02' newbie Help needed

[Gfd_truckie]

Hey all I just joined up here and have some questions for you guys. Let me start off by saying I am a very capable mechanically, and have worked in a transmission shop for about 6 years, and have access to many specialty tools. Although im not all in tune with tuning rsx's.

I just picked up an 02' RSX type s. its currently bone stock and I have the need for more Needless to say I have a budget of about 3-4 k and would like to hear some opinions and options I may not be aware of. What would you do if it was yours I guess?

Thanks all for your time and I look forward to the responses

[C25A1guy]

With your budget, you have several routes you can take, weather it be FI or NA. You can do a fairly comprehensive street NA build or you can even go super or turbo charged for that kind of coin. Of course, going forced induction, you'll be able to eek out more power,

[Slynky]

Yeah, but 4K would really be pushing the S/C, wouldn't it? I mean, to do it right, it needs a different exhaust, motor mounts, and the S/C. And, did Driss have to have plugs changed, too? And somehting about his Comptech Icebox. So, I think 4K would be pushing it to do all that.

[C25A1guy]

for a comptech, yeah, its pushing it. It'll be pretty close to budget limits, but possible with a oscar jackson unit

[Nikon1]

SuperCharger, FTW! Other goodies can be added as the $$ allow. Big ticket item is the SC!

[n0s_speed]

to acuraworld

since, you mentioned that you are a capable mechanic, i am assuming that your installing it yourself or have a friend help you out which saves your money for installation.

whether to go t/c or s/c, it all depends where you live. if you live in california, forget about t/c. stick with s/c and comptech.

then, i would go header/intake/exhaust

[Gfd_truckie]

thanks everyone for the input, I live in new england so weather conditions deffinatley vary. I was considering doing the S/C but thought it would be pointless unless you did the intake, header, and exhaust. gotta breath to get full potential and Like previously mentioned its cutting the budget close on the higher end. I would be doing all of the installs myself and have a few buddies to help out along the way if needed. any other further advice such as products that have worked well would be much appreciated. thanks again

[n0s_speed]

just like what everyone mentioned above, comptech or jackson for s/c

intake, i'd go with either injen or aem
header, depends on your budget.
exhaust, self preference.

[TireMeltingRSX]

If you didn't want to go forced induction you could probably do intake, header, exhaust, cams and k-pro within your budget.

[Gfd_truckie]

well here goes let me know what you guys think.......

What I have already:

- Nice lo-pro tires
- Short throw shifter

Right Now:

-Cold air intake looking at AEM
-Header looking at DC
-Exhaust too many choices
-k-pro
-various suspension upgrades (sway bars f+R, strut tower brace, coilovers w/ new shocks, possibly upgraded braking system)

Within the next year:

-Comptech s/c
-comptech s/c upgrade kit (smaller pulley and injectors) w/ tune for upgrade FREE
-high volume fuel rail w/ press reg
-Full set of gauges to monitor everything

so what do you guys think? What will i legit be looking at for power when its all said and done? and the only thing im concerned about is what kinda power I can push without worrying about the stock internals

thanks again for the help.......

[giken]

Depends on your tune. Not sure about comptech s/c, but you can get a jackson s/c around the 300hp mark and more if tuned aggressively.

[Slynky]

Truckie, when you get the Comptech SC, I think, most places sell the package WITH Comptech's ECU and THEIR guidelines on how it should be set to yield a comprimise between driving the car as an everyday car and power. If you haven't already looked, I believe the WHP gain as Comptech lists it (their exhause, icebox...also theirs, and the SC) 47. That's, by my guess, around 55-60 in FHP. That adds in the CAI (theirs) and a slight improvement in exhaust. 210 + (say) 60 = 270. If you get something besides THEIR stuff, you get more gains. Headers a bit and perhaps a better flow behind the header and the best gain CAI--Injen--I could estimate a gain to 285-290 failry easily. IF you can get the Comptech SC without their ECU and invest in the K-Pro, you should be able to tweak another 5-10 out of it. Throw in the fuel rail (which I don't know much about) and I'd say you've be over 300 FHP easily.

Now, don't "take that to the bank"...let some of the "majors" here comment on what I've said.

And, Dean, I didn't know anyone else bothered making a SC for the RSX. Good news.

[Slynky]

BTW, a starting photo would be received well here.

[TireMeltingRSX]

If you go I/H/E + K-Pro, Supercharger, smaller pulleys, and a fuel rail you should have no problem being over 300hp with a good tune.

[C25A1guy]

AEM does make a nice intake. I run it on my car. Injen also makes a good intake as well, and provides a replacement washer fluid bottle for easier install (which is always good).

