Sometimes You've Got to be Flexible

Several weeks ago, Super Street decided that there were going to be no forced induction cars at this years Honda FF Battle. I had planned on bringing our 1988 CRX with the supercharged K24, perhaps you've seen it?

It's been in a few events before, American Touge, Super Lap Battle, Ultimate Street Car Challenge, Redline Time Attack, Modified Tuner Shootout and probably some stuff I'm forgetting. It's been a good car and a crowd favorite. For FF Battle I had planned to debut some new products, an intercooler kit for JR Super Chargers and cog belt drive.

FF Battle is comprised of three events, dyno, drag and time attack. Horsepower is obviously a big plus on the first two events, and because the time attack is at Cal Speedway, it's a big plus there too. The section of the track that is run on the oval can be treated like a big giant straight, and a car with serious boost can get a huge lead on the NA (naturally aspirated) cars in that section. In fact an insurmountable lead if he is a decent driver on the rest of the course. That's kind of a problem. If you wanted to win this event the obvious solution is to make a car with more HP than anyone else and that kind ruins it.


We've settled on a new engine and are getting to work on installing it. This will be a fun event and if you're in Southern California on July 30th, please come by Cal Speedway and check out the event. There will also be a car show along with the FF Battle so there will be lots to see.


Stay tuned, more blog posts coming about the install of the new engine in the 88 CRX.

I Think it'd Be Cool Build a Wind Tunnel.

You know what would be fun to have? A wind tunnel. Something small that I could run tenth scale cars in. I have some projects that need aero development. With my 3D printer, I could make models of the cars  and then test front wings, rear wings, flat bottoms, rake, ride height, splitters, diffusers and ducts.


Last summer while taking some classes at ASU I saw their wind tunnel and I don't think it would be hard to build. I roughed out a sketch based on what I remember, and it looks like this.

After doing some snooping around the Net I found a company called Aerolab that sells wind tunnels. I'd guess ASU has one of their designs.


This type of wind tunnel is called an open circuit wind tunnel. It is less expensive to build than the closed circuit wind tunnels and can be built as large or small as you can afford.  The difference between open circuit and closed circuit should be pretty self explanatory based on the name. With the closed circuit design the same air is recirculated, which has obvious efficiencies, and the open circuit design sucks in air from outside and accelerates it.  One of my favorite open circuit design is A2 at AeroDyn in North Carolina.


Open circuit designs are typically made up of five sections, the settling chamber, contraction section, test chamber, diffuser and fan section.


The settling section usually has some screens and honeycomb to equalize and align the air flow as it comes in from outside.


The contraction chamber which accelerates the air and reduces variations in pressure.


The test section is where the model being tested resides. Here things like smoke nozzles, and test devices are also inserted. 


The diffuser section gradually transitions from the test chamber the the fan section.


The fan section of course has the fan.


Any volunteers to help build this? You can use it when I'm not. 

What to wear to the Super Street Honda FF Battle 3

Well, it almost summer and that means the Super Street Honda FF Battle Numero Tres (Part Trois?) is coming. What will I wear? Something yellow, a la James Chen?

Or how about red, like last year? I could make some improvements, take a little in, let a little out.

Maybe black this year? Sophisticated, but with an edge.

Maybe an original creation is called for? Whichever, time to get crack-a-lackin.

Projectcarpalooza 88 CRX – How Many Engines Has your car had? Part 2

This is part 2 of the engine saga of Hasport's 1988 CRX, the K-series engines.

Although we were well on the way to building a 1.9 liter B-series engine for the CRX, the car magazines were starting to pay increasing attention to the K-series swaps. Hasport already had three successful K-series swaps kits on the market for EG Civics, EK Civics and DC2 Integras plus there was a lot of talk on the interwebs about doing a K-swapped EF. Earlier in the year when we were prototyping the H22 mounts in the red CRX I quickly tried the K20 in the engine bay, so I knew it could fit.

So the B19 was shelved and a K20 was wheeled in for prototyping the engine mounts. Although I knew it would fit, it wasn't really a good fit. K-series engines are tall. The K20 is taller than an H22 by almost 1.75 inches, and a K24 is even taller by another .75 inches. To keep the oil pan from smacking into the ground we designed the mount kit for the shorter K20. Of course when we did our swap, there was no way I was going to settle for the 2.0, not after driving the supercharged K24 powered EP3 for the last year.

