Ah I remember those days. I used to write articles for it. Still have like every single issue printed at home!

 

While I appreciate your kind words Mr P., I think of myself as just one of many old, if pugnacious, rotary diehards that still enjoy a sip from this common watering hole every now and then.

 

Please forgive me if in-fact, senility has erased my memory. I think I only twice drove the 7 to the Tampa area for events. For that matter, those are very hazy at best.

 

As the old saying goes,
"When Life gives you Lemons,..."
or is that
"when the Yen is 160:1, import Toys"!
May I introduce the latest (well, from a year ago) addition to SpicGarage™...
"Kurimuzon", the 1997 Hondy Acty SDX 4WD (HA4). 660cc of pure Kei, emitting a quasar-like 38 galaxy-obliterating ponies. HAI !!!


Honda Acty "Kurimuzon" with bike


Honda Acty "Kurimuzon"

 

So cool. How much lemons did that set you back approx?

 

Hahaha, that thing is awesome.
Kei trucks are rad

 

Discussion on the Single Turbo forum got me thinkin' about MAP-eMAP ratios and EGT, so I went back and reviewed my last dyno run. While at it, I figured I'd post it for prosperity (and the usual banter from the gallery):


Penultimate @555-ish runs on DynoDynamic “heartbreaker”

• Conditions:
  • 75F-ish ambient
  • Fueling: 93/E09 (1.5 oz/gal premix) to 14psi; E78 (2.1 oz/gal premix) to 14-22psi; no WI
• Performance:
  • 8psi @4000 (unknown rwhp)
  • 10psi (spring) @4200 (360rwhp)
  • 14psi (93/e09) @4300 (430rwhp)
  • 20.5-psi @5100 – 9000
    • 558rwhp @7250RPM; 429rwq @6250 (derived)
    • AIT 97F @throttle body elbow
      • thermocouple install in-works; thanks Howard for the research
    • 1:1.25 MAP-eMAP ratio
    • 1750F EGTs (~150F lower than 93/E09 temps)

 

Shane has been posting some coil tests,
the TLDW, is that once you have enough power to fire the plug, more coil power does nothing for engine power.


if you're like who is this Shane guy, he's involved with stuff like this

 

Dont know if it has alot of value as he says having 100 mJ spread over more then 3 msec. If you count how much degrees crank that is at 8000 rpm.. thats why cdi is the only real ignition for high rpms.

I experienced it first hand on a engine w cylinder pressure indication. The key parameters that one give away how good the combustion is, are the indicated mean effective pressure per cylinder and the covariance of it, 50% burn angle and earliest 50% burn angle in function of mep giving a indication of the ‘knock resistance’. In our particular case it was a DI + PFI engine and the design of intake manifold made that at rated power 7-9k rpm some cylinders would show a lower mep and a high covariance of mep and 50% burn angle. The engine was running pump fuel giving a resulting %50 burn angle of roughly 20 to 25* atdc. The later the ignition can be fired due to being on the knock limit the more important it is to set the flame front of in a reliable matter as the later after 7-8* 50% burn angle every degree later will cost a bigger share of efficiency.

in the end we tried many different inductive coils and dwelled the hell out of m. Less energy made it worse but we didnt get to the point that all 4 cylinders on a bank would deliver the same imep and have a low imep covariance. Enriching and enleaning cylinders individually also didnt bring us to 4 cylinders being equal. The biggest lever we had to bring the cylinders together was to spark them individually. The cylinders w the slowest burn speed could take 3-4* more timing before they would burn in a acceptable manner and start to being as knock limited as the best cylinders of the bank.

long story short. We tried a 120 mJ or so M&W CDI and without any trimming of mixture or spark angle all 4 cylinders per bank burned well and stable. It picked up like 75 hp for the same boost and achieved the target 900 something hp from 4 liter. The faster flame front also allowed for a more advanced 50% burn angle for a given mep due to the zone of the mixture that isnt yet reached by the flame having less time to self ignite (knock)

So the worse the fuel in terms of knock resistance the later the knock limited x50, the more hard gets to set it off reliably. Charge motion plays also a big role. W methanol or other fuel w high octane general timing can happen sooner and this makes it easier to set it of as each deg of variance on where the flame front sets off and resulting variance of the 50% burn angle will have a less severe lever on the resulting imep of that cycle.

 

... or my personal favorite (maybe it's just the tail number)...

 

Out with the old, and in with the ... less old.

My ancient AIM Dash MXL was a nice piece in its day; it had nice value back when there were few choices. Yet I was always annoyed by the small number of ECU data parameters and very limited display options. Top of the list was, no Lambda/AFR, or knock, or slip. So I've been on a hunt for a Motec C127for years. I kicked myself regularly for passing on some annual sale$$, but eventually decided I'd be happy (i.e. cheap-bastard) with a more "period-correct" ADL or a current follow-on CDL3. And so it went and I'm glad.


