Stand Alone ECU Discussion

[ryanprins13]

I'm one of "Those Guys" who wants to see what they can make out of a B3, for 3 reasons:
1, Self gratification. I want to show myself that I can take something and make it "better" (by my own standards, of course better is relative.
2, It's what I have. I already have too many engines in my garage. If I get ANOTHER project before finishing what I have, my dad will strangle me.
3, I live in California, where the air is pure and the emissions regulations are smothering. I can get away with using the stock block and heads and changing internals.

My general plan is to change a few things to put some power back in the top end and use a standalone to compensate for lost fuel economy and enhance power

Right on, i totally understand. I like the b3 as well, im the guy planning to tow a trailer as heavy as the car 20k miles around the country-up the steepest hils and the highest passes in our rockies, to alaska..- with 4 people in the car next summer and see how the b3 does, lol.
I was just wondering specifically if you have hit your rev limiter and where it was since i havent been able to and you mentioned only going to 6-6.5 and its supposed to be already at 6200.

, but it will most likely be on a B3, in which case I would mostly just want to bring up the redline to ~6-6.5 and retune the hard parts to compliment that, probably sacrificing a little fuel economy for a little more power. Thanks guys

What do you mean by retune the hard parts?


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[Sid_RallyX_82]

You want it to increase the redline on a stock b3? Have you hit the rev limiter on the engine you plan to do this to?
I havent tried it on my new festiva but on my old one when my cheap princess auto tachometer got above 7000rpm the engine would sound really weird like it was drowning. Maybe the valves were floating or something. Anyway, i revved it higher than i wanted to or should have several times and never hit a rev limiter. People tell me it has one though, lol.
What else did you plan to do? Adjust afr?

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I'm one of "Those Guys" who wants to see what they can make out of a B3, for 3 reasons:
1, Self gratification. I want to show myself that I can take something and make it "better" (by my own standards, of course better is relative.
2, It's what I have. I already have too many engines in my garage. If I get ANOTHER project before finishing what I have, my dad will strangle me.
3, I live in California, where the air is pure and the emissions regulations are smothering. I can get away with using the stock block and heads and changing internals.

My general plan is to change a few things to put some power back in the top end and use a standalone to compensate for lost fuel economy and enhance power

[Sid_RallyX_82]

Whoa, what the crap? Idky it reposted my comment...

I mean I want to get a cam that breathes better at the top end, do a slight port on the heads, play with exhaust manifolds/headers, and do something with the intake, whether that be changing the dimensions of the current one or making a new one, all with the goal of shifting the torque curve up the rpm and extending the tail so it no longer drops off just before red line.

I have hit limiter but I don't have a tach, so I have no idea what rpm. I thought they only went to 5.5? But if they go to 6.2, then I'll go higher, but prob not as high as 7... Maybe around 6.8 or so. Just looking for a little more power

[shorestiva]

6.2k I bounce off mine all the time. (b6d with b3 ecu)

[ryanprins13]

Whoa, what the crap? Idky it reposted my comment...

I mean I want to get a cam that breathes better at the top end, do a slight port on the heads, play with exhaust manifolds/headers, and do something with the intake, whether that be changing the dimensions of the current one or making a new one, all with the goal of shifting the torque curve up the rpm and extending the tail so it no longer drops off just before red line.

I have hit limiter but I don't have a tach, so I have no idea what rpm. I thought they only went to 5.5? But if they go to 6.2, then I'll go higher, but prob not as high as 7... Maybe around 6.8 or so. Just looking for a little more power

Ha, i thought you thought my question was dumb and was supposed to be answered by that

Cool! Sounds like fun.
Porting can be done yourself.
There is a guy here wanting to make custom intake manifolds for exactly what you want, has plans and everything ready to make em. I didnt buy one just because i coudnt still use the IAC with it. If your interested i can dig back through my pm's and see who it was.
There has been a bunch of talk on facebook about headers but i havent paid attention to who it was.
Im not sure who would make a cam. Talk to dragonhealer and/or shadetree, they would either make em or tell you who would be good to go to. Dickmyer made a few but i dont think they worked well if my memory is right.
You could talk to ben rogers about what was done to his b3, its 90hp i think. His name here is thisveroligist or something.
Have you considered raising the compression a bit?

Only a 600rpm increase? would be cool to be able to go to 7 but youll probably need stiffer valve springs.

If you want more power though a turbo would do it. Its about time some completed a nice, reliable b3 turbo build.

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[Festiver]

Deck the piss out of the head get compression back

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[ryanprins13]

John glenn (theastronaut on here) is making headers for a b6, he might have some tips on lenths, diameters and materiels you would want to use on headers for more power higher up. Heres a link, some of his photos are in the comments. https://m.facebook.com/groups/187474...50961973169959

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[Sid_RallyX_82]

Ha, i thought you thought my question was dumb and was supposed to be answered by that

Cool! Sounds like fun.
Porting can be done yourself.
There is a guy here wanting to make custom intake manifolds for exactly what you want, has plans and everything ready to make em. I didnt buy one just because i coudnt still use the IAC with it. If your interested i can dig back through my pm's and see who it was.
There has been a bunch of talk on facebook about headers but i havent paid attention to who it was.
Im not sure who would make a cam. Talk to dragonhealer and/or shadetree, they would either make em or tell you who would be good to go to. Dickmyer made a few but i dont think they worked well if my memory is right.
You could talk to ben rogers about what was done to his b3, its 90hp i think. His name here is thisveroligist or something.
Have you considered raising the compression a bit?

