Max horsepower

4piston

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He's modded I'd assume? Otherwise, why would it take you 530whp to beat a ~4100lb 650 hp car in a ~3100lb 610hp car?
No its stock.....I just had trouble completely hooking the power up when we did race. That ZL1 has a huge powerband and long legs....he can really use that to his advantage while I was fighting for traction and changing gears. At the time...I'd spin 4th pretty hard from a 65+ rolls and then hook it up at about 100 mph...then change to 5th whereas he could stay in 4th for the whole race. I was starting in 4th because 3rd was a total loss on traction....but I really NEEDED to be in 3rd for the turbo to be lit. If you laid his 580whp dyno chart over my 530 in MPH, both on 4th gear pulls then you could see. He's making WAY more power at lower speed....my R made 25whp more for some period in the middle of the pull....then the ZL1 would start walking all over it again as MPH increased. That's dynojet chart in MPH, laid over each other....not rpm.

I have much better rubber under it now, so that power level may have been a different story. I easily hook 3rd from 50mph where before there was no chance. I also make enough power now where there is no sense in racing....I walk away easily.

For what its worth.....that 530 on my chassis dyno is nowhere close to 610 on my engine dyno :) There isn't that much drivetrain loss in these cars.
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MoTeC R

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@4piston wheel tire combo are you using Iā€™m looking at so many different options and I canā€™t seem to wrap my mind around it I thought about doing the Titan 7 18x10.7 with the advan a052 with a 5mm spacer to clear the rear and a 7-8mm to clear the front my buddy is working on theis exact setup now and thinks a 3MM would clear the back but is concerned anything more than 5mm up front could cause issues lowering on the outside. Or just going 20X9.5 since I show the car more than I race with it. I just enjoy spirited driving and shows / meets. Going to try to get to SEMA if it happens for us this year at all.

I know most people prefer 18s but I like the aggressive look of a 20ā€.
 
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4piston

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19x9.5 Volk and 275 Nankang RA1. Hooks awesome. Previously I had 265 and 275 RE71R and I spun 4th badly.....sometimes 5th if I was over 600whp. Also ran Hoosier drag radial...spun that badly also. The Nankang is no joke.
 

RepyT

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19x9.5 Volk and 275 Nankang RA1. Hooks awesome. Previously I had 265 and 275 RE71R and I spun 4th badly.....sometimes 5th if I was over 600whp. Also ran Hoosier drag radial...spun that badly also. The Nankang is no joke.
Sweet combo 4piston (I donā€™t dare shorten you name).
I was told Nanking means ā€˜egg whitesā€™ is that true?

No yolk, good tiewaz.
 

SHIFTT_IX_MR

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450 is the goal! I just got my car tuned by drob and it feels great but I already know in about a month or the next time I run into a c6 zo6 Iā€™ll want more power lol so I think Iā€™m gonna stop fucking around with di and go port injection full e85
Good luck against the ls7. Those z06ā€™s weigh as much as our type rā€™s, but can hook better with the weight transferred to the driving wheels. And Iā€™ll be honestly, owning a GTR and z06 side by side the GTR was only good for launching, once I hit 120 in the GTR, the z06 walked on me. Literally the c6 z06 is a monster. I loved that car. It was a death machine tho,
 


BrokeCTROwner

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Good luck against the ls7. Those z06ā€™s weigh as much as our type rā€™s, but can hook better with the weight transferred to the driving wheels. And Iā€™ll be honestly, owning a GTR and z06 side by side the GTR was only good for launching, once I hit 120 in the GTR, the z06 walked on me. Literally the c6 z06 is a monster. I loved that car. It was a death machine tho,
100% agree I talk to the wife about getting a c6 z nearly everyday lol Raced one before and it was close until 105 then it walked us. Thatā€™s why I said Iā€™ll want more power when I run into another one
 

Sev

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I noticed some people debating on whether the Racechip works or not for the Civic.

I have Racechip RS installed on my Civic Touring 1.5 and made a video for comparison. I know it's very amateur to say the least, but I think it's conclusive enough.

Tests were ran in the same conditions, same night, same place (3000 ft altitude).

 
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RepyT

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I noticed some people debating on whether the Racechip works or not for the Civic.

I have Racechip RS installed on my Civic Touring 1.5 and made a video for comparison. I know it's very amateur to say the least, but I think it's conclusive enough.

Tests were ran in the same conditions, same night, same place (3000 ft altitude).

