Lexi.Laron

Where in the World has Lexi.Laron Been!?

2015-11-29T18:24:00.001-05:00

Again,

I was lost, but now I am found.

What have you all missed? Well, not much-- aside from my decision to take the majority of mods off of my car including:

Coilovers
255/40r17 RS3's with 17x9 Rotas
Long tube header
and K-Pro

I did it because I was literally working on my car once a week, at least-- tightening up coilovers because of degraded spherical bearings and loose lower locking collars and also trying to correct the toe issues associated with running a lot of camber on the RSX:

It didn't help to have a naturally disadvantaged front suspension from the start either. With the poor camber gains associated with MacPherson strut, even when the car is not extremely lowered, it becomes necessary to run additional negative camber-- more than would be necessary on an equivalent double wishbone car.

Note how a typical "macstrut" suspension moves in comparison to a double wishbone suspension:

I'm not saying these cars are not great cars. These cars are plenty capable-- whether lightly modified or highly modified. This can be seen from SCCA Solo Nats in 2015 where an EP3 Civic took first in STF or in the PZTuning RSX which was record-paced FWD time-attack car at one time.

However for me, the relatively small amount of headaches I had seen for my daily driver/track day/autocross RSX were enough to drive me insane. I had probably done about three DIY alignments in one month and one alignment in addition to that at my friend's shop.

It took one last hiccup where I discovered that my steering rack was slipping before finally giving up on the chassis and searching for something different. This is the "different" that I searched for and finally found:

I chose it for a variety of reasons, including the better suspension, lighter chassis, wide variety of cheap parts available, and because I was already familiar with tracking and autocrossing an FWD car, however that's a story for another time.

While I was putting my car back to stock, I was focused on getting to and from my job in South Jersey, finding a place to live, and enjoying my life with my friends, family, and girlfriend without having to worry about working on my broken car every weekend. So, I took a short hiatus while I started my job.

I didn't hit the track. I didn't go to many autocross events during this time. And I didn't worry about mechanical issues for a while.

However, as it usually goes-- a car guy cannot stay away from the hobby for a long time without going insane...and with that being said, I tried to pick up seat time in as many different peoples' cars as possible.

My friend Anthony's Miata

My friend Alex's Impreza L Wagon

My friend Jason's Shifter Kart

During this time, I also started accumulating parts for the Civic-- including a full GSR suspension and brakes, ITR Koni Race and GC coilovers, used Team Dynamics Wheels and Hoosier R7 Slicks, all necessary camber and toe adjusters, and hard rubber bushings.

With a, now reliable, daily, some slicks in my garage, a running Civic project car, a new-found sense of security at my new job, and a couple of events left in the season, I decided to get back on the track with my cars and have some fun.

Body roll for days

Heading onto NJMP Thunderbolt on Stock Suspension

For my last track day in Arcie, I decided to install some Koni inserts since I didn't like the way the OEM ones felt over bumps at high speeds. I didn't want to install any lowering springs, or anything crazy-- I just wanted Koni inserts.

These were around the same price as RSX replacement struts from KYB or similar brands, and since I had over 70,000 miles on my OEM struts, I just pulled the trigger and went ahead with it.

As you all can see, the install didn't go so smoothly without all of my dad's tools in my old garage in PA:

The result was rather astonishing with a decrease in lap times of approximately 1 second after my first heat. My times improved drastically after getting some instruction and adjusting my line, of course, but for a back-to-back comparison of OEM to Koni struts, my results were pretty amazing:

Now that the season is over, I'm mainly focusing on finishing the Civic and saving money for student loans (yay), other adult things, social functions, and track days! Wish me luck as I continue on this journey of hoonage!

Race Day Prep: DIY Alignment and Post-Track Day Maintenance

2015-06-02T09:53:00.002-04:00

Hello Lexi.Laron readers! Welcome to another edition of your favorite blog, Lexi.Laron.

On May 13th I took part in my second Track Night in America with the SCCA. We ran New Jersey Motorsports Park's Thunderbolt configuration yet again. However, this time, I brought all of my friends after they all read about my first experience on my blog.

After the track, we all headed to Red Robin in Deptford, New Jersey and grabbed a bite to eat. It was great settling down with friends and talking about all of the cars we raced against that day. Picture: The Fast and the Furious family dinner.

After a track day, there are usually a couple of things that you do to make sure your car is in working order.

Firstly, your brake fluid gets really hot. And like most liquids, brake fluid has a boiling point.

This is why race cars and properly track-prepped cars run DOT 4 fluid and up. DOT 4 is a good compromise between water solubility and compressibility when compared to DOT 5 and the conventional DOT 3.

Since your brakes get really hot, your fluid gets really hot, and that changes some of its properties. The most important property to take into account is how hygroscopic, or "water-loving," your brake fluid is. The hotter your brake fluid gets, the more soluble water becomes in it, thus decreasing its effective boiling point and its compressibility as well.

What does this mean? It means mushy, soft brakes.

Secondly, you're supposed to change your oil. Here's what my oil looked like after two track days and 2,000 miles of driving:

Needless to say, it was pretty black.

And in addition to all of that, I had a number of other things to take care of-- including a new clutch master cylinder, clutch slave cylinder, tie rods, and camber bolts. Expect some sweet DIY's soon!

The new tie rods and camber bolts are being installed because I have been riding with an insane amount of toe in and negative 0.7 degrees of camber on one side of my car and negative 1.7 degrees of camber on the other side of my car!

This is due to a couple of reasons. For one, the DC5's struts were designed so that the tie rod connects to them instead of to the upright, like on most cars. You can see it in the picture below:

As a result, when aftermarket manufacturers go to make coilovers for these cars, sometimes the placement is not perfect. Throw in a lower ride height, and the fact that there is play in between where the coilover connects to the upright, and you get finicky camber adjustments on a bulky, FWD car.

Another side effect is the fact that the stock tie rods will not have enough thread or they may be too short to accommodate the car's drop and the desired toe value.

Luckily for us DC5 owners, there are yet MORE aftermarket options to correct these pesky problems. See exhibit A below for further reference:

Exhibit A

The first piece of the puzzle are these Da Vinci Designs (DVRace.com) Tie Rods made by Todd from ClubRSX. These tie rods are "adjustable" but not in the way that most people are used to tie rods.

These tie rods actually are modified OEM units. The threaded part of the OEM tie rod is cut off, and a bolt is welded onto the end of the tie rod. Then, a long, threaded, metal dowel is inserted into the bolt.

You see, with this setup, even if you thread the tie rod end ALL the way onto the dowell with this setup, you can still spin the dowel itself into the tie rod, allowing you even MORE adjustment than simply cutting more threads into your tie rod as shown below:

In addition, if you take notice of the picture shown above, you will also notice that cutting threads further into an OEM tie rod may actually be dangerous. When you cut threads this deep, you are actually cutting into a part of the tie rod that is thinner, and although your tie rod may not fail in reality-- this is always one surefire way to increase the likelihood that it will fail...

The next piece of the puzzle is a set of camber bolts which go through where the coilover meets the upright in the front of the car.

Here's how camber bolts work:

Image from H&R

The bolt has an eccentric "lobe" much like a camshaft has lobes that control the valve motion in your cylinder head. As you turn the bolt while it is holding the strut to the upright, the lobe controls the angle at which the upright sits-- thus changing camber angle.

After installing all of my parts, I broke out the jack stands and did a string alignment.

For starters, you're going to want a level surface. Based on previous experience, I know that if I want to achieve a level surface on my driveway, all I have to do is take four 16" by 16" concrete blocks, one for each wheel. Then, I put one tile on each of the concrete blocks for the rear wheels.

To create a "frictionless surface" otherwise known as "toe plates" I take two lineoleum tiles and place them face to face with some grease in between them. Then I lay the two plates under each wheel.

Since my rear alignment was done by Lykon Automotive in Levittown, PA (THANKS TYLER), I didn't have to touch it. The rear alignment is set at zero degrees of toe and negative two degrees of camber.

Therefore, I moved to the front, where I would set my specs to zero degrees of toe, and negative three degrees of camber. To start out, I simulated the weight of me in the passenger seat with some cement and gravel bags and I locked the wheel in place using zip ties and a piece of wood.

Then, I set up a vertical reference next to my wheels. Doing this allows me to measure my camber with a tape measure and some good old math and trigonometry. To make my vertical reference, I used my good friend gravity! Yes, I'm a nerd...but I'm a cool nerd with a racecar.

Here's a diagram of the setup:

If you measure the distance from the top of the wheel to the string and the distance from the bottom of the wheel to the string you can start to form a right triangle, where the diameter of the wheel is the hypotenuse.

Notice that the difference between the top string and the bottom string is the length of the top part of the right triangle.

The hypotenuse is 16", and you can find the difference between the top and bottom by using the tape measure, so all you have to do is use an inverse sine function to find the value of your camber angle:

This may seem complex, but any regular scientific calculator can perform this function

After my first measurement, I discovered that my camber was at negative 3.8 degrees.

So, I had to adjust my camber bolts to get the desired camber angle. To make adjustment easier, I removed my windshield washer fluid reservoir and got a 17 mm socket on a 1/2" wratchet and started turning the eccentric bolt.

After I got the desired camber on both sides of the vehicle using the aforementioned method, I took the wheels off and while holding the eccentric bolt in place, I tightened the nut holding on the eccentric bolt as tightly as I could by hand.

After setting camber on an alignment rack, you are normally supposed to set the toe. So, following convention I decided to do so. For toe, there is a commonly employed method by many grassroots racers known as a "string alignment."

You take two jack stands and some string, and you align the string to the "geometric center" of the car...much like an alignment rack can do for you automatically.

For a car with equal track widths front to rear (like my car) this is easily done by measuring from the center cap on your wheels to the string which spans the length of the car.

Once the distances from both center caps are equal on the front and rear of one side, move to the other side of the car and repeat the process.

To check toe, all you have to do is take two measurements on each front wheel-- one measurement at the front of the wheel and one at the rear.

Then you take note of the measurements. It's simple. If the front of your wheel is further from the string than the rear is, you have toe in on one side of your car.

If the distance between the front of your wheel is closer to the string than the rear is, you have toe out on one side of the car.

After you figure out what your toe setting is, you can spin the tie rods the way you need to spin them to get the desired toe. This was a snap with the Da Vinci Tie Rods from Todd. Thanks Todd!

After I finished my alignment, I set everything down and took the car for a drive.

Here are the final results for my alignment:

Front

Camber: -2.9 degrees
Toe: 0 degrees

Rear

Camber: -2.0 degrees
Toe: 0 degrees

With how much the car rotated on my previous track days, I can only imagine how much more the car will rotate for my next event. Couple that with the new tires I bought...and well...we'll just have to see how I do ;)

Thanks for reading guys. I hope you found this post as useful as my other ones!

Peace!

Philly SCCA Mini of the Mainline Event #1

2015-04-20T23:04:00.000-04:00

Photo by Anthony DiGiovanni

Welcome back readers. On Sunday, April 19th, Philly SCCA had their first event of the season for points-- Mini of the Mainline Event #1.

The week following this event was full of racing action. I had a test and tune on the previous Sunday, I had a track day on Wednesday of that week, and those events all led up to the first autocross of the season.

With over 150 entries, the season opener is always full of people and there is a limited amount of runs. This means that there were only four runs for each person and therefore less opportunities to tweak the car's settings.

My run occurred in heat three. During heat two, I took the opportunity to prep my car for the first run. In addition, my friends Edd and Shawn ran in heat two!

Edd's Car

At the test and tune, I noticed that I was getting a lot of sidewall scrub at what seemed like the optimal tire pressure for a compromise of grip and oversteer for my heavy, front-wheel drive car. So, I decided to change my tire pressures from low to high. Here is what the tire pressures were at before I ran:

Front Driver: 34 PSI
Front Pass.: 32 PSI
Rear Driver: 32 PSI
Rear Pass: 30 PSI

It looks like they had changed since my track day since my tire pressures were two PSI lower on my passenger side than my driver side. Maybe I don't remember changing them after some hot laps? NJMP's thunderbolt does have a lot of left turns after all. The pressures for the first run were:

Front Driver: 40 PSI
Front Pass.: 40 PSI
Rear Driver: 36 PSI
Rear Pass.: 36 PSI

For the second run, I noticed a lot of understeer. Despite this I went down to 36 PSI in the rear while the tires were hot. Note that hot PSI are always higher than cold PSI. Think ideal gas law if you've ever been in a high school chemistry class. Run 2:

Front: 40 PSI
Rear: 36 PSI

Second run was my best run. I understeered like crazy into a corner after the turnaround at Warminster, but the time I made up in the slalom on the first half of the course made a huge difference. I don't know why I didn't just wait to see if my brakes would heat up to allow me to stop sooner or if the increased tire temps would increase my quickness, but I guess I was just antsy.

Photo by Anthony DiGiovanni

I think that's one of the challenges with autocross for a guy like me. I'm so tempted to make changes to the car when it may not be necessary. I may have just been able to leave the car at the same tire pressures since I did so well in the first half of the course and just adjust my driving style for the second half of the course.

Photo by Anthony DiGiovanni

I guess it all comes with experience. Anyway, I adjusted my tire pressures for the third run despite all of this. Run three was as follows:

Front: 38 PSI
Rear: Same as before

Photo by Anthony DiGiovanni

Run three was actually slower than I predicted. I got some pretty nasty oversteer in the first slalom and that slid me into the Chicago box on the firs thalf of the course. As a result I decided to lower the rear tire pressure for the fourth run:

Front: 36 PSI
Rear: 32 PSI

The fourth run went better in the first half of the course, but again my brakes didn't bite as I had expected in the second half of the course...so I ended up hitting a cone head-on with my car. It kind of sucked! At the end of the day my best time was a 42.9 and I got third in DSP thanks to my mishap on the fourth run!

Photo by Anthony DiGiovanni

Despite all of this nonsense though, as you can see in the above picture, my friend Alex finally got to autocross his winter build known as Touge Turbo! Go look up the hash tag on Instagram to see more his build! #TougeTurbo

The video of my runs is below! I even included cockpit video with this one and as usual I included commentary on my driving technique and on the car setup. Thanks for reading guys!

Track Day Bro!

2015-04-17T12:56:00.001-04:00

Hey readers!

With racing season upon us I will have many opportunities to fill your plates with plentiful portions of technical jargon, racecars, and fun, fast, and safe driving! On April 15th, I experienced my first track day ever thanks to SCCA and their new program called "Track Night in America."

