106 replies to this topic

[Aren D.]

So awesome!

Great job on that exhaust!

[C_R-ex]

Very clean work , love all the custom pieces

[horacioandre]

Awesome!!!! Very nice job!!!

[fat_85_civic]

Any updates on this?

Its awesome so far!

[EPcivic]

I guess it's been quite a while since I've updated this project. Had to go back through to figure out where I left off. The short story is that the drivetrain has been finished for a while and I've been running it. I've been super busy at work lately, so not too much time to do much of anything.

I guess we'll start with the motor build.

The bottom end is filled with pretty typical stuff. Turbo pistons for ZC motors are sort of rare, so most people end up with some sort of compromise, either too low of compression or a non-optimal piston shape. I chose to us a set of Endyn Rollerwave pistons on custom length RC autoworks H-beam rods. This combination places the pistons slightly out of the bore, and yields a 9.5:1 CR.



DSC06812 by cjraglin, on Flickr



DSC06811 by cjraglin, on Flickr

I used an oil pan from an EF Civic, along with the EF oil pickup. My thinking was that I really wanted to use a pickup that was still available from Honda. This setup was not a plug and play, but could be an option on an EW motor. I had to modify the pickup a bit, drill and tap holes in the stud girdle, clearance the stud girdle, etc. The bigger problem is that the EF pan floor is at a different angle, so it doesn't match the angle that the motor sits at. This leads to the dipstick reading wrong, or the motor holding only about 3qts of oil. I will likely be changing something/building a custom pan sometime in the future.

The top end of the motor was also not without problems. The pimpy head that I bought had all sorts of weirdness to it in how the valves were set. The valve heights were non-standard, so the spring tension was all wrong. In the end, I wound up making 16 custom aluminum spring spacers, each matched to that exact valve, and topping them with hardened steel seats.



DSC06825 by cjraglin, on Flickr

Here is a picture of the completed motor, with all the turbo stuff installed:


DSC06851 by cjraglin, on Flickr

The first thing I did after running it 10-20 minutes to check for leaks was to head to the dyno. We couldn't get the electronic boost control to work off the megasquirt, so we only tuned straight off the 7lb wastegate spring. Even with the wastegate completely open, the minimum boost it would make at higher RPMs was around 12psi. Seems like everything flows really well.

Tuning on E85, it was amazing how little timing it needed to make power. Cam timing showed some pretty huge gains, finding roughly 25hp. Fuel AFR wasn't super sensitive, so we set it on the rich side. Timing was set low, since it made the same power across a 5deg window. At the end of the day, we made a solid 270hp and 199ft-lbs. Injector duty cycle was close to 80% at 8000rpm with 720cc injectors - should have gone with 1000's. The cool part is that is makes no less than 180ft-lbs EVERYWHERE, and this is at 7psi! I'm sure when I get back to the dyno this winter and tune the boost controller to get some higher boost down low, it will be capable of a lot more torque. The power curve is very linear, and keeps pulling all the way to the limiter.

So, what's it like to drive a 270hp FWD car that only weights 1590lbs??? The answer is fun, but very challenging. On grippy concrete, in 3rd gear, it can accelerate at over 1g! At lower speeds, or on less grippy surfaces, it has a lot of wheelspin, making it very hard to drive fast. The answer to this is Traction Control. I scored a used Racelogic Traction Control system a while back, and installed it soon after getting the car running. The TC system needs wheel speed sensors, so I had to do all sorts of machining and stuff to mount sensors on a 3rd gen Civic. I have the system installed, and it works like magic in a straight line, but it is causing all sorts of unwanted cuts during cornering. I've tracked it down to how the system compares wheel speeds and how aggressive my differential is in locking the two front wheels together under acceleration. The end result is that I'm currently building a circuit to trick the system into reading only the faster of the rear speeds so it will not cause unwanted cuts during cornering. I hope that when I get that completed, it will work a lot better.