DC headers are decent at best... especially when you look at who the parent company is now (Pilot Automotive). I need to talk to some friends in the industry to see if Pilot has started re-releasing the DC Sports line into the market yet or not. I know they have the products sitting in their warehouse because I've seen it with my own eyes. As far as headers, there's generally 2 classifications. An emissions legal shorty header, and a long tube race header. A long tube race header does pull better gains as far as freeing up HP and TQ. It is illegal to use on public streets, even though the emissions coming out of the tail pipe will be cleaner then a well running 1993 Honda Accord with a fresh cat (stupid, huh?). As far as off the shelf options for a short header, the DC Sports are the original. Everybody else has essentially copied their design because they just simply can't free up any more power within the space and requirements they're working with. Race headers do a much better job as far as flow, pulse scavaging effects. You'll want to go with a 4-2-1 design with a 2.5" collector. Primary+secondary lengths should be around 27-29" for N/A and low S/C boost levels. 32-35" would be ideal for boost pressures above 8 or 9 PSI. This last part is probably more then you'll ever find out anywhere else.

As far as exhaust, you can go all the way up to 3" without any losses (yes, this engine flows that much air). Minimum, 2.5" piping is ideal. True 2.5" ID exhausts on the market (as far as what I remember) are Thermal, Magnaflow, Skunk2, Comptech/CT Engineering, Megan (bleh), and HKS Hi-Power turbo. There's probably a few more out there, just those aren't coming to mind

K-Pro is a very capable tuning hardware/software combo. But in anycase, its only as good as the person making the keystrokes. Out here in so-cal, Shawn Church is one of the best tuners with this system on the market hands down. While normally, he's not super aggressive with his tunes, if you want it, he can do it.

I'm going to break suspension into several sections.
Suspension upgrades always can help this vehicle. A word from the wise is if you want to keep good handling, DO NOT lower more then 1.25" otherwise, you're going to get yourself into a whole 'nother ballpark to get this car to turn correctly.
If you're looking for a lowering spring setup, I've always recommended the Eibach Pro-Kit (these are the black ones). While the drop is not aggressive, its set to keep the steering geometry as close to correct as possible, while maintaining a nice progressive rate for comfort and higher spring rates vs. their sportline model. I generally like the back these with Koni dampers, but the quality on the front strut inserts seem to have been hit or miss. I do believe they have remedied the issue by now.
Your other option is to go with full coilover systems. For these, you really need to do your homework on, as there are a lot of coilovers that are released with the premise of high performance at a low cost (Megan, D2, KSport, I'm looking at you) and simply they just do not work. They hide their damper's faults by running super high spring rates. Good coilovers I have used and I can offer my unbiased opinion at a later time are: Tanabe, Tein, Buddy Club, A'pexi, KW, Moton, Penske, HKS, and JIC.
Bracing is like tuning on a parabola curve. Actually, I take that back. Its more like a bell curve. There's only so much you can do before you hit diminishing returns. And on this chassis, that comes fairly quickly. In the front, areas you can tighten up on are the strut towers, and subframe. Since you have a type s, there's truely not a whole lot of stiffening you can do to the strut towers. Basically, you want to help the stock brace by triangulating the braces that tie the towers together. The subframe can use something like the Neuspeed X-brace or Tanabe Sus Tec brace. Those old 2-point braces do nothing on this chassis. Rear bracing, you have 2 areas that can use extra bracing. You have an upper chassis brace. Many people are stupidly calling a rear strut bar/brace... this term is used incorrectly a lot and it does get on my nerves. Designs like Mugen or D3 is a good for this area. There's also a strut tower brace as well. If you pull the carpet up, you will see brackets that are bolted to the strut tower where the strut hat protrudes out of and mounts to. Most places that carry JDM parts will be able to get you a type r rear strut bar that bolt onto these brackets using standard honda 10mm bolts. You'll basically want to look for a nice solid 1 piece construction for ideal. Less then ideal that would still work are multi-piece design that doesn't have a single mounting point for the center bar to create a pivot point. The rear subframe on the type is is already stiffened from the factory, so there's not much need for bracing here. If you would like, you may bolt on a tie bar that allows for sway bar mounting to reduce the likelyhood of the sway bar tearing out... which brings me to my next subject.
Sway bar tuning is like spring rate tuning. Its a bit of a science and a bit of art. For most street drivers, what you really want is to reduce understeer and ballance the chassis. In this case, a nice 22mm rear sway usually suffices nicely. If you want more, a factory diameter front sway bar that uses a solid design will work nicely for street. As I mentioned before, there are some manufactures that make a rear lower tie bar that incorporates mounting points for a rear sway bar. Many of them combine it with their own sway bar like Progress or Neuspeed. There are others that are stand-alone like the ASR brace. While subframe ripout is rare in the DC5 chassis by compairison to the old DC2 and EK9 chassis, but its not immune to it. You would also want to upgrade your endlinks with some that uses a spherical bushing/heim joint as the stock links are fairly weak and tend to bind when the vehicle is lowered.
That pretty much covers the basics. There are other areas that you can address such as suspension bushings, front lower control arms, steering tie rods, roll center adjusters, etc etc etc, but that will go into a nice and even more lengthy lecture that will require the use of math and graphs that will put most to sleep except for the extreams of geekdome such as I.