Track Night in America is aimed at newcomers who wish to enter into track racing from essentially any avenue. Whether you're a kart racer, autocrosser, or traffic jam bum, if you want to get to racing then you can do so with Track Night in America thanks to the SCCA. It is a safe, controlled environment where you can push the limits of your car.

As a matter of fact, everyone I was driving with either autocrossed before or was a regular autocrosser!

Image from SCCA

With a price tag of $150 before a one day only $25 discount, I could not resist the temptation. Although the track day occurred from 3 to 9 PM, cutting into the work day, so-to-speak, this price is nearly half the cost of an average track day with HPDE or Hooked on Driving or any other camp. However, with any event comes preparation that needs to take place.

As mentioned in my previous article, one of the first things I tackled was the brake pad situation. On the track, stopping and turning are much more important than going straight. One of the first things mentioned on New Jersey Motorsports Park's tech form is that brake pads should have more than one half of their life left.

Since I had been using my HP Plus pads for more than a season of autocross, I felt it was time to finally replace them. Here's what the old pads looked like-- they definitely have some life left in them!

Next, I sent my car off to my good friend Alex who was supposed to align my car. The desired settings were:

Front camber: -3.0 degrees

Rear camber: -2.0 degrees

Front and rear toe: Neutral

Caster: non-adjustable on the RSX

However, thanks to a seized rear eccentric bolt, rear toe was not adjustable. Since Alex didn't want to do a half-good job of aligning my car, he stopped at rear camber and let me know that after four hours he was unable to do anything with the car. Thanks anyway Alex!

In addition to my poor alignment, out of good will, while Alex was washing my car, my aero block-off plates came off! I guess it's better it happened there than at the track!

So, not only was my alignment bad and my block-off plates had popped off, but there was a slew of other things I had to comb over before I brought the car on the track. On the checklist I had:

Fix front camber on driveway
Fix front toe on driveway
Make sure all bumper clips were securely fastened
Tighten down the battery strap
Install my new Hawks and bed them in
And make sure all suspension components were in good order.

I started by jacking the car up and maxing out the camber, within reason, on my adjustable top hats. The top hats are pictured below:

However once I did that, the car's toe was EXTREMELY out of whack. The car tracked hard to the right, so I had to adjust the tie-rod ends with some guesswork.

After doing that I tightened down the battery strap, I tightened the lower locking collars on my coilovers, I checked all of the wheel bearings, I installed my pads, and I bedded them in. Since I had done so much in just a couple of hours before I was due to leave, I took it easy on my way to New Jersey Motorsports Park (NJMP).

When I got there, I signed in at the gate, drove to Thunderbolt (one of two circuits at NJMP) and got set up at the paddock area.

I brought a couple of things with me to make sure I'd be able to lounge comfortably during the advanced and intermediate sessions, my friend's GoPro, and I also brought some tools with me to make sure the car would be in good hands.

This is, of course, in addition to my helmet, which you must have, my long-sleeve sweater, which you must have, my close-toe shoes, which you must have, and my long pants, which you also must have.

Here's a more detailed list of what I brought:

A large tarp to cover my belongings
A box of open-ended wrenches
10 mm through 14 mm deep sockets and a ratchet
A small toolkit which was comprised of a small ratchet and multiple shallow sockets
Allen wrenches
A chair
Dinner (PB&J)
Lots of water
GoPro
GoPro charger
Number plates-- in case we needed to be marked
Painters tape-- to hold my magnetic number plates to the car
A pen and some paper
Sunscreen
Helmet
Sweater
Jack stand

Note that I may have over-packed, but it was my first track day and I did not want to be unprepared.

Once set up, we held a driver's meeting. During the driver's meeting we went over hand-signals to let people know that you want them to pass you, we went over passing zones, we went over flag signals, and we went over general tips to stay safe on the track. The novice group had their own special leader who took the time to ensure we all had a fun, safe time on the track. His name was Tom. Thanks Tom!

After the driver's meeting, we filled out a self-tech form. This form goes over everything from having your battery tied down, to discolored, cracked, or warped brake rotors, to no floor mats or loose items in the car. We signed it to ensure that we were liable for any accidents and handed it over to the coordinators of the event.

Then, we headed out for paced laps to understand the corners on the track, including turn-in points, apex points, exit points, braking points, acceleration zones, and passing zones. Here's the car that I was following-- an intermediate class STi!

After the paced laps, we sat and waited for the advanced driver (there was only one) to finish his run. However, due to a stroke of bad luck, his drain plug came loose and he spilled some oil on the track. According to my sources though, he was able to turn off the motor in time before damaging it!! I'm happy to hear that.

As a result, there was a bunch of kitty litter put out on the track to make sure that no one slid on the oil. This made for some tricky situations on its own, but it was definitely better than the greasy alternative, if you know what I mean.

After the mishap in the advanced group, we all waited for the intermediate group to get finished with their runs. While we waited, I got some cool videos of the faster guys driving by!

And finally it was time for the beginner group to run. Here's a map of Thunderbolt and the layout we ran for future reference:

Initially I took it slow. I wanted to get a feel for the track and ramp up my corner speeds and get later and later in my braking zones to push the car.

Eventually I got comfortable on the track and really learned where I could push the car. The turns that were covered in kitty litter initially tripped me up really bad. And after the long front straight that leads into Turn 1 at NJMP, I learned that it was difficult to heel-toe due to the sheer magnitude of braking that needed to be done.

This area proved difficult to heel-toe downshift in

I wasn't passed once and after the first run everyone was asking who was driving the red Honda!

However, whenever you drive your car hard, it is to be expected that there may be some sort of mechanical issue. When I popped the hood I noticed oil on one side of my valve cover and freaked out! I quickly took off my intake manifold cover and while doing so I noticed that a bolt holding my valve cover on had come off. The area is shown below:

So, I simply took a bolt from somewhere else in the engine bay and replaced the one that fell off with it. Notice how there's no washer on the middle, front valve cover bolt as well. That's because I took that washer and used it on the corner valve cover bolt.

After that, for the second run I took things easy at first. I watched my temperature gauge and looked in my rear view for smoke. I also kept my senses keen to make sure that no funny smells were coming from my engine bay. With all things in check, I began to push the car a little harder and I still did not get passed once.

Finally, before I started the last lap, I asked the novice instructor, Tom, about one corner in particular that I did not know how to handle. It was unlike some of the kinks that took place at high speeds because for those I could just let off the throttle, oversteer, and hit the gas. It was also unlike the low-speed technical corners where I could slam the brakes, oversteer, and hit the gas.

He ended up telling me to keep the car in forth gear, brake gradually, and let off gradually. Doing so induced corner entry oversteer and allowed me to power out of the corner. Here's the corner I'm talking about:

If you want to take a look at my driving, check out this video! It has a lot of comments to help you guys see what I was thinking and what I was doing to be slower or faster through given sections and corners! Maybe if you want to get into track racing this will help you!

At the end of the day I ended up meeting a bunch of people and having an amazing time. Everyone agreed that I was the fastest of the day and I learned so much and had a blast driving with the other novices. People kept asking if my car was turbocharged and how much displacement I had. When one driver heard I had an N/A 2.0 liter motor he was shocked!

When I was leaving, some instructors even stopped by and asked who was driving the "red Honda" as everyone called it. They said, yeah, "you're definitely ready for intermediate group!"

It felt so good finally being fast-- as compared to autocross where all of the lighter cars with better tires destroy me. I guess we'll see how I do next time! But for now, I'm gonna sign off. Hope you had fun reading!

Philly SCCA's Summer Series Rust-Off; Dialing in the DC5

2015-04-13T14:19:00.000-04:00

Hey all! Welcome back to Lexi.Laron!

If this is your first time here, then just "welcome," period!

The other day I took part in an autocross event known as the Summer Series Rust-Off.

Every year, the Philadelphia Region of the Sports Car Club of America hosts its "Rust-Off" so that members can dial their cars in that they've been working on over the winter. This allows us to prepare for the upcoming points season so that our cars are working to our limits, and not the other way around.

With a long day ahead of us, my friends Anthony and Alex rolled up in their silver and blue miatas, respectively. Alex just finished building his Miata that he calls #TougeTurbo for track use.

Alex is running some insanely wide Rota Grids with Hankook Ventus RS3 Version 2's for the street and some flow-formed Jongbloed Racing Wheels wrapped in Maxxis RC-1's for auto-x and track use. Protection for Alex is provided by a full Spec Miata bolt-in cage, six-point RaceQuip Harness, and Sparco Sprint V for extra bolstering. He is running Tein Sport Coilovers, NA8 brakes and blank rotors, and energy suspension bushings in every possible location.

Those are just some of his upgrades and he is currently in the process of saving up for a turbo kit. Go check him out on Instagram at @MX5Militia.

(From left to right) Alex's car, my car, and Anthony's car

The lighting was less than optimal for my phone camera.

Again, poor lighting.

With Alex off to a cruise, it was just Anthony, me, and some friends from the 282 Touge Crew.

We walked the course and started prepping the cars for a day filled with many, many, many runs. I ended up getting 19 runs in total which is way more than an average Northeast Autocross. Keep in mind, I started racing in the Midwest where the population density is much lower.

After walking the course and going through tech, I began to dial the car in. With no sway bar at my last event I was spinning out like crazy. On exit ramps and other long sweeping corners, my car had more grip than ever with a crappy alignment, however without the sway bar, fast direction changes proved difficult. Autocross and track are very different-- keep that in mind. You can see how bad I did at my last event in Hershey in the video below:

Hershey PA Autocross with Susquehanna SCCA

For this event, my stock sway bar was back on with new end links and new tie-rod ends. I also bled my brake system properly and checked my Hawk HP Plus pad life. For my next track day I will be replenishing my HP Plus's with new HP Plus's!

With all of that in mind, I'll share with you some of the tuning steps that I went through during my first heat. My GoPro died for the second heat, so I can't do much for you guys there, except tell you that it went really well!

The settings for all tire pressures are in cold PSI if stated as an actual number (e.g. tire pressure was 30 PSI). If the tire pressures are stated in differences (e.g. 1 less PSI in front tires) then I changed the tire pressures while the tires were hot.

The settings for my first run were as follows:

Full soft damping rate in front with full stiff in rear
Tire pressures:

Rear tires-- 29 PSI
Front Tires-- 30 PSI

The tire pressures gave me no sidewall scrub in the previous event that I ran in Hershey, PA.

After the first run, I noticed that the car was rather unpredictable in direction changes. I was getting a lot of snap oversteer when transitioning from the first slalom to the next. As a result, I decided to stiffen up my damping rate in the front by five clicks. Keep in mind the Tein Street Flex has 24 "clicks" of adjustability.

Run 2 went much better. The oversteer I received in transitions was much more predictable. The settings for this run were as follows:

Five clicks from full soft in front for damping rates
Tire pressures same

For Run 3 I went with the same settings as for Run 2, but I noticed that on the long sweeper in the back I was getting substantial understeer. As a result I decided to lower my front tire pressures by one PSI for Run 4.

Run 4:

1 PSI less in front tires
Same damping settings

If you're an experienced auto crosser, you know that sidewall scrub is bad. This occurs when the tire rolls onto its outer edge during cornering. This is bad because you lose contact patch.

Notice how the front passenger side tire is almost on its edge as this Audi corners

To determine if you are scrubbing, there is a technique that most autocrossers use known as "chalking the tires." What you have to do is take a piece of chalk and color the side of the tire with the arrow shown below:

If you are just on the arrow, you know you are using the tire to its full potential and your tire pressures are set correctly. However, if you are riding on this arrow, you are losing grip due to sidewall scrub in most cases. Of course, there are other variables, but this is an all-else-equal approach to sidewall scrub, contact patch, and maintaining grip.

During Run 4, I noticed that I was not using all of my rear tires thanks to this tire chalking technique. So, I let out one PSI in the rear tires for my fifth run.

Run 5:

Same damping rates
1 less PSI in rear tires

Run 6, 7, and 8 all utilized the same settings as Run 5. During these runs I was trying to push my car as hard as possible. I got a feel for the cars limits and by Run 9 I was able to more gently modulate my throttle during the slaloms, transitions, and sweepers.

Look at it in the video to verify my improvement.

The last run of the first heat was Run 10. During Run 9 I noticed that I was still getting a lot of understeer on the "turnaround" in the middle of the course. I know now that I need more front camber because I am currently running with no alignment.

Also I am losing grip when my front end is compressing. This implies that I am losing contact patch in the front of my car upon compression thanks to the wonders of macpherson strut suspension geometry.

Take a look for yourself and READ the caption!

Taken from Sport Compact Car

So, even though letting out more air in the front would result in more sidewall scrub (I was already on top of the arrow) I decided to let out more air pressure up front for my final run. It helped me to corner at the turnaround, but again, I was losing contact patch due to sidewall scrub.

Run 10:

One less PSI in front
Same suspension settings

Here's a video of all of the runs from my first heat:

During the second heat I marked my fastest time of 29.288 seconds on the course with no cones. I beat a couple of really good cars (mainly AWD and RWD) with good drivers and good tires (most had Direzza ZII Star Specs).

Fastest Run:

Suspension five clicks from soft in front, full stiff in rear
Front tire pressure: 34 PSI
Rear tire pressure: 28 PSI

Keep in mind that these tires are better than the Bridgestone Potenza S-04 Pole Positions that I am running. Once I get my camber dialed in to be negative in the front, slightly negative in the rear, and my toe to be at zero degrees all around, I believe I will be poised to be much faster in future runs!

Thanks for reading guys!

Aero Block-off Plates for the DC5 Part 3

2015-01-09T11:19:00.000-05:00

To read about my previous attempts to smooth out the front of the DC5, check out these links:

Part 1
Part 2

The following article documents the removal of the front fog lights and fake brake ducts on the USDM Type-S for replacement with solid flat plates which are lighter than the fog lights and are more aerodynamic than the fake brake ducts.

When I'm autocrossing I don't experience brake fade anymore. I used to with Advance Auto brake pads and stock rubber brake lines with DOT 3 brake fluid. However, not that I've switched to DOT 4 fluid with stainless lines and Hawk brake pads I am not experiencing this phenomenon anymore.

When I do hard, high-speed street driving I also don't experience brake fade. However, just in case I did I took the stock Type-S brake ducts and I cut out the fake grilles on the ducts.

To do so, I removed the fake grilles which simply clip into the bumper, and then I glued corrugated plastic onto the front of the fake duct.

