Have some performance questions

[mag_pbg]

Im looking for some more power, but I don't want to go with turbo, and not N20, so I have a few questions. some of these questions might be stupid so please bare with me.
1. What do people mean by bored .20 over or .30, and will it add horsepower?
2. I would like some higher compretion pistons, but gas being so high would I be able to get away with say a 89 or 90 octane level and then add octane booster, I was thinking 10:1 ratio.
3. Is there anyway that you can tell that a car is running lean without having a a/f guage¿

[mouchyn]

1. that means taking the pistons out of the engine and literally boring the cylinders out to be bigger. this requires new, bigger pistons and rings. yes, this adds horsepower because this adds displacement. it's also quite expensive. you could probably swap in a newer prelude engine like the H22 for about the same amount of money it would take to properly over bore and rebuild your a20.
2. adding octane booster is more expensive than buying higher octane gas. sit down and do the math and you'll see. The difference between a 12 gallons of premium gas and mid-grade gas is usually about 10 cents per gallon. 10 cents times 12 = $1.20 more per tank for the premium gas. Try to find a can of octane booster for less than $1.20. again, higher comp pistons mean you have to pretty much do a full rebuild of your A20. all new gaskets, rings, seals, broken parts, tune up parts, fuel management parts, etc. expensive.
3. if you're running extremely lean, you could hear a pinging. semi-detonation. this is VERY bad for your engine and should be fixed immediately. Generally, if your car is stock and the ignition timing is set properly, you should be ok. What makes you think your car is running lean? hot exhaust? weird noises? low power?

[mag_pbg]

So either way im going to be spending the $$$$$$. About the running lean, if you look at my mod list I have plenty of air in and out of the motor, it would prob. help if I knew how much fuel our stock system can dish out but anyways, it has a tendency to slug down at WOT and when i slow down by letting off the gas it has some nasty popping sounds coming from the exhuast. I was thining of buying a AEM FPR this coming thursday and a guage and a a/f guage.

[w00tw00t111]

Hey mag, about the price of gas and octane booster. The other day I was filling up with 93 octane just to see if it made a difference in my pretty much stock motor. Sure enough it made a heck of a difference! I called a friend he said it was because I am getting better combustion. So, yesterday I filled up again with 93 but then I bought some octane booster. The bottle said it increased the octane by 14 points. I figured that this number was probley a little "enhanced" So I figured I was running about 103 octane gas. Talk about difference!!! I used a whole lot more gas up then usual. Usual when my gas gauage reaches the middle I have gone about 90 miles. This time it was at about 60 miles. Still though there is a huge improvement!!!

Also about your sig. (which I like the quote at the top. Very Very true) With all of those mods would you do me a favor. Can you tell me how many seconds it takes you to reach 60mph. If you have dyno numbers or 1/4 or 1/8 mile times that would be great! I just want to know how far my money will go if I spend enough money to buy the things that I don't have already. Thanks dude.

[mag_pbg]

w00tw00t111, thanx about the sig lol, about the 0-60 I will PM you tomorow, well this morning it is about 12:11 right now, I havn't made it to a Dyno yet, the closest one is about a hour drive from here. About spending the money, one thing I have learned about owning a 3G, is that it takes alot of money to get this thing to go fast, so be prepared and don't get frustrated. Mind you it will never be as fast as a ferrari or a porsche but I think it is more in the sence that you take a almost 20yr old economy car and make it run with the big dogs out there, just remember there is always somebody faster than you.

[w00tw00t111]

Thanks I appreciate it.

[Oldblueaccord]

Im looking for some more power, but I don't want to go with turbo, and not N20, so I have a few questions. some of these questions might be stupid so please bare with me.
1. What do people mean by bored .20 over or .30, and will it add horsepower?
2. I would like some higher compretion pistons, but gas being so high would I be able to get away with say a 89 or 90 octane level and then add octane booster, I was thinking 10:1 ratio.
3. Is there anyway that you can tell that a car is running lean without having a a/f guage¿


#1 yes boring .030 (YES thats 30 thousands of an inch, not .300 thats three hundred thousands of an inch thats more that 1/4 inch lol) might add a little hp but its only adding like 2-3 cubic inches to a car. Ring fit is more important.

