I noticed that there wasn't a tuning related thread floating around here for this section and if there is, it's buried and obviously not very informative or interesting.

This thread is for anyone with anything to do with Hondata FlashPro or even general tuning on the J-Series engines. Though tuning is more like a universal theory, I'd like to keep it very oriented and specific to the J-Series so that anyone seeking guidance or helpful advice can be informed without deviation from their platform. That's not to say if someone has an interesting link to a badass ignition article they shouldn't post it...let's just keep the thread on the topic of discussion given from the title.

I know there are several of members (including myself) that know FlashPro very well and even if you don't, feel free to add or jump in the discussion.

With that, I'll leave the mic open for someone else because it's my bedtime!

 

Im liking where this could lead....
<<< only need boomslang ��

 

Great idea

(now give me an easy way to tune my car)

 

What cylinders are your worst offenders for knock counts?

And

Has anyone tried Hondata traction control on the J-series?

 

I learned a few things while getting 2 cars ready for emission testing, any monitors you turn off like secondary o2 sensors will not show up as not ready and fail inspection like I thought they show up as not applicable and pass the I/m test, but the converter will show as not ready because it cant be tested with the o2 turned off, in our state you can have one not ready, I put a converter back on and wanted to see what the I/M test said before I turned the monitors on so I had it tested and it passed before I turned the monitors on WOW so then I turned them all on and drove the car and all of the monitors changed to ready (now to take all of the emission stuff off and use my FlashPro for off road use only like it is designed for of course)

 

I have a question and I'm not familiar with flashpro.

You can shut the EGR off correct? What does that mean / do? Do you still need a block off plate or no?

 

Currently showing cylinder 2 to be the most knock prone, but I am not much into it yet. Will update on that later.

 

The 4th and the 5th are the most prone to knocks from what I have seen so far

 

Interesting - isn't #5 the infamous one for loose plugs?

 

yes it's the one

 

I thought 6 also? All front bank? Run W/M

 

5 and 6 is our problem cylinders

 

#5 was my problem cylinder. All of the others were fine.

 

I haven't gotten aggressive with the timing yet to induce knock from the motor, but it appears #1 and #2 seem to be the "noisiest" cylinders to the knock sensor for me.

 

Sensors can drift and offset over time. Does anyone know what type of sensor a knock sensor is?

I'm a bit surprised that the guys with boost / serious builds don't replace all O2 sensors and the temp sensor, just to be as accurate as possible from the get go. These cars are ~7-11 years old now.

 

5 and 6 were my worst cylinders.
1 made the most noise. but i doubt thats actually knock, my plugs were clean. and when i broke the engine down after i cracked the piston skirts i didnt see any signs of deto on the crown. my theory on the noise is that the knock sensor "hears" noise from the timing belt tensioner as it moves and because the sensor is offset to the passenger side, it thinks its a ping. 5 and 6 made hardly any noise on the datalogs.
anyone else have excessive noise from 1 or 2?

 

Could stiffer mounts and loud exhaust components create vibrations that the knock sensor will pick up?

 

No. My car viberatss like hell and I get zero knock Count. I think it listens for a specific frequency

 

Lately I'm noticing the ecu appears to be pulling back on the timing. Feels like heat soak / laziness / bogging. When it doesn't pull back, like this morning, she pulls pretty good.

I need to get a hondata.

 

its probably pulling timing due to the higher IAT.

 

It's not as hot here yet vs peak summer temps, and I've opened the engine bay up pretty good. Def feel less heat when you open the hood vs when it was all stock. It's hit or miss, the stock ecu pulls good sometimes and other times it gets "lazy", doesn't seem to be outside temperature related, weird.

I plan to replace the O2 sensors + temp sensor with hondata.

 

Cylinders 4 and 5 are my worst offenders for knock, I did check my plugs recently and they all seemed a little loose. I definitely recommend checking every oil change.