After I did this, I had a fully removable block-off plate for the front bumper. However, I wanted the plate to be flush with the bumper because this is better for aerodynamics. Although for the driving I do this will yield negligible results I did it because it was a free mod.

So, with that being said, I primed them and decided to paint them with some cheap WalMart paint to make them match my bumper.

And although they look wonderful in the picture above, they actually didn't match the color of the paint on my bumper, so to make them look better, I decided I'd paint them an OEM satin black:

However, again, they weren't flush with the bumper. So, I decided to make them flush with the bumper this time. I'd sand the flat black plates that I showed you guys in the above pictures and I'd hot glue some extensions to them so that the new plate could sit flush with the front of the bumper.

With these "mounts" cooled off and solidly mounted to the original plate I made, I then cut out a template that would fit in front of the bumper and glues that onto these mounts. Believe me, I am dumbing it down for you guys.

I painted these flat black, and then I inserted them into the bumper. The goal was to have these pieces be fully removable and OEM-like in form and function. The following pictures show the initial fit and finish:

After I finished this, I brought the parts of the plates that sat closest to the grille in the middle futher in toward the bumper.

The result was a modification that could hold up to even the most extreme of weather conditions. Oh the joys of corrugated plastic!

That's it for this read. Until next time, thanks for reading!

DIY A/C Delete on 2006 Acura RSX Type-S

2014-12-27T15:11:00.000-05:00

Hey readers!

How are you all? It has been a while yet again. And while that is a common theme in almost every post-- that I am a slacker-- I still come back to write over and over again because it's something I love to do in my spare time.

Currently I am on break from school. I am in my senior year as an engineering student and while I cannot wait to graduate and make money at a job for cawr pawrts, I have also been having the time of my life!

So much has changed...some for the better and some for the worst. But I have grown a lot as a result.

_________________________________________________

Anyway, enough of the sappy stuff. Let's get down to the nitty gritty!

Since I do not have a job I am pretty low on money. This is not a big deal, but it has cut into my plans for next season pretty seriously. My goals were to get hasport motor mounts, swift springs, and a racing seat for the car with other possibilities including a high flow cat to get me back into STX class, vents for my hood, and possibly a steering wheel.

Momo Start Bucket Seat (FIA Approved), Personal Neo Grinta 330 mm, Swift Springs, HASport Motor Mounts

Long story short I've been going nuts not being able to modify this thing! All I can do is practice driving on driving simulators and that's just not the real thing.

My Brother Playing GT6 with my Logitech Force Feedback Wheel on my Parents' 50" Flat Screen

I had been thinking recently about ways to save weight. One thing I did was I deleted my rear windshield wiper, but I'm sure that only netted me four pounds at most. I wanted something more. I was fiending.

So, I decided to delete my A/C. After all, I never used it and I was pretty sure that it needed a recharge anyway. So instead of giving it some more refrigerant I just removed it all together. Recharge for what?

Other reasons for removing A/C include:

Decreasing the rolling drag on the serpentine belt that runs off of the crank, thus slightly improving power and mpg
Removal of the A/C condenser which sits directly in front of the radiator therefore making more space for an intercooler if I ever wanted to boost the car
Increased air flow to the radiator therefore reducing the chances of overheating on track

With all of that being said, the only thing I'd really be giving up is comfort and possibly it may make my tune function differently. So, let's begin!

You're going to want to start by removing the power steering reservoir with a 10 mm ratchet. This will allow you access to the 12 mm (?) bolt that sits on the idler pulley. Put a long serpentine belt with a socket over this idler pulley's bolt and pull it toward you to break the tension in the belt. Then, remove the belt off of the top pulley (the power steering pump's pulley).

Look closely at the bottom-right of this picture. A hard line for the A/C sits here and connects to the condenser. A second line like this is on the left side of the condenser. After safely (and legally) removing the refrigerant from your system, pop the bolts off of these hard lines and pull them away from the condenser.

Next, unbolt the power steering coil which sits in front of the condenser. This coil probably serves as a mini-me heat exchanger to prevent the power steering fluid from overheating. Notice there's not much more to the cooling duties of the P/S fluid than this.

On the right and left of the condenser, you will find these brackets that hold it to the radiator support. Unbolt the condenser on both sides with some sort of wrench that gives you easy access behind the headlights. I used this swivel thing with a 10 mm socket.

The picture above shows the condenser removed.. Looks pretty beat up. You can tell that the bottom part is where the bumper opens up to allow air to flow through because there's all sorts of crap in there.

If you take a look at the next picture you'll get an idea for how much space this frees up. For all of you guys who track, you know that when your car has overheating problems that providing more airflow (either through venting or through ducting or whatever) is one solution. I don't think the DC5 has cooling problems, but a little added reassurance is never a bad thing.

Plus I like to rationalize over negligible changes on my car because I'm a nerd :)

The next thing I did was remove the radiator mounting brackets and the radiator cap. To remove the compressor, it is easier to remove everything sitting in front of the engine. It's all due to a single bolt which sits right above the subframe. Talk about a pain.

The coolant was changed when I first bought the car...about three years ago. I was worried that it'd come out looking like crap since I have had a bunch of auto-x days and parade laps at Pocono on this motor. However the fluid didn't even look that bad! It was clear and not viscous.

To be absolutely sure that I wasn't killing my engine all of this time, I took out a coolant test tool to look at the boil-over and freeze protection of this fluid.

The following picture shows the boil-over protection of the fluid. The recommended boiling point of the fluid is 129 degrees Celsius according to this little gauge. Mine was slightly compromised at 128 degrees Celsius, but I feel that maybe if the fluid filled up the little gauge more, the needle inside would have risen more. Not too shabby!

Next I checked the freeze protection of the coolant. The picture below shows a recommended -37 degrees Celsius freezing point and an actual freezing point of -29 degrees Celsius. Again, more fluid in the little plastic part may have helped, but this is okay for me...good thing I will be flushing the coolant and replacing later anyway.

Next there are four painful connectors connected to a painful harness which is fastened in a painful manner to the radiator fan and to the bulkhead. Remove those.

You'll notice in this last picture that I had already removed the clamp from the lower radiator hose. I also removed the lower radiator hose before taking these clips out. Big mistake. My hair smelled like coolant all night.

Remove your upper radiator hose, and your radiator is essentially free! You may want to not only remove the passenger side headlight to remove the radiator, however. You may want to remove the driver's side as well. This will give your ratchet access to the crash bar's bolts that hold it to the frame rails.

With the radiator removed your front end will look much like this. Remember, I really do recommend you remove this crash bar AND your headlights BEFORE taking the radiator out. This was my first time doing this and the order in which I did things was a little wacky.

After removing the crash bar you'll have a ton of access to that A/C compressor at the bottom-left hand side of the picture.

There is an inlet to the compressor and an outlet. I'm not sure if the fluid entering the compressor is gaseous or if it's liquid. I'm not too keen on the specifics of A/C operation, but I know the outlet is "compressed" A.K.A. at a higher pressure than the inlet. This compressed fluid is then cooled in the condenser.

Next I removed the bolts holding the compressor to the bracket.

Try to compare this picture to the first close-up of the compressor. You'll notice two of the bolts holding the compressor to the block are removed. Remove these!

There is one last annoying bolt which is sitting RIGHT ABOVE THE SUBFRAME on this car. This is the whole reason why you are disassembling your whole car. Thanks Honda.

When you take your compressor off of the motor, you'll see a bracket that was holding the bottom of the compressor to the block. In this picture it is removed, but you will want to remove that bracket as well since it serves no purpose now.

There's some sort of sensor that goes into the evaporator. I'm guessing it's a temperature sensing element. Remove the clip that goes to this sensor first.

Now, unbolt the whole canister from the car along with the bracket that's holding it. Most pieces of this system are very light aside from the compressor. You'll notice that this canister is especially light despite the way it looks (heavy and ugly).

Now, start unbolting your hard lines from the rest of the A/C system.

This hard line goes up and over the engine. Remove the whole bracket from the radiator support.

With the top line removed, you will be able to focus your efforts on getting your NEW SERPENTINE BELT IN! YAY!

The belt pictured below is a smaller belt than the stock belt. I went this route versus buying idler pulleys to delete the A/C and power steering because:

I want to keep my power steering-- it makes it easier for me to control the car while cornering
Adding an idler pulley reduces drag caused by the compressor, but it still has more drag versus a smaller belt with less pulleys
The lower amount of ribs in the belt will also serve to decrease drag slightly and I am positively certain it will hold up.

Spaz of ClubRSX uses a smaller ribbed belt on his K24 motor with an Accord pulley and it is fine.

If you'd like to purchase the belt you can get it online for pretty cheap. I paid around $20 for mine with shipping and handling. The part number is: 537K6

To loop the belt around, you will follow the following configuration shown in the diagram stolen from ClubRSX:

This picture shows how the belt physicall wraps first around the alternator and then up and over the water pump.

One of the last things I did was plug up the A/C hard lines in case I wanted to ever have A/C in this car again. I will probably be removing these lines soon, but I did not feel like it, so I just left them there.

Finally, your last step is to re-install the radiator and everything else. Flush your coolant, fill the system with new coolant, burp the system, and take your whip for a drive! Forgive the sideways picture!

I hope you all enjoyed this read. It was fun for me to get back out there and work on my car for a small price of $20. I will be letting you guys know about how the car feels after I finish doing the coolant!

Peace and thanks for reading!

Moar Autocross at Pocono Raceway!

2014-09-26T11:22:00.000-04:00

Hey guys!

It's been a fun break.

My school gave us two weeks off between our Summer and Fall terms, and although that doesn't sound like much, to us it is.

During that time I worked a whole lot, took care of some appointments and ran some errands, and of course-- I raced my car.

Photo credit to AutoX4U

After my last autocross event, I realized that I needed to raise up the rear of my car more because I was rubbing on my 255/40 r17 tires in the rear. After doing so, I definitely wasn't the coolest or most low kid on the block, but my car definitely handled like a champ!

For this event, my best friend Alex and I convinced two of our novice friends to come along for the trip. One person was Josh, and the other was named Kirsten.

Josh drives this S2000:

With super light and super wide Enkei RPF-1's, an APR rear spoiler, a Mugen replica hardtop, a J's Racing Wide Body Kit, a C-West Front Bumper, a J's Racing carbon fiber hood, and a 2.7 L stroker to top it all off, this car sounds, looks, and drives in an awesome manner.

Kirsten drives an RSX Type-S with an exhaust, header, and Type-R rear spoiler. She traded up to the Type-S from a base model RSX and she is loving the heck out of it. We were all proud that she came out to drive the heck out of it with us!

After hard parking for a while and going through tech, we all drove over to the course for course walks and the driver's meeting. The course was huge. It was set up on the Pocono infield with as little cones as possible-- and trust me, that made it so fun for the higher horsepower cars which usually don't do so well in auto cross.

While sitting around during the driver's meeting I managed to get some sweet pics of this Joefis Racing Mustang!

The morning was pretty soggy and wet. This didn't make good for the cars with extreme performance summer tires-- like Alex's Miata. He wasn't able to warm up the tires enough apparently and it lead me to get a time that was two seconds faster than his because I am on max summer performance tires.

The more experienced drivers still pulled off some pretty good runs. This just goes to show that driver mod is greater than car mod.

I got some really sweet pics of Alex going around the course. The organizers of the event allowed me to get a really good spot for pictures with my bad camera and lense. So, I grabbed Josh and made him my spotter-- then went out to get some flix!

Here's an ITR that I was able to ride in thanks to my friend Jimmy Vajdak. The car was so well setup and grippy. It was really like a roller coaster and I could feel the lightness and the effort that went into the car's modification. Jimmy drove the car very well, however the person who actually owned the Type-R, Jimmy's friend, was a really good driver and truly showed the car's true potential.

After the morning runs we all parked up and I got ready for my run. Although I didn't get any pictures of my runs yet, I did do fairly well. I got second out of six in my class-- DSP-- to an E36 with slicks. It's not perfect but it's something!

Thanks for reading up on this article. I hope to bring you guys some more technical stuff within the next month. I did have to roll my fenders and raise the car up to make these meaty tires fit. So maybe I'll showcase that.

Or maybe I'll showcase the brake ducts I plan on making.

Until then, keep on reading!

Pocono Raceway and Auto-X with a Hairdresser

2014-08-24T12:32:00.000-04:00

Hey guys,

So with some cash in my pocket from my most recent job and with the ambition to be faster and faster on the auto-x I finally splurged on a new set of wheels and tires.

My first time trying them out was at an event at Pocono Raceway in PA. Combine two days of racing with one of your best friends and his cool Miata and you're bound to have a good time.

Walking around the event and sizing up the competition in auto-x is more friendly than in other forms of racing, I'd imagine. The bottom line is always fun at these events, so if you see something cool you snap some pics of it and post it online, right??

How about this rare and awesome 1M with custom-made aero?

When we got off to racing, Alex and I did very well. On the first day we both placed first in our respective classes and I won a trophy for my very first time. In DSP, I was matched up against my buddy Paul and also this black Focus ST that just so happened to be very quick!

At the end of the first day I ended up taking first in class by a couple hundredths of a second, if I remember correctly! It was a close one!

My buddy Alex ended up taking first in the STR class with some magical driving on his part-- it was only his second event!

The second day wasn't so great because Alex and I were severely outmatched. I switched to the TDSP class for street tires because I thought I would be more competitive, and I ended up getting spanked by a WRX.

All in all, we had a great time beating on our cars and being fast as heck!

Until next time, peace out!

The Honda Fit Kit

2014-03-31T17:27:00.003-04:00

The Honda "Fit Kit?" I thought when I first saw this? Check it out for yourself and read and watch the video. Apparently this is a kit that you buy and assemble yourself...and by kit I mean a full car....sent to your door...in boxes. Go head Honda.

Taken directly from Honda.com:

2015 FIT KIT BETA

In the spirit of handcrafted culture, the Fit Kit enables handcrafters to build the all-new 2015 Fit in their own home. Here is your chance to shape with your own two hands the most stunning hatchback yet.

With over 180,000 mechanical parts shipped to your door, the Honda Fit Kit is a challenge for the most talented and adroit of the handcrafted movement. A chance to assemble the revolutionary aerodynamic body or fuse together the 6-speed manual transmission piece by piece.

The Fit Kit owner should be a tinkerer par excellence with a solid understanding of electronics to power up the Bluetooth® connectivity [2] and leading industry safety features like LaneWatch™ [3]. Ideally, someone with a knack for propulsion to build the i-VTEC® engine and strong sense of interior design to lay out the 52.7 cubic feet of cargo space [1] with the Honda-exclusive Magic Seat®.

