10th Gen Si Owner Abuses and Blows Motor

k20z3allmotor · Mar 24, 2019

This car was not at its limits like the video or owner implies. The dyno used reads up to 20 percent higher than a normal dynapack. My car when it was on the CTR turbo made more power than this car with different tuning strategies on ktuner. Did not blow up, and had multiple track day runs. Now it has Prl’s big turbo and motec still has not blown lol

amirza786 · Mar 24, 2019

charleswrivers said:
Yeah... I'm still realistic about what power one can make with what we have to start with. It's still only a 1.5 liter. There's only so much surface area on the top of those little pistons for the combustion pressure to work on. Our bore is 73mm. Compare that to... say a C6 Corvette ZR1s handmade LS9 bore at 4.065"... or 103.25mm. Strokes are similar. Area-wise... we're talking about 41.85 vs 83.73mm^2. This car was nearly at 400 ft-lbs vs about 600 ft-lbs of that big 6.2.

We're comparing 2 vastly different engines. 1 with 1/2 the cylinders and each individual one being asked to withstand forces greater than what is being asked for a performance oriented engine that's in a Corvette ZR1 by my reckoning. I would consider the L15B7 a tiny engine that punches far above it's weight class... but it's stock internal strength isn't comparable. It's still a mainstream engine... Sis being the same as the CRVs... and numbers in the million units range now.

I'm also of the opinion the guy is an ass road racing in traffic. But so far as blowing the engine? Yeah... I'm not surprised. Why he didn't build up his engine with pistons and rods already available before he threw pieces through his engine to make a puddle on the side of the road is beyond me.

IMO, trying to treat a L15B7 as one bank of a LS9 and throw comparatively more torque at it is just destructive testing. It was inevitable.

Here's the problem. I knew guys just like this. He pretty much spends almost full time at this, including his racing, which leaves little time for earning an income. I'm just assuming, but he probably lives at home and pays no rent and mommy and daddy pay his expenses. He might have a job and maybe earns some income from his youtube channel, but throws all the money into his little project. For people like you and me, we are cautious because this may be our daily commuter, we have billes and mortgages to pay, and if we blew an engine we would be up sh*t creek. For this guy, there really is no consequences, and that's kinda of the sad part. He will blow a few thousand in new bearings, rods etc. and just do it all over again. Now I have no problem with my kids living at home, my 18 year old lives at home and is a full time college student and my 15 year old is also studying full time and taking a few college classes as well. As long as they maintain their studies and move towards getting their respective degrees, I have no problem funding their needs. As soon as they have their degrees and start building their careers, they can live at home as long as they want. But if my son (or daughter, equal opportunity house here) ever starts getting into this slacker crap, he can fund his own life style

amirza786 · Mar 24, 2019

gtman said:
Jred... I'm with ya yet I do get the concept of pushing the envelope too. But... you have to do it wisely. I guess I've never been able to afford the idea of spending $25k on a car with the intention of using it as a guinea pig knowing I might destroy it.

If you guys want to push the envelope, instead of trying to squeeze 400 hp out of a soda bottled sized engine, climb Mr. Everest or something. Possibly safer, and good exercise too.

Hey man Everest is littered with bodies, some never found to this day...

amirza786 · Mar 24, 2019

Now here is a really good one, a 1993 Civic Si with a 1.5L that makes 500whp

charleswrivers · Mar 24, 2019

amirza786 said:
Here's the problem. I knew guys just like this. He pretty much spends almost full time at this, including his racing, which leaves little time for earning an income. I'm just assuming, but he probably lives at home and pays no rent and mommy and daddy pay his expenses. He might have a job and maybe earns some income from his youtube channel, but throws all the money into his little project. For people like you and me, we are cautious because this may be our daily commuter, we have billes and mortgages to pay, and if we blew an engine we would be up sh*t creek. For this guy, there really is no consequences, and that's kinda of the sad part. He will blow a few thousand in new bearings, rods etc. and just do it all over again. Now I have no problem with my kids living at home, my 18 year old lives at home and is a full time college student and my 15 year old is also studying full time and taking a few college classes as well. As long as they maintain their studies and move towards getting their respective degrees, I have no problem funding their needs. As soon as they have their degrees and start building their careers, they can live at home as long as they want. But if my son (or daughter, equal opportunity house here) ever starts getting into this slacker crap, he can fund his own life style

Maybe. I hate making conclusions on people's backgrounds I don't know.