Sev,
Thanks very much for posting.

Community here has been doubting more than debating.

The first USA (prototype, development, testing) RC for Type R underwent several trial periods but as final, gained +81 hp at wheels compared to stock dyno runs. No bolt ons, K&N Perfmance filter was only item not OEM.

Some RC debaters may be upset saying itā€™s not possible without using bolt ons (read time and money) diff fuel pump, all getting similar, less, or more power gains using traditional ECU reprogramming tunes.

I get that ā€˜no way dudeā€™ attitude but this company and methods have been legit since being founded in Germany in 2008. Yes way! ECU not touched/talked to.

So...
Easy DIY install, no advanced knowledge or laptop needed, just get more performance without jail breaking ECU or adding expensive parts.

I donā€™t work for RC, they just used my car is all. Iā€™m also a believer of facts that gets why this works.

Iā€™m thrilled with it, same lead tuner that did your 1.5 did the 2.0 CTR but everything is corporate vetted.

I like that a sustainable & selectable performance range is provided and that it isnā€™t max power possible.

I was told kits should be out in 30-90 days, probably low side of that. The video will be done in next few weeks once all docs and parts are RTG.
 
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kefi

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Sure, it's possible. But knowing what I know about these cars, I fail to see how they're pushing that much power safely.

The Type R has a pretty advanced ECU (for factory) that does lots of things to make safe power in any environmental condition. Every bit of safety the Bosch ECU gives you is pretty much thrown out the window with these and there's no way around that fact. The ECU uses certain sensors. Those sensors are being tampered with to trick the ECU into doing things it doesn't realize it's doing.

These types of piggybacks were made popular and were most useful with dumb ECUs that didn't do much more than read from tables and couldn't give a shit what the atmospheric pressure or intake temps were.

If RaceChip would like to explain their methodology (doubtful), I'd love to hear it - but we've got years of extremely experienced people slapping every possible combination of numbers directly into the ECU without those kinds of safe results. But who knows - this type of ECU is mostly seen in German cars, which is where they're from. Every breakthrough started with somebody saying 'impossible'.
 

RepyT

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Sure, it's possible. But knowing what I know about these cars, I fail to see how they're pushing that much power safely.

The Type R has a pretty advanced ECU (for factory) that does lots of things to make safe power in any environmental condition. Every bit of safety the Bosch ECU gives you is pretty much thrown out the window with these and there's no way around that fact. The ECU uses certain sensors. Those sensors are being tampered with to trick the ECU into doing things it doesn't realize it's doing.

These types of piggybacks were made popular and were most useful with dumb ECUs that didn't do much more than read from tables and couldn't give a shit what the atmospheric pressure or intake temps were.

If RaceChip would like to explain their methodology (doubtful), I'd love to hear it - but we've got years of extremely experienced people slapping every possible combination of numbers directly into the ECU without those kinds of safe results. But who knows - this type of ECU is mostly seen in German cars, which is where they're from. Every breakthrough started with somebody saying 'impossible'.
I canā€™t speak for RC in any in a technical sense obviously. I do know this took place in stages to safely increase power output when the OEM ECU met objectives (stopping there) not desired thresholds and didnā€™t want to go any higher.
That paused development so another sensor could be sent and added. Iā€™m not trying to be vague, I know what I know, not what I donā€™t know exactly what was added when. Frankly I donā€™t care to know other just thaN it works. Send an email to RC asking about methodology if you want, thereā€™s some basic info on USA and De websites.

Help ME understand something though. Youā€™re saying itā€™s bad to trick or change input based on an ECU believed signal so itā€™s better to crack it and command it to do the same thing directly? It is Hondata and K-tuner that defeat the ECU safety features In doing so, RC doesnā€™t talk to it or change anything there. RC closely evaluates power to control gains while all protective ECU measures still exist untouched, albeit running at higher levels. All carefully evaluated to safely adjust (not maximize) HP, torque, prevent knock, and all sorts of the variables, same ones other tunes use.

This comes down to optimization, my logical engineering based brain gets that. Keen, clean, simple, hands off vs on. I feel better knowing I canā€™t screw anything up hitting the wrong button, downloading wrong tune, wrong combo of features that could do damage, voiding warranty?

Us old folks can probably remember as far back as 70ā€™s when individual stereo audio components performed better than the rack systems. Fiddle around wrong though and blow a fuse or speaker. I believe RC has a sound formula.

