[GTO]

Mod Note: Lets avoid off-topic posts and focus on Bhuvan's Civic only. Thanks!

[blahman]

Bhuvan how's the RD piggyback performing? Wayy better than the Haltech I'm guessing

[bhuvan_prasad]

Originally Posted by blahman

Bhuvan how's the RD piggyback performing? Wayy better than the Haltech I'm guessing

Hey Anoop,
Yes. Touchwood, the RD piggyback is working flawlessly so far. Cold starts, Idle with AC & lights, everything is working nicely.

With the haltech my right leg was always on the throttle ensuring the revs don't fall, and that the car doesn't stall. While this made me an expert at rev matching, quick shifting and heel and toeing, it wasn't the most convenient thing to keep doing and any loss in concentration meant a big jerk or stall. A newbie driver would stall the car 4-5 times in the first 500m of driving in traffic.

This seems to be much better, can't raise the rev limit, but I doubt the r18 will make much power post 7000RPM anyway.

For a street turbo build would recommend this piggyback over any standalone ECU any given day.

I also got the car scanned at HASS, and the only error code which came was the o2 sensor one, which is fine as we have got one of the two sensors disconnected, only one is running, as no pre-cat, post-cat scenario here.

[manas_270]

Dude Bhuvan, what a thread buddy!! Was so hooked after reading the first couple of posts that I spent the last 1/2 hr at work reading this thread in one go & never did I get bored

Wonderful write -up with great pics to accompany & drool over. Great to hear you having good fun with the beast & seriously it doesn't look like an 8 yr old car. Very well maintained.

Hopefully one day will spot your beast in Hyd & will request rather force you to take me on a spin on ORR to experience the sleeper looking lion

[pamiboy]

Originally Posted by bhuvan_prasad

5.) the headlamp
Attachment 934875

6.) headlamp at night
Attachment 934876

9.) projector main beam with the corona ring
Attachment 934881

Congratulations Bhuvan on your awesome mods . Your headlights look really good. What kind of projector headlights have you installed? Are they HIDs? Where did you get those housings and what's the cost? Thanks.

[sweetvar26]

Oh man, I've just been reading this entire thread the last few hours. What a run so far and awesome stuff by Bhuvan and the rest that worked on it so far.

I really need to get in touch with one of you guys to see where I should begin on a purchase of mine. Too bad I can't personal message Bhuvan just yet.

[bhuvan_prasad]

Originally Posted by manas_270

Dude Bhuvan, what a thread buddy!! Was so hooked after reading the first couple of posts that I spent the last 1/2 hr at work reading this thread in one go & never did I get bored

Wonderful write -up with great pics to accompany & drool over. Great to hear you having good fun with the beast & seriously it doesn't look like an 8 yr old car. Very well maintained.

Hopefully one day will spot your beast in Hyd & will request rather force you to take me on a spin on ORR to experience the sleeper looking lion

Hi Manas. Thanks for the appreciation of the thread and the car. Hyd is home, but the car is with me in Chennai now, where I work. Will let you know when I'm in Hyd next, for that ORR drive.

Originally Posted by sweetvar26

Oh man, I've just been reading this entire thread the last few hours. What a run so far and awesome stuff by Bhuvan and the rest that worked on it so far.

I really need to get in touch with one of you guys to see where I should begin on a purchase of mine. Too bad I can't personal message Bhuvan just yet.

Thanks man. Always glad to help out on deciding how to mod a car. Email me - bhuvan.atluri@gmail.com

Originally Posted by pamiboy

Congratulations Bhuvan on your awesome mods . Your headlights look really good. What kind of projector headlights have you installed? Are they HIDs? Where did you get those housings and what's the cost? Thanks.

These are eagle eye replacement headlights for the FD2 Civic. Any accessory shop can get it for you for around 20k/pair. Projectors come with the headlight for the low beam, aren't of great quality. I put HID Xenons, but the spread of the projector is not very good, plus the reflector for the high beam is also not good. So the headlight setup is purely aesthetic, and I avoid driving the car at night on unlit roads.



Car is in chennai. Joel adjusted the AFR's a bit, so it is right now around 11-12. Barely been driving the car, as have been out on work a lot. I think my water pump might be due for a change as there is a slight noise from the belt area, when I park the car in an enclosed space. R18's have an issue with the pumps I hear. Will get this looked into soon, if it is the tensioner pulley or pump bearings.

