Great thread and nice car! I sometimes think I am one of the last ones tracking these!
I am interested in the hub/axle upgrade for my GS-R, what kind of axles did you go with? I am generally suspicious of aftermarket axles in general, and the OEM RSX Type S appear to be discontinued. I am wondering if there is a particular source that you went with.
I test drove this exact same car in 1996. I ended up buying a GTI with the VR6. That wasn't a terrible car, but I should have bought the Integra. Nice find.
Whew, watching this car come together is like reliving my past! I picked up a 94' and it received many of the same upgrades as your car. Then I proceeded to drive it in as many ways as possible daily, roadtrip, autocross, track, and eventually rallycross too. I should've kept that one.
racinjason said:Great thread and nice car! I sometimes think I am one of the last ones tracking these!
I am interested in the hub/axle upgrade for my GS-R, what kind of axles did you go with? I am generally suspicious of aftermarket axles in general, and the OEM RSX Type S appear to be discontinued. I am wondering if there is a particular source that you went with.
Thanks brother! I appreciate it! You're not alone, haha!
I ended up buying one of the cheap RockAuto axles (TrakMotive). Since new OEM axles are essentially discontinued, I figured a new aftermarket axle was likely a safer bet than a ~20 year old used axle from a junkyard car/eBay. If I end up having any problems with it, I'll post my findings and try to figure out a better solution. For my situation, on my B18c1 motor at altitude, I'm not terribly concerned about it.
Just curious, do you track yours in any specific class?
JoeTR6 said:I test drove this exact same car in 1996. I ended up buying a GTI with the VR6. That wasn't a terrible car, but I should have bought the Integra. Nice find.
Thank you!
I've always loved the wookie noise of the VR6, so I don't fault you there! It would appear that the years have been kinder to the DC2 than they have been to the MK3 VW cars. It would be fun to build and restore an old VR6 though... A couple of the builds over on Deutsche Auto Parts have made me want to build a VR6 one of these days:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc25R_-R7Po
Nitroracer (Forum Supporter) said:Whew, watching this car come together is like reliving my past! I picked up a 94' and it received many of the same upgrades as your car. Then I proceeded to drive it in as many ways as possible daily, roadtrip, autocross, track, and eventually rallycross too. I should've kept that one.
Sadly enough, when these cars were at what appeared to be their peak, I was more into DSM's and turbo Subaru's at the time. I'm a little late to the party.
Many years later, I am finding the joys in these little VTEC machines and haven't so much as thought about anything EJ2x or DSM related in years! Although I wouldn't kick an Evo 8/9 out of my garage.
I go through cars like some people go through socks... but I think you're onto something. I really should keep this car for the long haul.
We cleaned up the tune just a bit (played around the VTEC engagement to find our missing mid-range, set it at 5300rpm) and I finally received the dyno files from my tuner! Unfortunately, for the baseline pull we did with the stock OBD2 ECU we weren't reading RPM. But here's the comparison from stock ECU to tuned on Hondata S300:
^^^Above VTEC, she picked up 4-8whp on average, with an additional peak of 5whp. Not a ton of power, but decent gains up top.
Final power and torque (logging RPM at that point):
I was able to export the CSV file to the NASA average horsepower calculator... what do you know, my guess hit the nail on the head! 154 average HP!
So, it really depends on where the car ends up weight wise, as it'll be pretty close to maxing out TT6. If I weigh in at 2800 lbs, run Super 200 tires and no aero, (also no BTM unless I want to remove the OEM lip spoiler), my max would be 155whp average... that's close! With RC-1's, I can run 160whp average... I might get the 0.3 bonus for tire width (under 257mm) if the car weighs over 2749 lbs... so, I'll have a little room to play with, but overall, the car is in a pretty good spot. I'm excited to put the car on the scales and see what I have to work with!
Well, I went to have my car dyno certified for NASA today... yes, I know, I just had the car dyno tuned last week. I'm not trying to throw anyone under the bus, but the folks I was working with to tune the car were not familiar with NASA's procedures/regulations, etc. Not to mention their shop is extremely far from my house. They were more or less drag racing Honda guys, not really road racing guys.
