The white-mess, my EM1 Si with a d16y8.

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Same thing happened to me (rear control arm to shock bolt broke off), and I spent two days soaking it with PB Blaster. I ended up just replacing both control arms with aftermarket replacements. Car has 200k+ miles, so figured new bushings anywhere possible couldn't hurt.

Did they both break, or just the one? I don't know what it is, but for me, it seems like the passenger side one near the exhaust is always the one that does this. The other one came out fairly easily.
 
Thursday I left work early because I had a pretty bad cold. Well, I still have the cold 3 days later. Uff.

I have about 2 good hours each day where I don't feel like total garbage, last night I got the bolts thrown in the LCAs, and got her on the ground finally. I also rotated the exhaust tubing clamp, and figured out how to put another hanger on there to bring the back of the mid-pipe a couple more inches off the ground. Now I just have to get the collector flange a little higher, and then I'll finally have the exhaust the way I want it.

I cleaned up the interior a little bit more. The driver seat is still super dirty, but I'll get that done at some point.

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She sits a lot lower now.

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Now I'm going to try to make the next event the drag strip is open, get a time slip I'm semi-proud of, and park it in the back of garage for the winter.
 
Took her out tonight, and even though it's like 55F and raining, she managed a 4.8 second 0-60 time, about 6 times in a row on different roads. Now, the issue is that the roads are wet, because it's been raining for the past 4 hours -- lol.

There's no traction in any gear if I get on it. It's like driving on loose dirt, which is just like my CR-Z on winter tires today on the same roads, so pretty much. Now, 0-60 mph is only first and second gear, and it's not building full boost until 3rd or 4th, which are both totally not under the speed limit on any public road, lolol.

Unfortunately, the track (so close I hear the test and tunes from my house, or 2 miles as the crow flies) is closed this weekend, and they've decided they're only going to do Friday test and tunes for the rest of the season, so I might not get a timeslip until spring. Which sucks, because this is boost season. Oh well, maybe I'll catch a break and get to the track before the first snow.
 
I drove it Friday to work. Drive to work was fine, everything was good. Temps, AFRs, timing, power was nice, etc. Pulling into the parking lot I noticed it sounded like a subaru, and I've come to realize that means a spark plug isn't firing. So I jiggled the wires into the distributor and idle smoothed out. Good deal.

On the way home, I noticed I started to get a misfire immediately after getting onto a 3 mile long bridge... So, I pushed it. After the bridge, AFRs were like 18-19 despite me pulling off the road and throwing +10% fuel at the whole map. So, yeah, something screwy there... Turns out it was the cheap chinese (seeing a theme here...) fuel pressure regulator. The kind that's a knock off of the BWR clamp-on one. So, yeah. That explains the AFR, and the issues staying idling. I went ahead and ordered a legit BWR Fuel Pressure Regulator on eBay, found one NOS for $18, so, done.

I scoped the cylinders, and the pistons didn't look like they're missing a ring land, so I did a compression test. 125 psi across the board, so the rings are nicely broken in, and there's not an obvious issue.

Now, today:
Got the regulator, put it together, and it should work. All of the troublesome parts aren't troublesome, lol.
 
Got new spark plug wires on. It runs fine now. When I dropped a cylinder due to the plug wire, that was my AFR issue. :(

Gonna drain the oil and put new in.


Picked up a Hondata s300 (actually s300j) in a JDM P72 today. Got it for $150, and as expected the battery in the DS1230ab-120 NVSRAM is dead. It's not doing anything in sManager, and it throws a solid CEL on my engine simulator.

So...

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So, I figured, if I'm replacing the NVSRAM, I'm voiding the warranty anyway.

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Ordered the part. Which for the google bot, Hondata S300j memory chip is DS1230AB-120+ the 100ns version of the chip is 40 cents cheaper, so I got that.

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And then gently blew some hot air at it and pried softly.

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So, in 3 days, I'll have a functional Hondata s300 enabled JDM P72 ECU. Not sure what it'll get used for yet. So, $150, plus $8 in tolls, plus $28 shipped for the part, $186 for an s300 ECU? Not bad.
 
Got her to work. Runs nice, except for the vacuum leak. At idle it's about -8.5inHg or 350mBar, which means fuel cut decel doesn't work quite right... Lol. Because of that vacuum leak, the cruise control causes a slight jerk/lerch when it pulses the throttle to maintain speed. It's dropping in and out of Fuel Cut Deceleration, which makes me a sad panda.

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Otherwise, doing alright. Fun drive, quiet as all get out at cruising speeds/throttle input.
 
Damn, I was busy in the past 24.

Set valve-lash, fixed the throttle stop, now I don't have a vacuum leak at idle, and fixed the leaking valvecover gasket.