Drawing on the thriving maker culture, we found two excellent testers to help build our first successful vehicle in the beta test. See their Honda Fit Kit story unfold in the Honda Fit Kit demo series.

If you're up for the challenge, there is no better way to experience handling the fun-to-drive Honda Fit than to hand-build it piece by piece.

[1] Carrying too much cargo or improperly storing it can affect the handling, stability and operation of this vehicle. Follow applicable load limits and loading guidelines.

[2] The Bluetooth® word mark and logos are owned by the Bluetooth SIG, Inc., and any use of such marks by Honda Motor Co., Ltd., is under license.

[3] Display accuracy will vary based on weather, size of object and speed, and the display may not show all relevant traffic. The display is not a substitute for your own direct visual assessment of traffic conditions before changing lanes.

PLM Header Review and Install

2014-03-30T13:43:00.001-04:00

Hey guys and gals. Welcome to another installment of Lexi.Laron.

For those of you who don't know, I've been rocking a shorty header for years now.

OEM Header on the Left and DC-Sports Shorty Header on the Right

And although it has served its purpose and it provided me with some mild gains on the so-called "butt dyno" and even allowed me to keep my catalytic converter setup intact, a shorty header is ultimately not comparable to a race header in terms of performance for the RSX.

Typically a shorty header will provide a good alternative for those who wish to keep their catalytic converter and to do a quick, cheap bolt-on which will give them a slight bump in power.

A race header, often times deletes the cat, however it has much longer and much more gradual tubes coming off of each cylinder, resulting in smoother flow. The race header provides better low to mid-range torque and power versus the shorty header which will typically provide better high-range torque and power.

Check out this site to read up more on this topic if you're still curious.

So, given all of the positives associated with running a full-length or "race" header, I decided to reach out to a reputable brand known well in the RSX community for making quality products at affordable prices...

Private Label Mfg. or PLM was kind enough to send me one of their headers for the RSX Type-S, and so I decided I would do a review to share with the RSX owners of the world.

When you open up the box from PLM you will get a couple of things. For starters, you will get the upper part of the manifold with the flange that bolts up to the engine, two collectors which slip-fit onto the upper part of the header, a collector which slip-fits onto the two aforementioned collectors, and finally a test pipe which bolts from the header to the exhaust.

Here is the top part of the header:

The top part of the header looked remarkably well constructed with gradual bends leading from the engine to downstream where the collectors would connect.

And the insides of these runners from the head of the engine to the exhaust also looked smooth. Here are pics of the welds on the outside:

From the top part of the header, there are two collectors which merge the exhaust flow from the upper four tubes into two tubes. This is what the first of the collectors looked like:

And here are some detailed shots of the welds on the first collector:

Here is the second collector:

And here are more pictures of some wonderful welds from PLM!

You take the two collectors that I just showed, and you slip-fit them onto the top part of the header. The bolts that you see hanging off of the welded on sleeves are used to squeeze the slip-fit sections of the header together. When all is put together, these sleeves allow bolts to "seal the deal" so to speak.

After you bolt up the two collectors you'll have to bolt up a third collector which will make your header look a little something like this (I have circled the slip-fit connections):

Now, let me say that this third collector is a piece that I walked around with all day on Monday looking for the right bolts to connect this to the test pipe with. And all the while, I was getting a TON of compliments on the welds and construction of the pipes I was hauling:

Let's take a look at where the two pipes which merge the exhaust gases toward the primary O2 sensor are welded together. You can see that the welds are meticulously dimed through and it's not just this pipe that is like this...it's the whole header.

I was a huge fan of the thickness of these flanges. The thickness of ALL of the flanges allowed me to really torque down the connections for this header to make it completely leak-proof.

Here's the test pipe I was carrying around on Monday:

Everyone from muscle car guys to import guys was telling me how well-constructed these pieces looked. They were practically excited for me without even knowing what car I was bolting this to! That's how you know car enthusiasts share a strong bond...whether they drive a tricycle or a t-rex (if you know what I mean hahah).

Here's where the test pipe accepts the donut gasket and bolts up to the collector. Again, look at the nice, thick flange:

And with the included gaskets, PLM made my life a little easier when it came to installing this piece, right?

The next step after unboxing the beautiful set of stainless, welded pipes was to get the beautiful, dirty RSX up in the air. Sorry Arcie! I'll give you a bath soon!

After getting under the car with a cutoff wheel and a Dremel for the hard-to-reach spots I started cutting off old bolts that I couldn't break off with an impact gun.

I decided to remove my whole exhaust so that I could get rid of any existing leaks by cleaning the faces of all flanges and replacing all gaskets and bolts. To start, i took off the mid-pipe:

While I was in Wisconsin, I tried to fix an exhaust leak where the mid-pipe met the resonator, however I couldn't get the bolts off with hand tools and I didn't have access to power tools, so I just covered the leak with some RTV sealant until I could actually fix the leak:

After removing that monstrosity of a problem, I moved to where the flange of the muffler met the flange of the resonator and began to remove those bolts:

Then I removed the downpipe and catalytic converter combo pipe by popping off the spring bolts that held it to the old shorty header:

And I used THIS to do it:

Voila!

Moving around to my engine bay I started to remove the bolts that held the shorty header to the cylinder head:

With all of the exhaust components off I trudged on:

Clamping the downpipe/catalytic converter pipe into a vice would allow me to remove the O2 sensors, but first I had to get the proper tools.

Here is a pic of the downpipe clamped up:

With the downpipe clamped up, I opened up my Dad's box of special, extremely thin wrenches to use to remove my O2 sensors:

I then grabbed a rudimentary piece of pipe and used it as a cheater bar for both the primary and secondary O2 sensors. Aren't I a cool guy?

Then I started cleaning all of the flanges for my exhaust. Doing this allows the mating surfaces to come cleanly together from pipe to pipe. You put your gasket in between the two flanges and I put some RTV sealant on the gasket before putting the gaskets on to be extra sure I wouldn't get any leaks, and having a clean surface to do all of this with is extremely important.

Otherwise the RTV sealant wouldn't do a thing, there would be uneven spots on the flange, causing the gasket to not sit flush, and ultimately it would make the exhaust sound like crap.

And I laid all of my exhaust parts out after I finished cleaning them:

Then I matched up the exhaust gasket for the new header with the test pipe on a vice:

And I got some anti-lock cream from Denso and I put it on the secondary O2 sensor's threads and put it in the test pipe:

The primary O2 sensor from the 05-06 RSX Type-S is a narrowband O2 sensor. This means it basically works as a dummy sensor which tells the computer if the air-fuel ratio is about 14:1 at idle and cruising conditions, and if the ratio is not, then it adjusts the trim on the fuel injectors and ads or removes fuel as necessary.

A wideband O2 sensor has a wider operating range and can read a larger range of air-fuel ratios, so it's better for tuning because you can see what your air-fuel ratios are at no throttle, part throttle, and full throttle-- allowing for a more exact tune. In fact, if you run KPro, you must have an 02-04 RSX Type-S primary O2 sensor.

Check out this source for more info.

Now that we've sufficiently covered all of the unexciting stuff, let's move back onto the header.

Let me again reiterate how satisfied I am with the quality of this header. After admiring it, I banged together the slip fit connections with a rubber mallet and tightened them up. It went fairly smoothly except for the slip fit where the last collector with the primary O2 sensor bung is. I'll show you what I mean later.

Here are the first couple of slip fit joints going together:

As I mentioned, the last slip fit connection did not go together perfectly, but it's okay because I just tapped it with a rubber mallet and it all came together well. Here's what I'm talking about:

But after some persuasion, the header was looking gorgeous:

Then i got under the car and unbolted the sway bar so I could slide the header up in there.

Note that if you take this route, you will most likely want to wait to install the last collector that I had a little trouble with that has the primary O2 sensor. That way, you can swing the sway bar up and over the header back into its normal position before bolting the exhaust back on.

It will also save you HOURS lost due to having to remove the header AGAIN to put the sway bar back on. Can you tell I had some trouble with this?? LOL.

Anyway here's me removing the sway bar:

After bolting up the header using the OEM header bolts and the gasket provided by PLM I got under the car and got to installing the primary Denso O2 sensor. Here's the welded on bung on the collector that leads to the test pipe:

I got some Denso anti-lock cream and put it on the threads of the primary and screwed it in there, clipping it into the proper spot on the RSX's harness:

If you read through forums, there are tons of people who complain about melting their O2 sensor wires due to an incorrectly installed race header. However, if they were worried about melting the wires, then they should have installed it correctly the first time.

To prevent this from happening in my case, I zip-tied the wires for the primary and secondary O2 sensors to OEM brackets after I wrapped the wires in multiple layers of insulation. This would hopefully provide enough distance between the O2 sensors and their wires and enough protection for their wires as well.

After getting the exhaust bolted up I went and grabbed my test pipe to bolt up too. You're going to need some pretty long bolts for where the collector bolts up to the test pipe at the donut gasket. I believe I ended up using M10 or M12 x 1.25 bolts which were 70 mm long. I then had to run the bolts through a die to make the threads proceed further down toward the hex-shaped head of the bolt to further ensure I'd have enough clamping power for the two flanges.

This is another place where PLM's quality really shined. I tightened these flanges as much as possible and I swear I would have broken the bolts before I bent these flanges because they were so thick. Good call PLM. I approve!

Here are some pics of the bolted up test pipe with the secondary AND primary sensors now all secured to the car's OEM brackets:

Here's the insulation I added to the secondary one-- hope it holds up:

As you can see, installing a race header-- ANY race header-- is a lot of work and time for the average guy like me. I'm no mechanic and there are people out there who do this for a living or who have been working on and modifying cars for years like my buddy Josh from N-Spire Performance.

Yet that's what I love about stuff like this. When you're all finished installing something on your car, the end result is what I love to see. And with this header, the sound of the car is now amazing and so is the feel of it. Take a look at some of these sound clips!

Here's a sound clip of me bouncing off of the rev limiter (around 5000 RPM's for 05-06 Type-S's) with my old setup:

DC Sports Shorty Header
OEM Catalytic Converter and Downpipe
A'PEXi GT Spec Cat-Back Exhaust
AEM Short Ram Intake
Stock K20Z1

And here's a sound clip with the new setup! It's much deeper in the low range and it has a raspier sound from around 2500-4000 RPM's that sounds A-MAZING.

PLM Race Header
A'PEXi GT Spec Cat-Back Exhaust
AEM Short Ram Intake
Stock K20Z1

Overall I am EXTREMELY impressed by the quality of this product, the results it provided me, and with PLM's courteous customer service.

PLM was very friendly when I contacted them about this opportunity and I got my product in no time. If you ever come in contact with Frank from PLM, know that you are in good hands.

The welds of this header are all high quality welds that would make most automotive enthusiasts very happy. The fitment is great. And the design that went into the flanges can't be beat.

I feel like the car is more powerful in the low and mid-range, however I did not expect to feel as much of an improvement when "VTEC kicked in yo" as I did. It feels like I gained power all throughout the powerband, and the sound DEFINITELY does not fail to impress.

Thank you for reading this article, and I sincerely hope that my experience has been helpful to you. Maybe you too will decide to go with this great product!

Thanks for reading, have a good one people!

Secret Society's Michael Valentich in Faces of Konig Campaign

2014-03-24T17:54:00.003-04:00

Well readers, here is some exciting news! Lexi.Laron featured car enthusiast, Michael Valentich, has made it to the #FacesofKonig Campaign which showcases some of the peoples' rides who show dedication to the Konig brand.

Check out the video of his story here on Lexi.Laron. The link to the site can be found here.

Enjoy...

Spaz's Type-S: Car Bro Bonding and Memory Building in the Midwest

2014-03-18T22:58:00.001-04:00

A Man and His Masterpiece

Hello readers and welcome back to Lexi.Laron where I give you some of the best modified car content on the web.

In this addition I'm going to talk about my last weekend here in Wisconsin and what I did on one splendid Saturday with my friend, Zack.

For those of you who don't know, Zack or "Spaz," he is a huge contributor to the modified Honda community.

He etched a name for himself after becoming recognized by Honda Tuning for his large amount of DIY's on ClubRSX and to this day he continues to make waves. For example, he has already secured multiple sponsorship deals from such reputable companies as Hybrid Racing and has recently gotten Top1 Motors' support.

Type-Spaz's Satin Silver Metallic RSX Type-S on the Cover of Honda Tuning Magazine

It all started after a long night of playing Gran Turismo 6. I woke up at 12:00 PM, tired as hell, picked up my phone, read through some Facebook, checked out some Instagram, and got the message from Zack to come over for one last time before I go home. What better way to spend my last weekend here than in a garage, am I right? (Car people will understand)

I packed up a box of free engine parts that I needed to get rid of before moving back to PA:

Got in my whip:

And I rolled up in the crib to see some ceramic coated hot-side turbo piping and a slew of other tools:

This is Zack's engine bay:

When your engine bay looks this good, it's not too hard to understand why Spaz is such a well-known name in the RSX and Honda community. And with the K24A2 Acura TSX engine adorned in Hybrid Racing goodies with slews of custom-fabbed parts all placed beautifully into a meticulously well-kept shaved and tucked engine bay, it's hard to imagine how this setup can get any better, right?

Well, not exactly. Throw in a Precision 6262 journal bearing turbo, Full Race sidewinder turbo kit, ceramic coated hot side piping and a hot-side turbo housing, and a custom-painted cold-side turbo housing, and you've got yourself a serious beauty on your hands. Zack mocked it up to show me the new look he was going for. Can't wait until she's running again Spaz!!!

After gawking at his setup for like two minutes like I always do when I see Zack's car, it was time to get down to business. And so we put a list together of stuff that needed to be finished on the car and got to work.

First up on the list was a pesky oil leak. Exhibit A:

This Christmas Tree of janky fittings is Zack's way of sending pressure signals from the AEM sensor and the OEM sensor and for feeding the turbo via the turbo feed line.

If you take a look at the next picture, you'll see where the leak was found:

Since the engineer is always the gerbil, wriggling away to quickly and efficiently work on extremely detailed tasks which carry questionable significance, I decided it would be a good idea to volunteer to fix this thing.