Believe it or not, that is only a quick overview of all the work I did on this project - I'm leaving out tons of details.

-Chris

[fat_85_civic]

Do you have any more details and pictures of the individual coils? I'm thinking about doing the same thing on my build.



Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk 2

[EPcivic]

Do you have any more details and pictures of the individual coils? I'm thinking about doing the same thing on my build.



Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk 2

I don't have any specific pictures of the COP setup, but I can describe it. The coils are Denso's from a Honda CBR600. They are the 'short' Denso coils. The length of these coils is pretty much perfect for the D16A1 head. I did make some aluminum bushings to adapt the wider opening in the valve cover to the smaller OD of the pencil coils so they would fit more securely. I doubt that was really needed. These coils are a bit strange in that they only fit on spark plugs that have the thread on tips, because they fit over the threaded bit. There aren't a lot of options for plugs with thread on tips - I ended up using Denso IK22 plugs, which seem to be working fine.

I am driving the COP setup in a wasted spark configuration, still using the Megasquirt and EDIS setup I've had for a decade now. I had trouble trying to run all four coils off of one EDIS module - the coils were not charging quickly enough above 7000rpm. The fix was to run a pair of EDIS modules in parallel, each one driving only a pair of coils. This works fine, but isn't really the most elegant solution. There are many other ways to drive COP setups with newer verisons of the Megasquirt. I only chose the EDIS setup because I already had it.

I really like the look of the COP setup, and it frees up a lot of space where the distributer or coil packs would be. I'm not convinced it is actually any better performing, but I'm still glad I took the effort to do it. The Denso coils are very inexpensive, and you can buy all of the connectors and terminals for wiring them too.

-Chris

[fat_85_civic]

The bottom end is filled with pretty typical stuff. Turbo pistons for ZC motors are sort of rare, so most people end up with some sort of compromise, either too low of compression or a non-optimal piston shape. I chose to us a set of Endyn Rollerwave pistons on custom length RC autoworks H-beam rods. This combination places the pistons slightly out of the bore, and yields a 9.5:1 CR.

Are the custom length rods these ones? Link or custom length to your own specification?

For my build i was planning on using the rollerwaves with eagle rods and shaving the head alittle to bump up the compression, but if you get 9.5 with them rods thats perfect!

Thanks
Luke

[1gcvcb18]

What megasquirt version are you running?

[EPcivic]

Yes, those 'Vitara' length rods matched to the -4.5cc Rollerwave turbo pistons, and my head worked out to 9.5:1. My head is shaved .025", but has oversized valves and some other bowl work that might add volume back.

My Megasquirt is an older v2.2 board running Megasquirt Extra code. This allows for ignition and boost control directly from the Megasquirt. I'd love to upgrade to a MS3 to get the onboard SD card logging capability, but that's quite a bit of money for an upgrade.

-Chris

[Old School REX]

I may his missed it so excuse me if I did, but how did the exhaust turnout in sound? It looks beautiful.

[EPcivic]

I may his missed it so excuse me if I did, but how did the exhaust turnout in sound? It looks beautiful.

It is actually surprisingly quiet. At idle, it is street car quiet. At full song, it is still not very loud. The only time it is really loud is when the traction control is making misfires, or when it is on the rev limiter. The pops can be pretty loud. The upside is that it shoots flames.



craglin1 by cjraglin, on Flickr

-Chris

[PowerWheels86]

That exhaust out the front like that is amazing!

[fat_85_civic]

To allow the rods to fit did you need to notch the block like when useing Eagle rods?

This is definately the best turbo D build ive seen on here!

[EPcivic]

To allow the rods to fit did you need to notch the block like when useing Eagle rods?

This is definately the best turbo D build ive seen on here!

Thanks.

Yes, I had to notch both the block and the main girdle to clear these rods. They are pretty large - similar to other forged rods for these motors. Notching isn't a big deal. It takes a while, but is pretty simple to do.

-Chris