fact that there were ZERO symptoms of the impending damage, we are hypothesizing that ONE cylinder was running lean due to a faulty injector, the other five were running great so the target AFR was met despite the lean cylinder. What's crazy is that the car did not appear to be losing power on the dyno, there were no misfires, there was ZERO knock, and the car never burned a lick of oil, all of which should be present if one cylinder is fuel starved and hurting the cylinder.

Shawn was a stand-up guy today, he basically charged me nothing for 3+hours of his personal tune/dyno time due to the cato. He was completely above reproach in this incident, he did every single thing in his power to monitor/prevent an issue like this, but unfortunately at this point, it was just bad luck for me.

I'm not sure what the future is for the MoneyPit. I'll be the first to say that you gotta pay to play, but I definitely don't have time/money to continue swapping motors and going for tunes.

Only time will tell, I suppose.

MoneyPit

iTrader: (1)

On a different note, I was able to start working on getting this thing diagnosed. Surprisingly, with the location of the cylinder that was hurt, I'm almost able to completely rule out the issue with the stock fuel system starving the far cylinders. Cylinder five is the culprit, not cylinder one like I initially expected by listening with a stethoscope. This is both good and bad news. The good is because it's on the front bank and replacing a piston/ringset is ten times more accessible, the bad is that it is the middle cylinder, so like I said before, it rules out the far cylinder theory and I'll have to continue investigating the cause of the failure.

If anybody local has a borescope I could borrow for a day, I'd be super grateful. I don't have one and I can't afford to pick one up at the moment, but I'd like to see what I'm dealing with prior to pulling the topend off. If it's a piston/ring failure that nipped the sleeve, I won't waste my time diagnosing this thing and I'll just go ahead and swap in a new motor.

I found you bitch:

MoneyPit

iTrader: (1)

RC Engineering flow tests showed the RDX injector in cylinder 5 was flowing 40cc less than the others. Why the knock sensor wasn't firing like a machine gun, I'll never know. It has been replaced, as you can imagine.

I picked up some RC injectors, had them cleaned and flow-matched to 550cc, and am doing research on building a one-off fuel supply similar to what the 300z guys build for their V6's. This can't, and I pray it won't, happen again.

Also, I'm trying to get ahold of a 4gas sensor for my next tune session so I have a little bit more info as to what each cylinder may be doing, rather than relying solely upon a wideband for my feedback.

Oh, and to keep the eye candy alive, I had the wheels widened and refinished again. New specs are 18x9 +26 front and 18x10 +19 rear, and I switched the "liquid chrome" powder coat to the "bengal silver," which is the color of most OEM wheels.


Also, the compression ring in cylinder five was roasted (as expected), thankfully the cylinder wasn't hurt. I picked up a new piston and ringset and got that replaced, so as soon as my fuel system is built, I'll be back on the dyno.

e30cabrio

iTrader: (6)

that sucks, at least it was an "easy" fix.

I hope you get the build completed and running, you deserve it.

MoneyPit

iTrader: (1)

Another pic that is less teaser-ish.


I also picked up a set of Chassis Tech UCA's to dial my camber in, but when I got em, they were nowhere near fitting my car. The ball joint channel was about 1/2" too long so it didn't fit in the strut tower recess. I contacted the company, got a crazy good partial refund, and kept the arms. Chopped em a bit, now the fit like a glove. They're out for powder coating now.

INSPIRE 32V

iTrader: (1)

just curious.. how much have you roughly dumped into this car

phee

iTrader: (5)

^ a question you never ask a car guy

MoneyPit

iTrader: (1)

Not as much as you'd think, and not enough to regret it

Blazinaccord

Glad to hear that nothing serious happened to the motor. I really want to see the final numbers.

fsttyms1

where did you get your wheels widened?

MoneyPit

iTrader: (1)

Thanks Manny. How's your car coming along?

Sorry bud, I missed this post. I'd rather not say who did my wheels since he was a complete flake/hackjob/thief, but I know his old partner (who is legit) owns a company called WheelFlip here in SoCal. Seeing that you're in WI, I know they are willing to ship goods over to you.

Anyway, I finally got some wrench time today. This was a loooooooong overdue project, I finally had a day off to get crackin'. Didn't have time to bodywork it and get it into paint today, but you get the idea

Say no to tower slap!!!

nspec_ya4

iTrader: (38)

nicely done man! sorry about the problems with the motor.

MoneyPit

iTrader: (1)

I appreciate it man.

Gremlins come with the territory though, live and learn. Hopefully I'll have her retuned with some nice numbers here shortly!

Does my strut bar look familiar?


Ignore the filthy bay, I was grinding in it all day

Aman

Picture doesn't work.

What's tower slap?

civicdrivr

iTrader: (9)

Its when the upper control arm hits the strut tower due to the car being "too" low.

e30cabrio

iTrader: (6)

Cool update and it looks like my Comptech, that went to Nauman when he bought my car.

lol

MoneyPit

iTrader: (1)

Don't know wtf happened to my pic. Here it is again

Yes and no, there are quite a few guys that have mild drops with the balljoint camber kit that have problems. But in my case, yeah
Oh what! Small world, haha. I customized it a little bit, hope you don't mind!

Started working on the driver side today. I stopped at the last pic, but it still needs a little bit of fine-tuning. It should look pretty stock once it's painted.