And for all fairness, I helped make this monstrosity in the first place, so I figured I'd try to fix it and make amends with my ghetto ways. So first I laid out all of the brass fittings:

And while I did that, Zack got to work trimming his new throttle cable to further tuck his bay:

I then grabbed me some thread sealant and clamped the first tee down into a vice:

I wanted to recreate the old setup, just this time I didn't want it to leak. So what that meant in my head was that I could put a tight layer of thread sealant on the threads of each fitting, tighten the fittings as much as reasonably possible, since they're cheap, and then tighten the sensors to a reasonable extent since they're more expensive than fittings.

After assembling the little piece shown above I placed the elbow on top of the tee and double checked all of my threads before I wrapped them with tape. And then I tightened the elbow down as much as possible using the vice:

Then I put a NIPPLE on the ELBOW using the vice....NIPPLE

Then I put this crap together:

And found out that the AEM sensor wouldn't fit, so I would have to grind down the back side of the tee:

Here's the AEM unit screwing in:

And here's my little Christmas Tree:

Zack went and bought a sandwich plate shortly after. HAHAH. I can't blame him.

Here he is being a stud:

Yet the wild Spaz can be found often in his natural habitat looking apparently idle, yet his looks are deceiving. At all moments, he is pondering, thinking of the next thing to modify on his car. Like a wild beast when he finds a problem or when he gets an itch on his face, he RUNS to action, fixing whatever needs to be fixed, building whatever needs to be built, modifying it all! MODIFY ALL THE THINGS!

And since we now know the wild Spaz's true nature, we shouldn't be surprised that the wild Spaz was not just sitting idle, but was fixing a leak for his catch can! And in the process he even managed to make his car look better by tucking the line under his Hybrid Racing Edition Innovate Motor Mounts! STUDLY if you ask me ;)

When I first met Zack he took me for a ride in his RSX...a very torque-steery, smile-producing, skin-tingling, muscle-car-whooping ride. It was at that moment that Zack first explained to me that his downpipe would not fit past his swaybar...and so he had to remove it. So we had to fix that, now didn't we?

And after getting the dump tube mocked up, Zack and I clamped it onto the exhaust:

Then we tried to fit in the O2 sensors.

However, we had to cut off a pesky exhaust hanger to make the primary sensor fit. So, we broke out the cutoff wheel:

Cool picture of cut off exhaust hanger:

Now, let's shift focus to my car, shall we? When I bought my Type-S it came with a trailer hitch on the back of it..You may be able to see it here:

It was so ugly and useless that Zack let me pull my car in his garage to cut that thing off!

With the two RSX's in the garage I got to work-- propping Arcie up in the air.

Then I strapped on some goggles, gave the double Spaz-Approved and hopped under the car!

Voila!!! It's off!

________________________________________________________________________

This experience has meant so much to me. Not just working on our cars in the garage this one time, but being in Wisconsin with great people like Zack.

And not just Zack, but all of the amazing people whom I first met up with when I came out here. People like Mike of Secret Society and people like Zack are extremely important in the car community. However people like this aren't just important as car enthusiasts, they're important as friends. And guys, don't think I'll ever forget how hospitable and graceful you all were.

Until then, hopefully I can be back out to the Midwest to chill with my Midwest friends. I plan on coming back out for some of the great tracks out here and maybe even for Import Atlanta. Whatever I come back out here for, I'm sure that there will always be good friends to meet me. And that's all that matters.

Aero Block-off Plates for the DC5 Update

2014-03-15T14:20:00.002-04:00

Photo taken from EvolutionM

Last time on Lexi.Laron I spoke about making plates that cover the lower-left and lower-right parts of the grille to prevent air from entering into the engine bay and making frontal lift and drag at high speeds.

Since sharing my idea with the readers of this wonderful blog I have made some significant progress.

For starters I picked up a new Dremel. The one I bought was only sixty bucks and it came with a slew of attachments and accessories along with the ability to vary speeds-- which is extremely important.

Originally I started out with an acrylic sheet. Using my dremel, I cut out the shape of the cardboard that I mocked up in my previous article.

Then I took out my heat gun and went out to the garage to start doing some testing.

I bent the edges to fit the bumper and I bent the far-right part of the acrylic to fit into the center part of the grille as well. I used some tape to hold it on for mock up. While mocking it up I formed around the edges to make it fit the bumper in a better manner.

As you all can see, the fitment was less than optimal. Bending the edges with my fingers made ugly looking dimples all around the edges. So, I tried to do it again with a sheet of Lexan (polycarbonate plastic)-- this time not molding with my fingers.

As you can see I used postage tape to mock up the block-off plates. I then used a heat gun and a metal bar to bend the Lexan to shape. However after enduring numerous jokes about postage tape being the fastest way around the track from some fellow members in ClubRSX. I decided to scrap the idea of Lexan altogether as well.

I then set out to do some research. I asked people what they wanted to see with the plates. I made an Instagram Post to see if people would be interested in spending money on them. I posted pictures of my progress to Facebook. I posted pictures to ClubRSX's Track Chat Thread and to K20A...

And a lot of people wanted to see these mounted flush to the bumper, for one. And another thing I found out was that people who would actually be using these to serve a functional purpose wouldn't even be running fog lights. So I decided that making the block-off plates out of a clear material for fog lights would be useless anyway...right?

And since metal WOULD be easier to bend anyway...and since it IS thinner, the fitment would be flush and would leave tighter clearances...right?

So, I decided to use some aluminum instead! Yes, aluminum is ductile (easy to mold or bend), it is a light metal, and it will definitely be functional, flush, and look pretty good for those interested.

Here you can see how the plate bends into the center part of the grille. I used tape to mock it up and my bare, man hands to bend it in!

Then I trimmed around the edges where necessary and bent the plate around the edges toward the corner of the bumper and molded that as well..using tape, once again, to mock it up to the bumper.

Here is how the final fitment will look..when I finish the brackets that hold it on.

The brackets need to allow the user to take the plate off without removing the bumper for ease, while still holding the plate over the area firmly.

With all of that in mind, I decided I needed a bracket with a hole on one side to allow for the user to first bolt the bracket onto the bumper, and with threads on the other side to allow the user to secondly bolt the block-off plate onto the bracket.

However, how in the hell would I get threads on one side of this bracket? Speed nuts...but how would the speed nuts be kept in the bracket?

That's right, I soldered the speed nuts onto the bracket. I sanded down the sheet metal, I sanded down the speed nut's edges (with a Dremel of course) and to test to see if my theory would work. First I put a hole in the bracket.

Then I took my machine bolt and threaded it through the speed nut on one side of the bracket.

Then with that speed nut clamped down using the machine bolt I soldered the edges of the speed nut to the bracket. It's my first go at this, so be kind with your words.

With all of that said and done, I'm currently working on a way to mount these brackets to the front of the car without having to drill any holes in the bumper. This may require that the OEM duct cover (not the fog light) be used and drilled through for mounting points for this block-off plate.

However, given that it is difficult to do this fabrication I may end up using expansion nuts in drilled holes in the bumper. This would require minimal modification and wouldn't look horrendous.

Until then I'm going to let you guys go. I hope that you all keep up with the blog and stay tuned for more articles.

I am proud to say that I am going to be doing a review for Private Label Mfg. for one of their race headers for the RSX and EP3! This will be my first technical "sponsorship" and I hope that everyone is looking forward to reading up on this great company's product.

Until then, peace out readers!

Aero Block-off Plates for the DC5

2014-02-23T19:27:00.001-05:00

Tactical Art EG6 with Aero Block-Off Plates-- Photo from The Chronicles

Aero Block-Off Plates for Project DC5

Hello all.

Welcome to another addition to the site. In today's article I will be going over a new project for the DC5 which will be relatively low cost and partially for my own enjoyment and boredom.

Living in the country is no simple task for the semi-urban Philly Area boy that I am. There is a lot of corn, there is plenty of beer and good fried food, a bunch of friendly people, some motor heads here and there who thoroughly enjoy the American muscle car, yet the atmosphere is much more relaxed than where I'm from.

And well, aside from coffee, the one thing that can help me speed things up a bit is cars. However, cars cost money, money is a necessity, and necessities are...well, necessary. So of course, there are always low cost projects and modifications that I'm looking for when it comes to my DC5.

Photo courtesy of Tahrek Nassab of Secret Society

It just so happens that racing encourages that type of attitude. It is a sport in which slight modifications are encouraged to make the most out of your car while still staying in the same class.

Yes, whether you're in auto-x, road racing, NASCAR, Formula 1, or on the Bonneville Flats, small changes can make big differences. And that's what brings me to my next project-- fabricating aero block-off plates for the Lexi.Laron DC5.

Aerodynamics are extremely important for racing. The faster you go, the more important aerodynamics become. Things such as drag, down-force, and lift factor into how well your car can perform at the track. And there are many modifications which one can do to change the way their car behaves aerodynamically.

Take a look at the big wing on the back of the Loi-Spec ITR. A wing can be used for added stability and extra down-force.

Photo courtesy of Honda Tuning

Since I am not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to aerodynamics I will use the help of some members from one of my favorite sites, K20A.org. Therefore, I would like to thank BlackNDecker for his help before going any further with this article.

In a road racing thread on the forum meant for sharing track pictures, BlackNDecker and I began talking about the benefits of aero block-off plates. In his response, he stated that these plates are used to prevent excess air from entering the engine bay which would increase drag, therefore slowing the car down, and would also increase frontal lift, decreasing front-end traction at high speeds.

A closer look at the Loi-Spec Aero Block-Off Plates-- Photo Courtesy of Project Onethirty

Another solution to this problem would be to route the air from the front of the car to a part of the car that needed the air for cooling. This concept would apply to brake ducts which use frontal air to cool the brake rotors so that brake fade will be reduced. In my opinion this is a better option than the block-off plates, but I like my fog lights and so I would like to avoid removing them for brake ducts.

Brake ducts on a Miata-- Photo Courtesy of MiataTurbo.net

Another added benefit for me would be that these block-off plates will prevent rocks from kicking up and cracking my fog light lenses. This is extremely useful for people who buy OEM fog lights or things like the JDM ion fog lights which cost around $300 on the forums.

So, why wouldn't I do this? It's a relatively cheap project, it serves a purpose for function, and it will protect my fog lights.

With all of that being said, let's get to business. I began with some poster board and started cutting away at it to try and get the right fitment on the front of my DC5. Here's what the poster board looked like after a little while in the freezing cold with some scissors, some tape, a marker, and lots of clothing:

You'll notice that after I created this rendition I marked parts that needed to be changed for the next rendition. After doing that I got some cardboard out and cut out the second rendition. K is for Kelloggs (and K-Series)!

Then after some cutting, I test-fitted the second one on the car and made a third rendition to account for errors made on the second one. I traced the THIRD one on a Cheerios box!

Then I added a little meat around the edges to ensure I'd have enough mounting space to get this to fit onto the bumper.

I was going to add these little round nubs to the edges of the block-off plate, but I decided that they wouldn't look good, so I just added an extra quarter inch or so to the edges.

After cutting out the third rendition I went out to the garage and test-fitted it on my bumper with some masking tape.

Then I bent in the inner part of the block-off plate and cut and trimmed the edges to make it fit well on the inner part of the grill.

When I continue this article I'm going to have the shapes cut out of acrylic and bent to fit on the front of the bumper.

Until then, any feedback is welcome. I'll be updating the blog post to links with discussion about this on other forums. Thanks guys!

Peace!

Project DC5: Engine Builds for Dummies! Part 6

2014-02-16T14:37:00.001-05:00

Engine Builds for Dummies! Part 6

___________________

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

___________________

Whenever you take an engine apart to repair it by replacing parts or to rebuild it, it is wise in most cases to blueprint certain components of the engine, or to blueprint the whole engine in some cases.

Blueprinting is the process of getting measurements of engine components to determine whether they are within OEM spec, are out-of-spec but replaceable, or to determine if the components are completely shot.

To do this you'll need to buy some tools. I'll walk you through the tools that I bought first and tell you what they will be used for briefly, then I will show you how to use them in the pictures of my blueprinting of the engine block.

One thing you will need to buy for blueprinting an engine is a set of feeler gauges. Mine are from Harbor Freight Tools. These allow you to measure clearances and to check your block for warpage. In addition these even allow for regular maintenance such as checking and adjusting valve lash.

Next, I purchased a dial bore gauge. It comes with a dial indicator that can measure travel to the nearest 0.0005". This dial bore gauge can measure the inner diameter of a bore, such as a cylinder in a block.

Because the hand is not the most accurate tool to hold precision instruments like a travel gauge, you'll want a magnetic base. This can hold the gauge to measure the run-out of brake rotors or of the crankshaft mains, particularly, for this engine build.

This tool that I'm about to show you I've had for quite a while. It's a Mitutoyo digital caliper. This can be used for measurements of thicknesses and stuff and even depth. I used it to find the point in the cylinder where I would need to measure from the top and bottom for out-of-round.

This is a precision straight edge. It is used to measure straightness-- like of a block's deck or of a cylinder head's bottom surface. This tells us whether our part is warped or not.

Lastly, this beautiful set of micrometers belongs to the wonderful maintenance manager at my chemical plant. This cool guy gave me a tool which could be used to measure crankshaft main diameters, crankshaft main out-of-round, and to calibrate the dial bore gauge.

With the engine up on the engine stand, the first measurement I decided to take was the run-out of all of the crankshaft mains. However, I forgot to account for the fact that magnets don't stick to aluminum and therefore I screwed myself over...only being able to blueprint the run-out of one main journal.

So to fix this problem I moved the block to the floor where the block would be nice and steady and mounted the magnetic base somewhere solid as well to begin measuring the run-out of ALL journals.

But even mounting the magnetic base somewhere solid didn't work because the setup was too bulky to fit in between the counter-weights. So I ended up taking oil pan bolts and threading them into the block and then fitting the gauge in between the bolts and the crank. This would allow me to keep the crank rotating a full 360 degrees while not hitting the gauge. All I had to do was be sure to keep everything as stable as possible as to not mess up any of the readings.

Per the Acura TSX Service Manual, the maximum allowable run-out specifications are:

Standard (New): 0.03 mm (0.0012 in.) Max.
Service Limit: 0.04 mm (0.0016 in.)

And per my sweet travel indicator, the max run-out I ever saw on any of the main journals was 0.0005 inches, much less than the standard allowable run-out.

Next I pulled the crank out and did a quick visual inspection of the webs on the block and I really freaked myself out.

I saw all of these little cracks around the bosses for where the oil squirters would be placed had this block been out of a TSX and not a CR-V.

