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Wilshire

Big WIll
im new into the tuner scene, i got a '97 del sol v-tec with a b16a2, i put headers, intake, exhaust, springs, shocks, and rims on it. i was wondering what performance mods would be the most beneficial, withour breaking my wallet? any suggestions?
 
what's your budget?

weight reductions, clutch upgrades, gearing upgrades, port n polish, under drive pullies, remove things you dont need like air conditioning (the pump), dyno tune.

if you plan on pushing big numbers, maybe strengthen your motor now rather than increase power. Head studs, synchros, differential, engine management system, engine mounts, etc.

take your time and be sure each purchase you make isnt going to be a waste later down the road. unless your ballin like that. what i mean is, buying cheap quality parts for the time being, or ones that dont have a place in your ultimate goal. It's also better to do it all at once, rather than upgrade pistons, wait a few months, then do cams, wait another month, do injectors, wait a few more months, then dyno tune it.
 
i am lookin to spend a little over a grand at this time, but eventually more down the road. car doesnt have ac, im not lookin for seriour power, my goal is a realiable daily driver wit around 200 whp, i was checking into a dyno tune, but someone told me that i needed to have an upgraded ecu, is that true or is he full of shit? i was also thinkin about a port and polish, u know about how much that is gonna run me? thanks
 
super charge it
buy a used vortec - will run around a grand and i think your ecu is program-able get a hondata for it you'll get over 200 hp
if your thinking of turbo you'll have to peace one to gether to stay in your budget
 
ya to dyno you'll have to modify your ecu. you dont necessarily have to buy hondata, there are alternatives that are next to free like crome, and ubertune. You'll need a chip burner, available at Welcome to www.moates.net! : Moates.Net. Either you'll have to solder in a new 24pin chip and possibly a few other items, or you can have an electronics repair shop do it. I'd go with the repair shop, it's tiny stuff. Tho i did my own.. ^_^ .

the dyno tune would be around 500 (atleast in this area, chicago)
if you got the supercharger, that'd be great, but you'd deffinatly wanna dyno it after, so factor that in. s/c over turbo in favor of the life of your motor. not to say turbo WILL shorten it, you just need to strengthen more, as it's warmer air then what a s/c would push.
 
ya to dyno you'll have to modify your ecu. you dont necessarily have to buy hondata, there are alternatives that are next to free like crome, and ubertune. You'll need a chip burner, available at Welcome to www.moates.net! : Moates.Net. Either you'll have to solder in a new 24pin chip and possibly a few other items, or you can have an electronics repair shop do it. I'd go with the repair shop, it's tiny stuff. Tho i did my own.. ^_^ .

the dyno tune would be around 500 (atleast in this area, chicago)
if you got the supercharger, that'd be great, but you'd deffinatly wanna dyno it after, so factor that in. s/c over turbo in favor of the life of your motor. not to say turbo WILL shorten it, you just need to strengthen more, as it's warmer air then what a s/c would push.

thanks for all the feedback, ill look into my options.
but, some of your answers did make more questions for me, what is a chip burner, and what does it do and what is soldering a new chip?

thanks
 
Alright, i thought that would raise a few more, but it was late as hell last night...

First, your ecu is an electronic device, like a radio, microwave, etc. If you've ever pop'd open an electronic device before, you will have encountered many smaller objects fastened to a [usually] green board. This green board is a circuit board. The silver blobs on the back side of the circuit board are solder. It's like electricly conductive welding. Alot weaker tho. Soldered to the circuit board you will have many small objects. There are round ones (capacitors), very small colorful ones (resistors), and lots of variously sized black squares (chips). The chips can be memory, which stores data, or a processor, which well, processes data. The chip in your ecu that you'll have to replace is about an 1 1/4" long, 1/2" wide, and 1/4" thick. It has 24 pins soldered into the circuit board. This chip is what holds your fuel and ignition tables, along with sensor information, injector size, rev limits, vtec engagment points, and more. If you have an automatic ecu, there's an 8 pin (if i remember right) chip with VERY small pins to solder. And sometimes 2 points that are supposed to have a resistor between them, need to be connected. If so, there are only 1 of these, and it's easy.

If you've never soldered before, this is NOT a good learning experiance. You can damage your ecu permanantly if done incorrectly.

Your best bet is to have it all done at an electronics repair shop. Have them do the little stuff if applicable, but for the 24 pin chip (IMPORTANT): solder a socket to the circuit board that will allow you to remove the 24 pin chip w/o soldering. This chip will be removed and reburned alot in the course of a dyno tune. Which brings me to my next point.

edit: the software i talk about is on a PC...
We say 'burn a chip' like 'burn a cd'. When you burn a chip, you write data to it. Or program it. Hondata is not a stand alone ecu. Nor does not replace your current ecu. Hondata, ubertune, crome, and others will all make you reburn this 24 pin chip. Using hondata, or other software, you create a file that holds all the settings you would like to burn to this chip. To burn, you bring up the software that comes with the chip burner available at moates, open that settings file you made in it, and with the burning device plugged in, and the chip in the burner, you click "burn", and away it goes.

That should cover it. Lemme know if your still confused
 
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