CyborgGT : 1993 Accord EX wagon

[SSMAccord]

This is a really cool find! I hope that you do get around to translating it, it’s always interesting to learn about the behind the scenes processes of these cars.

[CyborgGT]

An early Christmas gift to myself, a book titled "All About The U.S. Accord Wagon." Google Translate seems to be doing a decent enough job of converting these images to English, but it's a tedious process. I really should invest in a scanner... I've been needing a printer at home for a while now anyway, I'll probably have to spring for an all-in-one soon. Hopefully I'll be able to get some nice translated scans of this whole book up at some point. It's around 80 pages all in, but just looking at the photos it'll be worth the effort to nerd out on it all. It looks like they even went to the Marysville plant to talk to the engineers and people assembling the car.

[Sequence]

Lawd have mercy, well honestly at this point I'd just find the cheapest oem cat and use 2.25 to 2.5 inch exhaust adapters to clear emissions then call it a day. It definitely is nice to get back into it but being gone for 6 years is crazy. So much has changed in every aspect from the community, part availability and pricing, etc.

[SSMAccord]

I think I have the same Magnaflow cat, it seemed to make my exhaust “smell” less like modified car. We don’t have emissions testing in Michigan though, so I can’t say what the values are. I also have the TB mounted map sensor, you should still be ok getting the miscellaneous black boxes to work as you would have had to plug the old hose when you changed it around. The remainder of the hoses should still be available to run the components.

[CyborgGT]

Yeah, my current Magnaflow cat is CARB legal. CARB cats have been Colorado law for a little while now.

And I saw you pop into your threads to give a little update. It's so cool to see older members coming back. After all these years, I'm finally starting to properly appreciate these cars in stock form, so even a simple OEM/+ cruiser is looking cool these days. In a way, I wish I had gotten the wagon through emissions on the stock F right away and just enjoyed cruising the thing for a while, rather than immediately tackling the big build like I did. I do still have the F22 strapped to a dolly, and I'm not gonna lie, it's super tempting to do a full OEM rebuild on it just for the hell of it. But sadly I do not have that kind of money to work with.

[Sequence]

Got done reading through and man I am loving your setup and the progress is a serious motivational kick in my behind to get going on my cars which I found a bit hilarious because I'm essentially in your shoes except split between two cars as the motor is going into the sedan and the wagon is getting the clean up and facelift. Considering the elevation you're making some good power! Theoretically if you follow the rule that every 1000ft of elevation is a 3% loss in power you should be around 235. In terms of a cat do you know if the universal one you are running right now is certified as meeting CARB standards? That could be the issue if it isn't.

[CyborgGT]

Looking into it, some people swear by Magnaflow cats, so I don't know. I'll go after the cheap stuff first and reinstall the Accord's other emissions equipment (I need to buy a new EGR, and figure out the whole black box/vacuum arrangement since my MAP sensor is on the throttle body). The temporary plate I got for the car is expired now, and it looks like the most they'll charge me in total late fees is $100 if it takes longer than four months to buy actual plates for it, so I suppose I have all the time in the world to experiment rather than just throw an expensive cat at it.

All this while also trying to collect parts for the RSX, since my daily is beyond tired...

[Raf99]

Ya, i assumed your cat was OEM. And not having a good CAT would drastically impact exhaust readings. Not sure if it will solve your issue though. Quite the interesting venture as you really need to know your stuff to figure this out.
Assuming the cat's purpose is to clean up "green house gasses" then I would assume having OEM is the best you can do here and would improve O2 readings?

[CyborgGT]

Re-tune happened yesterday. Refresher, main differences since the last dyno session:

- Replaced the dried brake booster hose that was causing a huge vacuum leak

- Got rid of the thermal intake manifold gasket that may or may not have caused a vacuum leak of its own (at this point, I didn't care to test it)

- Repaired the frayed wires on the ECT sensor; a bad signal is known to affect emissions

Different dyno at a different shop on a cooler day, so the horsepower comparison is irrelevant. The main thing I'm excited for here is finally having a proper graph that not only displays torque, but both numbers over RPM rather than wheel speed. The real test will be when I go in for emissions. The tuner and I are both confident that the car's still going to fail, but he took 20% of the fuel out of the bottom end of the rev range that existed to compensate for that vacuum leak. It'll be interesting to see how that change alone affects my emissions. He feels my main 'problem,' though, is the catalytic converter (universal Magnaflow). It's as good a guess as any, so my plan from this point is to find a significantly better catalytic converter and install that fuel rail plus a new EGR. It's going to be expensive as hell, and therefore take time to afford, but it seems there's no point wasting money on another aftermarket cat unless I want a stupid number of them under my car. I need to see what my options are for cars with a factory 2.5" exhaust and order up a brand new OEM catalytic converter for one.