[Merc_lover666]

Hi Bhuvan, I am not able to Pm you so need to post this in the thread. After a bad experience with a couple of tuners. After reading your super thread. I am once again ready to experiment with a new mod. Since you have been able to do it successfully of course with a lot of hard work. I request your help to proceed on this project.

If you could please help me connect with Mr. Joel, then would look to take this forward with him. Thanking You!

[bhuvan_prasad]

Originally Posted by Merc_lover666

Hi Bhuvan, I am not able to Pm you so need to post this in the thread. After a bad experience with a couple of tuners. After reading your super thread. I am once again ready to experiment with a new mod. Since you have been able to do it successfully of course with a lot of hard work. I request your help to proceed on this project.

If you could please help me connect with Mr. Joel, then would look to take this forward with him. Thanking You!

Hey,
Sent you a pm. Do try and reply to it.
Or else drop me an email to my Id shared in my post above yours.

[SnS_12]

Congratulations Bhuvan and I wish your Civic maintains a big grin on your face for many more miles to come

I just finished reading through you're entire thread and also Anoop's civic thread, and I must admit that the turbo bug has bitten me too. I currently have a Petrol Swift and a Honda Brio and I am just toying with the idea of which one to pick for this mod.

I have written to Joel about it, and hopefully would meet up with him during my trip to Bangalore and Chennai next week, which I am doing in my Brio. So in case if we can meet up in Chennai post the 20th then that would be great. I would love to have ride in your covic and also get some tips.

Finally, I noticed you switched back to the K&N from the BMC filter. Is it due to performance or was it not installed properly by RRP?

[bhuvan_prasad]

Originally Posted by SnS_12

Congratulations Bhuvan and I wish your Civic maintains a big grin on your face for many more miles to come

I just finished reading through you're entire thread and also Anoop's civic thread, and I must admit that the turbo bug has bitten me too. I currently have a Petrol Swift and a Honda Brio and I am just toying with the idea of which one to pick for this mod.

I have written to Joel about it, and hopefully would meet up with him during my trip to Bangalore and Chennai next week, which I am doing in my Brio. So in case if we can meet up in Chennai post the 20th then that would be great. I would love to have ride in your covic and also get some tips.

Finally, I noticed you switched back to the K&N from the BMC filter. Is it due to performance or was it not installed properly by RRP?

If your swift is the old 1.3 go with the swift or else the Brio. Don't bother with the swift if its the 1.2VVT engine. Also, my old sparingly used GT 20 turbo+ intercooler will be a good fit for these 1.2/1.3 engines.

Please do message me when you are in chennai, I travel a lot during the week, but in case I am in town when you are there, let us definitely meet up.

The BMC is more for a NA car, as it it is designed to get in cooler air with its duct like design, whereas with the turbo we needed a larger filter, which would pick up more air, and were fine with sacrificing a little hotter air, as it was going through the intercooler anyway.


In other news, there have been a lot of changes and a lot of running for my Civic. Since the turbo job, I have driven close to 6000Kms. I've also read up a lot on AFR, tuning, load, etc. and have changed the map a lot, with great results. This is all more of fine tuning, as the car was running a bit rich when off boost, and hence over the course of my driving, small changes were made to the map, to arrive at more or less a perfect map.

I think my stock ECU made some long term corrections 1 month into the turbo job, and my AFR's were between 10-10.5 constantly. Since I was running larger injectors, I changed the fuel multiplier to get a larger range to play with, and over the course of all my driving around, with a co-passenger have tuned it using primarily the AFR gauge, and general throttle response, listening for knocks/pinging etc. I cannot stress the importance of having a good wideband O2 sensor on a modded car, and thanks to Joel for convincing me to get one.

The car just completed a Chennai - Hyderabad - Goa - Bangalore - Chennai road trip in peak summer, without a hiccup and calculation via the full tank fill method each and every time gave me figures of 13km/l.

I also feel the response has become better since peak power is usually made around 12.8 AFR, so off boost I am mostly around there, and the response is really nice. In boost, an AFR of 12.5 gave me pinging as it is a high compression engine, so I made it richer and am at 11.5 now, and the car runs fine.

I am really happy with the way the car has performed, such great FE, lovely performance, on the highway you don't need to go past 3000RPM for 95% of the overtaking moves. The acceleration in boost post 4000RPM is still frighteningly fast, and I probably will do another acceleration run and post it here.