Either way, I took the car to Dyno-Pro, who seemingly does the majority of NASA dyno certifications in the area. There are a few discrepancies:
-It was a bit cooler today than it was last week. All numbers are SAE corrected, but it's hard to say if that made a difference.
-Today they dyno'd in 4th gear, vs them doing pulls in 3rd last week. I'm not sure if that had any effect on peak power.
-The guy that was tuning my car last week allowed the dyno to "self-calibrate". He never actually connected anything to the car to read RPM. I think he just had the dyno look for 3000rpm while using either the tach or maybe Hondata software. Either way, it seemingly effected the shape of the curve. You can see this affected the fuel cut RPM, as the "self-calibrating" software was reading fuel cut around 7950rpm vs today when they actually pulled the RPM signal it showed fuel cut around 8100rpm (which is where it should be). I actually told him I needed RPM (not just speed), otherwise, I don't think he would have calibrated for RPM at all... you can probably figure out why I didn't want to go back to him for a certification. Not to mention it taking a week for him to send me the actual dyno files I requested (so I could upload them into NASA's calculator).
Either way, while the charts are similar, peak power went up to 163.8whp (we'll call it 164whp).
When scaled for speed, which I wonder if it had an affect on peak power:
When you overlay the 2 runs on different dynos using RPM, you can see it looks like the new graph goes higher... horsepower is just torque sustained at RPM... I wonder if another reason the new dyno read a bit higher is the RPM was scaled correctly:
Although oddly enough, it barely mattered for purposes of NASA's average HP calculation, as it only went up 1hp, from 154hp to 155hp.
122 ft lb's of torque. Ouch. Then subtract 18% for altitude. Double ouch.
docwyte said:122 ft lb's of torque. Ouch. Then subtract 18% for altitude. Double ouch.
Haha, yeah, she's a gutless little 1.8L! The relative light weight of the car (~2600 lbs), combined with the short gearing from the Type R transmission certainly help it not feel school-bus slow, but no one will ever confuse her for a stump-pulling monster. Although that short gearing has it's drawbacks- the car spins ~4000rpm around 70mph! There's only so much you can do with a tiny NA 1.8L from the 90's!
Fortunately, if I need a bit more torque in my life, we have an answer for that. Even if I don't drive it very often (technically it's my wife's car haha!):
Well, I got the new front wheels bearings, Karcepts hubs and 36mm axles installed today. Good lord, that's a terrible job. It's been a while and I had forgotten the pain of doing this on jackstands. Several issues arose:
-I've been using the same long, threaded bolt (with long, beefy nut to crank on) that came in a wheel bearing install kit for years. Today, for whatever reason, trying to get the first wheel bearing out, it stripped itself while I was using my impact on it. No idea why. 1st trip to the store. From that point on, I just used a giant 32mm wrench, which was oddly satisfying.
-Karcepts sends you shims with the kit, saying in some rare occasions, the axle will hit the knuckle and seize. On the left side, yep, it seized when trying to tighten the axle nut. No big deal. Just remove it and put the shim on. Good to go. Onto the right side...
-The right side turned into a nightmare... popped the axle in, sure enough, it seized against the knuckle, just like the left side... ok, I'll throw a shim on (they only supply you with 2)... nope, still seized. I'm out of shims. E36 M3. Well, time to head to Ace Hardware, who luckily, had the exact shims Karcepts sent out. Hooray! 2 shims and it's no longer seized. Sweet. I'm having a problem getting the right axle to turn freely with the wheels off and suspension at full droop ... I can't see anything it's getting hung up on, but the angle of the axle looks pretty sharp... I turn the car on while on jack stands, thinking I'll row through a gear to see if anything sticks out... As I start to go into gear, the car (right side) has a massive vibration and loud noise... E36 M3. I instinctively go to press on the brakes out of habit- completely forgetting they're not connected. Sigh. I'm hoping I didn't damage the caliper(s) from touching the brakes with no pads to press down on...
I'm completely stumped. I put a jack underneath the right side lower control arm, out of morbid curiosity, to see what would happen if I made the axle level... when the axle becomes level, all noise and vibration goes away completely and the axle spins smoothly with ease... was it the angle?