All I got out of this video was 1) he drives recklessly on public roads 2) he went into doing a self-admitted excessive tune... with the seeming expectation that the engine would fail 3) Despite the availability of a set of rods and pistons for a grand from websites like PRL, he decided to (seemingly intentionally) grenading an otherwise good engine chasing numbers. Striving for failure is, to me, a fools errand.

I mean... I guess we have another data point... and that'd good for the community. I'm not wild about that data being made out on the street... when he was being an ass out on the highway... then needing a tow truck to collect his probably now-damaged block that'll need to be replaced rather than just building it up beforehand.

@k20z3allmotor has got an example of a more powerful car (And it's *really* cool!) which begs to question… how much are ruined cars the fault of too much power/torque... or was it a poor tune, with power/torque made at the wrong place... with any number of other parameters making the engine want to go boom? How much is luck involved too... getting a mass produced engine and happening to have a 'golden' one that can just take it. How much variance exists in a mass produced engine where minute pre-existing flaws in the rods that are perfectly able to hold stock power... even 1/2 again stock power... will fail rapidly as you ask for much more? There ought to be enough dead engines out there to know somewhere in the realm of >300ft-lbs of torque there's a big "?" regarding the stock engines, especially non-Sis. Approaching 400 ft-lbs... it seems like the smart money is betting against a stock engine, especially non-Sis, for longevity.

"300" is kind of my limit for what I'd feel comfortable running on a stock block... be it torque or whp… and 300 whp is about as high as any production FWD car makes anyways. 200 whp/ft-lbs per liter for an engine just feels like the high end of reasonable in my book... for a lot of cars, not just this one, on stock internals. Perhaps in the days of more modern engines and DI... it's a little obsolete... but I look to compare ours, like I did to that LS9, and think it's just taking it too far for an engine we'd like to last a handful of years and 100k+ miles. Past 300 whp as well... that kind of power can't effectively be put down by the from a stop up to highway speeds. Sure... 60-120 mph might be a lot quicker... but 0-60 mph is just going to be a lot of wheel spin with having to limit boost anyway, even if you have good tires, off a track. To see what 350... 400 whp or more, can do, IMO, the place to get a car like that to stretch it's legs is no longer on the street. But here you go having someone trying. I'd like more power than the TSP Stage 1 give me... but realistically, I'd have to get different tires than the OEM summers... at least right now with cooler temps. I struggle with getting traction through second. In the heat of the summer I can thrash it and it'll hold power in 2nd, but is also higher than the speed limit along my entire daily commute to work.

I probably sound old and boring to say don't street race and don't push the little engine too hard. That's just where I'm at in my life. I'd love to see a 400... 500... hell... 1000 whp L15B7 as a showpiece for the platform. But the place for these are on a dyno chasing numbers... on a track chasing times... or putting around to and fro… to show it's still a streetable car. Not running triple digits speeds to show Rosy Palms and her 4 kids in the back of their Toyota Sienna that it can be done on the interstate as you zoom by them and hope she don't misjudge that lane change when she glances back and sees the headlights for a car in the lane she wants to change to that still looks plenty far behind her... but doesn't realize they're doing nearly 1.5-2x her speed.

amirza786 · Mar 24, 2019

charleswrivers said:
Maybe. I hate making conclusions on people's backgrounds I don't know.

All I got out of this video was 1) he drives recklessly on public roads 2) he went into doing a self-admitted excessive tune... with the seeming expectation that the engine would fail 3) Despite the availability of a set of rods and pistons for a grand from websites like PRL, he decided to (seemingly intentionally) grenading an otherwise good engine chasing numbers. Striving for failure is, to me, a fools errand.

I mean... I guess we have another data point... and that'd good for the community. I'm not wild about that data being made out on the street... when he was being an ass out on the highway... then needing a tow truck to collect his probably now-damaged block that'll need to be replaced rather than just building it up beforehand.

