Mod your ACT Sensor And Gain HP?!

FK8_K20c1 · Oct 9, 2019

elmerzasty said:
... that Honda/Bosch wanted to measure the "right air temperature" at the sensor without the effect that the shrouding has on the sensor readings.

Got it. I did not assumed that, Im think that they choose the Bosch sensor to provide a more linear reading and stable temperature. I have very clear the purpose of the sensor on the intake manifold. It is difficult to explain people who neither track their IAT's temperatures nor had tried this mod or track their datalogs. I don't plan to keep the modified sensor due to the fact that there is a risk of the probe braking by fatigue and going inside the chamber. But if it wasn't because of that I'll keep it. People need to understand that the car is controlled by torque tables and you will not break the engine by getting a 5-8 degree lower more realistic iat1 temperature. If anything you will hit the target power instead of hitting less.

tinyman392 · Oct 9, 2019

FK8_K20c1 said:
You are still confusing what modifying this sensor does. If the car wouldn’t be designed to allow colder aircharge temps. All mishimoto and big intercooler owner would already have a broken motor. Honda choose a specific brand for the sensor it was not designed by them. Its was designed by Bosch. Every other car with such Bosch sensor looks the same. You cannot make more power that what it was written on the ECU no matter what mods you do on the car.

You're still missing my point, what if Honda already accounted for the issue (erroneous reading) you are describing in the way their ECU is tuned? IE, they are aware the sensor measures high already then modifying the sensor would cause it to read lower than what is expected by the ECU (even if it's more accurate, it may not be expecting an accurate reading to begin with). In today's day and age, hardware works with software that is modified to work with said hardware. Incorrect hardware can be dealt with by modifying it in software and for whatever reason Honda chose to go with this sensor instead of the others you speak of (be it due to price, or some other reason).

Let's go back to the microphone example. Let's say that it is off and reads high by 5-10 dB across the spectrum (how it comes from the factory). The software that uses this knows it and adjusts accordingly. Let's say that the software's design is to alert users of dangerous noise levels (giving an alert at 90 dB). Now let's say that I modified said microphone to be more accurate and it reads low by 1 dB across the spectrum now, but the software doesn't know. Now, instead of needing 90dB of noise to set the alarm off, you need 96-101 dB. The sensor is more accurate now, it's only 1 dB off (80-90% more accurate reading!), however the software powering it is now 6-11 dB off (thousands of percent off now).

Or another example. Apple says they calibrate the screen and cameras from the factory. This doesn't mean they modify the hardware (hardware comes from Samsung, LG, and Sony in this case) at the factory to be accurate. No, they modify the software at the factory for said hardware. If you go ahead and modify the hardware (change it), even if the hardware is better or more accurate, the software on the phone will end up making it less accurate because the corrections in software won't fix the new error profile for the hardware. You'd need to end up recalibrating everything you installed or modified.

Same deal here. If your air charge temp says X by should by Y, it's possible that Honda already took that into consideration in the ECU so the ECU does the right stuff with the value X. If you hand it Y, then you can get weird side effects since the ECU expects X in said situation. Weird side effects could be something along the lines of a boost of (up to) 20HP (sporadically) in the summer or even the motor staying in cold loop longer in the winter (sporadically, keep in mind I said could, not will). No one said you can make more power than is written on the ECU. However, you can still trick the motor into making more power than it should for a given situation (if this wasn't true, no one would want to try this mod because no difference). JB4 has shown this directly by spoofing (digitally, not mechanically) all the sensors. The dyno plots show this directly. Having a modified sensor hand different numbers (albeit more accurate), Y, instead of what it should be reading (OEM spec), X, is no different than having some oracle software device hand those say Y values to the ECU while the sensor itself were to read X. This is the spoof.

The difference between the intercooler and the what this mod is doing is that the intercooler actually lowers the charge temp while modifying this part doesn't actually lower the charge temp, it just tells the ECU it is (rememberer, I'm still using the assumption that the ECU is expecting a bad reading, but corrects it in software).

FK8_K20c1 · Oct 9, 2019

tinyman392 said:
You're still missing my point, what if Honda already accounted for the issue (erroneous reading) you are describing in the way their ECU is tuned? IE, they are aware the sensor measures high already then modifying the sensor would cause it to read lower than what is expected by the ECU (even if it's more accurate, it may not be expecting an accurate reading to begin with). In today's day and age, hardware works with software that is modified to work with said hardware. Incorrect hardware can be dealt with by modifying it in software and for whatever reason Honda chose to go with this sensor instead of the others you speak of (be it due to price, or some other reason).