Back in the 70's when I was first getting into cars, an engine sticking out of a hood was a regular thing. If you saw a set of dual quad carbs on a high-rise manifold sticking out of the hood, you knew the car meant business. So as far as I was concerned the added impact of a K-series with supercharger sticking out of the hood of the CRX was the right message. Even to this day, you gotta admit it's pretty damn cool looking.

This was the first K-series engine to find it's way into the CRX. It was a K24A1 with K20A2 head. It pumped out about 280 HP. The first event this car went to was the Super Street Eurotuner Time Attack in November of 2004 where it finished first in the Limited FWD class with Rich Hayes driving.

After that first K24 went in several others followed. Next was an AEBS sleeved monster motor with Pauter Rods, JE Pistons, Eibach valve springs, IPS cams, the JR supercharger, custom SC pulley, DC sports header, MagnaFlow exhaust and two huge bottles of Nitrous courtesy of Nitrous Express. On the Supercharger alone the car made about 350 HP and with nitrous 450 HP. The engine was detuned slightly for the Sport Compact Car's Ultimate Street Car Challenge because on street tires anything over 400 HP was flat out undrivable. 

Later in the year at the third Super Street Time Attack, this engine met an unfortunate and early demise as the bottom end decided it had had enough of racing. The postmortem wasn't conclusive, but one of the rods decided it didn't want to push the piston up and down anymore and mowed through the block. The moment of destruction was caught on tape by Joe Flores of K20 engine swaped Fit fame. The video is below, expletives have been beeped out to protect delicate ears.

The pictures still make me want to cry. *sniff sniff* This all happened a couple of days before the American Touge 3 filming so a quick replacement was needed. This time we opted to go cheap and bought a CRV engine. We took a bit of a hit on horsepower with that swap, from 350 down to 278 HP. That was OK though, the Touge test driver was complaining about too much horsepower. Imagine that, too much horsepower.

That's basically how the car sits now. The only other improvements were some Skunk2 K20A3/K24 Stage 2 cams. That brought the horsepower back up to 300, thank you very much. But now it's time to make some improvements. This time we are going to address the two biggest complaints of the Jackson Racing Superchargers – belt slippage and intake air temps. I got a hold of some super trick parts to test on the supercharger, a cog belt drive kit and adapter for intercooling the supercharger. Heh, heh, heh, stay tuned.

Projectcarpalooza 88 CRX – How many engines has your car had?

With 9 project cars to cover I've decided a little content management was in order. So I am starting a new blog for each individual car. That way I can keep like posts organized. New entries will still appear here and redirect to the associated car's blog. Separating project car posts by individual car should allow me to make threaded entries that are easier to follow. So, without further ado...


Of all the cars Hasport has built over the years my favorite is the Yellow 1988 Honda CRX. And it's not just my favorite it seems, I get more questions about this car than all our other projects combined. Hasport originally bought the car and I used it as a daily driver. It replaced the 1990 CRX I was driving, whch got an H22 transplant and turned into a drag car. (read more)

Hasport's 88 CRX, before the K-swap

V6 Power Stealth Mode Engaged

The mount kit we use in the V6 powered EK is the EKJ2 mounts. They have dual mounting heights. Originally when I installed the engine, a J32A Type S motor, it was at the lower position. It was fun driving it around town in Phoenix, the car was quick but looked like almost any other EK hatch with too many stickers. I got to surprise a lot of BMWs, Mustangs and big ass 4X4 trucks with it. I think the only clue they had that something was up was the sound of the exhaust as I pulled away. That car did not sound like a typical four cylinder Honda. It had a deep almost angry sound to it, very cool.

In July, when we took the car in the Super Street Honda FF Battle we flipped the mounts and reinstalled the engine at the higher mount position. We raised it up to keep from dragging the oil pan on the gator bumps and curbing at Auto Club Speedway.  A also had to cut a hole in the hood for manifold clearance. No more stealth mode. It was kind of cool to drive it around like that. It reminded me of driving in my friends 55 Chevy back in the day with the dual quad carbs on an Edelbrock "high-rise" manifold sticking out of the hood.


