My dyno tune with DH head and vafcII (pics)

gearbox · 10-16-2004

Well here it is five months later. Really don't know what to say, and I feel like I should cry now. Can anyone explain what happened here, because I hope I didn't lose power after all I put in. This should be a reminder to everyone--mods don't work on our cars.

I had the vafcII tuned at garage qwai in Chicago, and I highly recommend them for tuning and other stuff. Really nice people and they gave my stupid civic just as much attention as a good car. One hour of dyno tune cost me $120. Basically it helped at least to smoothen out the a/f ratio.

ps. Josh you and your company suck! What a disgrace. I hope you never make anything for the D17 ever again.

MODS:

-NGK Iridium Spark Plugs
-Ground Wire Upgrade
-Sun Hyper Voltage System
-Apexi VAFC-II
-Optima Yellow Battery
-Ceramic Header
-DH Racing Ported Head Work
-B+M Transmission cooler
-Thermal Rear Section Exhaust
-Napa Gold Air Filter

Also, I have a small system (one sub) and 15 inch wheels. Yes the car does feel smoother when accelerating. Does anyone have a stock ex dyno to compare, since I only did after. The two runs are before tuning with mods, and then after adjusting the fuel. So basically the vafcII gave 2whp. I guess the head gave 0whp or possibly negative hp.

VAFCII tuning numbers: They only tuned the wide throttle, because the others were already pretty close. I have an auto, and they ended up using 2nd gear because 3rd didn't work well.

Also, they set the vtec to engage at 2800rpms, but I put it back to stock. I don't know exactly how the vtec works, but someone said you need 100% throttle to activate it and turning it on too low is bad (not enough oil pressure).

Wide High Vtec

2600 +4
2700 +4
3000 +4
3400 +4
3600 +3
4000 +3
4400 +3
4800 +3
5200 +3
5800 +3
6400 +1
6900 -2

vt cont (put back to stock ****)

L-->H 2800 rpms
H-->L 2700 rpms

Throttle

25% narrow, 80% wide

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abmerop18 · 10-16-2004

ug. sorry to hear about that man. ports are probally too big and there isnt much back pressure

Ledbelly · 10-16-2004

man gearbox this is a bad month for you ... first Michelle Branch gets married your S&B filter didnt work to much and now this .....

you need some boost in your life i hear its wonderful

C2i0v0i1C · 10-16-2004

wow doesnt even begin to say

gearbox · 10-16-2004

I feel bad because I spent soo much time and money all for nothing. Well maybe my car is slower than stock now. Who knows. Whatever, I'm done with this crap. I'll get the header jet coated next year cause it's falling apart, but that's it.

EnProceso · 10-16-2004

$120 to figure out you made 100whp.......ouch

C2i0v0i1C · 10-16-2004

Quote:

Originally Posted by gearbox

I feel bad because I spent soo much time and money all for nothing. Well maybe my car is slower than stock now. Who knows. Whatever, I'm done with this crap. I'll get the header jet coated next year cause it's falling apart, but that's it.

u got this head ported and all, increased the flow and what not, but didnt increase much of anything really, u got this big open head with nothing to help the air move through it. i still feel sorry

futurersxswap · 10-16-2004

tru tru tru man, you got nothing getting air there, and nothing getting it out, rear section exhaust, cat, no intake (that i saw).. man, your head can flow like mad, but it has nothing to flow!!!!!!!! ported head on SOHC is mainly for boost.... no other real reason due to lack of airflow, you arent going to gain much power just with the head... man, i know cat gained BIG power, and mine is on the way, so i will hope to as well.. but for real man, you need to have something to flow the air through it to see the gains ...

gtracing · 10-16-2004

do i hear "vroooommmmmmmm pppppsssssshhhhhhh!!!!!" haha, u need turbo man...and a big fat one too

4drcivic2k1 · 10-17-2004

Wow. My stock EX 5 speed made more than that.

gearbox · 10-17-2004

Do you guys think the auto trans robs alot of power?

