EG6 Air-con mod part 4

For intermittent air-con problems, u may want to check this plug.  In my case, one of the pins in the plugs was loose.  What I did was to rewire to bypass the plug.

EG6 Air-con mod part 3

Just a close-up view on the air-con piping.

Before

After

It may not be obvious, but one of the piping going from the compressor to the condenser is not visible anymore ;p. Giving it a slightly cleaner look.

What I did was to use the condenser piping from DC2 system for the modification. The piping goes down instead of up, which then hides the piping from view.  Alternatively, u may try to get the installer to bent it downwards to have the same effect.

EG6 Air-con mod part 2

After sorting out the wiring for the air-con system previously, I discovered my air-con condenser was punctured which caused it to be leaking.  It presented a good chance to swap out to a bigger condenser and rework on the installation.

The new condenser is 23"x13" and 1/2" in thickness.  Comparing to the old condenser on the left :).  Be mindful of the size of the fittings for the hose when choosing your condenser.  The cost of the condenser and fittings is about SGD$80 and is easily available.

Its properly secured to the chasis using nuts and bolts instead of cable-ties.  The single 8" will be sufficient and there is enough space for a additional one, if the needs arise.

I managed to wire the radiator fan to operate when the compressor starts working for better cooling efficiency.

No more sweat during hot afternoon traffic jams!! 

EG Steering Fluid Tank

Nothing major.  The steering fluid tank had a crack and the fluid was dripping all over, creating a mess.

Manage to get a replacement from the yard :)

Do note that the tank for the SOHC and DOHC are different in the mounting point when u get your replacement tank.

Valve Adjustment; aka Lash, Clearance

http://civic-eg.com/viewtopic.php?t=7491

Got the instructions from civic-eg.com for the valve clearance adjustment. :) Just follow the instructions in the forum.

Checking the clearance on the intake side.  

It was varying about 0.002"-0.004" difference before the adjustments which is causing the engine to be noisier then usual.

Do remember to make sure u have your car park overnight before commencing the job.  If not, the measurements will not accurate due to heat expansion.

The difference after the adjustment??

1) Engine is quieter
2) The AFR readings are more stable now and fluctuate less then before, which resulted in a smoother ride.
3) The feel in power increment is significant.

Rad Fan addition

This is the KOYO radiator that is currently fitted in the car.  It was meant for the DC2.

The main fan is the original EG6 fan which will not bolt on directly to the radiator.  So it is recommended to get the DC2 fan to make things easier.  As u can see, in my case, "brackets" will made to fit the EG6 fan on the radiator.  

Additionally, I will added a 12" aux fan for the sake better air-con cooling as the condenser seats just behind the radiator.  This is not because of trying to lower the ECT further.

Just having the main fan and the upsized radiator maintained the ECT at about 80C (176F) in the hot afternoon sun (ambient temp. of 32C locally). 

The aux fan clearance from the stock exhaust manifold is about 15mm.  While the main fan shroud has to be cut slightly to clear the manifold.

Another to note about the DC2 radiator is that the return hose is lower that the EG5 radiator.  This causes the hose to stretch and rub against the gearbox mounting.  Therefore, I had a aluminum pipe machined to extend the length of the hose to over the rubbing.

EG6 Air-con part 1

Recently my air-con wasn't working well. So after a quick check, I found out that the air-con fan wasn't spinning.  So off the bumper!!

I was going to replace the fan, but after further trouble-shooting, it was actually just the relay that was faulty.. 

Anyway, I made use of the chance to tidy up the front - Did some rewiring and securing the air-con fan (It was really loose and was making noises before)

Although it cant be seen after the bumper goes back up, but it feels good to know that wiring are in order and the fan is secure :).

Anyway, some simple air-con trouble shoot tips before going further.

1) First check if the fuse are blown: 

Under dash - fuse 13 (7.5A)

Under the bonnet - fuse 35 (20A), fuse 39 (50A) & fuse 41 (80A)

2) Next check the two relays - one is for the compressor and the other is for the fan.

Hondata S300 and IAT compensation (IGN)

The previous article I mentioned that the Fuel Compensation for IAT was affecting my AFR readings.  After more datalogging and observations, I found that the bigger culprit was the Ignition Compensation for IAT.  Essentially it was retarding the ignition once the IAT sensor reads 51C and above, resulting in the leaning of the engine.  The leaning did not reoccur once I made adjustments to the compensation values.

However, the best way is still to relocate the IAT sensor to the air intake pipings like in the EKs instead of the intake manifold.

Hondata S300 and IAT compensation

More to share on tuning using S300.  

Background: I was tuning my car for part throttle (cruising) and managed to have a stable 14.7 AFR reading through column 1 to 5.  However after I shut down the engine for a while (couple of hours) and drove again,  I got lean readings (greater than 14.7).  I was expecting richer AFR than 14.7 rather leaner reading as the engine has cooled down.

I did a datalog and realised that the IAT readings were quite high which caused the ECU to reduce the duty cycle, resulting in a leaner AFR reading.  This might be the IAT sensor being heated up by the hot intake manifold.

2 lessons learnt:

1) When tuning your engine, try to make sure the IAT and ECT values are the same for each run as it affects the AFR value greatly.

2)   If possible, try to find a way to insulate the IAT sensor or minimise heat transfer from the Intake Manifold to get a more accurate reading.

Once u manage to tune your engine as desired (with constant ECT and IAT values),  you can adjust the fuel compensation for IAT and ECT accordingly since the default value may not be the ideal compensation required.

Hondata S300 closed loop operations

Since I had the S300 installed and tuned for more than one month ago, I have been trying to fine tune the fuel.  The main problem that I had was to enable closed loop operation after I have complete my open loop tuning.  The AFR runs really lean (17.0) after I enable the closed loop operation even though AFR reading during open loop operations were fine.

After going through the Hondata forum, I found some solution.

1) As the car was usually driven in closed loop operations, the ECU would have Long Term fuel trim inputs which will affect the duty cycle. The solution is to reset the ECU before tuning.

2) The symptoms above which I describe apparently affects only some ECU, the work around is to set the short term fuel trim settings under the closed loop tab to 0 for both maximum and minimum short term adjustments and tune the car in closed loop operation instead of open loop operations.  (remember set the values back to the original after completion of tuning)

3) Next is to adjust the Rate of change to the recommend setting by hondata as below:

This will minimise AFR fluctuations, thus improving drivability and milage.  The settings that I used was 5 for all slow value and 99 for all Fast value. 

Plse note: The tuning done on my car was based on the PLX wideband AFR.  Plse do not attempt to tune the car without at least wideband AFR, however u may try altering the rate of change even without a wideband AFR.

Definitions:
Short term fuel trim is the amount of fuel adjustment made by the ECU depending on the AFR reading

Long term fuel trim is the amount of fuel adjustment made by the ECU based on the average Short Term fuel trim made over a period of time

Rate of Change is the rate of change of fuel trim made by the ECU.