Recently I was updating the front end of the Civic to use with the ExoSpeed wide front end. It's designed for the 99-00 Civic headlamps and hood.  While I was changing parts I bolted on a TL Base Model intake manifold onto the J32A. I wanted to be able to close the hood again and the TL Base model manifold is shorter.

Here's a picture of the two manifolds; the TL Base model manifold is on top and and it's about 1.4 inches shorter than the TL Type S manifold shown on bottom.


Here is a picture of the TL Type S manifold on the engine in the car.

For reference the same shot with the TL Base manifold bolted on the engine. The difference is significant.

I mounted the new hood and the hood wouldn't quite close so I trimmed some of the hood skeleton.

After trimming the hood I slapped it back on the car and the hood closed with room to spare. If I get a hold of some of the other manifolds I will check these for clearance as well.

I need to get back to the dyno and see if this causes a bog lose of horsepower, but for now, stealth mode has been re-engaged.

-BrianAtHasport

Thank You Skunk2

I have a land speed race car. A couple of years ago Tim Kelly from Xact Dyno and I went to the Bonneville Salt Flats to set a land speed record. There are a hundred different classes, the one I compete in is G/GT. The G before the slash is for 1.51 liter to 2.0 liter engine and the GT stands for 2 seat production car with stock exterior. The class divisions are a little more complicated than that, but that's my class rules in a nutshell. There's more information on how the classes break down on the Southern California Timing Association and Bonneville Nationals Inc website if you're curious. 

The existing G/GT record I was running against is 157.805MPH, and was set over 20 years ago by a 1987 Ford EXP. The Ford EXP was a brick so I figured this record was ripe for the picking and I had the perfect combo, A K20Z3 and an Insight. The best 2.0 production motor made in the most aerodynamic 2 seater in production. This wasn't the first time a Honda tried to break that record, In 2002 Car and Driver Magazine made n attempt in a modified S2000. There is an interesting article on the Car and Driver website chronicling their assault on the record. This wasn't my first time either. A year earlier I seized a modified K20A2 engine at around 130MPH. I say seized, but actually only one piston seized. Kinda of funny, it felt like I had hit a really strong headwind. Upon inspection of the engine it appeared the no. 1 piston seized and the crank pulled the wrist pin out the bottom of the piston and then pounded it into shrapnel. This story probably deserves it's own post.

This year would be different though. Tim had tuned the car with some long pulls to simulate what the engine would go through. Bonneville it tough on engines. We broke the record by .064 MPH. I had expected better honestly. I mean I had an Insight with a K20?!?  Thats when I found out the car that held the record had over 400 HP. It was powered by powered by an exotic DOHC "Ford" engine sourced from a race car in England. The Insight only had 200 HP. OK, not so bad after all. 


Here's a video of the record breaking run. It looks boring on video, but driving the car is unnerving. You don't steer a car at that speed on the  salt, you just make suggestions. When the car feels like it, it starts heading in the direction you want. I'm not particularly worried about spinning at high speed, but I do worry about rolling. That would suck.

I'm going back this year to bump the record up a little, but I needed more horsepower. I called my good friends at Skunk2 and talked to Dr. Charles and Aaron Bonk to see what they could do. They were nice enough to suggest some parts to help the stock K20Z3 breath a little better. The first parts I installed were some Skunk2 stage 2 cams, valves and valve springs. A trip back to the dyno revealed a solid gain of almost 20 HP. Sweet. I was still waiting to install two other parts though, the new 06 Civic intake manifold and a 74mm throttlebody. 


We finally had a some time and installed the manifold and throttlebody  a couple of weeks ago. The parts had to be modified a little, the 06 Civic manifold is made for the drive by wire t-body which has a slightly different bolt pattern. Once modified and installed the car went back to Xact Dyno for some Tim-tuning. Here are the results. Click on the image for a larger picture.

The dyno shows three plots, 1) the baseline before modifications, 2) after the cams, valves and springs and 3) after the intake manifold and throttlebody.  The intake and throttlebody netted another 22 horsepower. Whoa, impressive. I was expecting about 10 HP. Granted the actual number has probably  been effected by the weather. By Arizona standards it was cold last week. But seriously, the software is supposed to compensate for that and I've never seen the weather effect one of our cars by more than 4 or 5 horsepower. Well, we'll know better this spring; when the weather gets warm again I'll retest to check the gains. 


But whatever the results, thank you Skunk2. 175 MPH, here I come!