Initially I thought that the block was cracked and that my build was done, but the good people of K20a.org informed me otherwise. These are casting marks. They are normal in this place and on this motor, so I felt much better after learning this.

If the block were cracked then I would have been in a bad position. I would have had to scrap it, and possibly restart the whole build with a new block...

And with all of the work I put forth into this already...I would have been kind of devastated. Crazy right? Phew.

This is also a good tool-- a piece of paper:

Diameter in the x and y direction would be measured on each of the journals and recorded on this piece of paper. The difference between these measurements will give journal out-of-round.

Also, I was going to measure the taper of each journal but I decided against it. However for the sake of the reader I have included out-of-round specs and the taper specs included in the factory service manual.

Journal Out-of-Round:

Standard (New): 0.005 mm (0.0002 in.) Max.
Service Limit: 0.010 mm (0.0004 in.)

Journal Taper:

Standard (New): 0.005 mm (0.0002 in.) Max.
Service Limit: 0.010 mm (0.0004 in.)

You'll want to first calibrate the micrometer you're going to use to measure the diameter of the journals. You have to use a 1-2" micrometer to measure the journals on the crank but this short tutorial is just for the calibration of a micrometer.

For any vernier micrometer you'll be able to measure from x inches to x+1 inches. In other words, one micrometer will measure 1-2", another 2-3", another 3-4" and etc.

The micrometers will come with reference points, usually metal sticks or dowels which are machined with a certain certainty to a given length. One of the dowels is shown next to a micrometer in the following picture:

Take the dowel and place it in between the jaw of the micrometer. Tighten the micrometer onto the dowel using the ratcheting mechanism on the end of the tool.

Read the vernier micrometer and write down your measurement of the first dowel. If you don't know how to read a vernier micrometer, I suggest you look at this video for help:

Write down the value of your measurement and the size of the dowel you measured. Then, repeat this step for the second dowel that can fit in your micrometer.

These two values each have an offset due to an error present in the tool. What that means is that although the dowels are precision machined to their own respective lengths, the tool may read a little bit off.

So while in theory the dowels are machined to maybe 3.000" or 4.000" (depending on how precisely they were machined) the tool may read 3.005" or 4.001". And in order to accurately blueprint your engine you need to account for this. Let's make a table and look at the values. It might make you think a bit...and thinking is ALWAYS good!

Notice how the offset decreases with the longer dowel. Let's assume that this is a trend, and not just due to noise. If there were dowels in between three and four inches in length, then we would know for sure whether the offset randomly varied per measurement. However for now, we must assume that the offset decreases as the dowel size increases.

Given that this is a known phenomenon, drift, as it is called, I decided to assume the aforementioned trend was accurate. And assuming the trend is accurate, you can predict how much offset you will get for measurements in between three and four inches using the formula shown at the right in the above picture.

Of course, this technique can be applied to more micrometers than just the three to four inch one. It can be applied to any outer measurement micrometer. Now, if I want to measure a diameter that is, let's say 3.25 inches, then I know that whatever reading my tool gives, it will have an offset of approximately 0.004 inches.

Y = 0.004*X + 0.017

Y = 0.004*(3.25 inches) + 0.017

Y = the offset we are looking for at a measurement of 3.25 inches = +0.004.

So, you get a reading of 3.25", but you know that at this measurement, the offset is +0.004. This means that your measurement is actually 0.004 inches too high. The actual diameter of our theoretical object is 3.21 inches.

If you're still confused about this don't sweat it. As I mentioned it is just an approximation so the likelihood that it is totally accurate is not 100% anyway. If you are still interested however, just leave me a comment and I'll answer your question.

After calibrating the micrometer, I began to measure the diameter of the crankshaft journals. Twice in the x direction and twice in the y direction. Then I calculated out-of-round and entered it into an Excel Sheet. I measured twice to be sure my measurements were exact.

Let's look at the values shall we?

It seems as though, even though some of the measurements weren't repeatable-- probably due to my inexperience-- that the journals were not significantly out-of-round. If they were, then within the service limit the journals would have to be redone. The crank would need to be turned and polished. However this is not necessary.

The next thing to do is to measure the cylinder bores of the engine block. In the Acura TSX Service Manual there are three different heights within the cylinder suggested to measure at...one at the top, one at the middle, and one at the bottom.

Taking your caliper with depth measurement, measure 0.2 inches from the bottom of the cylinder and mark that point with a marker.

Then measure 0.2 inches from the top of the cylinder and mark that point.

Measure the distance between the two marks with your caliper and mark the middle point. These are the three depths that you need to measure diameter of the cylinder bore at in the x and y direction.

Here's how the dial bore gauge looks assembled...look at the circled part:

The circled part is the part that goes into the cylinder bore. The first part of calibrating the gauge is knowing how long this part needs to be. And since it is assembled, it is up to you, the blueprint master, to assemble it properly.

You'll notice that there are four letters on the corner of the deck of the block ("AAAA"):

These letters are each representative of each cylinder bore size and there are two possible letters which may be inscribed on the deck-- A or B. You will be using these cylinder bore sizes to figure out how long the measuring part of the bore gauge must be. Check it out:

Cylinder Bore Size Standard (New):

A or I: 87.010-87.020 mm (3.4256-3.4260 in.)
B or II: 87.000-87.010 mm (3.4252-3.4256 in.)

Service Limit: 87.070 mm (3.4279 in.)
Oversize: 0.25: 87.250-87.260 mm (3.4350-3.4354 in.)
Reboring Limit: 0.25 mm (0.01 in.) Max.
Bore Taper Limit (Difference between first and third measurement): 0.05 mm (0.002 in.)

So, the measuring part must be long enough that when it enters the bore it can compress and give a reading on the gauge, but not so long that it doesn't fit in the bore. To satisfy those conditions I chose 3.4" metal piece:

And I installed a 0.04" washer. This gives me a total length of 3.44" for the sensing part of the gauge.

Then I took my micrometer and I opened it to the size of my cylinder bore while accounting for offset (which I talked about earlier) to be as accurate as possible. I locked the micrometer, and then I clamped it with a soft clamp to a table being sure not to damage either the table or the micrometer.

Then, with the micrometer opened to the known cylinder bore diameter according to my block's deck, I inserted the assembled dial bore gauge and I rocked it back and forth in between the micrometer's jaw.

While rocking the dial bore gauge back and forth, the sensing element becomes compressed and uncompressed and this makes the gauge on the travel indicator move back and forth. At the point where the gauge reaches a stop, that is it moves up, stops, then moves back down, you have your reference point.

This point of measurement is the size of your cylinder bore, and if the cylinder bores are not warped or changed at all from operation then your dial bore gauge should consistently give out this reading.

Take the face of the dial, and rotate it so that the 0 mark lies at this point:

If you're still confused. Check out this video, or leave me a comment and I'll get back to you. This stuff is tricky and it may not come easily the first couple of times you look at it:

Now we're going to begin measuring the diameter of the cylinder bore at three different depths in the x and y direction. Insert your gauge into the bore and rock it back and forth until the gauge reaches its stopping point, similar to how you calibrated the gauge:

Turn the gauge in the y direction, and repeat this step at each of the three depths.

To get started on looking at the results, I made up a little diagram.

I then measured the cylinder bores and recorded the measurements in Excel. Once for each test:

One thing that I did notice was that the cylinders were worn past OEM spec in the direction of the con-rod force. This is apparently normal according to the thread I made on K20a because the con-rods elongate the cylinder bores.

Regardless though I will need to bore out these cylinders to 87.5 to 88 mm on stock sleeves because they are worn past OEM spec. If they weren't, cast pistons would be an option, but ordering .25 mm oversized TSX pistons and rods brand new would be nearly as expensive or more expensive than some forged options.

Lastly we're going to see if the deck of the block is warped. This step in the process is very simple. It's not too taxing and it's not too technical. You take a big ruler, basically, and you lay it on the top of the block. If the block's deck isn't warped-- that is it is completely straight, then the ruler will have no spaces in between it and the surface of the block, right?

And if it wasn't straight, then you would have spaces in between the ruler and the block. Well, this is where our feeler gauges come in. By measuring the spaces in between the precision straight edge and the block it is possible to determine how warped the block is, if at all.

You will want to perform this process in multiple directions across the deck of the block.

If the block is warped, then the spaces in between the precision straight edge and the block will be greater than these values:

Engine Block Warpage:

Standard (New): 0.07 mm (0.003 in.) Max.
Service Limit: 0.10 mm (0.004 in.)

Let's look at some pics, shall we? You'll notice that I even measured length-wise. This is just to get a little more insight into the shape of the block.

Here are the measurements I took:

And here are the promising results showing that the block is not warped and that all clearances are within OEM spec:

In conclusion the block is mainly in good shape and so is the crankshaft. The only worries I have are about the cylinder bores. Because they are out-of round, I will need to have them bored and honed out to 87.5 mm or 88 mm which are the safest bore sizes on stock sleeves.

Then I plan on running 4032 alloy forged pistons so that I can run tighter piston-to-wall clearances rather than 2618 alloy forged pistons.

Although the 2618 alloy pistons are stronger, they are more ductile and they expand more when exposed to heat. So the piston to wall clearances must be increased.

You can read up more on those choices here.

Anyway, for now I'm out. It's been a long-winded and tiring article but I HOPE it offered you a lot of information and made you appreciate the art of blueprinting more. Until next time, keep it chill.

Project DC5: Engine Builds for Dummies! Part 5

2014-02-09T14:23:00.000-05:00

Engine Builds for Dummies! Part 5

_________________________

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

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Ok, so in the last article we went over the disassembly of the motor, including the cylinder head and the girdle and ultimately, the removal of all of the pistons and con-rods. In this addition, I will go over the unwrapping and visual inspection of my new K24A2 RBB-1 cylinder head!!!!

...

At this point, you are left with a bare block and a crank. For me, these are the only things I need.

This is because the CRV motor has a relatively low stock compression for an all motor, performance application and it comes with a cylinder head that only has VTEC on one camshaft.

Although its cylinder head flows extremely well, I would need to run a VTEC killer setup on this head or modify the head to accept VTEC roller-rockers, if I remember correctly.

And even then I would only be running on two lobes, rather than three. And if I plan on increasing reliability, my intuition leads me to believe that this would not be the best option.

So I sold the K24a1 head for only 10 dollars less than what I paid for the whole motor and bought a K24A2 RBB-1 TSX head for the sole fact that it has true VTEC (intake and exhaust VTEC).

Here's the box when it arrived! I was so excited.

Let's take a closer look at the head shall we? Good 'ole Canada post was probably a little rough with the head...judging by this bent stud. No biggy though. I can have this removed and replaced with an OEM part in no time.

Here's a shot of the VTC cam gear and the exhaust cam gear. On the RBB-1 TSX head, the VTC cam gear only has 25 degrees of cam angle adjustability.

In comparison to the VTC gear from my current motor, the K20Z1 from the 05-06 RSX Type-S, this is not much adjustability. The reason for this may partly be due to emissions or other design factors from Honda. However, it is known that running a K20Z1 VTC gear, or any other VTC gear with 50 degrees of adjustability on a stock TSX motor, results in an increased risk for piston to valve contact. Hondata recommends a maximum adjustability range of 45 degrees.

However, I plan on checking clearances on this motor before it is put together, so this will allow me to decide for myself what will be safe in terms of VTC adjustability.

Looking at the camshafts and the roller-rocker mechanisms and the springs and lost-motion assemblies (jeez) nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

The main things I was looking for included any abnormal wear on the camshaft lobes and the roller-rockers. I wanted to make sure that oil was getting to all of the rotating parts. I also wanted to be sure that this motor didn't suffer from any oil starvation.

Check out the shots of the exhaust cam side:

Now check out the shots of the intake side:

Shots of the LMA's on the intake side:

Shots of the exhaust side LMA's:

Shots of the intake and exhaust spring retainers and roller-rockers to speed things up a bit:

I wanted to check and see if any of the valves were bent. So, I shined a light into each port, intake and exhaust, and looked at each valve for each port to see if it wasn't sitting correctly.

Finally, I took a look at the combustion chambers. To see if these valves are truly sealing I will do a leak down test with some water. I'll show you guys how I do this later when I start to show how I blueprinted and inspected the whole motor using machinist tools!

Until that time, I'll talk to you guys later. Hope you enjoyed my cylinder head hahah. More importantly, however, I hope you learned a lot. There's way more stuff to come.

Project DC5: Engine Builds for Dummies! Part 4

2014-01-31T23:29:00.002-05:00

Engine Builds for Dummies...Part 4

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Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

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Sup guys. So last time you read this you saw that I had finally gotten to the bottom end of this big assortment of Lego blocks that Honda guys like to call an engine! Well, today we're going to look at the removal of the cylinder head and the girdle so that we can get a look at the condition of the block, crank, and cylinder walls. The condition of the head is not important because it is not a true VTEC head.

There are ways to get the CRV head to work with VTEC killer cams and have only two roller-rockers work actively on a set of cams, but I prefer not to go this route since I want to daily drive this thing. The pistons are also not important because they are only 9.6:1 in compression and they are also cast, not forged, from the factory. I am doing an all motor setup, so my goals are to have small piston to wall clearances with high compression.

To accomplish this I am currently considering a 2618 alloy piston in 88 mm bore with somewhere from 11.0:1 compression to 12.5:1 compression depending on what tuner I go to.

Anyway, enough of the mumbo jumbo. Let's start unbolting things, shall we?

The sequence for unbolting the K24A1 head from the block is as follows:

Taking a 12-point metric socket of the appropriate size and a breaker bar, loosen each of the bolts by 1/3 of a full rotation in the above order.

After doing so, once more loosen them by 1/3 of a full rotation. This isn't absolutely necessary, but I wanted to ensure that I was completely preventing any warpage of the cylinder head.

After loosening the bolts on the cylinder head, take the cylinder head off of the block. I just pulled mine and it came off. You shouldn't need any force to remove this. Here are some shots of the pistons once I removed the head:

Looking at all of the pistons, nothing looked unusual. No pitting in the tops of the pistons leading one to believe that detonation was occurring. The valve reliefs looked uniform on each piston dome, so looks like no piston to valve contact. We will also check that out when we look at the underside of the head. Keep in mind though that it really doesn't matter as I am not reusing these pistons or this head.

However, this all gives me a pretty good idea about the condition of the motor.

After looking at the cylinders, I flipped the head over and checked out the domes and the valves. These looked really good. Better than the head that I have waiting to go on this motor ;)

Taking the engine and flipping it over I started loosening the bolts on the outer part of the girdle in the following order:

You'll find some of these bolts here:

After removing those bolts, I wanted to remove the main bolts on the girdle.