I take a closer look at the inside of the right axle, where it connects to the transmission... for the life of me, I can't get the axle to fully seat in the transmission. It's about 5mm away from the large plate on the axle from touching the transmission like stock. However, Karcepts did send me a ~5mm spacer to put on the end of it, to avoid leaks... maybe it's not supposed to be flush with the transmission due to the spacer? I have no idea and Karcepts didn't send any instructions for that specifically (which is odd, as they're usually extremely thorough). The wheel is engaging/getting power. The axle is spinning without issue... but it's not flush. I'll write Karcepts to see if there's maybe something I'm missing.
-I now have a slow transmission fluid leak from the right/passenger side of the car. Not sure if I potentially damaged the seal during install, or if there's something internal from the axle. For the record, I installed brand new axle seals ~6 months ago when I put in the B16b transmission and they've never leaked a drop.
So, I go to drive the car... I notice at low speeds (~5mph or under) when braking the car is now making a clunking noise... berkeley my life. It sounds more or less like it's coming from the right side. I'm not sure if I damaged the caliper from pressing the brakes with nothing to squeeze... or if one of the pads isn't seated right (the calipers did fight me more than normal)... or if the springy brake hardware got bent up today (at least one of them did seem loose)... or if I scuffed up the rotors/pads (no comment)... or if it has something to do with the axle... or if I somehow damaged one of the ball joints... I have no idea. All I know is that between wrenching and making 2 trips to the store, I worked on this stupid thing from 8am until 5pm. I then called it a night.
Beyond the clunking when coming to a stop, the car seemingly drives fine. I'll probably get to troubleshooting when I'm no longer seeing red.
Needless to say: I wouldn't recommend this swap to anyone running a B-series engine. It seemed like a good idea at the time. In hindsight, I would had just found some OEM hubs for this and continued using my stock axles.
For what it's worth, the smaller 32mm axles are about 1.8 lbs lighter per side vs the 36mm axles.
Side note: when I removed the old hubs that were on the car (DuraGo), I knocked out the studs and measured them: they measured at 0.4810"... ARP says their Honda studs (110-7711) are 0.485"... I'm pretty confident that the ARP studs would have worked just fine in the cheap DuraGo hubs. For reference the hubs were marked as part number TA95067.
I've come to the conclusion that all of my cars really need to be turbo's up here for me to have any enjoyment driving them. My wifes cayenne diesel drives so much nicer than my Land Cruiser, even though the engine supposedly make the same amount of torque. The turbo diesel just is much happier at altitude. Ironically elsewhere on the planet Toyota equips the Land Cruiser with a V8 turbo diesel....
In my effort to get the right side axle fully seated (I'm not convinced it will fully seat), I banged on it with a piece of wood and a mallet... it never went in any further, but after driving it around for a bit, I noticed I did tear the inner boot.
Well, I have to remove the axle anyway to inspect and potentially inspect the seal, so I figured I would just order a new cheap RockAuto Axle. I would order new OEM, but they're discontinued and I don't know if I trust 20 year old removed axles off of Ebay. Last time I went with Trakmotive (I know nothing about them, only that they're "hearted" on RockAuto). This time, I ordered APWI.
When looking at the photos, the outer mount appears to have a slightly different, more tapered mounting area (vs the Trakmotives).
Here are the Trakmotive axles:
By contrast, here are the APWI axles:
And for further reference, here are a set of used OEM axles:
Just looking at the Trakmotive axle, it would appear the mating surface is seemingly a bit more broad. Maybe that would explain why I needed 2 shims (~1mm each) to get them to not seize onto the face of the knuckles. When I put in the APWI axles, I'll report if it seizes against the knuckle or not.
docwyte said:I've come to the conclusion that all of my cars really need to be turbo's up here for me to have any enjoyment driving them. My wifes cayenne diesel drives so much nicer than my Land Cruiser, even though the engine supposedly make the same amount of torque. The turbo diesel just is much happier at altitude. Ironically elsewhere on the planet Toyota equips the Land Cruiser with a V8 turbo diesel....
Probably close to half of the cars I've owned in my life have been turbocharged. They are helpful at our elevation.
