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October 15, 2006
Back at the track -- and winning!
It's been a long while since my last entry, and almost as long since I had my car on the road. A few things transpired to make me sort of fall out of love with the car and the entire racing and tuning scene. No one thing is responsible; it was just a whole bunch of little matters that all piled up until it was enough for me to just park the car in the garage.
First, when tuning and racing and modifying, you need a support group. In my case, I was lucky to have this awesome interenet community in clubrsx.com, two supreme tuner shops in Hondata and Comptech, and then all my friends online and at that track. Yet, things can happen.
I had been involved in ClubRSX, one of the most active automotive enthusiast sites on the planet, since last 2003, just after I had bought my new Acura RSX. Over the next two years I posted well over 4,000 messages, most quite long and meaningful. I wrote FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions with explanations and answers) for the ECU forum and the supercharger forum, and became a moderator in those forums. I set up my own little website where I described and chronicled my expriences. I also helped hundreds of people via email with tuning their cars. All I really needed were a few datalogs per my specifications, and I could immediately see what was right and what was wrong, and fix it.
My involvement seemed to approach a new high when ClubRSX owner Chris Dye approached me with the idea of becoming Editor-in-Chief of Club RSX. I had long played with the idea of doing a ECU Tuner magazine, and had also felt ClubRSX was a bit lacking in tech articles and a generally attractive look and feel (beyond the awesome forums). So the thought of revamping the site, adding magazine-style features, interviews, reports, and so on, and giving it a cool look, was appealing. After some back and forth I called Chris Dye to discuss it all. It was a good, long talk, but I also learned that Chris wanted me to do this for free because he had been burned in the past with paid contributors/staff. I could see that, but also felt I was in a different class from the people who might have burned him. I am a professional writer and publisher with many years of experience under my belt. I certainly never rip anyone off. In addition, with print magazines going by the wayside, my business cannot afford to do free work to any meaningful extent. So as much as I would have loved to take a very active role in revamping ClubRSX, I could not do it for free.
A second component was that I didn't feel the support I felt I needed from my two favorite tuner shops. Comptech USA is ten miles from where I live, and they have certainly been a pleasure to work with. I was their test pilot for the RSX supercharger. It was a long, long process, but I eventually did end up with the first supercharged RSX in customer hands. While I did pay for it all, they gave me generous terms, and often gave me, or installed, parts to test, or just because they did not need them anymore. I repaid them by offering my almost new car as a test platform, by datalogging and modifying the ECU calibration until it was just right (and found its way into the final customer product), by testing new and experimental parts, and by letting them have my car for extended dyno testing. I bought a heavy duty clutch/flywheel/pressure plate from them and paid full rates to have it all installed. In return, I was promised I'd get the first aftercooler for free.
Sadly, the aftercooler never happened. The parts are still sitting at Comptech. And Shad Huntley, my primary contact at Comptech, left the company to start his own shop. With him gone, I no longer have an easily reachable contact at Comptech.
Hondata, meanwhile, was a great source of inspiration but occasionally also one of a bit of frustration. They have an absolutely awesome product with their K-Pro ECU and accompanying software, and the two principals are as dedicated and competent as it gets. Yet, I had hoped to eventually have a closer relationship. I felt that I was both a champion for them, probably being responsible for selling numerous K-Pros via my very extensive reporting on K-Pro and its software, as well as tech support via answering numerous questions and helping with debugging and so on. I also provided beta-testing to Hondata, asked questions and made suggestions that all improved the product. I even created a temperature compensation calculator that was later incorporated into the software. While I had some very good interaction with the principals, and while I was actually invited down to Hondata to spend a very instructive day of training, I also felt a bit frustrated by the small amount of true interaction. I felt I could have helped them a lot more. Maybe I was too sensitive, but I still feel it was a lost opportunity, and so much more could have been done.
Next, after Shad left Comptech, my car also began letting me down. Nothing major. One time, after a single track session with a few burnouts, I noticed an almost ruined belt -- the bain of all supercharger drivers. That was replaced and the tensioner adjusted. Yet, after my next outing at the track, where the car ran poorly, the belt once again showed signs of deterioration. One of the ribs was nearly broken off. And then I had a "Check Engine" light.
It so happened that around the time that happened I discovered a new sport that quickly became a passion: scuba diving. I joined an online community, made friends, and before I knew it enrolled in an Open Water Scuba class. That was pretty intense and I enjoyed it tremendously. I studied hard, eventually passed my certification dives, then bought a whole set of scuba gera and set up a scuba website. And even did high altitude diving. If you have never done it, floating weightlessly underwater is incredible. Addictive. Unique. Try it.
But there was no way I could overlook that shiny black RSX in my garage every day as I got into my turbo PT Cruiser to go to work and come back home. I raced the Cruiser and ran mid-14s, having lots of fun. But everytime I went to Sac Raceway, people'd ask me, "Hey man, where's your RSX?"
So eventually I did what I had meant to do. I took out the plugs (you need one of those extra tools to get the little suckers out) and found them okay (at least according to Autozone; Kragen declared them "fried") but with an unusually large gap of at least 0.45! I looked up what the folks at ClubRSX recommended and regapped them to 0.30. Then I replaced the 510cc Power Enterprise injectors with the Comptech-modified Honda injectors. I updated my K-Manager software and uploaded it into my ECU. The car ran fine, albeit rough thanks to the Enjo motormounts I had Comptech put in. That was a decision I still sort of regret, though in time I may feel differently.
On October 11, 2006, I took the RSX to the track again. I datalogged the first two time trials to see if I had knock and if the Air/Fuel ratio was okay. No knock. The AF was too high in the first run and so I added 5% fuel from 6000rpm on up on the 50 degree cam. The second run was fine. Despite wheelspin I managed a 13.9 and a 13.8. Better than during the dismal outing before the hiatus.
As the evening wore on, the car ran better and better. I got lucky in one trophy run as my opponent, a guy who had stuffed a K24 into an old Integra, misshifted and I blew by him at the very end. In one run I ran a modified Dodge SRT-4 heads-up and was so far ahead that I got off the gas early and coasted through the line with a 13.74 on a 13.7 dial. That was too close for comfort and so I lowered my dial to 13.6. In the finals I faced another Honda and had a huge 2.3 second handicap. He caught a perfect 0.004 second light to my mediocre 0.25, and so I barrelled after him after, again, a bunch of wheelspin and a much less than optimal launch. The RSX ran like a demon, though, and I caught him at the finish line, but wasn't sure if it had been in time. Yes! The "win" light lit on my side.
I found that my opponent had broken out whereas I had run a 13.602 on my 13.600 dial. Another trophy. I was quite happy. Then, on my way home, another "check engine" light. In my garage I hooked up the computer and diagnosed it as a P0505, "Idle Valve Malfunction." No fun. I read up on it and it'll be a job to get to it and clean it, in the hope that it may be fixable.
Posted by conradb212 at 2:08 PM