So, that's what I did.

For the sake of being organized, I numbered the main bolts with a pink paint marker and then drew a diagram on a sandwich bag which I then stored them in.

Take out your main bolts, grab yourself a dead-blow hammer, and lightly tap at the sides of the girdle on all sides of the engine until it loosens from the dowel pins on the block.

Here are the crank journals in the girdle. The bearings looked in REALLY good condition when I pulled this whole thing apart. Definitely made me happy to see that nothing was seriously wrong here.

After taking off the girdle, I really started to see the true condition of the motor. You'll see what I mean soon. Check out these pictures of the crank journals. They looked immaculate!

Since I didn't have a 10 mm 12-point socket for a ratchet, I used regular box wrench to take the con-rods off of the crank. Let's take a look at the process, shall we? It's rather simple.

First I loosened both sides of the con-rod:

And then I labeled the bolts and the con-rod bottom halves according to their location in the engine, then removed them.

Here's the top half of the con-rod. It's still sitting on the con-rod journal. Look how good this journal looks. The crank is very shiny, there's no pitting or scouring that I can see. Many of these journals looked exactly like this. I was also very excited to see this!

For this part, some take the wooden end of a hammer and tap the top end of the con-rod out by making contact with the bottom of the piston. I forget what others use...I just used my hands.

And here's the piston removed from the engine.

That's about it for this installment of "Engine Builds for Dummies!"

In the next installment I'll go over inspecting the block with some blueprinting tools and the results that I find :). Thanks for kicking it with me guys.

Until next time....Lexi.Laron...out...

Project DC5: Engine Builds for Dummies! Part 3

2014-01-21T22:12:00.000-05:00

Welcome one, welcome all, back to another edition of "Engine Building for Dummies!" If you missed any of my previous articles on Project DC5, go ahead and click the links below:

Engine Builds for Dummies! Part 2

Engine Builds for Dummies! Part 1

You know, it's tough-- being away from home. It's humbling.

Being alone allows for time to realize one's faults. Without family or friends as close as the ones back home to confide in it is possible for one to gain some serious insight into one's self.

You begin to see your faults, you begin to see your negative thoughts, you begin to see how all of those things affect you.

In a way, being away from home makes you more self-aware, in my opinion. That's one of the things I've learned while out here-- that when you're alone, you have more time for introspection. You have more time to think. Sometimes it's good, but for the most part it's been pretty bad for me lately. I miss my family.

Me by Lake Michigan in Chicago

However, I always remind myself of the positive outcomes of this event in my life. For example, I am much more technically skilled now, especially in my career of chemical engineering.

For the most part, I have become an avid forum reader. I frequent K20A.org every day to learn more about the K motor and what it is capable of, how to build one, what parts to use, what precautions to take, who to trust, who to talk to. The journey of this motor build so far has been a journey in itself.

And I have learned so much more than all of these things. I have learned how to gracefully handle myself around those more intelligent and wise than myself. I have learned to shut my mouth when I need to and how to speak when I have to. I have reaffirmed my belief that listening is more important than anything. Because without listening, you can't learn.

This engine build somewhat embodies all of these learnings. And so I am glad that I can share it with you, my readers on this blog...

Over the weekend, I had a lot of fun. On Saturday night I went ice skating for the first time in a while. I missed ice skating. It reminded me of the days that I used to play ice hockey; doing cross-overs while turning, skating backwards like I was in the crease again, playing goalie, zooming down the ice like I was rushing to the bench or as if I were on a breakaway. It made me wonder if I want to get back into hockey some day. Maybe some day.

I also went snowboarding with my roommate.

We went to Cascade Mountain in Wisconsin, an attraction rated four stars on Google. Although the slopes were a bit icy, we both shredded mad hard, tearing up the green circles, then the blue squares, and eventually the black diamonds. This was my first time on the black diamond! It was also my first time catching air off of a couple of jumps while snowboarding. I couldn't have had more fun!

However now it's back to the work week and back to more engine building. And I really can't complain about either. My job is dope and this engine has been going slowly and smoothly. I guess I just get down sometimes and I can't really help it.

If you remember in my last edition of "Engine Builds for Dummies" I finished removing the timing chain cover, and the tensioners along with the oil pan.

Well, here's the bottom end uncovered! On top of the girdle sits some half baffles, or abbreviated windage trays that prevent oil from getting picked up into the rotating assembly, and a bulky K24A1 oil pump with heavy balance shafts included.

In theory, if the engine did experience some damage which made some metal shavings appear, then they would have appeared in the oil pan. They would have also been apparent in the oil when I drained it. However since there was little to no oil to drain from this motor, I figured another good place to check for large debris of any sort would be in the mesh inside of the oil pickup on the pump.

Let's take a look at the clean pickup's mesh:

Next I removed the abbreviated windage tray.

Finally, after removing the top four bolts on the back half of the abbreviated windage tray, you will see your first piece of crankshaft counterweight! What a beauty!!! Hahah

After I took off the half baffle, I began my work on the oil pump. For starters, you're going to want to remove your tensioner.

I plan on switching to a K20A2 oil pump which has no balance shafts. This will provide less rotating mass which will allow me to rev higher than on a K24A1 oil pump without cavitating the pump. A couple of things are needed for this upgrade, including:

A 64-link Acura RSX Type-S oil pump chain (PN: 13441-PCX-004)
An RSX Type-S oil pump chain guide (PN: 13460-PNC-004)
A sealing bolt and washer to plug a hole in the girdle which would have supplied the K24A1 oil pump's balance shaft assembly if it were still bolted to the engine (PN: 90004-PE2-005 and 90401-PE2-003)
Bolts for the oil pump (PN: 95701-06025-08 and 95701-08050-08 and 95701-08075-08)
And the pump itself, of course (PN: 15100-PRB-A01)

Notice that the K20A2 tensioner is not needed for this mod because the K24 one will suffice. That is why I will be saving this tensioner. That's a good 60 dollars in my pocket :)

Here's the removed oil pump chain tensioner with its bolts. I later put this in a bag with its bolts to make sure I didn't lose it.

Next I took an allen key and a cheater bar (a large copper pipe, lolz) and removed the K24 oil pump chain guide. Supposedly this guide is too long to work with the K20A2 oil pump chain and oil pump assembly. To fix this, an RSX Type-S oil pump guide will be needed. Its part number is listed above.

Here is a pic of the tensioner on the left with its three hex bolts and the guide on the right with its two oddly shaped allen bolts:

I can't remember, but I believe there are four bolts holding the K24A1 oil pump onto the bottom end of this motor. Proceed to remove the pump after you have removed all of the stuff holding it on...like the tensioner, guide, chain, sprocket, etc.

Looking at the pump, you can see the balance shafts. They're just counter-weighted shafts that spin with the pump to offset vibrations. Supposedly they're better for daily drivers, but honestly, most people don't think they make a huge difference. So this is another reason why I care not for the K24 oil pump.

After you've removed the pump, then you should be seeing something like this:

;)

Thanks for reading guys. Until next time, you will just have to wait and see what the condition of the rest of this motor is in!

Peace.

Project DC5: Engine Builds for Dummies! Part 2

2014-01-18T15:11:00.001-05:00

Engine Builds for Dummies! Part 2

If you missed Part 1, check it out here.

Story Time

After sustaining a single injury from the accident I spoke of in the last post, life has been a nuisance. I hurt my finger, so I bought a splint for it. Before going to the gym I put a liquid bandage over my cut and headed out. I took off my splint, proceeded to get swoll, and went home to make dinner and go to bed.

Laying in my bed I could not help but notice an extremely itchy sensation coming from my finger and the area around the cut that I received. So I turned on the light and looked at my finger.

My finger was red and a bunch of little, red, bumps showed up all over the area on the back of my hand! What the heck!

It turned out that while I was working out, the liquid bandage actually "ripped" and allowed the cut on my hand to slightly open up. I touched it a couple of times working out, thinking "eh, it'll be okay" but I did not think that the gym has a WARM, MOIST ENVIRONMENT conducive to nasty things...

like ringworm -___-

Needless to say, I am living my life with a bulky finger splint and gobs of Lotrimin Ultra and antibiotic cream. Be grateful folks..

Be grateful.

Anyways, let's cut to the chase and talk about cars, shall we?

________________________________________________________________________

Engine Time

When I last left off I had finished taking off the flex plate, crank pulley, and timing chain cover. It took a bit of time but using the Honda Crank Pulley Tool and some big pipes I made it happen. So here's where I begin today:

With the timing chain cover off it was time to remove the timing chain tensioners from both sides of the engine. Using an allen wrench and a small copper tube for a cheater bar, I began to pop off the bolt for the first tensioner on the exhaust side of the engine.

Then I took a ratcheting wrench and a socket and popped off the tensioner on the intake side of the engine-- the side with the VTC cam gear which changes cam angle based on oil pressure.

Cam phasing allows the engine to run more economically at low RPM's and to obtain more torque, while providing more power at high engine speeds. This combined with the two different cam profiles of the VTEC system is what makes many of today's engines so efficient.

Here's the water pump that comes off of a K24A1. On the K20A2 motor for the RSX-S (02-04), the difference is that there is a small wall separating a second galley which allows for heat transfer between oil and the coolant that flows through the water pump. This basically means that the K20A2 has a oil to water heat exchanger. I'm just using fancy engineer talk :)

People often switch these water pumps for the K20A2 water pumps, however another water pump housing and other miscellaneous parts are needed for this conversion. The logic is that having an oil cooler is more beneficial for the engine-- so why not use an OEM one. However, my friends and I question that logic...considering water is hot...and so is the oil, so how efficient can these K20A2 water pumps be as heat exchangers?

I will most likely be running an external oil cooler if I get this engine back together and in my car.

The water pump on the left is K24A1 and the one on the right is for the K20A2.

So now let's go over how to take it off. There are six bolts holding it on. All you have to do is get an extension, a socket, and a ratchet.

Next I began to remove the water pump housing. Again, this is something that must be changed out to do the oil cooler water pump mod from the K20A2 motor. The reason is because the face of the housing mates to the face of the water pump and the galleys would be different. Check out the pic below:

To remove it, there are three bolts and one nut to remove. I already moved the top bolt and the top nut, so the following pics show the loosening of the bottom two bolts.

Before taking the whole housing off I cracked it slightly away from the block because it's sealed on there. It's a trick we use at my chemical plant to prevent excessive spills of fluids when opening flanges. I know the coolant would have spilled out with the pump already, but I'm more cautious than others I guess.

Here's the mating surface of the housing to the engine. It looks like oil flows on one side of this housing as well and is separated from the coolant. I imagine some heat exchange occurs here. Maybe a mechanic could help me know for sure! Comments are welcome!!

Here's where the block mated up to the water pump housing:

For hot weather in PA and for the sake of retaining daily driveability, I will most likely be keeping AC. However if I'm looking for extra power and saved weight I may actually delete the AC. The thing is, I don't plan on deleting power steering. Even though it will save me weight and make me power, the plan for this car is to auto cross and eventually hit up the road course for some racing. Without power steering this would be very difficult...though AC may be able to go!

The reason I bring this up is because the next thing I did was remove the AC compressor bracket! This part is replaced when buying the Hybrid Racing power steering and AC removal kit.

And if anyone needs it for any reason...here are some pics of the AC compressor bracket...not sure why I took these.

Then I lined up my sweet Menards Bucket that I stole from my landlord and prepared to DROP THE PAN!!!!! HAZAAHH.

This was my first time doing this so I was excited and nervous to see what kind of damage and wear was existent on the bottom end. I was mainly concerned with the crankshaft and not the big ends of the con-rods considering I plan on using aftermarket i-beam rods. And considering I've never built an engine before, I'm going to assume I'd be replacing all of the bearings anyway. I will be using OEM color-coded Honda bearings.

Flipping the engine over on the stand...

With the block upside down I proceeded to remove all of the oil pan bolts.

Then with the engine upside down I proceeded to remove the bolts holding the oil pan to the girdle. Then I took a dead blow hammer and knocked the pan off of the bottom end.

And checking the oil pan, there were no metal shavings! So far it's looking good :)

Anyway, I'm going to have to end it there and let you guess what comes next. Stay tuned for the next installment of "Project DC5: Engine Builds for Dummies! Part 3."

Until then thanks for tuning in :)

Wisconsin Update: Motor Swaps, Friends, New Parts, and Controversy

2014-01-12T16:29:00.000-05:00

So I've had a hell of a weekend. On Friday I came home to an RBB cylinder head from a TSX and was planning to go to Rockford, Illinois to help Mike of Secret Society with pulling the B18C, Type-R Motor from his Civic seen below:

However, with the terrible Wisconsin weather, I had to abort the mission because even walking in my gym parking lot was treacherous. I could only imagine what driving with summer tires would be like. Sorry Mike!

Yet with all of the difficulties I still have been keeping in touch with Mike and he has kept me in the loop for this project. The plan was initially to rebuild his B18C. Yet, after finding a fully built motor, Mike decided to trade the B18C with cash on top and make a clean getaway.

Pulling the motor out, everything went smoothly and within a short period of time the motor was out of the chassis and on a stand, leaving Mike with an empty engine bay.

What kind of power will be residing between the wheels of the FWD beast next?

Although most of this process went smooth, the inspection of the engine mounts proved that nothing is perfect.

Racing puts a large amount of stress on a car and this is why when you buy aftermarket parts you should always buy quality ones. Especially when something is holding your engine.

The sad thing is that Mike did buy quality parts. Innovative Motor Mounts are some of the best known motor mounts in the game! Yet, with only a couple of races on this Civic, the mounts looked destroyed. Check this out:

Supposedly Mike will be picking up his new engine on Monday and with any luck I'll have an update to post on here for you guys...

With me at home and Mike on the move with his motor swap I had to find something to do for myself on Friday. I was so bored and there was no way that I was going to drive anywhere far for anything given the weather. So, I hit up my buddy Zack and his girlfriend Cailyn.

These guys have been great to me. They've always come through when I've been lonely around here and have never failed to show me a good time. Good friends close by are a must when you're far away from home and feeling sad. I recommend this treatment for anyone. Thanks guys!

We saw The Lone Survivor with Mark Wahlberg, grabbed some wings, and headed back to Zack's crib for some Call of Duty and Gran Turismo 5. And after I got done shredding some virtual rubber with my bro and his girl, I decided to head home in my Type-S. However, things got pretty bad after I had an accident.

