Fuel Pressure Gauge

My fuel rail already has a pressure gauge... but I spent a pretty penny on an SPA Technique dual gauge (link), which I use to set and monitor fuel pressure.  The Marshall gauge I got from Hybrid Racing always had a mismatch to my digital gauge, which bugs me, so as a sanity check, decided to double check with another analog gauge.

The scale of the Marshall gauge is a little high (0-100 psi), losing resolution for the same overall sweep, so I ordered a 0-60 psi gauge from Jegs.  A note when installing NPT fittings... these fittings require some form of thread sealant.  DO NOT USE TAPE!  Tape can dislodge and cause issues.  Order Earl's pipe sealant, which is safe for liquid, gas, fuel, air, and oil interfaces.  Which basically encompasses any interface on which you could possibly use a pipe thread.

Side note, one thing that really bugged me about the Hybrid Racing fuel rail is that there are SAE -08 straight thread ports (also known as O-Ring Boss, or ORB ports), and the included fittings come with O-rings.  But the O-rings are NOT THE RIGHT SIZE.  They get destroyed the first time you use them.  Do yourself a favor... take the stock o-rings and bring them promptly to the trash can.  Go to the Jegs website and order Earl's -08 O-rings.  You can choose the Buna or Viton for a fuel system using standard unleaded gasoline.  (Don't believe me?  Check out material compatibility here).

Here's a pic of the o-rings after you install and remove them

and here's a comparison of the Hybrid Racing ones (left) vs Correct / Earls ones (right)

So anyways, here's my new Jegs gauge installed.

The thread sealant needs several hours to set, so I'll let it do its thing and go watch the pacquiao mayweather fight.

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04-May Update

So today I wanted to verify the agreement of the digital gauge and the analog gauge.

Turned the IG on to prime the pump and checked it out.

Looks good!  Now I'm happy.

One cool side benefit of running an Aeromotive fuel pressure regulator, as opposed to the factory setup, is that the Aeromotive FPR bleeds down over a short period of time.  I've never timed it, but it's probably no longer than an hour or two.  This makes fuel system maintenance nice and easy, since there will be no pressure stored in the lines.

Here's the pressure after a matter of minutes:

But I exposed another problem.  Under load (just the fuel pump load for cryin out loud), the battery voltage dropped to 8.8 volts.  For those playing along at home, this means it's dead dead.

Lucky for me, I get to spend more money on a new battery for this beast.

that's all for now.

Exhaust

Hanging the Exhaust.

I hadn't really touched on any of the finishing details, like the exhaust system.  As much as I hate to admit it, I'm not a huge fan of how many "modified" Hondas sound.  I used to have a 2-liter Volkswagen with a Borla exhaust, and it was very throaty.  It was a little much for a daily driver, but this car isn't a daily driver.

Unfortunately, Borla doesn't make an exhaust for the 98s (they make 2-liter Civic Si exhausts, which sound beautiful though!),  so I opted for the Magnaflow (15643) stainless 2.25" catback exhaust.

Since it's made for this chassis, the rear exhaust hangers fit up very nicely!  Unfortunately, the center hangers don't.

In order to get the car running ASAP, I rigged up something kinda functional, but that I'm less than 100% proud of.  I got a roll of this from home depot or lowes or something...

and did this

Again, not the cleanest of jobs. It's held up without corrosion or breakage, but it's a temporary job.

By the way, that's Jegs adhesive heat shield material that I affixed to the bottom of the shifter bracket.  It's good stuff.

Went to Jegs and picked up these items:

-Jegs universal steel strap hanger, 

and 

-Jegs stainless 2.25" exhaust clamp,

and began piecing together a front hanger.  As you can see from the pics, one of the challenges with these "off the shelf" hangers is that they require more clearance between the exhaust pipe and the chassis for the rubber element.

So out came the die grinder.

Here's how the mockup looks.

So, I'm going to grab a washer and a nut and bolt the rubber directly on the U-bolt itself.  I'm going to drill through the chassis and use a long bolt to secure it, using washers to set the correct amount of pre-tension on the hanger.

Still not the prettiest, but it will be a functional, long term solution that allows for some "give" in the exhaust support system.

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22-April Update

Instead of making a new post, I think I'm going to add all the topical details (exhaust, etc) in one post for each and just update it... make everything easier to find.  Moving on...

Spent some more time in the garage over the last couple days and matured the layout a little.

From the previous picture of the mockup with zip ties and all, you can see the bolt / nut / washer strategy to get the spacing I need.

In the next picture, you can see the hole I'm shooting for.  Actually it's not a hole just quite yet.  The sheet metal in this area is multi-ply, if you will, and the bottom piece has the hole already.  Not wanting to reinvent the wheel, I'll just shoot for that one.

It's this one circled in the lime green.  With the arrow.  Before you drill, center punch the sheet metal.  I did the pilot hole from the bottom and did several steps of enlarging the hole from the cabin.

So you can see the result.  I'm using an M8 bolt and a locknut (don't know the Honda part number... it was hanging around in my 'spare bolts' box).

So it's pretty much mocked up now.  I'm going to score a bunch of zinc plated M8 washers from Fastenal tomorrow or Friday so I can button this up over the weekend.

BTW this blog is getting a surprising number of views.  If any of you are doing a similar build and have any questions please don't be shy.

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03-May Update

After a combination of longer work days, household duties, and laziness kept me out of the garage for a bit, I finally finished up the exhaust hanger.