My eyes were truly opened when I bought a 2020 Tesla Model 3 Performance a few years back- EV's have zero power loss at elevation and instantaneous torque. No transmission- so no gear hunting, no lag time whatsoever. They run the exact same 1/4 mile times at Bandimere (~5800 ft) as they do at sea level.
After owning the Tesla, everything else felt almost painfully slow... but I realized that I had more fun driving my old NA Miata (with a mighty naturally aspirated 128hp!) than I did my Tesla. The Tesla was extremely fast, but it was also a very isolated experience. I found out that when it came to fun, I preferred the sensation of speed over gobs of power... which I why I've owned mostly slow cars for the past year lol. But when I put the top down in the S2000 it feels like it's going much faster than it actually is! That doesn't mean the S2000 won't get a SoS Supercharger sometime in the next few years...
I went to a local shop (MoFab) today to get the car weighed. I weighed the car without me inside of it, thinking I would end up weighing it again when I installed coilovers and corner balanced it.
Either way, with a full interior, spare tire/jack in the trunk and 1/4 tank of gas, she weighed in at: 2568 lbs.
Honestly, that's lighter than I thought she would be!
I've been playing around with the NASA TT6 calculator numbers:
https://form.jotform.com/83435707892164
Which, at 6'2", I weigh about 215 lbs, plus gear, so let's call it an even 220 lbs. Which would make my competition weight around 2788 lbs.
According to their calculator, with the following options ticked, my declared max average horsepower would have to be at or under 156hp (I'm at 155whp max average right now!):
-Manually, mechanically actuated throttle body (no electronic servo) +0.3
-NASA Section Width 257mm or less with MCW greater than 2749 lbs +0.3 (I plan on running 225's up front)
-Maxxis Victra RC-1 tires +1.6
-Suspension design utilizing upper “A-arm” or “wishbone” type control arms (front or rear) -0.5
-Single rear wing or spoiler -1.0
-FWD +0.6
^^^That is if they count the weak sauce OEM rear wing/spoiler. I've asked around and gotten mixed responses for if it counts or not (it was standard on the GS-R). I've written NASA for clarification.
WITHOUT the penalty for the OEM spoilier (or if I remove it), my average allowed max horsepower goes up to 165hp. Or, if I want to keep my current horsepower (without the wing), I can drop the weight all the way down to 2640 lbs (around ~140 lbs of extra weight can come out), but going under 2749 lbs means the tires have to measure below the 226mm tool, otherwise, I lose ~3hp/or can't go below 2680 lbs. I'm not sure if the 225/45/15 RC-1's I plan on running will fit the 226mm tool.
Alternately, if they don't count the wing (or if I remove it), I could move up to a faster tire- like the RE71RS or A052.
Or, if they're going to count the wing, I could always just buy a real wing, that actually produces some type of downforce to make the car faster on track (9 Lives Racing?).
I will likely add some weight in the form of the Greddy oil cooler that's sitting in my garage. According to my cheap bathroom scale, the oil cooler (including all components) weight in at 7.8 lbs.
I also plan on running Fortune Auto 510 coilovers, which will likely shed a few lbs vs the Koni/ITR setup... but I'll also be running wider front wheels (9" vs 8"), which will add a couple pounds back in. I'm assuming weight will come in close to what it is right now when all is said and done.
Either way, I feel like that's not a bad place to be in! I'll await word from NASA to see what kind of ruling they make regarding the OEM wing and go from there.
I also reached out to Karcepts regarding their 36mm hubs being used with B-series transmissions. To avoid too much clutter, I'll simply post the most pertinent parts of that conversation:
My initial questions:
1. My stock 32mm right/passenger side axle was essentially flush against the transmission… when I installed the new 36mm axle (cheap aftermarket axle), I couldn’t get it to seat flush against the transmission. The flat part of the inner axle is about 5mm or so away the transmission. It still engages, I can drive the car, seemingly without issue… but I’m just wondering if that’s normal? Is the new axle supposed to stick out further away from the transmission than stock?