The event was incredibly stressful and I am glad that everyone is safe now. The happenings at least made for good stories with my co-workers from my job when we hit up the Wisconsin Badger's Hockey Game. The Badgers came out on top, and my buddy, Bobby and I went back to our home in Janesville for a relaxing time watching TV.

Before I went to sleep I posted some pictures of my RBB Cylinder Head to my Facebook page where I keep an album of my engine build for Project DC5. I will also be including this in the "Engine Building for Dummies" Series that I host on this blog-- so be patient-- you can see the details too ;).

I gotta say, this build has been taking an extremely long time and I'm still not sure I'll even get it done given the cost of everything and the impatience of the average young adult. I mean, I see my friends getting new wheels, sweet body kits, slicks, superchargers, and I'm taking my time with this slow build that really won't even make a lot of power all for the sake of learning. It's frustrating.

It's just that when I see the progress I've made and the things I've learned, it makes me think it's all worth it again. When I blog and I get a bunch of views because of my stories it really inspires me. When people reach out to me for information and I can teach them, I feel extremely fulfilled. And when I can learn, it feels like I am really immersing myself in my true passion-- cars.

Given all of those things, please expect more from me in the future. I know that this blog can sometimes fall behind, but it's all of you faithful readers that really make me all the more motivated in a time of dire prospects.

Lexi.Laron signing out, and wishing you all a great day or night wherever you are. Peace!

Project DC5: Engine Builds for Dummies! Part 1

2014-01-09T22:25:00.001-05:00

Engine Builds for Dummies! Part 1

So after coming home from my amazing home I had enough of "dreaming" and I wanted to get down to "doing."

...

If you're anything like me, you know what it's like to be told that you can't do something. Crap, we all know what that's like...and it feels like crap.

You can't have that nice car-- it's too expensive. You can't modify said nice car, it's not practical. If you get a motor how will you pick it up? How will you take it apart? Are you just going to sit in a freezing cold garage with a bunch of coats on and a breaker bar loosening 12-point head bolts from a hunk of metal?

Precisely..I will do precisely all of those things.

Well folks, the truth is if you have the determination to do something, whether it be small or large, then you can do it. And although this article shows the partial disassembly and inspection of a motor-- something that people do every day that really is nothing special in itself, it also shows the beginning of a journey for me. This is yet another step on the way to show those people who said I couldn't do it that I can.

And even if I don't end up finishing this build, or if I end up scrapping it, it's okay...because I learned. And with that I'd like to begin listing some goals for this build:

1.) To learn-- this is my first motor "build."
2.) To build a reliable motor capable of around 250 whp or more.
3.) To save money without seriously cutting corners
4.) Again, to learn because this is my first motor "build."

If you, the reader, have anything to contribute so that I may learn more, then I encourage you to come forth...even if you're proving me wrong-- I'd rather be right in the end with the help of you!

Starting with my piece of ish engine stand and my beautifully mummified, incomplete long block I began the assembly of my stand first.

Voila..

With the engine chilling on the stand I held the crank still on the pulley end and I used a 1/2" ratchet with a cheater bar to remove the flex plate bolts on the transmission side. Note this engine was pulled from an automatic CRV.

Here's the ratchet with the cheater bar on the transmission side that I used to remove the flex plate bolts:

As you can see, the flex plate bolts are to be removed by a 12-point socket. This one is a 17 mm:

After loosening the bolts in a star pattern, remove them by hand so that you can take the flex plate off.

Here is what the washer for the flex plate looks like with all of the bolts sitting snug:

Here's the rusty flex plate:

A clean rear main:

Next I removed the crank pulley. I didn't have the special Honda tool needed for this and I don't have a torque wrench here in Wisconsin, so when I got here I actually stopped. However, because I'm so nice I'll keep going :)

As I mentioned before, this is partially a budget build. Where I can save I will save. Since I couldn't save by buying a brand new torque wrench, I began looking for the Honda Crank Pulley Removal Tool. After searching the internet and scrounging the forums I finally found the golden grail!

Yes, freaking O'Reilly Auto Parts has this crazy Japanese weirdo tool for rental! Anyway, here's the final lineup of tools I used to remove this stupid circle:

I paid about 30 bucks for all of these tools excluding the rented Honda tool.

And here's the cheater bar and the breaker bar that I used IN CONJUNCTION to break this sucker free.

Size of pipe:

And of course...we can't forget the magic "Liquid Wrench."

Using my new found supplies I took the ratchet and attached it to the Honda Crank Tool, and then I put the cheater bar on the end of my ratchet. I placed the crank tool in the crank pulley, then I set the socket to the right motion and let the end of the cheater bar sit against the ground to provide resistance.

Then I took the breaker bar, and put a cheater bar on the breaker bar and I DID IT! :D One of the best feelings in the world is getting these hat crank pulleys off if you know anything about them. I HATE THEM >:0

If you're storing your parts in a bin and you're afraid of losing things, then pay attention here. This block that I have circled inside of the crank pulley is called a woodruff key. It mates with a notch in the crankshaft so that the pulley may spin with the bottom end. Check it out.

Then I removed the timing chain cover. In the following pics I show some of the holes that once held bolts for the timing chain cover...which was apparently held on by just a gasket and three bolts from the oil pan into the timing chain cover 0___o

Timing chain cover in the RAW.

And here's a sneak peak of what's to come ;)

Thanks for checking out the blog guys and gals! I'm glad to have a following from yous and I really hope you enjoy this ishhhh

Until next time, PEACE

Project DC5: Wisconsin Boredom and the K24 Adventure

2014-01-03T21:09:00.000-05:00

I'm now in Wisconsin and I've been there for about three or four months for work as most of my friends know. It's been incredibly lonely and it's not until you're away from your family that you realize that the only people who will really do you favors or the only people who really care about you are family.

And when you finally find people who are honest enough to tell you how they really feel about you, sometimes it can be offensive to the point where you don't want to chill with them. So when the going gets tough, the tough gotta get going...and going I did.

Pursuing multiple projects, I entertained myself for these past couple of months. For example, I was working with an Arduino which is a small micro controller from Radioshack. It was fun, but eventually I lost interest in it. So, while bored as hell browsing Craigslist for parts, I came across this on Craigslist:

For $260 bucks I really couldn't go wrong. The deal was a K24a1 from a 2002-2006 CRV with approximately 110,000 miles.

When I got to the guy's house, I was surprised by an incomplete long block in very good condition. Only a day before I was scheduled to fly home to Philly for the holidays I tried to get some of the people I met in Wisconsin to help me with picking up this engine block. However, everyone was busy and couldn't help me...so without a hoist or a truck I traveled over to this guy's house with 260 bucks in my pocket.

The guy was nice enough to actually help me pick up the engine and put it into the back of the car 30 minutes before he was supposed to go out with his wife!

With the engine in the back of my car and my flight...sort of on-schedule I headed back home, went to bed, and woke up to go to the airport. Madison, WI to Cleveland went well, but Cleveland to Philly didn't go so well. I ended up spending five hours in between flights drinking beers and hanging out with a dude in a bar who gave me some professional advice before returning home to Philly.

Keep in touch for more Project DC5 Stuff and don't be a loser! (Just kidding) :)

Project DC5 Update: Wheels, Tires, Coilovers, Fogs, and More!

2014-01-02T01:00:00.001-05:00

Hello and welcome to another addition of Lexi.Laron's Project DC5. I last left off with an article about my torque damper installation and have since gone through quite a few different modifications.

Aside from the new wheels and tires, coilovers, and fog lights, I have had some great experiences and have made some awesome DIY's as well. I've attempted to make parts for the car, eventually giving up the idea due to impracticality, and I've been looking toward the future to with my own K24 build up which I will cover in later articles.

So, long story short, It's time to catch you guys up.

I purchased a set of gold, reverse-stagger CR Kai's in bronze in shotty condition. They had paint chips in them, but when spun on the balancer they were not out-of-round. Here's what they looked like when I first got them.

For a while I was debating on re-selling them too, given that I had got them for such a cheap price. But with encouragement from my girlfriend and from my friends and family, I decided to keep them and do a little something special to them through Vibrant Finish in Penndel, PA. Here are the specs:

Championship White CR Kai's
17x9" +42 mm offset up front
17x8" +32 mm offset in rear

I was super stoked to get them on, but when you're in school and you're funding all of your own ish, it's not so easy as a lot of you already know. So I sat around for a while and attended meets and chilled with car friends! For example, I went to #ShrinkAllTheCars in 2013 with all of my friends!

And while going to #ShrinkAllTheCars in 2013, I heard a loud popping sound..but I ignored it.

However, when I got to FDR Park in Philadelphia, I was notified very rudely about how my tire was flat due to my "VTEC kicking in too hard." Needless to say, I pulled over, tried to fill up my tire, but was unsuccessful and had to resort to this:

Well that was a kick in the butt. It's funny how in the car world when something f**ks up on your car sometimes it forces you to replace it with something even better. It was exactly this that forced me to finally pick up a dang set of Sumitomo HTR Z III's through N-Spire Performance and have them mounted and balanced.

Finally, I had a set of aftermarket wheels on my car. It's something I had been working on at the time...I didn't want to just settle for a set of knock-offs and I pay for my car myself, so it was important that I could buy it and still be on-budget. I couldn't have been happier with the results!

However, as it usually goes, the modding bug always bites back and it wasn't too soon before EVERYONE was telling me I needed to lower my car! So, again, I looked through my budget, planned carefully and BIT THE BULLET!

N-Spire Performance had some issues with Tein due to a discontinuation on the Tein Super Street's with the Pillowball Upper Mounts, but as always, Josh came through and hooked me up with a set of Street Flex's for the same price. Thanks N-Spire!

It was installation time >:)

Then I went to get the car aligned after having the coilovers installed.

Followed by a healthy fender roll out back.

And of course I had to do a photo shoot after all of this ish was done:

Then I made some small adjustments...Honda decals and Work Emotion CR Kai decals for my wheels.

That's as far as I've come with my baby. In the distant future I aim to be dropping a k24 frank into my Type-S! I've already obtained the block and began my dissection which I will cover in some articles in the future ;)

Thanks for reading guys! I am thankful for my fan base and wish you all the best!

Editorial: What the New NSX Should Have Been

2013-12-06T02:30:00.000-05:00

Honda enthusiasts and car lovers alike have been awaiting Honda's new move-- their replacement flagship supercar...the legendary NSX.

Yes, the NSX is the car that was partially designed by Ayrton Senna, the legendary F1 driver. Originally created by Honda to be the ultimate driving machine which was cheaper than its competitors, more reliable, and of overall better ride and build quality, the NSX was a dream on wheels.

Yes, this is also the same car that inspired the chief engineer of the McLaren F1 (Gordon Murray) as well, setting a goal for ride quality and handling. Heck, Murray even went to Honda's R&D facility in Japan asking them to build him a V12 or V14 motor, only to be disappointed by a denial and ultimately having to settle for a mere BMW engine instead.

And yes, as one can imagine, replicating this dream on wheels can only be amongst some of the world's toughest tasks. Asking engineers to make it eco-friendly, competitively priced, and an amazing vehicle to drive as well??? Well, that's unthinkable...or so you believe.

You see, this 2015 NSX in question is an amazing machine. Sporting a longitudinally mounted, twin-turbo V6 motor with a hybrid drivetrain and all-wheel drive, this car is expected to be pumping out an estimated 500 horsepower (per Jalopnik). But I'd like to pick a bone with Acura...and I sort of did in this letter I conjured up while in a conversation with my brother.

This is what I think the 2015 NSX should have been. A lot of what I say is just comprised of multiple ideas which I believe would lend themselves well to a new, unique, reliable, quick, light, fun to drive supercar.

So here's what I think the 2015 NSX should have been....all opinions welcome, negative and positive:

Since Acura's concept for the NSX was a cheap, reliable, and fast super car that is also eco-friendly, they should have done a couple of things differently.

The weight associated with a hybrid drivetrain, especially one involving three electric motors (two up front and one in the rear) along with regenerative braking and the large lithium-ion battery is insane. According to Motor Trend Magazine, the curb weight of the NSX would be about 3100 pounds.

Supercars are supposed to be light, but making a fully carbon body like the new Porsche 918 will cost a lot of money and that is not an option for the new NSX since it doesn't fit the car's concept well.

Since the new Civic Type-R is a turbocharged 2.0 liter meeting emissions requirements in Europe, which are extremely stringent, and since Honda is so good at building motors, what would stop them from building a stout, high-performance, twin, sequential turbo four cylinder capable of revving very high but also capable of good emissions? For example, an adjustable waste gate that responds to throttle input to bypass much of the exhaust gases when cruising to turn down the boost and use less fuel could be one of many ways to cut back on pollution.

Turbocharged engines also create much more torque than naturally aspirated engines, so the final drive could remain relatively high which would be great for keeping RPM's down at cruising speeds which could also save on gas. In addition, turbocharged engines are more volumetrically efficient as shown by MotoIQ.com.

There would be drawbacks to the turbocharger. An OEM turbocharged engine is much more reliable than an engine turbocharged with an aftermarket kit, so perhaps reliability wouldn't be an issue. However, what about turbo lag? That would take away from the response otherwise present with the electric motors which give so much torque goodness without the wait!

To assemble the car, take the aforementioned engine and put it in a light, small, aluminum chassis, longitudinally mount it in the middle of the car, and give THAT all-wheel drive. This would cut down weight by a lot, and it wouldn't need much more power to beat the other "hypercars" because the power to weight ratio would be so high. The design concept would almost be similar to an Ariel Atom, but with wider tires, more aggressive stance, cleaner looking body panels, full interior, and more.

Ariel Atom

There would also be drawbacks to a small chassis similar to the Ariel Atom's. If it were like the Ariel Atom's it may not be quite as safe as a chassis in an average production car, or in a top of the line supercar. It may also be uncomfortable for the driver to get in and out of the car, but then again, when you're getting in a racing bucket seat is it that big of a deal anyway?

Regardless of potential issues, the pros associated with a design concept like this would result in a unique and alternative creation. Not only would this be a four-cylinder supercar, but it would be affordable, light, and quick...at least in theory.

Of course details are always a pain, but let's be honest-- great ideas don't flourish when someone points out why something won't work, but rather when someone points out ways to get around the limitations. THIS is a design philosophy I believe Honda and Acura have had for years...and that's why I purchase their products.

Thanks guys,

--Lexi.Laron