#2 in general one point higher compression ratio is about 3% more power and it diminishes as you go higher.

http://www.btinternet.com/~mezporting/compression.html

#3 look at your sparkplugs they tell you alot how your car is running


wp

[rjudgey]

true very good points there!!
And as far as a rebuild on a A20 costing as much as a H22 being put in thats just crazy!! The A20 is really cheap to re-build depends on how far you want to take it at the time, high compression forged pistons are like one of the last mods that you should do, i run 200bhp engines with Stock O.E.M patent sealed power pistons, i use these because 1. their only £20 each 2. THey come with lighter steel pins, and also the piston is lighter too, downside, the vlave pockets need cutting into the top as they are out of place, and also the CR ratio is only for A20A1 engine but i quite like the shape of the dish in the crown helps with spreding the load on the top of the piston when combustion takes place, also they will take 8K rpm in small doses but mileage will be limited to 15-20K before they need changing, if you keep to 7K they will last 2-3 times longer, also the A20 can be half re-built with the engine in, you take the cross memeber off under teh engine, then drop the sump, and then you have access to the bottom of the rods, undo the bolts and pull out from the top, get new rods and pistons with new big end bearings and drop back in again!! But be warned Stock Honda crank bearings don't take a lot of extra power before they start falling apart, i had a 50K A18 which i replaced all the pistons with new ones with rings etc, added webers and cam, bit of headwork, was putting down around 160bhp and after one track day the mains were completely shot in the middle three bearings with just the outer two holding it together!! then had to limp back 250miles!!

[Oldblueaccord]

Im looking for some more power, but I don't want to go with turbo, and not N20, so I have a few questions. some of these questions might be stupid so please bare with me.
1. What do people mean by bored .20 over or .30, and will it add horsepower?
2. I would like some higher compretion pistons, but gas being so high would I be able to get away with say a 89 or 90 octane level and then add octane booster, I was thinking 10:1 ratio.
3. Is there anyway that you can tell that a car is running lean without having a a/f guage¿


BTW these are good questions really. Study up, read alot about cars and you can learn something and maybe apply it to a career someday.


wp

[shepherd79]

1. that means taking the pistons out of the engine and literally boring the cylinders out to be bigger. this requires new, bigger pistons and rings. yes, this adds horsepower because this adds displacement. it's also quite expensive. you could probably swap in a newer prelude engine like the H22 for about the same amount of money it would take to properly over bore and rebuild your a20.
2. adding octane booster is more expensive than buying higher octane gas. sit down and do the math and you'll see. The difference between a 12 gallons of premium gas and mid-grade gas is usually about 10 cents per gallon. 10 cents times 12 = $1.20 more per tank for the premium gas. Try to find a can of octane booster for less than $1.20. again, higher comp pistons mean you have to pretty much do a full rebuild of your A20. all new gaskets, rings, seals, broken parts, tune up parts, fuel management parts, etc. expensive.
3. if you're running extremely lean, you could hear a pinging. semi-detonation. this is VERY bad for your engine and should be fixed immediately. Generally, if your car is stock and the ignition timing is set properly, you should be ok. What makes you think your car is running lean? hot exhaust? weird noises? low power?


Again, sounds like you don't know shit about cars.

1. borring out .02 or .03 would add may be 1hp. it is not worth it unless you are rebuilding it.
2. octane boosters, it is been proved over and over that octane boosters you buy at the stores will increase octane lavel by .1 for every bottle you put in the full tank. they are useless. there made for those RICE people who think it will make some kind of diff.
3. you can't adjust anything on 3G EFI motor. mixture is controlled by ECU. the only adjust ment you can make is for idle mixture. it is inside the black box. it explains more in details in shop manual. if you car is running lean, swap ECU, but in your case i told you the solition. it has nothing to do with running lean. I will post a scan from haynes about the spark plugs and what colors mean.

[mouchyn]

busting my balls all over the place. what about my post was wrong or amateur?