[vishal.jayakuma]

Originally Posted by bhuvan_prasad

The car just completed a Chennai - Hyderabad - Goa - Bangalore - Chennai road trip in peak summer, without a hiccup and calculation via the full tank fill method each and every time gave me figures of 13km/l.

I also feel the response has become better since peak power is usually made around 12.8 AFR, so off boost I am mostly around there, and the response is really nice. In boost, an AFR of 12.5 gave me pinging as it is a high compression engine, so I made it richer and am at 11.5 now, and the car runs fine.

I am really happy with the way the car has performed, such great FE, lovely performance, on the highway you don't need to go past 3000RPM for 95% of the overtaking moves. The acceleration in boost post 4000RPM is still frighteningly fast, and I probably will do another acceleration run and post it here.

13 kmpl on a turbo Civic? My Civic with RRP CAI and FFE gives me about 8 even if i drive with a light foot in the city. Any suggestions from your side?

[SnS_12]

Yeah my Swift has got the 1.2 engine. Actually I am in a dilemma as I want to do this mod on my Brio, because the brakes and handling are much better than the swift, but the issue is that is just 6 months old.

I really appreciate the efforts that you're putting in to fine tune your car and I am sure Joel would appreciate it too as he gets to learn in the process as well.

I am more into bikes and I know the tune up process is quite tedious and frustrating at times as you just don't know what mixtures to run and what jetting to go with. But in the end once the engine gets tuned at the right level to meet your expectations, the feeling is just priceless.

[bhuvan_prasad]

Originally Posted by vishal.jayakuma

13 kmpl on a turbo Civic? My Civic with RRP CAI and FFE gives me about 8 even if i drive with a light foot in the city. Any suggestions from your side?

That's the thing most people don't get, and I'm sorry if I am being blunt, but when not in boost, there is no reason at all as to why a well modified and tuned turbo Civic should not be as, if not more fuel efficient(because of the free flow, wider piping) than a stock Civic. Sure, I will run it richer than a stock Civic, which is tuned probably for more FE than power at cruise and low load situations, but as the engine is breathing and expelling gases more freely, I will use lesser throttle during cruise and light acceleration. Hence, a well-tuned turbo mod car, must be in my opinion almost as efficient as a stock car, when the turbo is not engaged. I learnt this the hard way, as my earlier build was not this efficient, and when we opened up the head, we discovered carbon buildup, meaning it was running needlessly rich.

Coming to the 13km/l, it was on the highway, in the city I expect around 10Km/l. When my car was without a turbo and just a CAI and FFE, I used to get 11 Km/L in Chennai city, so I guess you can get a full checkup of your engine done, spark plugs, air filter cleaning, any leaks in the free flow etc.

Originally Posted by SnS_12

Yeah my Swift has got the 1.2 engine. Actually I am in a dilemma as I want to do this mod on my Brio, because the brakes and handling are much better than the swift, but the issue is that is just 6 months old.

I really appreciate the efforts that you're putting in to fine tune your car and I am sure Joel would appreciate it too as he gets to learn in the process as well.

I am more into bikes and I know the tune up process is quite tedious and frustrating at times as you just don't know what mixtures to run and what jetting to go with. But in the end once the engine gets tuned at the right level to meet your expectations, the feeling is just priceless.

As long as the Brio has done 2k KMS, and the engine is performing well, good FE, nice acceleration, pulls cleanly to the redline, there is no reason why you should hesitate.

[vishal.jayakuma]

Originally Posted by bhuvan_prasad

That's the thing most people don't get, and I'm sorry if I am being blunt, but when not in boost, there is no reason at all as to why a well modified and tuned turbo Civic should not be as, if not more fuel efficient(because of the free flow, wider piping) than a stock Civic. Sure, I will run it richer than a stock Civic, which is tuned probably for more FE than power at cruise and low load situations, but as the engine is breathing and expelling gases more freely, I will use lesser throttle during cruise and light acceleration. Hence, a well-tuned turbo mod car, must be in my opinion almost as efficient as a stock car, when the turbo is not engaged. I learnt this the hard way, as my earlier build was not this efficient, and when we opened up the head, we discovered carbon buildup, meaning it was running needlessly rich.

Coming to the 13km/l, it was on the highway, in the city I expect around 10Km/l. When my car was without a turbo and just a CAI and FFE, I used to get 11 Km/L in Chennai city, so I guess you can get a full checkup of your engine done, spark plugs, air filter cleaning, any leaks in the free flow etc.

What fuel are you using? Yes i'm doing a thorough check up of my car. I'm from Chennai too, btw.