Family Guy just to illustrate why you should get FlashPro, the first graph shows the TL without FlashPro and the next ones shows with FlashPro, just showing the consistency between runs.

 

wow vtec kicked in you at 5k

 

Yes VTEC was set high it definitely kicked in yo, lol. I wasn't done tuning with VIT, he gave me two maps and I ran the higher VTEC for my Dyno Day runs.

Look at the consistency though...

 

You could lower the crossover RPM window down to 4000 rpms as a low and 4500 rpms as a high.

 

Who tuned?... Seems all the gains is from vtec. Car made the same power it seem up until the 15whp boost from vtec. . whats your mods?

 

I wasn't going to post these until I update my progress thread in about 2 weeks but...

Here's my stock graph (08 5AT TL-S):


Here's graph after PCD/Jpipe/TB Spacer/4' CAI/Hondata tuned by Dom:



Run #3 is Low Vtec (4500K-4700K)
Run #5 is High Vtec (5000K-5100K)
Run #10 is Dom tuned Vtec (4800K-4900K)

Here's comparison graph with mods before & after tune:



Run #9 Stock Hondata Map w/ Mods
Run #10 Dom Tuned Map

You can check my Instagram in my signature below for videos on the Dyno & street pulls!

 

Alright alright........so #5 + #6 are coming in as the big winners for knock with all the cars. To me this means three things so let's discuss.

1. 5 and 6 and getting MORE INTAKE airflow than other cylinder causing them to be slightly leaner, or slightly more reversion from exhaust not being able to exhaust out from said extra intake flow.

2. Exhaust flow is horrid on 5 and 6 do to position or angle or who knows what, 5 and 6 have terrible exhaust flow causing cylinder reversion for warmer cylinder temps causing pre-ignition leading to detonation.

3. Water flow. Maybe 5 and 6 are the last flow path and therefor are hotter than all other cylinders causing hotter than normal cylinder temps there.

Just throwing those out there. Let's discuss which could be a problem by design. My thoughts.

I don't think its 1 because of the intake design. If 5 and 6 flowed so well than we would expect 2 and 3 to flow equally as well. I thought maybe #2 thoery could be the culprit, but if it was exhaust from that front bank than I would expect 4 to be knocking as well as it feeds the same exhaust.

Theory 3. Anyone know what the flow of the coolant is in the motor? Or maybe is it because 5 and 6 are close to the radiator they are getting heat blown all over them from the fans? Doubt it right? Do these two cylinders just run hotter than the others and so while usually a low temp thermostat doesn't really do much, might help out in this case to try and bring all the other cylinder temps down by 10-15 degrees and 5 and 6 temps down to a more reasonable level?

What path is the coolant taking in the motor?

 

I dont know what the routing for the EGR is in the cast manifold heads look like but it could be the EGR passage routing adding additional heat?

 

EGR is fed from #6

 

Now I noticed UTAH TSX and myself, and probably many others have the EGR port blocked off. I still wonder if that is messing with the flow coming from 5 and 6? How is it cast into the head right there? What does it look like? Anyone have a pic from when they have had their heads off?

 

Maybe you guys need that neutral air to help the car from running to lean

 

Only #6, the rear head has the port but it's blocked off (same casting just mirrored).

Front Head:





Rear Head

 

VTEC is lower now, this dyno is about a year old. My VTEC RPM window is currently set at 4700 RPM Lower and 5000 Upper. I liked the high VTEC point when driving and I was curious to see what it looked like on the Dyno, the jump was fun, it cracked like a B-series.

VIT tuned. No, gains are all over:

2000 RPM : +5WTQ
3000 RPM : +10WTQ +5WHP
4000 RPM : ~+2WTQ +2WHP
5000 RPM : No Change VTEC to High
6000 RPM : +15ishWTQ +15ishWHP
6800 RPM : ~+10WTQ +20WHP

Mods 1st, Stock except RV6 TD exhaust
Mods 2nd, RV6 V3 J-pipe, Injen CAI and 91 Octane Under Construction Tune by VitViper and the exhaust.