Yes, OEM ECU is highly intelligent and advanced (stubborn?) and presented challenges. The FK8 was higher in degree difficulty but remember the local experience and Corp experts on tap who went over this daily but no less than weekly for months. The added RC ECU is very savvy at, precise shadowed biasing, purposeful design achieved.

Appreciate your knowledge and expertise but hoping you and others understand that itā€™s software and mechanical devices, not magic. Not quite rocket science but close and both camps methods can achieve significant gains. I always like examples to try to simplify this complex situation.

Math wise, if X times y = z, you can (as team H and K do) change y to adjust z. You can also (as RC does, leave y alone and change X transparently to achieve Z, both work! AmaZZZing.
 
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kefi

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Help ME understand something though. Youā€™re saying itā€™s bad to trick or change input based on an ECU believed signal so itā€™s better to crack it and command it to do the same thing directly? It is Hondata and K-tuner that defeat the ECU safety features In doing so, RC doesnā€™t talk to it or change anything there. RC closely evaluates power to control gains while all protective ECU measures still exist untouched, albeit running at higher levels. All carefully evaluated to safely adjust (not maximize) HP, torque, prevent knock, and all sorts of the variables, same ones other tunes use.
They aren't defeating any ECU safety features by just jailbreaking it and uploading their own tables. They're using the existing pathway the OBDII standard has to upload new software to the ECU, they in a way just cracked the password for doing so.

The thing is, for you to be reaching those power levels, you've already exceeded the safety limits set by Honda in the air charge and boost limit tables, so you're definitely not using the 'protective ECU measures' at that point.

The main difference in this ECU is that you start with how much torque you want and it figures out how to make it safely in that particular environment, rather than just having a bunch of static tables that don't really interact with eachother. On top of all that, unlike most turbo cars, our engine seeks air charge and not actual boost. We're primarily looking at cylinder air mass, which is calculated using the MAF sensor flow and not the boost signal. The boost is just a means to get there.

The way chips work is by tricking the ECU into thinking it hasn't reached those limits yet, so it keeps pushing other parameters further. However, there's lots of mechanisms that are interconnected in this ECU that depend on that sensor data being actually physically correct to do any good. Otherwise, you might as well just be running an old K-series ECU.

Another thing is, for that much power to be gained, generally you have to add some ignition advance. I don't think chips do this, but maybe this one does.

Now, saying all this - is it impossible? No. You could intercept a lot of sensors and do it just right and you'll probably be fine in most scenarios. But you're throwing away what makes this ECU good in the first place... for what? So you can lie to the dealership when your engine blows and you say you didn't tune it?
 

RepyT

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They aren't defeating any ECU safety features by just jailbreaking it and uploading their own tables. They're using the existing pathway the OBDII standard has to upload new software to the ECU, they in a way just cracked the password for doing so.

The thing is, for you to be reaching those power levels, you've already exceeded the safety limits set by Honda in the air charge and boost limit tables, so you're definitely not using the 'protective ECU measures' at that point.

The main difference in this ECU is that you start with how much torque you want and it figures out how to make it safely in that particular environment, rather than just having a bunch of static tables that don't really interact with eachother. On top of all that, unlike most turbo cars, our engine seeks air charge and not actual boost. We're primarily looking at cylinder air mass, which is calculated using the MAF sensor flow and not the boost signal. The boost is just a means to get there.

The way chips work is by tricking the ECU into thinking it hasn't reached those limits yet, so it keeps pushing other parameters further. However, there's lots of mechanisms that are interconnected in this ECU that depend on that sensor data being actually physically correct to do any good. Otherwise, you might as well just be running an old K-series ECU.

Another thing is, for that much power to be gained, generally you have to add some ignition advance. I don't think chips do this, but maybe this one does.

Now, saying all this - is it impossible? No. You could intercept a lot of sensors and do it just right and you'll probably be fine in most scenarios. But you're throwing away what makes this ECU good in the first place... for what? So you can lie to the dealership when your engine blows and you say you didn't tune it?
I respect your opinion and appreciate the tech walkthrough. Thereā€™s a balance here, theyā€™re conservative enough to back it down and read their fine print about lifespan.

I think there are 4 sensors, and a fifth monitored that isnā€™t controlled as feedback, perhaps driving adjustments. I donā€™t know for sure what controls are involved so Iā€™d rather not say since Iā€™m just the happy consumer. Bottom line is unless pressed, thereā€™s no need for higher settings, wheelspin dry can be an issue in midrange 340-ish).