2. When installing the new 36mm left side axle I had to use one of the supplied shims to keep the axle from binding against the knuckle- no worries. On the right side, I found that 1 shim wasn’t enough- I ended up making a trip to Ace Hardware and picking up nearly identical shims as sent and had to use 2 of them to keep the axle from binding. Admittedly, I was using cheap aftermarket axles for a 2002-2006 RSX Type S. Will the additional shim adding an additional 1mm of length potentially cause any problems?
Karcepts Initial Response:
1. That 5mm gap is what is taken up by our B-series spacer, so that will be resolved.
2. On the aftermarket axles, sometimes they will add dust seals on the outer joint, and most are easily removable.. they may be a metal or rubber ring. If you can bang those off, that may help you to not have to run the shims. It is more ideal to clearance the axles or knuckles and not run the shims if you don't have to.
My Follow-up question:
1. Just for clarification, are you saying it’s normal for the large flat portion of the right/passenger side axle to be about 5mm or so away from the transmission (the stock axle was essentially flush against the transmission when fully seated)? Am I understanding that the gap is caused by the B-series spacer? I just want to make sure it’s supposed to be like that before I start tracking the car haha!
Karcepts Follow-up Response:
1. Yes, the K series trans input is 5mm longer than the B, that is what you would observe. The B series spacer is 5mm thick with an o-ring to take up the gap. A lot of times it works fine w/o our o-ring and spacer as well.
I'm only posting this in the event someone finds this thread in the future while trying to run 36mm hubs. Happy hunting!
When I'm referring to the axle sticking out on the right/passenger side of the transmission, this is what I'm referring to:
I'm trying to track down that clunking/popping noise, it's coming from the front end, but I can't really tell which side. Notes:
-It only occurs when braking, typically only when pressing the pedal very lightly, at very low speed (around ~5mph or less).
-It does not occur when accelerating, turning, or braking from higher speeds.
-I'm using the same brake pads and rotors that were on the car before- I never had an issue before.
-Admittedly, while installing the new 36mm hubs/axles, while the car was in the air, I turned on the car and ran it through a gear to make sure nothing was binding... when I heard a noise/vibration on the right side, I instinctively pressed the brake pedal, even though the calipers weren't connected, like an idiot. I was able to use a C-clamp to press the caliper back in and the car is braking just fine, but I'm not sure if this might be related.
-When shaking the front wheels (while off the ground), they feel tight. All ball joints (upper, lower and tie-rod) are less than a year old. I can try to add some grease to a couple of them with zerks fittings on them (a bit squeezed out upon removal), but I'm not convinced that is my problem. All ball joints came loose fairly easily with a ball joint separator tool. I did have to fully remove the knuckles to get the hubs out, so all ball joints were loosened and tightened.
-I was reaching out to Karcepts to make sure the right/passenger side axle not being seated was fully normal, as this noise didn't occur before. Thus far, Karcepts has essentially stated that because the RSX-S axles are longer than the DC2 axles, this is fairly normal.
-I can double check that everything is torqued down properly, but I'm 99% sure I torqued everything to factory spec and figured I would be hearing noise at speed if I didn't.
Here is a video of the noise I'm talking about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XKX9zMmdcI
Any ideas on where to start?
I had a similar noise on my Chevy Volt and it was loose lug nuts. My torque wrench was off and I was not clamping the wheel enough. I used a known, good wrench and it fixed my issue.
In reply to eastpark :
I have a couple other torque wrenches, maybe I'll give them a try to see if anything tightens down further!
roninsoldier83 said:racinjason said:Great thread and nice car! I sometimes think I am one of the last ones tracking these!
I am interested in the hub/axle upgrade for my GS-R, what kind of axles did you go with? I am generally suspicious of aftermarket axles in general, and the OEM RSX Type S appear to be discontinued. I am wondering if there is a particular source that you went with.
Thanks brother! I appreciate it! You're not alone, haha!
I ended up buying one of the cheap RockAuto axles (TrakMotive). Since new OEM axles are essentially discontinued, I figured a new aftermarket axle was likely a safer bet than a ~20 year old used axle from a junkyard car/eBay. If I end up having any problems with it, I'll post my findings and try to figure out a better solution. For my situation, on my B18c1 motor at altitude, I'm not terribly concerned about it.
