With a few weeks to go until the trip down to Victoria for Honda Nationals, it was time for the usual prep of fix everything thats broken, do an alignment and check over everything!

Prep

TPS Check engine light

Coming off SMSP on the previous post, the evening ended with a check engine light for the TPS. At the track we were able to reproduce it after clearing the code simply by shaking the wires and moving the plug around.

I went ahead and purchased a new aftermarket connector and terminal kit and went about the process of repinning it. Once done, the plug was a lot more secure on the sensor itself and I could no longer reproduce the error, happy days!

Old plug | comparison | new terminals | new plug

Hondata S300 analog/digital conectors

Next on the list was to wire in some proper deutsch connectors for the analog and digital connects on the Hondata S300. These will slot into some plastic clips which will be attached to the top lid of the ECU, for some double sided tape shall secure said clip.

Always love using this crimping tool for the deutsch connector terminals

Naice

Now for the CAN bus you need to terminate both ends of the bus with a 120 ohm resistor. In some cases, aftermarket hardware will have a 120 ohm resistor built into it with the ability to enable/disable it. My WillTech Race Dash has this, so I only needed to add one in towards the ECU end of the bus. I decided to house it inside this plug which already receives the CANH & CANL wires from the digital connector on the S300. I'll tap myself on the back, I think it turned out very neat!

In the 2nd photo below you'll see how I crimped some terminals onto the resistors legs, and it lives in the ECU side female plug.

** Amusingly writing this two months later, I'm pretty sure this is wrong as I technically don't have it after the ECU, instead it's between the ECU and the race dash...

Works quite well, the ECU lid is a bit messy as thats how I received it. One day I'll look to clean it up and bolt these clips down properly, but in theory if I ever need to add more plugs I can just line them up down the ECU lid.

Goodbye fake defi gauages

I've had these fake defi gauges in the Civic for maybe 9-9.5yrs and they' never missed a beat. $150 on eBay from a local seller, he said yeah they'll be fine the only thing is a sensor might go bad over time, but just too message him if this happens. It never did..

Oil temp, oil pressure and water temp. These so happened to right true to what the Hondata read, it was amazing. I've always used them especially when at the track and watching my oil temp go to 130-140 countless times prior to my oil cooler.

However today is the day they are removed from the car, with the WillTech Race Dash coming along nicely these aren't really needed. I always said I'd forever run the SiR cluster + these defi gauges, but I now require more data and also to datalog it, making these redundant.

Thanks for the help over the years gauges, I will miss you. We will repurpose you in another car, maybe the EF9!

Nankang CR-S & new brake rotors

I've run the Nankang AR-1 tyre for a few years now and always enjoyed it. It's not an Advan A050, but it's affordable and as I've been trying to resolve various issues with the car, I didn't see the need for the A050.

With the release of the Nankang CR-S and reviews suggesting it's grippier than the AR-1 (but doesn't last as long), I needed to give it a shot! Fresh set acquired for Honda Nationals, F: 225/45/15 R: 205/50/15. The 225 sits quite square on the 8" 6UL. Looking forward to testing these!

Misc

At the last SMSP GP outing I had a violent vibration under heavy braking, assuming it was warped brake rotors. Lets hope this was the issue, the old ones have been on the car for quite some time, with the 3 heat markings completely gone.

Wheel alignment and ready!

Winton - Honda Nationals 2924

Another year, another Honda Nationals. Riding solo this year down, and with the new tow setup. Keen!

Pitstop half way down, Pajero needs some airbags in the rear!

Arrived, setup, and ready to go!

Day 1 - Test and Tune

Day 1 was a test and tune on the Friday which we treat as practice for the following day. Decided to take notes each session for once, so I'll include them below for a review on the day. Maybe a good format to adjust and go with from here on out?

Session 1

• Straight off the bat, brake vibration is gone, so it was definitely warped rotors.. Yay!
• However the car had a strange RPM issue when it would break up from 7500 to 8333 (rev limit), if you were to imagine a dyno graph it would jutter up and down constantly as it revved out. I had a spare TPS sensor I brought down in case the new plug itself wasn't the fix from that CEL light. I quickly fitted it before the following session.
• Sounds like drive shaft is knocking already..