WRT blowing an engine, probably more likely with bolt ons than not. Once you get to 400 hp, need so much low end work to handle it, takes big money and I just want a zippier daily driver on occasion.

Tires/rims can only go to about 265 without fender work, I canā€™t imagine 450-550 hp on tires just 10 wider than my 255s square.

I am anxious to see what ā€˜hands offersā€™ like me think of this once fielded. We probably wonā€™t be on the podium but wouldnote be far behind the other camps With PBO/FBO 93 octane crowd

Letā€™s all just have a blast our own way and nod respectfully as CTR enthusiasts who know the F in FK8 is for FUN!

Stay healthy kefi!
 

kefi

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I respect your opinion and appreciate the tech walkthrough. Thereā€™s a balance here, theyā€™re conservative enough to back it down and read their fine print about lifespan.

I think there are 4 sensors, and a fifth monitored that isnā€™t controlled as feedback, perhaps driving adjustments. I donā€™t know for sure what controls are involved so Iā€™d rather not say since Iā€™m just the happy consumer. Bottom line is unless pressed, thereā€™s no need for higher settings, wheelspin dry can be an issue in midrange 340-ish).

WRT blowing an engine, probably more likely with bolt ons than not. Once you get to 400 hp, need so much low end work to handle it, takes big money and I just want a zippier daily driver on occasion.

Tires/rims can only go to about 265 without fender work, I canā€™t imagine 450-550 hp on tires just 10 wider than my 255s square.

I am anxious to see what ā€˜hands offersā€™ like me think of this once fielded. We probably wonā€™t be on the podium but wouldnote be far behind the other camps With PBO/FBO 93 octane crowd

Letā€™s all just have a blast our own way and nod respectfully as CTR enthusiasts who know the F in FK8 is for FUN!

Stay healthy kefi!
Thats good to know. I didn't think they'd be able to do it with just the boost signal.

I'm not against this product existing, if someone can do this safely and has put the time and effort required to do it properly alongside our advanced ECU, I'm all the more for it. I'll even recommend it myself for certain applications. I just stray very cautiously when it has to do with tricking our ECU, and I try to make sure everyone knows just what they're getting into, regardless of what the manufacturer says.

After all, it's been a few years now. They've had the time to do it.

Like you said, it's our cars, do what you want with them! I say the same things against vent-to-atmosphere blow off valves that make no sense on our cars. Run em if you want to, just know what you're actually getting into.

The 400hp/tq thing is a rumor, by the way. Very few people have blown an engine and it wasn't because they pushed it past 400. Our blocks can handle significantly more than that, especially if the torque curve is pushed to the right.
 

RepyT

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Thats good to know. I didn't think they'd be able to do it with just the boost signal.

I'm not against this product existing, if someone can do this safely and has put the time and effort required to do it properly alongside our advanced ECU, I'm all the more for it. I'll even recommend it myself for certain applications. I just stray very cautiously when it has to do with tricking our ECU, and I try to make sure everyone knows just what they're getting into, regardless of what the manufacturer says.

After all, it's been a few years now. They've had the time to do it.

Like you said, it's our cars, do what you want with them! I say the same things against vent-to-atmosphere blow off valves that make no sense on our cars. Run em if you want to, just know what you're actually getting into.

The 400hp/tq thing is a rumor, by the way. Very few people have blown an engine and it wasn't because they pushed it past 400. Our blocks can handle significantly more than that, especially if the torque curve is pushed to the right.
Thanks, I agree with everything you said in #133.

Iā€™m cautious yet super enthusiastic now but wasnā€™t a doubter as I saw a generic chip elsewhere give my Ridgeline 44 more HP (dynoā€™d before & after). I donā€™t expect to keep this R past 100k miles, maybe half that before the nextgen Acura TLX Type S gets me drooling in a few years.

These numbers even surprised RC, good.
The most comforting aspect to me is their high end Euro experience and success on cars with few exceptions having much higher price tags. If it was snake oil or blowing engines often theyā€™d be extinct. These people know cars and power, what to do and not to do. While the CTR is a complex ECU vehicle that proved hard to regulate, I think they did good using synergy within their corporation, something lacking perhaps in small but genius run facilities. Letā€™s see what the world thinks of this kit, I was just happy to help out.
Love to see what you do to your car and what it took, gā€™day!
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