Type R Club of America

Ugh, this sounds frustrating. You're wise to bring in fresh plugs. I would bring 1-2x extra sets but first have Church verify 100% the range is optimal. RBoosted717 on here informed me after ~10yrs I had been using a plug one step away from optimal, improving my idle and overall drive ability.

You're also on top of collecting the data which I presume will help Church. My hope is it's more of an issue at cold start in the tables and that once the car switches it's less of an issue, but good luck!

Finally started to get Data figured out.
Turns out the track wasn’t properly selected when logged so RaceCapture software won’t break into laps or really allow for much of any analysis post.

Fortunately I did find a service, TrackAttack.io, that natively supports importing RaceCapture (and other) log files! It will allow you to select the track or variant, and automatically split the session into laps. For me it’s extremely easy to use, and overlay even incomplete laps for comparison. Views for graphs, histograms, xy plots, split times (based on auto segments), min/max are super easy to access and customize. Channels are a bit rigid and must be standardized, but allow mapping custom channels to their standards during import and provides smoothing 0 to 1000ms per channel at any point without altering the underlying data. would be nice to have heat maps but I can deal with squiggly lines plus position indicator.

I feel like I’m finally able to access the value of my data now! If all goes well with the tune I’ll be back on Big Willow Jan 15th and will be able to capture TPS, Wheel speed, rpm, and calculated gear to get an even better picture of what I was doing where since there’s no way I’m going to remember much detail around each time I screw up otherwise. Before too long I want to setup a string pot. to capture steering angle too!

Here’s a lap from Streets of Willow (yes my personal best was to get down to about 20 secs off lap. Goals!)


And a couple from Big Willow (somehow also about 20secs off here too. I’ll call that improvement though since faster, longer track )


Acceleration is funky because my longitudinal accel. looks like it needs to be recalibrated as it seems reversed (under braking it moves positive, negative for accel.,) and the lowest value registered is .3g.

coolhandluke wrote:Ugh, this sounds frustrating. You're wise to bring in fresh plugs. I would bring 1-2x extra sets but first have Church verify 100% the range is optimal. RBoosted717 on here informed me after ~10yrs I had been using a plug one step away from optimal, improving my idle and overall drive ability.

You're also on top of collecting the data which I presume will help Church. My hope is it's more of an issue at cold start in the tables and that once the car switches it's less of an issue, but good luck!

I’m bringing a spare set of plugs that are 1 step colder (heat range 8) along with me. The advice from Church echoed what I’ve seen online (mostly from turbo guys running higher boost) promoting .028” gap and heat range “one step colder” (which is 7 for most engines, though 7 is OEM spec for a b18c5) in basically any NGK flavor.

I had been running this at Willow Springs and I don’t think the distributor liked the gap. After Willow Springs I opened up to .035” gap on heat range 8 plugs. The distributor seems to have liked the larger gap better and I’ve not had any issues with spark being “blown out” under boost, but when I pulled the plugs to run the compression test, insulators on plugs from 1&4 looked pretty dark so I put the heat range 7 in with the same gap.

Tune is in.
Generally good news all around. Probably could have gotten bigger numbers if I reduced the gap but otherwise they said don’t change the plugs.

If I dropped the gap they could add more timing but that would also mean more heat so not really what I want.

Looks like I’m getting just under 8psi, which I’m happy is lower than I was thinking I would be hitting since it means less strain on the stock internals.

You’ll see it in the tq numbers but even at small throttle angles it’s amazingly responsive and very easy to drive in traffic now you can take the gears way down, no hint of stalling or chugging and it responds as soon as you open the throttle again.

Any way 150 ft/lbs tq from 1500 to 8300 with peak of 185ft/lbs tq at ~5000rpm. HP came in 238 whp (well hub) @8300 but the graph was still going up
So if I wanted they would have taken it further. I thought it better to keep it conservative.

Without WMI IAT temps were hitting 170F temps with it IAT stayed below 135F.

No print out but here a screen shot.

How happy are you with how the car feels/drives? I see solid mid-range / powerband gains.

coolhandluke wrote:How happy are you with how the car feels/drives? I see solid mid-range / powerband gains.

I had hoped to get out for a drive this weekend but couldn’t quite make it happen so I haven’t had much of a chance to get a feel for it, just the 1 1/2 hour drive home in traffic.

I can say low end response was amazing. Past excursions in heavy traffic were fatiguing and while it still takes a greater measure of focus than my automatic TSX, family hauler, it now made for an easy drive.

I’m antsy to get it back out to Big Willow. I suspect it will allow me to settle in more now that it feels less raw and more refined. I’m really looking forward to see what I’ll be able to do as some of the driving theory feels like it’s sinking in too as I look at the data from my first days.

I can just imagine how torquey this car feels.. I need some go pro action! If there's one mod I'd like to do to my itr, it's a supercharger. I feel you gain a lot of power everywhere and still keep that na feel.

Na-spirit wrote:I can just imagine how torquey this car feels.. I need some go pro action! If there's one mod I'd like to do to my itr, it's a supercharger. I feel you gain a lot of power everywhere and still keep that na feel.

Careful what you ask for I do have a camera that I’ve set up mounted in front of the rear view mirror. Soon there will be more footage of missed lines than anyone can stand.

On the supercharger, the jury is still sort of out for me honestly.

Don’t get me wrong I think it’s an amazing drive and certainly with my (low) skill level it’ll be more accessible on the track but it’s almost a little less exhilarating.

While it has more power I think it because it doesn’t have the same steep ramp up of power as when you hit the power band with a NA B18C5, that feels like it’s suddenly trying to launch you through the the last few thousand RPMs right off the end of the tach faster then you’ll be able to shift.

With the blower the power starts incredibly low and just seems to come up easy, you don’t feel it the same. Supremely drivable but it doesn’t have the explosive, woah sh*t, I’m in a tin can with a rocket strapped to it violence, at least not that I’ve found so far. Thinking about it I sort of feel the same about the AP2. Incredibly fun to drive but not quite the raw excitement the ITR can deliver in true form.

Peter Cunningham mentioned Oscar Jackson had set up their cars for ice racing season at one point. I thought it was a bit odd to add power for ice racing in the moment but I think I may understand it more now in that the rate of change in torque is much smoother with the supercharger effectively making it a bit more even and manageable?

Characteristics aside there’s also real increased risk of detonation issues due to added intake heat and wear/failure of additional mechanical systems. During the tune I also faced the often complained about belt slippage. All of which gets worse as parts age.

For ITR owners that already have an existing setup and maybe think they’ve lost that loving feeling…I’d encourage a refresh (valve job, Mugen gasket, maybe cams, a good tune) and a track day and I bet you’ll find it all over again.

Took time to do a little something fun.

Also for safety on the track, don’t want an airbag going off for any reason.

Wheel is straight, SRS reel is retained, working genuine NSX horn button.

This isn’t a forever wheel but I’m interested to see how the 320mm feels.

(Silver) ASR hub adapter (will be replaced with a black one once it ships) and Works Bell quick adapter brings the Momo wheel out slightly further when mounted allowing more leg clearance with the low position.

Maybe there's something I haven't considered, but unless I was caged and harnessed with a HANS I'd rather have the airbag.

Love the wheel though - as I'm sure you've seen MITA sells an Acura logo horn button but I think you went red H elsewhere in your build IIRC?