I discovered that it wasn't the distributor or spark plug wires, it was in fact a bad connector on my #4 fuel injector, so #4 wasn't getting fuel, thus explaining the misfire-ish feeling/sound. So, I temporarily fixed that connector, and I'm going to re-wire all of them when the factory-fresh connectors arrive.

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Fixed that s300j. Still not sure what I'm gonna do with it.

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If everything goes as planned, I might get to the strip tomorrow!
 
So... I installed a dial-based boost controller last night. You know, the kind with the check-valve tee fitting, and the dial...

This morning on the way to work, I floored it in second gear, felt it build boost, then saw the trees start to blur like Star Wars, and BAM, hit boost cut. So, yeah, it builds 20lb of boost at like 4200 in 2nd gear, 20lb at 3800 in 3rd, and I dunno 4th and 5th, because I don't have any functional rear brakes.

She's FAST at 20lb. Crazy fast. I'm gonna see how she does today on the way home while datalogging, the tune is pretty close to good.
 
Bad news gents.

After hitting boost cut, I set boost cut to 30lb since that's about where the turbo isn't useful anymore, and fixed the check valve. I destroyed the transmission last night on the way home from work. Shifting 2-3 under 25lb of boost at redline did her in. It sounded like I ground the gears pretty well, then it got jerky in 3rd, heard a bunch of chunky clunking like I punched a hole in the block, so I got out of it, and put the clutch in. No noise with no input to the transmission, so I put it into 5th, and tried limping home. Not bad, made it, didn't seem too hurt.

When I got home, I pulled the speed sensor out and stuck a magnet on a stick in there and it looked like someone crushed up a couple gears and threw them in a blender.

Datalog confirms the inputs in this calculator:
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So, not a surprise, the transmission ate it. 400-ish is where things tend to get interesting anyway in a d-series.


So, back onto storage insurance, gonna pull the transmission and engine, replace the front and rear main seals, and maybe have her running again this spring.
 
That sucks, one thing after another for you.
[ ] Good
[✓] Fast
[✓] Cheap


Honestly, this transmission was making noise already, and had the 3rd gear grind, so it was no surprise. I was strongly considering a LSD for it and that requires disassembly anyway. Not a shocker it died at 400hp. Lol.

It's not staying above 50°F during the day, so it's probably time to stop driving her anyway for the season. Freezing temps + Azeni tires + several hundred horsepower = certain death.

All this means is I will have a hell of a fun toy come spring.

I think I'm gonna have to dial back the boost a bit, some research indicates that 400 is the magic "break yo transmission" number for the d-series. I suppose I could go d2b, but that introduces other issues.
 
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it's kinda funny how this car evolved from 'my wife doesn't like the ramcharger so i got a civic as a family car....' into 400 hp car parked for the season
 
Yeah, it escalated quickly.

Basically, my wife was irked by the lack of door panels, and then the aluminum door panels, and then there was no coming back from it being a 20 year old car. She's watched it break a few times, and she never has owned a car past 10 years old so I'm fighting a perception of unreliability too.

I think if I dial it back to about 300hp or so, plumb the wastegate into the downpipe, and put some vinyl over the door panels, it will pass the wife test. It's quieter than most "performance" cars on the road, and my daughter constantly begs to ride in it. It's actually quite pleasant to drive around on the street, but has insane capability to smoke most other cars on the road.

And I haven't even added the nitrous...
 
Veering/pulling is a inner tie rod end, new one will arrive by the weekend.

Engine mounts will be here by next Tuesday.

The sloppy shifter is because of the bushing in the bottom of the shifter, not the transmission side, so, uh, yeah. I had to get creative...
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Electrical tape ftw. Eventually I'll pick up an eBay short shifter to fix it permanently.
Ya i just bought a ebay short shifter for mine best 25$
 
Ya i just bought a ebay short shifter for mine best 25$

I have one, it's just still sitting there in the table in the garage of "parts that would be nice, but I don't feel like dropping the exhaust again to install".
 
I replaced all the injector connectors by using the factory LS engine fuel injector harness. I spliced in the Delphi 5-way 150 connector to make it easy to just remove the whole thing if I change injectors again.

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Then, I started working on the boost control solenoid, since it kinda sucks to have the manual boost controller, as it doesn't do any kind of temperature compensation, and with the wild swings in temp during the day this time of year, I'll make like 28lbs of boost in the cold mornings, and 17psi in the afternoon. Not really good for trying to get this thing drivable. Maybe because the condensation freezes in it and then just locks it up? Lol.

So, I pulled the MAC solenoid out of the "box of things to install at some point" and wired it up.

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This is how I've got it plumbed, and it should work well as a bleed. I'm using the EVAP Purge solenoid output as the boost control output, which is kind of experimental, but I can always move the pin over to a11 if it doesn't work out.
 
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