Motec CDL3 at idle

CDL3 and SLM and DrakeLore clamshell with steering wheel buttons curly cord

The dash has the full monty: IO upgrade, SLM, GPS, prewired 2 buttons accessories. The red button is an Acknowlege Alarm, and the green button scrolls through the 20 different lines of up to three channels each at the bottom.
In the Warm-up page above, which is the default for start-up and idle, paraments are :

• The shift line is at 8200 on 9000 sweep
• Top right, three-digit parameter is voltage (the alternator is not online)
• Below is a numeric RPM
• N in the middle is the gear
• 8.6 is MAP (psia)
• The 13-digit bottom display is Eng Temp, Oil Temp, and Oil Pressure. I could only do two of the three if I included the labels (e.g. ET, OT, OP). The next eight lines include some 20-ish other channels and will display some dozen warnings metrics (as well as SLM lights)

It has two additional pages (Practice and Race), each with its own independently configurable setups. For now, the car starts in the Warm-up page and switches to Practice with ground speed or when out of neutral. Displays are also selectable with the "Display" button on the keypad. Other functions in the Race display are also triggered via the keypad.

Finally, I need to give a shout-out to DrakeLore for the very nice Lower Column Shroud (i.e., clamshell) replacement. It's built like a tank, and the replaceable internal clips are a cool feature to help with durability. Highly recommended!

 

Dupe

 

Quick shout-out to @Pete_89T2 for his very helpful and simple DEI 451M relay 'juicing' for struggling power windows. I completed each door in about an hour, and the payback was reverse guillotine-like operations. The worst window (passenger side) now closes in a third of the previous slog.


DEI 451M relay install

 

Carlos, is there a good writeup/instruction thread on this window mod with pictures and painfully explicit explanations for they, uh, electrically challenged?

 

It so easy, even a Cubanman can do it!!

Seriously, all you need to do is put one one of these 451M relays (I got mine from Crutchfield) in-between the OEM connectors to the window motors. The relay gets power directly from a tap into the power window switch and it grounds to the door. Take a look at Pete's excellent write-up, and the professional wiring schematic: DEI 451M relay 'juicing'. He even linked the exact OEM connectors from Corsa Tecnic, if you don't want to Deutsch them. Really hats off to him.

 

How does it work? It looks like it still uses the same power source. Is it just that the switch itself adds too much resistance and this relay bypasses?

 

I had the same question... Pete does a nice job explaining it on his build thread: Pete's FD resto-mod project #134 . Basically, there is an electrical bottleneck at or upstream of the PW connector that degrades (i.e. increases resistance?) over time. This workaround effectively circumvents the issue.

I did also relube the rails for some marginal gain, but the lion's share of the improvement was the relay.

 

WI my ****!! For my next mod, I'm thinkin:

• Four 2½ fire hose nozzles for injectors, fed by a...
• P100 firefighting pump in the truck, sucking from...
• a tank full of nitromethane for a couple of dyno runs!

Look out Rob... I'm coming for ya!!

 

Sometimes it's the little things that are most satisfying... like new fender liners (thank Mr Crowe):





Delighting in overthinking, I took a skeptical look at the built-in duct for the oil coolers. I think they're relatively small. Makes me wonder about what actual flow they handle? It does validate my decision not to run some of the gorgeous CF fender liners I have on the shelf. My hesitance is at the liners force oil cooler duct outflow to the fender liner duct. I suspect that may choke off the larger Mocal oil cooler outflow compared to dumping into the engine bay and out the hood or even out the back . This is my current setup. Thought my (water and oil) cooling is ROCK SOLID (i.e no issue during 110F autocross), I may just experiment and install the liners anyways to test my assumption. More then...

 

i ran across this the other day, (i put my fender liners in too!)

it might be interesting to do some flow testing, the old way would be to use a manometer, and see.
the newfangled way would be to put a couple of MAP sensors in there and log the pressure differences
of course lunch might be more interesting, lol (i have some testing on my car i've thought about)

 

They may have taken the slow boat getting here, but nothing says a great weekend like a fresh stock of rubbers.

Now if I can just get the 30-year-old ball joints to release, I can really start the bangin...

 

I just put all new OEM bushing in everything except the upper control arms. I put superpro there. Wow, what a difference they all made.

 

I think that's interesting... why the different bushing types? Trying to find an optimal mix? A future project?

Personally, it was a challenging decision on exactly which bushing to run: MazdaComp, OEM, SuperPro, or even SuperNow. The deciding factors were:

1. Performance> NHV (to a point)
2. SuperNow was a bridge too far for me... though it was close
3. when in doubt, MazdaComp
4. longevity would be my son's problem when he inherits the car

So MazdaComp it is...

 

Mazda likes to use multi axis pivots. so like the arm goes up and down, but needs to twist too. maybe the trailing arm does this? not sure
for example your knee is a single axis joint, it wants to move in the one plane, and if you're too far off it doesn't like it.
the hip is a ball an socket, like Mazda used in the rear suspension, they both get clunky when they wear out, lol

if you have a solid bushing in a place that needs to twist, you get binding, which is just bad

also rubber is really good at insulating all the little forces, if you put rod ends everywhere, it feels great, and works great, but any little thing you hit tweaks things

 

I've been a proponent of stock (I consider Mazdacomp stock) bushings for a while. I did the Superpro thing and didn't see the advantage, and Heim joints seem like a bridge to far for anything but a racecar that has a crew working on it and checking it all the time. The stock pillow ***** are enough to chase, I don't want to multiply that several times.