Only a 600rpm increase? would be cool to be able to go to 7 but youll probably need stiffer valve springs.

If you want more power though a turbo would do it. Its about time some completed a nice, reliable b3 turbo build.

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No turbo builds for me. Gotta deal with C.A.R.B.
I can squeak by on emissions with modified internals because that's not part of the visual inspection.
If I can get my hands on a flow bench I might port it myself, but otherwise I'll send it somewhere.
For the intake I would try porting it out and cutting a couple inches out of the middle to play with torque enhancement, unless someone here knows that the intake is tunes better by a theory other than pulse resonance.
Stock valve springs should be fine beyond 7k. I'm not doing anything crazy.

Deck the piss out of the head get compression back

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The thing is that I don't want to make a huge compromise on fuel efficiency at the low end and I don't want to use anything higher than 89 oct., so I might only shave off a little bit.
What is stock compression ratio?

[Rick the Quick]

I'm one of "Those Guys" who wants to see what they can make out of a B3, for 3 reasons:
1, Self gratification. I want to show myself that I can take something and make it "better" (by my own standards, of course better is relative.
2, It's what I have. I already have too many engines in my garage. If I get ANOTHER project before finishing what I have, my dad will strangle me.
3, I live in California, where the air is pure and the emissions regulations are smothering. I can get away with using the stock block and heads and changing internals.

My general plan is to change a few things to put some power back in the top end and use a standalone to compensate for lost fuel economy and enhance power

I would be careful trying to get anything more out of the B3. I am not saying it can't be done. Of course you can get more out of it in the upper RPM range however mods that help at the high end usually take away at the lower end. I would imagine you spend more time at 2-4 K RPM then at 5-7 K. The B3 is a great little engine and the engineers that designed it did a good job of making it perform well in real world driving conditions. 1300 cc's is about 79 cubic inches. Back in '84 I had a new Honda Civic S, 1500 that I put a hot cam and headers on by '85. It turned a sweet car into a very unfriendly piece of crap. The only time I felt any power increase was above 5 grand and between 5 and 7 grand it got with the program. On the downside running down the interstate @ 70 mph I found myself having to downshift for grades that I easily took before the cam and headers. As for running around town the little Civic that was once always ready to fend off a Chicago cabbie was now always a gear to high for any situation that required instant response. Yes I know how to downshift and when asked to the little Civic would get up and run but having to get 'er up to 5 grand before anything happened was really getting old. By '86 I bought a new Civic S with EFI. I didn't mess with it. If you want more power and want it to look stock put in a B6 Mazda engine.The single cam version looks identical to the B3. I would imagine it would not be noticed by the emission inspectors. I have a B6ME (single cam, 16 valve) in my '91 and I guarantee you would have a lot more money in making a B3 put out the power it is making. Plus it makes it all across the board. I know the self gratification part may be important but sometimes we need to be reasonable with our goals. Now I do see possibilities with a turbo on the B3 but you mentioned that was out of the question. Good luck!

[Sid_RallyX_82]

I would be careful trying to get anything more out of the B3. I am not saying it can't be done. Of course you can get more out of it in the upper RPM range however mods that help at the high end usually take away at the lower end. I would imagine you spend more time at 2-4 K RPM then at 5-7 K. The B3 is a great little engine and the engineers that designed it did a good job of making it perform well in real world driving conditions. 1300 cc's is about 79 cubic inches. Back in '84 I had a new Honda Civic S, 1500 that I put a hot cam and headers on by '85. It turned a sweet car into a very unfriendly piece of crap. The only time I felt any power increase was above 5 grand and between 5 and 7 grand it got with the program. On the downside running down the interstate @ 70 mph I found myself having to downshift for grades that I easily took before the cam and headers. As for running around town the little Civic that was once always ready to fend off a Chicago cabbie was now always a gear to high for any situation that required instant response. Yes I know how to downshift and when asked to the little Civic would get up and run but having to get 'er up to 5 grand before anything happened was really getting old. By '86 I bought a new Civic S with EFI. I didn't mess with it. If you want more power and want it to look stock put in a B6 Mazda engine.The single cam version looks identical to the B3. I would imagine it would not be noticed by the emission inspectors. I have a B6ME (single cam, 16 valve) in my '91 and I guarantee you would have a lot more money in making a B3 put out the power it is making. Plus it makes it all across the board. I know the self gratification part may be important but sometimes we need to be reasonable with our goals. Now I do see possibilities with a turbo on the B3 but you mentioned that was out of the question. Good luck!

That is a lot of really good advice and I've already considered a lot of it, especially the b6 single jingle, but the way I look at it is: I really want to get into professional racing. In doing that, I will eventually need to know how to build engines. To KNOW how, I will need to LEARN how. I strongly believe in the phrase "If you're not making mistakes, you're not learning." I figure why not learn some basics and play with concepts but also reduce risk by only betting a B3 against the chance of screwing it up? If I get it right, I will have a nice little engine and I will know I can rely on certain theories. If I get it wrong, all I lost was a B3 and I won't miss it when I have to upgrade. I know that in order to put power up top, I'll need to take some from the bottom, but this engine won't be my daily. I have a fresh b3 waiting to be assembled and dropped into my new daily once it's done at body and paint(hopefully before the end of November). This experiment will go in my racecar project, which I expect to receive a lot of changes. Sorry, I'm tired and feel like I've been rambling