Rilas : 1993 Accord SE

[Rilas]

In preparation for tuning, I'm trying to get a few things squared away. First and foremost, I need a wideband O2 sensor. Secondly, if I get any aftermarket gauges, I need a place to mount them. Well obviously finding a wideband isn't a big deal, on the other hand trying to find compatible gauge pods for our cars isn't the easiest. After an hour or two of scrounging around I actually found a website that makes something for our cars. Or rather custom makes things for our cars.

AEM X-Series Wideband UEGO AFR Sensor


Ortiz Custom Gauge Pod (www.ortizcustompods.com)


Once I get these items installed into the car, I'm just down to needing a tunable ECU. I'm going to get a P28 with Hondata S300 v3, so I still need to manage to come up with almost $700 to buy that. After that it's time to try and tune Lola. On an unrelated note, I called the only local dyno in town. It was broken at dyno days. In a month it's going to be working again. Once it's back up and running I'm going to do some pulls with Lola to get a baseline on this H22A1, to see what she's really putting out.

[Jarrett]

Let us know how you end up liking that gauge pod. I looked at them a few years ago, but I read some reviews that were not so favorable. Looking at how their site has grown makes me hope that they have the business support to disprove those claims.

[GTRON]

I've seen tutorials of people taking the stock one out, and putting pods in, using body filler to smooth it out and such. Kinda like making custom speaker pods.

I thought about doing that, for when/if I go turbo, but I ended up deciding I would buy a pillar pod. Not the cleanest/sleeper look though.

I'm really interested to see how putting in a Hondata, and getting a tune goes for you, please keep posting lots of pics and info on how that goes!!

[Rilas]

So on Sunday while sitting at a stop light with the A/C on my pressure relief valve decided to fail. What a show that is when you have an entire cloud of white refrigerant come out from all under the hood. Anyway pulled another pressure relief valve off another A/C compressor laying around and recharged the system. A/C is working even better now with the correct amount of refrigerant in it. I was a bit low before, long story. Not much else has really been done on Lola though.

I did find a few more exhaust leaks. I had to cut the header apart to weld them solid. Then welded the header back up. I didn't want to do it with my crappy welder, but I couldn't find any friends that were able to do it for me this weekend. So I just did it, and well it isn't the prettiest, but it works.

[apalileo]

Oh man my heart would have stopped cold if I saw that! Glad it was just that relief valve and not a cooling system component!

I wish I had some welding knowledge and equipment. That would have come in handy for my seat brackets (I got RSX seats recently and installed them this weekend BTW). I know you're a stickler for cleanliness, but sometimes function must prevail. I'm sure a little grinder action could remedy it.

[Jarrett]

stopped cold

Unintentional pun?

[apalileo]

Good catch! Completely unintended.

[Rilas]

Oh man my heart would have stopped cold if I saw that! Glad it was just that relief valve and not a cooling system component!

I wish I had some welding knowledge and equipment. That would have come in handy for my seat brackets (I got RSX seats recently and installed them this weekend BTW). I know you're a stickler for cleanliness, but sometimes function must prevail. I'm sure a little grinder action could remedy it.

Unintentional pun?

Good catch! Completely unintended.

Lol I didn't even catch that. It was a good one indeed though Apalileo. I wasn't too worried about the A/C system as it's rather simple, but still only the relief valve was a bonus.

I already used the grinder, and I'm still not happy lol. I think I'm going to wrap them with some DEI insulating wrap, at least they will look uniform then and still function. It's always function over form for me, but that doesn't mean that I don't want it to look at least decent.

[Rilas]

After going for a drive on Monday night, I found I still had a small hole in one of the welds. Of course it was the only little lump I didn't grind down. Go figure. Anyway I hand filed it down, and found a small hole, and a small gap on one side of the weld. I took the header off and re-welded it up solid, and filed it back down. I didn't take it for a drive though as it was late, and I had a few other things to work on last night. Tonight I'll take her for a drive and see how the header looks afterwards.

[Rilas]

Went for a drive last night and it seems the header finally has 0 leaks. Now that this is accomplished I'm going to work on getting the wideband O2 installed into the car. Just from reading in jdm92_accorn's thread I've come to realize how much power can be lost on an NA engine with exhaust leaks.

[apalileo]

Glad you found the source and were able to fix it. Did you notice any performance difference with the fixed header?

[Rilas]

Glad you found the source and were able to fix it. Did you notice any performance difference with the fixed header?

Actually yes. Before I was having a bit of a backfire every once in a while. That was more related to the donut gasket though. Also triangular set of leaks between 3 pipes also seemed to cause a bit of an idle issue, where my idle would fluctuate for no apparent reason. All of this is now resolved. Also it feels like the bottom end is quite a bit better now, like when getting moving from a light. It's just seamless like it should be, before it just didn't feel like it should for an H22, not that I've driven any but this one.

[Rilas]

On Saturday I received a set of Techna-Fit brake lines in the mail from Fatboy1185. On Saturday night I started to install these. I started on the rear driver side. That is all that I got accomplished on Saturday night. Yesterday I was able to finish up the rear passenger side and the driver's front. Also I took the collars off the stock shocks on the other coupe. I installed one on the front driver's shock while working on the brake line. Tonight I need to do the same to the passenger side, while working on this though I need to disassemble the shock and fix one of the studs in the top hat. The ESP.net 3 point bar is a little close to the stud and it caused the nut to cross thread and back-out the stud a bit. I've already fixed this on the driver side. I have to do a touch of grinding on the bar to fix it on this side. No big deal as it's very little grinding and hopefully won't really be noticeable unless looking for it.

[apalileo]

Techna-Fit lines are a definite plus! I definitely noticed the firmer pedal.

How is the feel of the RSX booster and BMC? The BMC a 7/8" bore, correct?

[Rilas]

Techna-Fit lines are a definite plus! I definitely noticed the firmer pedal.

How is the feel of the RSX booster and BMC? The BMC a 7/8" bore, correct?

I can't comment on the feel totally. I mean it makes the brakes work, but something just felt wrong with the system as a whole. It didn't have air in the lines as the pedal got rock solid with the car off, no mushy feel at all. I mean it wasn't like I was scared to drive the car hard due to the brakes or something like that. Just with the same exact pads and rotors and calipers the stopping power just didn't seem to be the same. I'm hoping that swapping the lines out and bleeding the brakes again will fix this issue. I'm excited tonight, to at least go for a short drive around town to see how the brakes feel. I'll report back tonight, hell maybe just the feel of the brakes changed just due to swapping the BMC.

The RSX BMC is a 7/8" bore.