Just curious, do you track yours in any specific class?
I do not have the car built for any specific class. I have owned it 20 years, and it has been my track day/fun car the entire time. I just have track specific mods/parts, like an ITR trans with a 4.9 FD, safety, suspension and brake stuff.
Thanks for the update on the hub/axle project, looks like I'll stick with my 32mm based on your feedback. Its starting to be a bit of a hassle being that these cars are 25+ years old. It is tough to find quality (OEM) replacement parts for track duty.
In reply to racinjason :
I started a troubleshooting thread for this axle (or at least clunking noise) issue:
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/help-with-clunking-noise-after-installing-new-hubsaxlesbearings/258899/page1/
I'm actually considering going back to a 32mm setup (SKF is a seemingly reputable company that still makes hubs for the DC2). This is a bit ridiculous. If someone would have documented this swap and the potential issues involved, I would have stayed far, far away.
In addition to here, I made a thread over on HT, documenting my findings, so other people can make an informed decision.
I pulled the axles today... I have a potential theory:
1. I should have mentioned something: when I installed them the first time, I only used 1 shim on the left/driver side, whereas I had to use 2 shims on the right/passenger side. When I put the axle nuts on, I torqued them down to spec, but before staking them down, I took the car around the block to see if it drove ok. When I came back, I double checked the torque (220 ft-lbs) before staking the axle nuts... on the left/driver side, the axle nut didn't move in the least... on the right/passenger side, it actually did require a bit of extra torque. The shims should be pressed up against the bearing/axle, but it makes me wonder if having 2 shims causes them to squirm around just a bit, as the shims are not a remotely tight fit on the axle.
All of the lug studs were tight/fully installed.
The axle on the left/passenger side stuck out past the nut by about 1mm... on the right/passenger side, the axle nut was roughly flush with the axle (likely due to the extra 1mm shim used). The whole nut appeared to be threaded, so I'm assuming there was enough thread to torque it down? But maybe that was an issue?
Karcepts was right about some aftermarket axles having metal/rubber dust covers on them. If only they would have included that in their instructions... there's certainly a possibility that removing the dust shield could have negated the need for the shims. At this point, I don't care, I don't want to keep pulling things apart and putting them back together- I'm going back to a 32mm setup (SKF hubs and bearings are on their way). But, for anyone that finds this in the future, remove the dust shields from the axles:
I sat the axles next to each other... I know Karcepts says they will work... but there's about an inch difference in their total length.
Left/driver's side (technially the "right" side for an RSX-S):
Right/passenger side (technically the "left" side for an RSX-S):
Compared using the Karcepts B-series spacer (right/passenger side):
Without the Karcepts spacer (holding it in my hand):
I'm sure these will "work", but given the disparity in length (especially noticeable on the right/passenger side), I'm going to pass. I'm wondering if the extra length also contributed to the binding/noise on the right/passenger side at full droop. Either way, I might go back to this setup if I ever K-swap the car, but for a B-series making ~160whp, I'm going back to the stock 32mm setup. Unless you're boosted and making big power, I wouldn't recommend this setup on a B-series car.
Glad your having fun w it. I had to retire my 87 crx si to storage and drive my wife's 94 teg when our first one was born. Fun car. Built solid.
The B-pin got me to years ago. Then I bought the correct punch. Good advice
Glad your having fun w it. I had to retire my 87 crx si to storage and drive my wife's 94 teg when our first one was born. Fun car. Built solid.
The B-pin got me to years ago. Then I bought the correct punch. Good advice
greasemonkeyreborne_5x1gs said:Glad your having fun w it. I had to retire my 87 crx si to storage and drive my wife's 94 teg when our first one was born. Fun car. Built solid.
The B-pin got me to years ago. Then I bought the correct punch. Good advice
Back when I was in the Army, I used to have a buddy with a 1987 CRX Si! Fun cars! I'm pretty sure they're a good bit lighter than the later double-wishbone cars. Very cool!
I heard all the horror stories from everywhere on the Internet about the B-pin... I brought an assortment of punches to make sure I had the perfect size. I can only imagine it would have been a fight without it!
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