I ended up buying a bunch of M8x1.75 and 3/8x16 zinc-plated hardware from Fastenal, which should provide plenty of corrosion protection, especially for the driving this car does.  I also added shift cable heatshielding, which I bought from K-Tuned (link) back in 2013, but had been sitting in a box in my basement since.

Anyways, peruse the pics for results.

Got one thing crossed off the list!

...still here

Long time no see!  I realize it's been almost two years since I've posted anything here... but fret not, I still have the civic and am still just as amped about it as the day i turned the key.

Besides a few nice drives, I haven't made too much actual progress on the car since the car show in 2013.  I've since moved jobs, bought a house, done some other stuff not car-related, but now that the weather is turning nice here in central Ohio, it's time to get back cracking on the civic.

I've come up with a to-do list for this summer.  It's more or less the same list I had last summer, except I'm really going to do it this summer.

here goes:
-[DONE] Properly hang Exhaust (link)
-Change fuel pressure gauge on fuel rail (link)
-Get a proper alignment
-Make rad upper brackets
-Do something about the engine air filtration
-Mount the ECU somewhere besides the floorboard
-Connect the rad fan switch and wire up an override switch
-Redo the ground wires
-Add a shift light!

New post for each.
toodles.

...and it runs. The first start-up video.

It's hard for me to believe that the last post was in February, talking about mounting up the shifter, when just last Friday, I drove the car to a car show.

There's a lot I need to revisit later, such as:
-Fuel system
-Cooling system
-Wiring
-Exhaust
-Intake
-Steering
-Gauges

because some of those can be a pain in the butt, and it's easy to overlook "small" things.

But let's skip right to the fun part.  The first start.

Full disclosure, it wasn't the first time I turned the key, but this video, shot by my girlfriend Alexandra, documents the first time I got the car to sputter to life.

Again, I made it to the car show mentioned in the video.  It was a busy couple of evenings.

CLICK HERE ---> LINK <--- to watch my youtube video.

Thanks for your readership, the volume of which pleasantly surprises me.

Now that my car runs, this is only the beginning.

Eye Candy:

Shifting, Part 2. Mounting the K-Tuned shift kit

Cut a hole in the chassis, like the instructions say.  Before you mount cables, we gotta make sure the hole is the right size.  Spoiler alert, it won't be.

Looking at the next two pictures, you can see where I had to enlarge the hole.  Use the aforementioned Makita electric die-grinder with sanding wheel and you will get nice smooth results.

Now bolt the shift box to the brackets and add the shift cables.  Cut off the factory RSX/Japan Integra frame grommet.

Before you attach the bracket/box to the tunnel, you need to route the cables (they're not flexible enough to route after you mount the box).  Initially, I lowered the swaybar and routed the cables between the subframe and firewall.  The cables were about 4" too long this way, so I routed under the swaybar, under the subframe, in front of the steering rack, and then up to the transmission selector mechanism.

This is the most-wrong way to route.  Right off the transmission, the cables need to take too sharp a bend downward, and under the car, there's still a lot of slack.  Operating the shifter, you can feel the extra resistance of the sharp bends.

So go back between the subframe and firewall.

From the engine room, it's clean if you route the cables in the rear engine mount area.

Operate the shifter, grabbing all 6 forward gears and reverse.  Better yet, change gears while making vtec sounds.  The movement is nice.  Now the test fit is complete.

Take it all back out again.

Mask and paint the tunnel in the areas you exposed bare metal.  Whether or not you plan to drive in the snow and salt, this is good practice.

It's too cold for me to finish painting and installing, but I just need one day of 40-degree temperatures and it'll be done.

Pull out the credit card and order more parts.

-kwan

Shifting, Part 1. K-Tuned brackets and your chassis

When it comes to shifting, you have a couple options: (1) keep the Honda shift box, or (2) get an aftermarket one.  I think Honda engineers are decent people, so I don't want to hurt their feelings by getting rid of the shift box they designed.  Given this, you can either get a K-Tuned or Karcepts shift adapter.  It seemed to me that the K-Tuned and Karcepts are functionally identical, but the K-Tuned website is very professional-looking and the kit looked like it included some quality hardware, so I chose that.

Open the box, and things are packaged nicely, so you get a warm-fuzzy about your purchase.  The instructions tell you how to go about fitting your brackets, so you start there.  So far so good.

So you go to fit the rear bracket in the chassis, and what the crap, the fitment is horrid.

That's how much freaking gap there is.

The gap has two root causes.  First, the mating surface is not flat (poor forming process order), and second, the bracket is too wide for the tunnel (design and forming problem)

Chuck it in a vice and prepare to modify the brackets you spent, what, like a hundred and fifty bucks on?

First step, flatten out the mating area.  I used a Makita electric die grinder with a sanding wheel and it works just fine on the soft aluminum.

The first side will look like this:

The second step is to narrow the edges so it fits in the tunnel.  This was actually a very iterative process, but about 45 minutes later I got it to fit.  When it's all said and done, the rear bracket will look like this:

After the rear bracket drama, if you think the main bracket is just going to fit, you're out of your mind.

Going ahead and test-fitting the main bracket, I couldn't even push the bracket up to meet the front of the tunnel (read the instructions, you'll know what I mean).

This is kind of what it looks like:

I found a neat trick where you put the shop light above the tunnel (in the original shifter hole) and you can see where gaps are and where you need to add clearance.

When you're done, you should have small gaps all around the bracket, so you can guarantee that the bolt loads are taken up only by the mating surfaces, and not the edges.

The remaining four pictures show where I had to clearance the bracket.  It's not a hard process, but it's time consuming due to the iterative nature of it.

Now, you can continue the shifter install process.