Dyno Night
I mentioned in the last post that it was written retroactively. You’ll also notice that this post is written almost 3 months after. A lot has passed since. Things were good at home and I was recently promoted but I really couldn’t care. The only thing I really cared was getting this car done, it was the only sense of normalcy during a period where there was a weekly death back home (due to COVID complications). Life is truly a bitch.
Other than that, the car was coming along nice. It was dyno night. Everything was good to go during pre-flight checks so it was time to pop the car on the dyno.
The whole process went pretty smoothly, only tiny teething issues, power steering leak as the fitting had no O-ring, CTS not working - probably a sensor or wiring issue.
Luis congratulated me for a pretty successful build so far. We did have to fill it up with more Honda MTF as most of it had leaked during transportation on the tow-truck. The laptop was charged, the dyno was set up, the secondary monitor turned on. We borrowed a spare K-PRO as the K100 requires the tune to be flashed onto it, it cannot modify the tables, only gets the flash uploaded from a K-PRO output.
The tune went fine. It was only a run-in tune as Luis wanted me to come back again for a re-tune once I sorted the issues out and everything was good after a couple weeks of dailying. The only real issue other than the two above was that the reverse lockout engagement was not 100% (the ECU switches the lockout based on speedo readings). So this meant I could always get into reverse with the VSS plugged in as it always read 0 KPH. I was scared of going into Race mode during the 5-6 shift so the fix was to just unplug the VSS on the drive home. Also I could smell plastic burning, it was probably the delrin in the shifter - I knew I had to heatshield the shifter, so I needed to get that done as well. I need to do a full service on it anyway so its fine if it melts away for now. I don’t remember the final numbers but it was something like 136KW, 210NM, 9000 RPM redline. There was also an exhaust leak, and the IACV was hunting idle so I needed to get a new one. It was a bit too loud for sure - definitely need to get a new resonator welded in as I’m not 19 anymore. The Hardrace mounts were also much better than the 70A items on the EK I had, but there was still NVH from it but it wasn’t too bad.
During the end of the dyno run - I called up Danny since I needed someone to drive Dad’s car home (I drove it to the shop). It was good to have one of your closest mates be there for the end of this milestone. During the call I was thinking about the hours we would spend during and after school talking about cars we wanted to own when we were adults, all the mods we would hypothetically do to our cars, the stance and wheel fitment we would chase and also working on both our first cars doing basic mods. Now, I had a K-Swapped Integra and he had a tuned G3 WRX - exhaust pops and all, we were basically the blokes we looked up to during high school. While I waited for him, I took the car for a quick spin and filled it up with some fresh 98 dyno juice.
I remember the exact smell of this image. The 2AM fresh air - no cars on the road. Clothes smelling like exhaust smoke from all the dyno runs. My arms smelt of all the grease from working on the car. Fingers smelling like durries. Breath smelling of Mother (sugar-free of course) but I wouldn’t have it any other way. The hardest part of the build was finally done and it was pretty problem free.
The drive home was cathartic, Danny was crusing by in the Indians’ flagship car - the Toyota Camry, and I would swerve out behind him, downshift a couple times and scoot through the gears to hear how the engine sounded at 9000 RPM. The torque of the motor was insane coming from a 1.8L B18C7, and the torque steer was not too bad but I was definitely out of my comfort zone. An alignment was definitely on the cards. It was a well balanced build, all the choices were well made for the daily/occasional track car. Sure I could have thrown another grand or two for the gucci stuff, only for incremental gains and bragging rights. I was feeling out the car throughout the drive and just before my turn-off, I redlined it to 5th. Fuel cut engaged, short ratios means it hits the RPM limit really quick. The speedo didn’t work but I could read my speeds on Waze and I’m sure the ops wouldn’t be too happy.
I don’t have much else to say. Thank you Honda for the DC2 Chassis, and the K24 (I’m sure Senna had similar opinions on the MP4/4 and the RA168E - but this was my equivalent, won’t win any Gran Prix though).