mindless

Thanks Phil!

A few photos of the car last race day!

@Glanza-Ben thanks mate! I'm glad you like our build

@maddox710 oh yeah we used to wheel spin and torque steer coming out of every 2nd gear corner. Quite scary especially in this old school track because there is very little runoff.

It's the first time we're driving the car again after not being able to race with it in the previous leg and a rather problematic 1st leg with the car. We're now on a new (and quite experimental) ECU setup using a re-chipped Honda ECU tuned using CROME after it became apparent torwards the last legs of the last year's season, and the previous endurance race that our piggy back E-Manage Ultimate just wouldn't cut it anymore. Because of this new setup and a shortage in 3 map sensors we're running lower boost levels than what we would normally run. (3 out of 3 GM 3-bar map sensors we bought failed on us - heh what are the fucking odds??) But even at lower boost, no scramble and getting re-acquainted with the car we're able to reach our previous times easily. Here in the shakedown/time attack video below, I reach the 2m08s mark, driving it at around 70% still trying to get a feel for the car. >http://youtu.be/4Xvkfr9utro Car feels more responsive throughout the rev range and there is visible increase in low end torque. Power delivery is now very linear – the huge late boost surge that we used to have to manage is gone. Still, there are a few more small bugs we need to address and sort out, but mainly this has been quite an improvement over our old piggyback fuel management setup. No trophies this race but we have a improved a lot setup-wise and can't wait to get up to running on full boost and push hard next race. I'll post more photos of the car in action when they start coming out on Facebook. For now here are some photos showing you what the setup is like and give a bit more detail into how we did it: The Civic distributor assembly used in the conversion: Here it is machined and fitted to the head They had to disassemble most of the race dashboard just for the weekend so they can access things if something goes wrong. Part of the conversion was also simplifying the whole wiring mess. If you notice we got rid of the steering stalk and assinged those to a whole new set of switches on the center console. Unfortunately no scramble for us until we can sort out a proper working 3 bar map sensor (we're using honda's stock map sensor for now) Here is the new brain of the car. We were using the emulator last race weekend because adjustments are still being made. Once final we'll burn the tune into a chip and install it in our P28 ECU.

Exactly. I mean the machining part is easier said than done, but short of fitting an AEM system on my car this is way more cost effective.

@shorty I'll need to ask my tuner for the more technical details but the broad strokes of the whole conversion are as follows 1st you need to adapt a civic distributor and mate it to the 4e head assembly. This is so that the honda ECU can get a signal it can understand. This is sort of the heavy lifting part because you need to machine and weld a bracket and machine the actual distributor to make it work with the 4EFTE head. After that you need to rewire the engine harness to match the rechipped obd1 honda ecu you've chosen. There are a lot of honda ecus that can be rechipped. I think we are using a P28 for our build. They replaced the water temp sensor with a honda one - not sure if it's integral to the build though... Basically that's it. The good thing about it is that because of this setup we were able to go ahead and kill a lot of this sensors that we don't need like Air temp sensor and the stock O2 (since we'll be tuning with a wideband O2 sensor that's permanently installed into the car). So we were able to simplify the wiring a lot and remove stuff that are not really essential.

Car is now done! Leaving for this weekend's race

Few pics of the car working out the few remaining bugs and some fine tuning. Civic distributor/spark plug leads on the 4e This allows us to run the chipped Honda ECU. Also no more batch firing! Sequential injection FTW!

@kbond yes same as the ones they use in SOHC turbo Civic builds. I think the engine code is G16B – found both in the Vitara and Esteem. Do keep in mind that since this is 75mm you will have to bore out your block. the compression ratio is very low. you can see from my photos in the previous pages a compression test is around 130psi per cylinder on average. But this allows us to run loads of boost - and that's where we've compensated. Nope it doesn't fit straight into the 4E rods. Just like what they need to do in the SOHC turbo builds you will need to have your rods re-pinned by a machine shop. Should be a straighforward affair though. Initially I used an FM Motor metal gasket for 4e engines but we haven't found the time to get a new metal head gasket after we changed heads recently so for now we're running just the OEM head gasket.

kbond what did you want to know exactly?

Thanks!

Ladies and gents our race car running on a Crome chipped HONDA ECU It's ALIVE!

New rear quarter window just arrived from Japan!

Hahaha! True @wickedep During that last half of that last race leg – because our boost controller was malfunctioning it suddenly decided it wanted to over boost. We accidentally confirmed that the vitara pistons could handle up to 1.5bar consistently LOL!

@wickedep Thanks! Means a lot coming from you guys!

@pick1 I really hope so don't really like racing with hondas

@morgey Thanks! because of the extensive rewiring we had to skip using the Starlet for the race this weekend. In the meantime I'll be driving my EK9 just to get some points in the time attack competition. I'll write a more detailed post about the ECU conversion once its complete – hopefully within the next 2 weeks.

Sorry for the lack of updates. It's been quite busy lately and I haven't found the time to organize my thoughts concerning recent developments with our race car. Anyway, the race series we participate in has started this year's season last March 1st. My brother because of a personal emergency wasn't able to race, so I went alone. Now if you recall this is the first race the car has been in since that 6 hour endurance race we joined towards the end of 2013. And if anyone who has joined any endurance race knows – doesn't matter if your car survives the race; things will eventually break, which I sadly experienced first hand that weekend. The car was plagued with electrical issues all throughout the morning. The ECU decided to go into limp mode because of a loose sensor and the Emanage Ultimate couldn't do jack shit about it. Ended up missing qualifying in the morning and had to take my time attack run in the afternoon because we had to sort out and trace the issue. Not qualifying also meant that I had to start at the back (19th) on the grid (I decided to run in place of my brother). If that wasn't enough, the radiator fan decided to throw a fit and wouldn't work just as I was lining up to the grid. We had to tap it straight to the battery just so I could race. Electrical gremlins also messed up the boost controller and we couldn't even reach 1 bar. Max boost that day was at .7 bar. >http://youtu.be/hRwDj6xTN1Q Race started out pretty bad with a shitty launch. I was able to make up 6 places though over time until I got over eager and overshot a hairpin. That knocked temp wiring we rigged to make the radiator work – and my temp started to go up so I had to retire. After the race we decided to overhaul the car's electronic system. Along with that we decided to do a Honda ECU conversion and get rid of the fickle Emanage Ultimate setup.

Trying out new lighter shoes. Swapped out the 17" GTR Gunmetal Work CR-KAIs for 17" Bronze Kosei Direzzas

Dashboard test fit

LOL not sure I follow what you meant @maddox710

Steering column is now in place!

Ladies and Gents, the fabbed LHD firewall. We tried to preserve all the proper OEM holes... unlike with old firewall that had the shitty conversion job where they just created new holes to save time. Out with the old firewall Fire in a hole! Fitting the new LHD firewall Let's weld it up! Like it came from the factory! A few more welds... Firewall conversion done! Brake and clutch masters test mounted Perfect pedal positions

@fremjay very clever fiber work to cut and piece it together in the right orientation... For cars that have LHD versions that are available locally we just buy the local version of the dashboard (like in my EK9) Unfortunately the Glanza/Reflet has never been released at all locally so we have to modify the dashboard for now. Meanwhile I've already sourced out an LHD dashboard from an NA EP91 but it will take months to arrive.