[CyborgGT]

My tuner is in the process of setting up his new shop, so I'm waiting on that for the re-tune. His dyno displays torque though, unlike PFI's, so it'll be worth the wait. I did replace the Hondata intake manifold gasket with a standard paper one just in case that was contributing to the vacuum leak. Maybe one day I'll get a new one and experiment sandwiching it between two paper gaskets. I also took out what I hope was the last tiny bit of tension on the throttle cable to see if that does anything; if not, I'll take your advice ssm and polish the edges of the throttle plate. The car's also finally in my name and I got a temporary license plate for it, so I can technically drive it on the street until the middle of next month regardless of legality. Here's to hoping I don't have to re-register it as inoperable when that date hits.

As for the EGR, I decided I want to see how much of a difference it actually makes by itself, rather than just guessing. It'll potentially cost more time, but I want to know. So I bought the parts below to make room for that, but won't be installing them until after the tune and another trip to emissions.






- AEM fuel rail (pt# 25-104BK), for its vertically-mounted banjo (can also be screwed into one of three other ports on the rail if you wanted)
- Rosko Racing adapter plate to fit an OEM/AEM-style rail to a Euro-R manifold
- Jack Spania Racing injector top hats to fit RDX injectors to an OEM/AEM-style rail.

Adapters on adapters, we'll see how tricky this setup is to figure out correct rail height spacing. The top hat kit doesn't include fuel rail spacers, so I'm now wondering if RDX injectors are shorter than stock H22s and extra spacing isn't required. Obviously I already have the Rosko adapters for the bottom end of the injector to seat into the manifold.

[CyborgGT]

I'm not worried about the zinc affecting the cat since my new engine should be sealed well enough that it shouldn't be burning much, if any, oil. Not much is going to be passing through the PCV system either. And I only used it for that initial break-in. A couple hundred miles driven, if even that much? I was aware of the risk beforehand, but I've already switched to conventional. Not sure when I'll switch to synthetic, but it'll be a while just to be safe. Also, my VR1 said "race oil" on the package, but was the normal honey color, so maybe it's not as aggressive with the ZDDP as the colored oils?

I just soldered the connector wires because I don't have the special pins or crimps to do it like OEM. One day I want to make a brand new harness though, and I'll go all out on it. I believe all of the OEM-shaped connectors can even be found new from third party manufacturers (or maybe it's from whoever supplies them to Honda). But that's another huge project, researching interference shielding and all that.

[UnicornHondaSE]

Skimming through, a few things...

If you really wanted to, you could have your oil sent to the lab, and they will test it and give you a read out of all the minerals in your oil.

I used to run the VR1 Valvoline race oil, the stuff that looks blue. From what I remember though is you don't want to run it with a cat because it can clog it. Same with the Shell rotella.

If you have not heard of this forum, there is a wealth of information here on Bob is the Oil Guy, or for short, BITOG.

Oh, as far as the wiring connectors go, you can stick a pick into the connector and depress it and the metal portion will slide out of the plastic housing. Maybe you are already aware of that... ?

That way you can crimp on a fresh wire to a new piece and slide it back in. But you have to find the correct metal piece for that specific plastic. I haven't looked into that in years but I know there were a few guys who took that up for Japanese car connectors.

[SSMAccord]

That is good news on the leak down!

For your throttle I suspect that the throttle body is the culprit. I’ve had a billet Blox unit since I’ve swapped to an H22 years ago and it sticks closed after sitting over night, essentially the opposite of what you’ve described. I just have to tap the pedal before start up and it works smoothly and as normal after that. To alleviate you issue, you might be able to open the throttle plate and polish the edge of the throttle plate itself to see if that will remove the friction that is stopping it from returning to idle position.

[CyborgGT]

Got some good leak down results, assuming I can trust this cheap gauge - and these are on a cold engine, I don't know how important that is for this kind of test. The air escaping seemed almost entirely coming up from the crankcase. No bubbles in the coolant reservoir, couldn't hear anything in the intake manifold (although admittedly I was doing this next to a busy highway), and putting my ear up to the muffler tips was like listening to a seashell with how faint the airflow was (a seashell might actually be louder).

I wanted to do a compression test as well, just to have those numbers, but the heat as it got closer to noon was giving me a headache. At this point I need to go back out there to make sure the TPS is calibrated correctly, but then I think I'm ready to ask the tuner for another dyno session. The throttle cable is still doing this weird thing where when I let off the pedal it still idles high (engine still cold), but then when I pull up on it from behind (I can't even feel through my shoe that I'm actually moving the pedal any), the idle immediately drops. Maybe my cable just has slightly too much tension? I can mess around with that, too.

[CyborgGT]

Yeah, I'll be trying to do both compression and leak down tests tomorrow. Getting out to the wagon, which is in storage 20 minutes away, is a bit of a pain to squeeze into my day. But suppose a valve is bent, therefore creating a condition where the combustion chamber is never completely sealed, wouldn't that mean that the bent valve would cause the cylinder to fail the compression test, just as much as bad piston rings?