Session 2

• RPM issue remains, so does drive shaft noise.
• Inspect the drive shaft up on stands with someone else, can't see anything aye so we'll have to keep driving.
• Spark plugs removed, the 1 closest to dizzy is very lean, the other 3 are soaked in oil. We put in some spare used ones my mate had from a recen 300km race.

Session 3

• Drive shaft noise gone, no idea. Fuel starve, usual
• The RPM issue is gone too, so we're guessing it's the spark plugs!
• Randomly decided to check tyre temps:
  • Front inner to outer - 60/51/30
    • Rear inner to outer - 47/45/41 Pressures:
    • Front 33 hot
    • Rear 30 hot

Session 4

• Skip

Session 5

• Tried using 3rd gear on exit of T9 and T10, RaceChrono showed 1.5 sec up but then same 1.38.5? x2 attempts

Good evening at the pub with the lads, usual go over content and prep how to do better the following day!

Fastest lap for the day, no PB

Day 2 - Honda Nationals

Unfortunately the RPM issue returned straight away, and stayed for the whole day whilst trying various things to try fix. After the first session, pulled the used plugs we put in yesterday, another guy within my club read them and said it's leaning out. Without a fuel pressure reg I couldn't adjust the fuel, so we decided to try some brand new plugs, which didn't fix the issue. I did the next few sessions short shifting at 7500 rpm, which isn't as fun..

Also had a nice off at T5/T6, too cold, rear came around. Managed to kinda catch it which then forced me ooff track and straight over the ripple strip. Heres the footage of that, and the aftermath, poor gearbox casing..

Another mate Jacob from SA came up whom runs his own shop, and after chatting a bit he suggested it's maybe the ECU as his been seeing more and more issues with them over time, capacitators etc, after all they are getting quite old. He offered, and we tried, running his ECU from his EG he drove up with my tune on it to try debug the issue. Amusingly the issue went away 99.99% of the time, I could just hear it now and then from the exhaust popping it was causing. Yay, it must be the ECU!

Once back in the pits relaying the outcome, the marshalls announced there'd be 1 more session for me but combined with others, I said the perfect test now is to put my ECU back in my car, and in theory the issue should return. Somehow, the issue didn't return, so it must not be ECU..

Confused, kinda annoyed, day was over so time to packup. Fun weekend for sure with the club and catching up with interstate friends, but this issue is just giving me a headache..

Thanks to those who helped, and Jacob a lot for letting me borrow his ECU, he also ran through various options and what they did on the Hondata S300 around protections and various other things. Definitely need to go through the various paramters!

Things to do once home:

• Injector flow test and cleaning
• Send ECU off for a health check
• Need better data aquisition around fuel pressure/wideband

Improve next Winton:

• Try 4th gear through T4 instead of sitting around in 3rd
• Try 3rd gear again for T10, T9 seemed a bit too slow to do

PB lap from the day, I actually managed to just chip away at it with Jacob's ECU at the end of the day

A bit of fun chasing Phil in the Intima Accord!

ECU changing the tune

Now this sounds strange, but when I saved my tune earlier in the day I noticed the rev limit had changed to 8484 from 8333. When I looked at the tunes once home, the whole table had changed, along with a bunch of other parameters.. Will need to look into this

CRS Review

Tegiwa in the UK did a great review on the CR-S comparing them to the AR-1. I'd agree with much of what they said, they are grippier than the AR-1 after a heat cycle, however my issue was they'd slip off towards the end of a 15-20 minute session and start to slide around a bit. With the plan of door to door next year, I thought these could be a good sprint tyre as it's about a 15-20 minute race, concerned they won't make it though.

Having said that, I'll need to test them at SMSP and see how they go as thats where most of the door to door races will be at the start at least.

So my current thought is, they could be ok for sprint racing, definitely wouldn't last an enduro. But worst case we might revert to ol faithful AR-1 for the time being for racing.

Front left side wall wear

Rear left side wall wear

Rotor heat wear markers post Winton:

Photos

Professional photographers