Let's go back to the microphone example. Let's say that it is off and reads high by 5-10 dB across the spectrum (how it comes from the factory). The software that uses this knows it and adjusts accordingly. Let's say that the software's design is to alert users of dangerous noise levels (giving an alert at 90 dB). Now let's say that I modified said microphone to be more accurate and it reads low by 1 dB across the spectrum now, but the software doesn't know. Now, instead of needing 90dB of noise to set the alarm off, you need 96-101 dB. The sensor is more accurate now, it's only 1 dB off (80-90% more accurate reading!), however the software powering it is now 6-11 dB off (thousands of percent off now).

Or another example. Apple says they calibrate the screen and cameras from the factory. This doesn't mean they modify the hardware (hardware comes from Samsung, LG, and Sony in this case) at the factory to be accurate. No, they modify the software at the factory for said hardware. If you go ahead and modify the hardware (change it), even if the hardware is better or more accurate, the software on the phone will end up making it less accurate because the corrections in software won't fix the new error profile for the hardware. You'd need to end up recalibrating everything you installed or modified.

Same deal here. If your air charge temp says X by should by Y, it's possible that Honda already took that into consideration in the ECU so the ECU does the right stuff with the value X. If you hand it Y, then you can get weird side effects since the ECU expects X in said situation. Weird side effects could be something along the lines of a boost of (up to) 20HP (sporadically) in the summer or even the motor staying in cold loop longer in the winter (sporadically, keep in mind I said could, not will). No one said you can make more power than is written on the ECU. However, you can still trick the motor into making more power than it should for a given situation (if this wasn't true, no one would want to try this mod because no difference). JB4 has shown this directly by spoofing (digitally, not mechanically) all the sensors. The dyno plots show this directly. Having a modified sensor hand different numbers (albeit more accurate), Y, instead of what it should be reading (OEM spec), X, is no different than having some oracle software device hand those say Y values to the ECU while the sensor itself were to read X. This is the spoof.

The difference between the intercooler and the what this mod is doing is that the intercooler actually lowers the charge temp while modifying this part doesn't actually lower the charge temp, it just tells the ECU it is (rememberer, I'm still using the assumption that the ECU is expecting a bad reading, but corrects it in software).

The motor will not make more power as is temperature dependent. If its registering colder air it will lower boost not increase it. Take into account that I am not running within HONDA parameters as my car has flashpro. So the "Honda heat soak" and the "way it was design by Honda" doesn't truly apply here. Im only providing my 2 cents on the impact of this mod by testing it myself.

boosted180sx · Oct 9, 2019

i'm glad someone out there feels the same way as me about this "mod".

it's kind of why i haven't modified the sensor yet.
I don't think anyone here is arguing the fact that the car will feel better. I mean it should feel better if the ecu is seeing lower IATs.

PERRIN_Jeff · Oct 9, 2019

These are great debates to have over this! Everyones ideas and concerns are valid and something everyone should consider.

elmerzasty said:
With sufficient airflow at a given temperature the sensor, the shroud and air will have the same temperature, so it actually is about increasing response.

What you should bear in mind is that you are assuming that Honda/Bosch wanted to measure the "right air temperature" at the sensor sans the impact of the shroud on the readings. Bear in mind that the whole purpose of measuring air temperature in this place is to determine the temperature of the air in the cylinders, not at the sensor. The sensor is close to the cylinders, but is not inside any of them. Given the manifold and head get hot and influence the air temp., the "heatsoak design" of the sensor might be intentional to account for what happens to the air after passing through the sensor.

My thoughts on this, is that you are right, but I think the sensor IS reading very accurately at low air flow (idle and cruise). I say this because there isn't a huge amount of air entering the engine and we do see a higher charge temp (I see easily above 30F+ above ambient). This is because that fresh air leaking past the throttle body isn't actually blowing over the sensor. I feel in these low air flow situations, the modded sensor still accurately represents the air temp the motor sees (a higher temp). If the sensor was in the charge pipe before the throttle body, it might actually read cooler temps, but they would be less accurate at these lower engine speeds.

And there is one last thing to all this (ok probably not the last thing...), the engine doesn't really care what the air temp is at low speeds. Meaning, the engine isn't really loosing power if it actually has 50F air temps entering the engine, versus 120F. Sure there are many calculations to ensure the correct amount fuel is being delivered, but this is a MAF based car, it knows the amount of air entering the motor, and then the ECU is always correcting to hit the target AFR. So if the air temp reading was wrong during these light load scenarios, it really doesn't matter. The ONLY reason why it matters is that the ECU reduces power based on the air temps, so we ARE losing power.