FlashPro is awesome... get yours hooked-up

 

Glad to see lots of interest in an area of performance where more of us should be involved! Keep up the excellent posts everyone. Lots of good topics above so far.

Utah, I came back here to respond to your email on the datalogs as I figured this thread would be most appropriate for the discussion on the evidence of detonation you seen to the piston crowns as well as the knock counts.

Firstly, you were right in regards to the data, not much to see but I had a few points of interest I was hoping you could expand on or even just consider in your quest to find the problem. To highlight, the datalog showed two separate areas of boost at WOT and then a total of (I believe) nine knock counts throughout. Interesting point was that the knock never occurred during, or even near, the WOT runs. If analyzed accurately, all counts took place between 1mph and 25mph during PT and this was while the intake maintained a vacuum state. This leads me to believe that the counts were brought about from drivetrain NVH from perhaps taking off (don't recall if you were 5AT or 6MT) but maybe check this area out for any issues....I also think you may have hinted around to this idea?

Next, the WOT runs showed an odd bit I didn't feel would be defined as being "normal" and that was the boost pressure not remaining consistent throughout the run while never leaving WOT. There seemed to be a fluctuation of around 1-2lbs of boost which was then unsurprisingly followed by a 1+ point of AFR variation (10.14:1-11.3:1 to be exact). Are the wastegate(s) controlled using an EBC or mechanically? Seems like you may have some reason for concern there depending on how they are being controlled...

In order to give any more information on the engine and/or tune, I would definitely need to compare the datalog with your current calibration so if you don't mind, shoot that to me as well and let's see if anything can't be identified from there. IMO, if you're seeing peppering on the crowns with only 9lbs of boost, something is going on somewhere for sure!


Good work everyone. Keep this thread both entertaining and educational!!!

 

Made this diagram of the j-series cooling system if anyone is interested. Figured it would be helpful to those in here who feel like the knock issues between said cylinders 5 and 6 may be contributed to cooling deficiencies in the block or heads.


I too have some input on my experiences in the matter. I've went back and examined old datalogs from 2013 and out of two different motors that have been boosted in my car, cylinders 1 and 3 have been the biggest culprit...cylinder 1 being by far the worst. However, I have heard two nearby friends claim what most have said in here about cylinders 5 and 6 being most prone to knocking. I've done my share of research on this and in support of the "5/6 theory", I did find an interesting discovery on the cooling jacket inlets behind the water pump on the block itself. That was that the front bank (bank 2) has what appears to be a smaller entrance port due to a piece of the block material obstructing the flow of coolant and due to its positioning on the block itself, would be fairly difficult to open up as much as the coolant inlet for the rear bank (bank 1). One could attempt an angled entry at the port to perhaps gain some more flow/volume to the front bank but I never went further than simply identifying the casting obstruction. Another point was that the coolant inlets in the block sit roughly 1-1.5" ABOVE the lower portion of the cylinder jackets of which I feel would cause stagnant activity in the lower regions, especially those on the front bank where coolant flow is already minimized but again...this is just a theory.

 

here is my stock vs street tune map with 15 minutes inteval between both runs... massive torque gain and the best of this is that the car is now knock free vs stock map...

 

I feel like the factory knock sensor is useless, this thing at 9-10 pounds sounds like a pop can full of rocks being shaken and it shows no knocks and the plugs have definate signs of knock, but it counts knocks at 2500 rpm going down hill at 1/4 throttle ?, I only trust my ear and reading the plugs

 

Factory values set on the flashpro for knock sensitivy is set to low. I have changed the values on mine to match my ears and the flashpro readings.

 

[QUOTE=DomGSR-T;15446549]Factory values set on the flashpro for knock sensitivy is set to low. I have changed the values on mine to match my ears and the flashpro readings.[/QUOTE\
I guess we could make it more sensitive and ignore the low rpm knock count so it will show the higher rpm with boost knocks ?