Titleist71 · 10-17-2004

i'd think so

WannaBFast · 10-17-2004

it probablly does, altho i would probablly be happy with what you have, it can probablly beat most ricers out there

leonhsieh · 10-17-2004

i think the numbers are not bad....when i have sf kit on my auto...i made 150hp and 143tq to the wheel at 8psi!!

vtecd17 · 10-17-2004

yea dude. Auto robs u of power from mods, and just in genereal. GEARBOX!! U live in IL? I live up in Lake County, Mundelein...u near there?

p.s.- If your gonna tune ur civic, go to Whip Factory. They specialize in Honda/Acura

aznboysrfr · 10-17-2004

hm, you should get a custom cam to utilize the air ... that should help a lot ... in addition to bigger valves ... ;P

BIG · 10-17-2004

I would have thought it was higher, you might have gained some over stock, but yeah they are right, without an intake/custom down pipe/high flow cat/custom mid pipe you'll never push all of that extra air in and through

poor jaysun · 10-17-2004

It's a D17 and designed for economy.
Regardless of mods you will make very little hp or torque.
Sorry to see this but sometimes when you change how an engine is designed (port job) things just don't work the same or the ECU is not sure what is going on.
TIME FOR A SWAP

guns · 10-17-2004

OK I have to agree that you need a new cam to get more air flowing threw the head. A cam will give you higher lift and longer duration on the valves. Maybe if you do a short ram intake and a catless exhaust with a free flowing muffler you should do a little better.

BUt to be honest I would go boost or part out the head and sell it to someone who wants to boost.

Here is a pic for you to compare. The bottom run was my base dyno before turbo. My base looks identical to yours with PnP head. SOmething is wrong.

importz2k1 · 10-17-2004

It's almost depressing! Kinda the reason why I've been sticking to show only.........

obguam · 10-17-2004

There appear to be three explanations for the low numbers. 1) DH did excessive porting and f****ed up; 2) he needs to modify intake and exhaust (and cams) for better NA flow to realize gains from P&P; and 3) P&P only works when boosted. A fourth view is that the D17's ECU is programed to cancel out benefits of minor mods. I'm not an expert, but if #1's the cause then #3's prolly the only solution (boost). I'm hoping its only #2 in which case the project isn't done and shouldn't be abandoned. Good luck gear.

Nick · 10-17-2004

Ma tha SUCKS. I feel sory for you.

gearbox · 10-17-2004

Thanks for the comments everyone. It looks like I'm heading towards boosting it in a few years, since this is a car I want to keep. Just run low 4psi or something to get some good gain.

To the other turbo auto guy...you only got 150 hp at 8psi? That doesn't seem right either. A manual gets what like 180 or something?

WannaBFast · 10-17-2004

did you even bother to see how much it was ported? i dont think it was much

Wolfgang5884 · 10-17-2004

Sorry to hear that, the only thing I would do, if I could afford it, would be a turbo or engine swap.

abmerop18 · 10-17-2004

Quote:

Originally Posted by gearbox

Thanks for the comments everyone. It looks like I'm heading towards boosting it in a few years, since this is a car I want to keep. Just run low 4psi or something to get some good gain.

To the other turbo auto guy...you only got 150 hp at 8psi? That doesn't seem right either. A manual gets what like 180 or something?

boost owns

gearbox · 10-17-2004

The head was ported alot, which may be worse. And it has hi flow valves as well, so I bet it would really help with turbo. But then again, I don't really have the money to pay for a huge turbo and then run a few psi of boost so the tranny doesn't go out. Maybe I should buy those instructions for the home depot supercharger and make my own

doubledeuce2k2 · 10-17-2004

yeah you gained some HP for sure, probably around 20% from stock (since you are basically cancelling out drivetrain loss). i wouldn't be so rough on yourself. only way to really know is make an auto to manual conversion your next mod

NashVegasEX · 10-17-2004

man, so sorry to see that dyno ... When I showed the pics of the first DH head to the machine shop that ported mine, they said that head must have been for a HUGE turbo project ... said the ports were massive and that the majority of a P&P on a N/A car gets done inside the head, not to the ports ... Since my head and cam go in Wednesday, I am glad to see that the A/F controlled by the VAFC2 seems to work out about right, although with that power, you shouldn't need much ... Ohh well man ... Glad you got it on and I think that with some other things, i.e. cam work, that you'll be able to really add to that ...

gearbox · 10-17-2004

Good luck with the vafcII. It looks like they got the ratio linear, even though it's only around a 2% correction at full throttle.