1. What kind of I/H/E do you have?im looking for more power out of my da, b18a1, i have cold air intake, headers, exhaust, fidanza flywheel, stage 2 crower cams, lightweight pulley. was thinking of doing ecu tuning but dont know about everthing thats envolved. any ideas
exhaust size with a stage 2 crower wont matter, 2.25-2.36" are at their limits around 190whp, the cam gears and a tune and civic si/b16 pistons with high comp valves will make the biggest difference as well as a GOOD header, like DC or Greddy as long as its CARB legal AKA 2.25" collector (carb legal headers dont require tuning or modifying your cat those are the only qualifications)1. What kind of I/H/E do you have?
2. How big is your exhaust? (Piping diameter-wise)
3. What kind of clutch do you have?
4. Do you have adjustable cam gears to go along with your cams?
5. Lightweight pulleys are rubbish
6. www.hondata.com
Oversized valves will only be good if the OP decides not to use a high comp piston.lightweight flywheel. have it tuned, get rid of excess weight under the hood, find another head and have it ported and polished and get oversized valves put in. if you want more after that and dont have the money to do turbo put nitrous on.
your cams need to be degreed in to make maximum power, its not something you can do your first time, 550 is the going rate for Dyno Tuning unless your in CA, we spend about 300 but that 550 may include a chip and soddering so the prices may be the same with parts and labor, in nor cal going rate is 150/hr for ONLY dyno tune no chip. and your exhaust is too bigim running a ebay cold air intake with a summit air filter,hedman chikara headers, and 2 1/2 inch exhaust, magnaflow muffler,no cat, exedy oem clutch, and the integra type r pulley
do the cam gears really make a difference, my local shop wants 550 for a dyno tune, seems like i could buy a do it yourself tuning setup for that price
if you were to go this route, i suggest finding a long strip of road where you can top out 4th gear and not get arrested and use Hondata s300 as you can easily street tune and not use a dynoDylan is right. You need to put you car on a Dynomometer (which you effectively rent out) as well as renting the tuner's services to map your ECU to YOUR CAR.
You can do it yourself if you want, and rent the Dyno on your own, but you will still need:
-soldering experience and the hardware to chip your ECU, (whether it be a burnable chip or Hondata)
-Wideband O2 sensor to measure the A/F ratio of the car
-knowledge on how to degree cams in
-knowledge on how to modify fuel maps for the most reliability and power
Im sure Im leaving some things out, but it is better to pay someone else to do this instead of trying yourself and end up spending more in the long run. If you really want to get into tuning cars (in terms of ECU mapping, ignition/fuel maps), then you may as well start now.