Hondata FK8 tuning guide

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kefi

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Hi CivicX/Type R community! Been a while since I made an actual thread.

Honda Civic 10th gen Hondata FK8 tuning guide 1603480347356

I've spent the past few weeks writing a significantly more in depth guide to tuning an FK8 on Hondata. It covers nearly every parameter, table, and feature as well as the internal workings and strange behaviors of the ECU and how to properly approach tuning it.

You can find it on the FK8 Wiki here: https://fk8.wiki/Hondata_Tuning_Guide

Please let me know your thoughts, if I should add anything, or if there's something you think should be changed. I hope that this guide can help all tuners, professional or otherwise, make better calibrations for the FK8 so that the K20C1 can continue to be known for it's long term reliability under significantly increased power levels. Even though I myself professionally tune them, my potential competition blowing up engines or not making decent power with custom tunes will do me no good.


Because Honda chose to use a Bosch ECU in the FK8, prior experience tuning Hondas doesn't really get you far. If you're a professional tuner, self-tuner, or somebody who is just really scientifically curious like me, this guide has damn near every single topic covered. It's gigantic, but every piece of information is vital to properly tuning a Type R. It only covers topics specific to the FK8 and not tuning in general.

This guide is not meant for those who want to just get tuned or flash a basemap or anything like that. It is meant for those that already understand or are in the process of learning EFI tuning. There is lots of information in there that could be useful to some Type R owners, though.
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Learn2turn

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Thank you for your incredible efforts and your thoughtful participation!
Great Work Man!!
 
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kefi

kefi

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Thank you for your incredible efforts and your thoughtful participation!
Great Work Man!!
It's my pleasure. Hopefully some people's questions will be answered. Hondata even shared it themselves on their IG :D
 

TheCanadian

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Great work.

I take it if you are stock and only have a hondata basemap it’s safe to just leave it alone ? If I am correct, custom tuning is more for pushing the limits and catering to different mods.
 


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kefi

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Great work.

I take it if you are stock and only have a hondata basemap it’s safe to just leave it alone ? If I am correct, custom tuning is more for pushing the limits and catering to different mods.
Not exactly. Custom tuning can benefit anyone, even those looking to stay near stock power levels. There's several ways you can tweak the tune for the driver and the individual vehicle's characteristics. The basemaps throttle response is way too sharp for some people.

There's also an issue I discovered with some intake upgrades that can cause rapid AF swings at WOT that necessitates recalibrating the MAF. I'll probably end up releasing an online tool that will help with that task.
 

TheCanadian

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Good to know!
Would you say the basetune is a safe upgrade for a stock car to sort of plug and forget For those looking at an easy and quick upgrade - a la APR tunes for german makes?.
 
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kefi

kefi

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Good to know!
Would you say the basetune is a safe upgrade for a stock car to sort of plug and forget For those looking at an easy and quick upgrade - a la APR tunes for german makes?.
Yes. They're all safe, just not optimal. And that's on purpose. They are basemaps.
 


MadMage

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Awesome work Kefi! Your contributions to the community are outstanding.

If I could ask for advice, I'm totally new to car mods and am looking to do something with my FK8 in the coming months/years. I would like to learn more about ECU tuning, where should I start? (It doesn't seem like this guide is the place to start :)) I am an engineer, so I know more than the basics and have a technical bent and background.
 
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kefi

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Awesome work Kefi! Your contributions to the community are outstanding.

If I could ask for advice, I'm totally new to car mods and am looking to do something with my FK8 in the coming months/years. I would like to learn more about ECU tuning, where should I start? (It doesn't seem like this guide is the place to start :)) I am an engineer, so I know more than the basics and have a technical bent and background.
Thank you!

Jeff Evans has a pretty awesome online video course with hundreds of videos that covers every imagineable thing about tuning, especially with Hondata, and even a few videos on FK8 tuning that only costs somewhere around $50/mo to subscribe to. There's also other courses like HPAcademy that have a ton of great videos and a great support base.

This ECU is actually not a bad place to start since it handles a lot of the lower level details for you, so long as you can grasp the concepts in the guide and the basics of tuning electronic fuel injection systems. However, there's a lot of things that aren't detailed in this guide like how to actually tune ignition or air fuel ratiosm, or even the appropriate values to use for most tables. The guide is mostly meant to supplement general EFI tuning knowledge so that you can apply what you know to this platform.
 

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has i said to you well done!
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