@k20z3allmotor has got an example of a more powerful car (And it's *really* cool!) which begs to question… how much are ruined cars the fault of too much power/torque... or was it a poor tune, with power/torque made at the wrong place... with any number of other parameters making the engine want to go boom? How much is luck involved too... getting a mass produced engine and happening to have a 'golden' one that can just take it. How much variance exists in a mass produced engine where minute pre-existing flaws in the rods that are perfectly able to hold stock power... even 1/2 again stock power... will fail rapidly as you ask for much more? There ought to be enough dead engines out there to know somewhere in the realm of >300ft-lbs of torque there's a big "?" regarding the stock engines, especially non-Sis. Approaching 400 ft-lbs... it seems like the smart money is betting against a stock engine, especially non-Sis, for longevity.

"300" is kind of my limit for what I'd feel comfortable running on a stock block... be it torque or whp… and 300 whp is about as high as any production FWD car makes anyways. 200 whp/ft-lbs per liter for an engine just feels like the high end of reasonable in my book... for a lot of cars, not just this one, on stock internals. Perhaps in the days of more modern engines and DI... it's a little obsolete... but I look to compare ours, like I did to that LS9, and think it's just taking it too far for an engine we'd like to last a handful of years and 100k+ miles. Past 300 whp as well... that kind of power can't effectively be put down by the from a stop up to highway speeds. Sure... 60-120 mph might be a lot quicker... but 0-60 mph is just going to be a lot of wheel spin with having to limit boost anyway, even if you have good tires, off a track. To see what 350... 400 whp or more, can do, IMO, the place to get a car like that to stretch it's legs is no longer on the street. But here you go having someone trying. I'd like more power than the TSP Stage 1 give me... but realistically, I'd have to get different tires than the OEM summers... at least right now with cooler temps. I struggle with getting traction through second. In the heat of the summer I can thrash it and it'll hold power in 2nd, but is also higher than the speed limit along my entire daily commute to work.

I probably sound old and boring to say don't street race and don't push the little engine too hard. That's just where I'm at in my life. I'd love to see a 400... 500... hell... 1000 whp L15B7 as a showpiece for the platform. But the place for these are on a dyno chasing numbers... on a track chasing times... or putting around to and fro… to show it's still a streetable car. Not running triple digits speeds to show Rosy Palms and her 4 kids in the back of their Toyota Sienna that it can be done on the interstate as you zoom by them and hope she don't misjudge that lane change when she glances back and sees the headlights for a car in the lane she wants to change to that still looks plenty far behind her... but doesn't realize they're doing nearly 1.5-2x her speed.

I really don't want to judge either, but I watched some of his videos, and knew people who followed this type of pattern, but I won't dwell on this because like you said, we don't know him. Personally I feel that stock levels of power for this car are adequate, maybe with a small performance boost that map 1 of the tsp stage 1 tune provides, and if Honda had tuned it to map 1 levels I probably would not have bought a Ktuner. In fact, I pretty much only use Map 1 and have used map 2 maybe three times. Map 2 is a lot of power out of this small car, and in most driving situations is not necessary. In fact I switched to map 2 and it scared my wife! 237 whp that map 3 gives (in sports mode) is just excessive and asking for a ticket or worse. For me honestly the best thing I did for this car that really made it a much better driving experience was the MT fluid change, Ktuner was kind of the icing on the cake

simonjr · Mar 24, 2019

jred721 said:
Yeah I get trying to get the most out of modding a car. I just feel like buying a brand new Civic and spending so much money on a car that eventually is going to break is as good as burning your money. The benefits of buying a new car are completely gone once you try extensively modding it like that. Now if you take something like an MK4 Supra and you're trying to push 800-900 WHP, then by all means go for it. You can even get a late model lightly used Mustang GT for under $30K and its already pushing over 400 horse from factory. Put the same amount of money as you did on the Si and you got a car that'll eat the Si for breakfast without breaking a sweat. Or even a 335i, just an ECU tune and you're at 400 WHP. The list goes on.

Honestly 300whp is plenty for any fwd car, especially an Si. For what the Si is and its little l15b7, it is pretty damn impressive nonetheless, the power levels many have achieved through this motor. When Honda first unveiled the 1.5l for the Si, many believed it would not surpass the 300whp mark on a stock block. Fast forward and there are those making reliable mid to high 200’s with just bolt on’s and ethanol. Something that wasn’t as plausible on previous gens. I think we all get to caught up in chasing numbers and forget to drive and enjoy it for what it is.

gtman · Mar 24, 2019

I'm thrilled to get the power I do on my non-Si turbo running nothing more than a stage 1 intake setup and 21psi Ktuner tune on 93 octane. It's incredible that I have a car now that consistently does sub 6 second 0-60 runs (best time 5.7 sec) and gets 35+ mpg. I guess I'm easy to please.