I went to the junkyard last week...

Firstly, it was sad to see this 5th gen there. The color scheme isn't at all to my taste, but it was obvious someone put some real effort into this car, only for it to end up here:








Eventually I took home a small collection of random pieces:
- Manual gauge cluster, so I can swap out my auto fuel/coolant gauge face
- Spare coolant sensors/switches
- Front plate bracket (while I won't be running it in Colorado, it'll be smart to put on for road trips just to give cops one less reason to pull me over)
- The exhaust cut-out section of a coupe/sedan rear lip




Before I went out to the yard, I had a good look around the engine bay and had a long think on what I should grab. One of the things I found was these frayed wires going into the connector on the thermostat housing's temp sensor (and according to Majestic, it is a temp sensor and not a switch). One of the wires was hanging on by just a few strands, so hopefully this is is part of my problem. So you'll see in my new parts collection a clipped connector, which I soldered on:




The bumper lip section was needed because the one I had already plastic-welded on (after only eyeballing a good position for it) had to be cut back off during the exhaust fabrication:




I took the gauge cluster home to remove the one gauge face... only to once again get distracted fantasizing about a future custom gauge cluster using Speedhut dials. I wonder how doable this is on such a 'modern' vehicle, like if VTEC functionality is tied into the factory gauges and their circuitry being hooked up.




During the two drives out to emissions testing, both times the throttle seemed to be sticking by the time we got there (evidently it seems to have something to do with the engine warming up). We'd come to a stop, but the engine was still idling around 2,000 rpm. We found that we had to pull up on the gas pedal and the revs would finally drop. I'm hoping that this was the throttle cable and not the aftermarket throttle body, which are sometimes known to stick. For what it's worth, I have a cast Professional Products throttle body. It sounds like the billet throttles are the ones prone to sticking. Either way, I removed my throttle cable, and the cable action was a bit tough, but still worked smoothly enough. I could imagine it getting worse when heated, though, so I ordered a new one. Problem is, the new one was crap. You can see below that the threaded adjustment section was off, so I couldn't get rid of the slack. I took it back off, then exercised some brake cleaner and then silicone lubricant through the old cable sleeve and re-installed it. It's smoother now, so hopefully that holds up at least for a while until I can find a better-quality 'new' cable.




Something I didn't photograph was the wrapping of my ECU's USB cable with an interference-shielding sleeve, since my tuner said he was having trouble connecting to the ECU during tuning because of interference. I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling it might be all the gauge wiring going into the nearby glove box. I don't know how well the link below will work at taking you directly to the exact part, but at McMaster-Carr, the part number is 6971T11. Polyester fabric with copper wire shielding for its flexibility, of a 3/16" ID and overlap enclosure. We'll see if it works...

https://www.mcmaster.com/catalog/129/986/6971T11


I then gave the engine its first oil change since break-in. This is high-zinc Valvoline VR1 10w-30, combined with the assembly lube and graphite-looking stuff that the head machinist put on the cams during the engine build. It has seen idling up to operating temp a few times to check fluids, on-and-off trailers for trips to three shops, heat cycling at the tuner's shop while he messed with the tune at idle, the dyno session, and two 45ish minute round-trip drives to emissions. I replaced it with Castrol GTX conventional, because it was the only thing I saw at Walmart that wasn't synthetic or generically branded. This is all that was stuck to the magnetic drain plug:




I smeared it on some paper and didn't find much in the way of substantial metal shavings. It felt pretty smooth:




No real shimmer in the oil pan either. The stuff that pooled in the middle that I smeared around I felt was probably the graphite and an expected level of ultra-fine metal particles (I'm obviously no expert, but from watching YouTube videos on the subject). At least it wasn't rough between my fingers. The bigger specs are just bubbles; as I tried to get rid of them, more would appear:




After I poured that out, still nothing that worried me. Only a couple pieces of slight substance:




And the surface of the enclosed pan I poured it into, again its giving me confidence in a healthy break-in:




One mod I really want to do asap is an oil filter relocation. I knew it was going to spill onto the down pipe, so I wrapped it in some plastic to minimize cleanup:




I also changed my mind on reinstalling the EVAP canister for now. After looking at vacuum diagrams, it means re-installing the emissions "black box," which I can't find. Apparently I threw it away during the engine swap. A junkyard pickup would be easy, but there's a small vacuum line going from the charcoal canister to the black box, where it plugs into a "purge cut-off solenoid valve." I was hoping that would go straight from the charcoal canister to the intake manifold. I can't tell from pictures, but it looks like it'll mean messing with wiring. Not-so-long term, I do want to fully re-install all emissions equipment. One day Colorado will be as strict as California, and I want to be prepared for that. Given the re-wiring, I feel like it would be easier to do both EVAP and EGR at the same time. We'll see if I can pass emissions without them.