[shepherd79]

here is the spark plug scan. you can check your plugs for common problems.
the picture is big, so i am not going to image it. just click on the link.
http://webpages.shepherd.edu/abetke01/sparkplug.jpg

Mouchyn, i am busting your balls is because a lot of your answers don't make any sense. if you think that borring out .03 will give you huge displacement increase, you need to check your math. if you have done your research, you would find that octane boosters ain't worth the money. http://www.elektro.com/~audi/audi/toluene.html read the first paragraph NOTES. it will explain why.
third, i never heard of car making noise when it is lean. may be it will make noise when it is blown. but as far as NA setups, you won't hear any diff. you will feel the diff instead. that is all i have to say for now.

If you really want to use octane boosters, brew your own booster.
http://www.gnttype.org/techarea/misc/octanebooster.html

[rjudgey]

thats not true , when you port and flow a head you notice a big difference in engine noise and exhaust noise!! especially when you go to 33mm inlet valves!!

[shepherd79]

i think he and I are talking about stock setups. I never ran across lean motor that was knocking.

[mouchyn]

1. i never said that boring over 3 thousandths was a huge increase in displacement. he asked if it adds horsepower. i said yes it does because it adds displacement. you can't argue that's not true, because it is. the bigger the engine, the more power it makes. He asked what "boring" was. so i told him. it's a physical modification made to piston and cylinder size. that's also 100% true. i also said it is expensive. If he has to ask what it is, we can assume he doesn't have the right tools to do the bore himself. that means he'll have to go to shop. Those charges added to the cost of bigger pistons, rings, head gasket, seals, bearings, and everything else you need to do it right is going to climb up past the $1500 mark pretty easily. For that much, you can have a entry level turbo setup or a slew of bolt ons that will yield much more power. before you critisize me so closely, why not actually read what i said instead of what you wanted me to say?

2. i don't know if you're retarded of just can't read. if you read my point about the octane booster, i very mathematically and plainly explained HOW/WHY the octane boosters aren't worth buying. I never recommended them as a quick boost in power. He asked if he could use 89 octane fuel and octane booster. I answered his question. No, because it's cheaper to just use higher grade fuel. I answered HIS question -- not one you think he should have asked. The point of that question was about building his engine for high compression, anyway. The octane booster was just a subpoint in the question. Building an A20 for high compression is expensive. you can't really deny that, either. Sure it'll get you some power, but it requires careful tuning just like a turbo. To do it right, it even requires dyno tuning with a wideband O2 sensor to precent detonation. Dyno time is expensive. Again, for the money spent on squeezing minimal power out of the A20 with high comp pistons, you could have other mods that add much more power. It's always good to mod the outside of the engine before the inside. Get it breathing better before you start messing with compression ratios. Detonation=dead engine no matter what kind of setup you're running. a high comp engine can detonate just as easily as a turbo engine.

3. as for the engine making sounds... jeez. engines will make different sounds for any kind of variable. outside air temp, gas quality, mixture quality, timing settings, everything. if you can't hear those differences, then YOU don't know what you're talking about. here, since you think i have to prove myself, here are some other sources that talk about pinging and engine sounds based on fuel mixture.

http://www.gadgetonline.com/pingfix.htm
http://www.cars.com/carsapp/national/?srv=parser&act=display&tf=/features/truthabout/gas/knockping.tmpl
http://www.interro.com/techgas.html

[mouchyn]

I never ran across lean motor that was knocking.

news flash:

just because you haven't run into it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. you haven't experienced everything and you certainly don't know everything. chill out and open your mind some. you might learn something useful.

if you wanna do some research on me, head over to www.preludepower.com
i'm a moderator over there

[SteveDX89]

1. i never said that boring over 3 thousandths was a huge increase in displacement. he asked if it adds horsepower. i said yes it does because it adds displacement. you can't argue that's not true, because it is. the bigger the engine, the more power it makes. He asked what "boring" was. so i told him. it's a physical modification made to piston and cylinder size. that's also 100% true. i also said it is expensive. If he has to ask what it is, we can assume he doesn't have the right tools to do the bore himself. that means he'll have to go to shop. Those charges added to the cost of bigger pistons, rings, head gasket, seals, bearings, and everything else you need to do it right is going to climb up past the $1500 mark pretty easily. For that much, you can have a entry level turbo setup or a slew of bolt ons that will yield much more power. before you critisize me so closely, why not actually read what i said instead of what you wanted me to say?