But I understand the need for speed and the idea of extracting as much power as possible. All I've basically been saying is if you want massive power from this engine and you want it to be "somewhat" reliable, you need to set up a solid foundation with stronger internals.

The guy in the video either is...

A. Rich and can afford to just blow up his engine.
B. Stupid. Not realizing you can only push the stock internals so far.
C. Stupid. Racing on the highway, endangering innocent drivers and filming it for his YouTube audience.
D. All of the above.

jred721 · Mar 24, 2019

gtman said:
I'm thrilled to get the power I do on my non-Si turbo running nothing more than a stage 1 intake setup and 21psi Ktuner tune on 93 octane. It's incredible that I have a car now that consistently does sub 6 second 0-60 runs (best time 5.7 sec) and gets 35+ mpg. I guess I'm easy to please.

But I understand the need for speed and the idea of extracting as much power as possible. All I've basically been saying is if you want massive power from this engine and you want it to be "somewhat" reliable, you need to set up a solid foundation with stronger internals.

The guy in the video either is...

A. Rich and can afford to just blow up his engine.
B. Stupid. Not realizing you can only push the stock internals so far.
C. Stupid. Racing on the highway, endangering innocent drivers and filming it for his YouTube audience.
D. All of the above.

I'd say he's a solid combo between B and C lol. A lot of these youtubers figure that whatever happens they'll get some amount of revenue from their videos, so im guessing thats what this guy thought and he figuredtit would be good content to push his Si to that much power.

staylurkn · Mar 24, 2019

Welp, sh*t happens. Can't knock him for chasing numbers as if others aren't doing the same. It just didn't work out for him.
Play it safe guys.

gtman · Mar 24, 2019

jred721 said:
I'd say he's a solid combo between B and C lol. A lot of these youtubers figure that whatever happens they'll get some amount of revenue from their videos, so im guessing thats what this guy thought and he figuredtit would be good content to push his Si to that much power.

Good point on the YouTube revenue. Call me old fashioned but I don't think I'd post videos of me racing another car at obscene speeds surrounded by commuters on the highway. But, I guess it's good for getting subscribers.

LilToTo17 · Mar 24, 2019

staylurkn said:
Welp, sh*t happens. Can't knock him for chasing numbers as if others aren't doing the same. It just didn't work out for him.
Play it safe guys.

If he wanted safe afr’s he wouldn’t go to Church Dyno and be on full E85 knowing the car can’t handle it because not enough injection window. Fuel pump can handle it but the injectors can’t. He also didn’t mention that he had to replace his spark plugs twice because of the full E85 and spark coil went bad too.

PowerPerLiter · Mar 24, 2019

I would want to have a look at the data. I have a strong suspicion too much ignition lead time (advance) was the culprit. Hell even boost pressure compared to power levels would give a decent idea to a few of us. Ethanol has the capacity to allow timing advance that is basically forcing the piston back down before it ever comes to top dead center in the combustion chamber. And never showing any sign of detonation. Add into it the known afr stability issue of running full e85. I also would wager there weren't any on road, real world, data logs pulled. Poor thing was likely chewing on itself during all those pulls.

I'd consider this uncharacteristic results compared to the bigger collective which are holding much more... for longer... by a large margin.

LilToTo17 · Mar 25, 2019

PowerPerLiter said:
I would want to have a look at the data. I have a strong suspicion too much ignition lead time (advance) was the culprit. Hell even boost pressure compared to power levels would give a decent idea to a few of us. Ethanol has the capacity to allow timing advance that is basically forcing the piston back down before it ever comes to top dead center in the combustion chamber. And never showing any sign of detonation. Add into it the known afr stability issue of running full e85. I also would wager there weren't any on road, real world, data logs pulled. Poor thing was likely chewing on itself during all those pulls.

I'd consider this uncharacteristic results compared to the bigger collective which are holding much more... for longer... by a large margin.

and he said running full E85 is fine.

jtrader · Mar 25, 2019

You can tell the guy is a little nuts simply by looking at the front of his car.

10th Gen Si Owner Abuses and Blows Motor

k20z3allmotor

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amirza786

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amirza786

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