Honed Gear Linkage Kit

Anyone with a D or B series Honda will know how much slop you can get with these shifters, especially with a extended shifter like mine (even though it's a "short shifter").. Over the years I've installed the Hardrace alloy bush kit, new bird cage bush, and 'rebuilt' the uni joint with some new inserts we machined down to suit.

Honed have developed this nice kit which 'converts the factory rubber universal joint to a motorsport-style roller bearing joint'. It requires cutting off the OEM uni joint part and welding a mounting plate in it's position, where the new unit will bolt to.

I did the deed, tac'd on the plate with my mig gas welder and took to a friends to tig weld. Considering he just rolled his race car at 186km the previous weekend and had a broken rib, think he did a pretty good job.

Fresh coat of paint and reinstalled. Wow it definitely makes a difference! Feeling is a like more solid and direct. There still is slop in the overall system, I believe it's to do the the bird cage area even though I've replaced that bush. Might need to look into one of those hybrid racing type shifters in the future.

ECU + injector cleaning

One part to the investigation puzzle was an injector test, considering one cylinder's spark plug was completely dry. Luckily BYP Racing have an injector flow tester.

Long story short, injectors were completely fine, all with a great spray pattern too. Gave them a clean and flush through anyways as we were there. I had the ECU with me, and they suggested we send it off to someone for a health check, so I left it with them (some details on it below), and before heading off they suggested to check the distributor.

With what happened at Winton around the ECU, was suggested I send the ECU off for a health check to make sure all systems were ok. Theres a shop in South Australia whom is the go to, so we poosted off the ECU, fingers crossed.

In the end everything was fine with the health check, phew. The shop added some new things to the board, to be honest I don't actually know what they do, but see for yourself with the photos below. I would like to find out in the near future what was actually done, from a perspective of maybe I can do more things on the Hondata to benefit the car!

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The culprit

As suggested to, I decided to remove the distributor to have a peak inside, and wowee..

To start with, I noticed the points in the cap look very crispy, and theres a lot of material stuck to the casing. Then looking at the rotor button, it's minging..

Ahh, what do we have here Mr Screw

Back side of the rotor button completely melted

Yeah so essentially whats happened here is the screw which holds the rotor button onto the distributor shaft has come out and wedged itself into the housing. The rotor button is then no secured by the screw so it's free to move. Luckily it's on a tapered/flat edge so it couldn't free spin, but enough to allow it to move back and forth with some play, which I assume is why I'd only get this issue at high rpm

I removed everything else from within the distributor to inspect, luckily no damage, just had some cleanup to do.

Luckily I have this spare near new OEM OBD1 EG D16A8 distributor. I can't directly use it on the B18CR, but I can swap over it's rotor button and that plastic surrounding which had my screw wedged in. So across came those components, the screw receiving the locktite as well.

Unfortunately the rotor cap is a slightly different shape so I couldn't move that across, which would have been good as the points are mint. I cleaned up the crusty points on mine and refitted.

Broken Injectors

Distributor sorted, time to refit the cleaned injectors and fire her up! On initial prime, I heard fuel pissing out. 1 injector was leaking bad so I removed all 4. I then found out from a friend your meant to put vaseline on the o-ring before installing else it'll tear. Well, I didn't know that, and I tore 3 of 4 o-rings refitting them..

Once again, luckily I have a few D series engines and their injectors have the same o-ring. Plucked them off gently, vaso'd up, fitted, easy peasy.

One step forward, many steps backwards. Just about to refit them, I noticed one of the pintle caps were cracked, and it easily fell apart as I touched it, sigh.. These are H22 high impediance injectors I got when having the original tune done as the stock B18CR injectors maxed out quickly. I've asked my sources and seems like no one has H22 injectors anymore.. I might need to look into an aftermarket option. Only 2 weeks until I leave for Morgan Park...

BYP Racing - New injectoors & new tune

When searching for the H22 injectors I put a message out on the socials looking for them, and BYP Racing offered a set of used Bosch 550cc injectors which they've already flow tested (and are good). As a last minute life line, I had to take up the offer. I was already booked to have my car on their dyno this coming Saturday for a systems check since fixing the distributor, so it kinda worked out. The car was previously tuned at Toys Garage and has been fine ever since, I said to the boys at BYP I don't really want to have it tuned, they said thats fine they can adjust the tune to suit, sweet!

Fitting the Bosch injectors

Now I'm already aware how tuners are around touching other peoples tunes, some are happy to do it, some arent, and I think it's fair for a number of reasons such as if something goes wrong, whose to blame, it's their work, their name, so their pride on it, I full understand.

The boys started adjusting the tune, but after a bit it seemed they wern't too happy with it and said they'll go ahead and do a full tune. I was fine with this, I mean sad to say bye to the tune thats kept it going for this long, but sure lets see what it can do. BYP Racing are well known for their achievements in racing and building reliable race cars, it was originally tuned for street work whilst being very safe, so I'm happy to have a more motorsport focused tune. It'll still be safe, and they run the car through kinda racing similuations on the dyno to check everything runs correctly across the tables.

Benny was seeing some RPM hesitation throughout the rev range, I'll need to look into any potential interference, but with some more tweaks it was into a more 'fine' margin. A COP kit would be ideal, especially if planning to keep the B for a while (after retuning the car, I think so!)

With the tune finalised, we came in at 132.5kw. At Toys all those years ago, it was 134.5kw. Toys is meant to read higher, theres too many factors to just a number so I'll let y'all have your thoughts. Either way, it runs great and is making good power for what it is.

Notable differences in the tune, VTEC is now engaged at 4400 from 5200, and rev limit is 8720 from 8333. I think this should be quite good actually, because at Winton I have issues where 3rd I'm just out of VTEC but 2nd is too slow, so this could solve that issue!

Massive thanks to the boys at BYP Racing, not just for the tune but the 6hrs or so I stayed there after chatting with all the knowledge transfer, and good laughs. Look forward to developing the car further with their assistance where required!

** [ DYNO MAP ] ** ** [YOUTUBE VID] **

Surge tank has been on the cards forever, they had some lying around so we did a few test fit in the engine bay. Just fits, phew..

Polish

Decided to give the ol girl a polish, I haven't cared much about the body work for quite some time, and I really should have.

Looks a lot better with a simple polish, but more upkeep going forth will be required. No photos to show, but I did soome paint touching up around the car as well. She takes quite a beating on track, always getting marks from tyre rubber hitting it.

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