Arguably, the same could be said for under full throttle (knowing that the ECU is correcting to hit a target AFR and it has knock control), but this is where a cooler/more-accurate air temp actually makes a difference in power. Under high load, we want the ECU to read the exact temps, and we want the ECU to make the changes to things like base fuel delivery and torque (boost and ignition timing) to ensure the engine is running safe. If this car didn't have a MAF sensor and solely relied on MAP sensors to run it, then its a whole different story (that isn't worth telling at this point).

UFO CTR · Oct 9, 2019

Hey guys, I have one question, and this may be a blanket question:
If there is no CEL after the mod, does that mean the engine is still running within the Honda / Flashpro parameters, as such there is really no concerns?

fatherpain · Oct 9, 2019

I’ve not received any CEL post ACT mod... have driven about 100 miles.

tinyman392 · Oct 9, 2019

UFO CTR said:
Hey guys, I have one question, and this may be a blanket question:
If there is no CEL after the mod, does that mean the engine is still running within the Honda / Flashpro parameters, as such there is really no concerns?

CEL really can only confirm a problem rather than confirm no problem exists. So keep that in mind. As for no concerns, time will be needed for that. I personally don't see your engine blowing due to this mod, but the fluctuations in the dyno graphs in the OP (a variance of nearly 20HP) do leave me with some concerns about performing said mod (statistically speaking, there is a high chance that the fluctuation is larger than is shown, by the same token they could be smaller and the entire run full of outliers). Though some users have listed oil on the sensor as a cause for this.

I still feel like the mod alters the measurements of a sensor in a calibrated system. That said, the engine is still running within Honda parameters. The only difference here is that a sensor has been modified so one of the parameters is "off" (or "corrected" depending on how you look at it). The engine responds to that in the ways that it does (in this case by producing more power).

FK8_K20c1 · Oct 9, 2019

tinyman392 said:
CEL really can only confirm a problem rather than confirm no problem exists. So keep that in mind. As for no concerns, time will be needed for that. I personally don't see your engine blowing due to this mod, but the fluctuations in the dyno graphs in the OP (a variance of nearly 20HP) do leave me with some concerns about performing said mod (statistically speaking, there is a high chance that the fluctuation is larger than is shown, by the same token they could be smaller and the entire run full of outliers). Though some users have listed oil on the sensor as a cause for this.

I still feel like the mod alters the measurements of a sensor in a calibrated system. That said, the engine is still running within Honda parameters. The only difference here is that a sensor has been modified so one of the parameters is "off" (or "corrected" depending on how you look at it). The engine responds to that in the ways that it does (in this case by producing more power).

The only test I have not seen is with a new or a cleaned sensor.

fatherpain · Oct 9, 2019

Curious what is everyone’s method for cleaning the thermistor bulb?

Wipe off or is contact cleaner safe to use?

FK8_K20c1 · Oct 9, 2019

fatherpain said:
Curious what is everyone’s method for cleaning the thermistor bulb?

Wipe off or is contact cleaner safe to use?

I used maf cleaner

FK8_K20c1 · Oct 10, 2019

Honda Civic 10th gen Mod your ACT Sensor And Gain HP?! 110D8629-2E91-4712-9677-B4B7FF984CA1

Honda Civic 10th gen Mod your ACT Sensor And Gain HP?! 322EB408-9F67-49F8-ABA2-A985ECF37490

Honda Civic 10th gen Mod your ACT Sensor And Gain HP?! 7AB4F91F-09B7-4A29-AF1A-C6B94EE8A2A2

New sensor pics for those who requested it.

fiend busa · Oct 10, 2019

FK8_K20c1 said:
New sensor pics for those who requested it.

So you're supposed to just cut the metal looking piece next to that black sensor?

Kekela98a · Oct 10, 2019

fiend busa said:
So you're supposed to just cut the metal looking piece next to that black sensor?

It's not metal, but a longer flat plastic post. The sensor (round bulb) is surrounded by three flat posts, but there's only one that is about the same height as the sensor that can be cut. Then you can gently bend the sensor towards the post you just trimmed to get it off the wall.

fatherpain · Oct 10, 2019

fiend busa said:
So you're supposed to just cut the metal looking piece next to that black sensor?

Yes the white piece in the middle

Mod your ACT Sensor And Gain HP?!

FK8_K20c1

HONDA The Power of Earth Dreams Technology!

tinyman392

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FK8_K20c1

HONDA The Power of Earth Dreams Technology!

boosted180sx

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PERRIN_Jeff

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UFO CTR

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fatherpain

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tinyman392

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FK8_K20c1

HONDA The Power of Earth Dreams Technology!

fatherpain

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FK8_K20c1

HONDA The Power of Earth Dreams Technology!

FK8_K20c1

HONDA The Power of Earth Dreams Technology!

fiend busa

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Kekela98a

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fatherpain

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