You said it would cost more for block work on an A20 than swapping an H22. You, sir, are an idiot. Perhaps if you knew what you were talking about, this wouldn't be an issue. Another member just rebuilt his A20 for higher performance including the head, not just the block, for less than $1000. He had a shop do it, so the place you get your numbers from seems to be your ass.

[mouchyn]

do you have links for the specs on that build? maybe how much he paid in shop labor? I'd would be willing to bet he got a deal on the labor charges and possibly even parts.

you're right, though. It would cost roughly $3000 to swap in the H22 with tranny, ecu, harness and mounts. You could certainly get an a20 block built for less than that. i was out of line there. you have to admit, though... for the amount of money it would cost to get a properly built A20 start to finish, you could have a pretty decent entry level turbo setup and make well over 200 whp.

I was making 220 WHP in my 3G prelude with just 8 psi on the stock b20a5. The total setup cost me less than $1500.

[rjudgey]

yep no denying turbos are good value for money but i'd rather have a N/A engine anyday for track use FWD and turbo boost is a recipe for disaster on FWD cars!! Loads of understeer!! Good for drag or light racing though. N/A performance isn't that much it all depends on your own skills, and with a turbo you'd be stupid not to re-build the engine otherwise theirs no way it's going to last too long before the bearings give out or pistons. So either way their expensive, hell getting any sort of real performance gain is expensive whether it's a B/H/K or A series engine although K's do seem to be by far the best outta the Honda factory lets just hope their more reliable than their F1 engines!! Otherwise we'll be rebuilding them every 100miles!! K20 with Rotrex supercharger can reliably put out over 300bhp without blowing up 100 miles later now that would be cool!! Just a case of choosing what nice chassis to use with it!! Ariel Atom would be nice at 500kg weight!!

[SteveDX89]

do you have links for the specs on that build? maybe how much he paid in shop labor? I'd would be willing to bet he got a deal on the labor charges and possibly even parts.

you're right, though. It would cost roughly $3000 to swap in the H22 with tranny, ecu, harness and mounts. You could certainly get an a20 block built for less than that. i was out of line there. you have to admit, though... for the amount of money it would cost to get a properly built A20 start to finish, you could have a pretty decent entry level turbo setup and make well over 200 whp.

I was making 220 WHP in my 3G prelude with just 8 psi on the stock b20a5. The total setup cost me less than $1500.

Ok, I was incorrect in saying it cost him less than $1000 and the shop built it. http://www.3geez.com/showthread.php?t=42153. It looks it cost him $1800 for everything he's done performance wise and he did do some of the engine building work. However, I think it would cost more than $3000 to do an H22 swap. I do agree that a turbo setup is the best way to go on an A20 engine. It will give the best for the buck but it's all preference. If the owner prefers all motor, then that's what he's gonna go with. Damn everything else, know what I mean? And that's across the board, no matter what engine it is.

[mag_pbg]

I have just one more question, this Thursday I plan on ordering the Mallory Hyfire III, and I have heard that is the same conection wise as the MSD, I've checked the wireing diagram, im just wondering what type of connectors I will need, I saw there are a couple of spots where three wires must connect. I don't want to ghetto rig this thing on so ant help would be appriciated.

[Oldblueaccord]

I have just one more question, this Thursday I plan on ordering the Mallory Hyfire III, and I have heard that is the same conection wise as the MSD, I've checked the wireing diagram, im just wondering what type of connectors I will need, I saw there are a couple of spots where three wires must connect. I don't want to ghetto rig this thing on so ant help would be appriciated.



Well the Mallory unit is good and most likly digital also where as the basic MSD is not its old analog tech. If you have three wires going together I would solder and shrink tube them. Its the best but it takes the longest. Need a pretty strong soldering gun 100w I would think would be handy.

I am not a big fan of the crimp on ends especially if it sees any weather. they just never hold long term.



wp

[mag_pbg]

Thanx man, I would rather take my time and do it right then have it crap out on me while im driving. And yes the Mallory is digital.