Hey guys, only been a member on this forum since January, made a few posts looking for help earlier this summer after having some problems with my original rotrex build. I have had the car since it came off the production line back in 2004, it's a 2004 civic ex coupe. I did many ricer mods at the beginning, invested in some decent suspension mods in the middle, ad eventually took the plunge and went from a D17A2 automatic (90whp) to a 6spd k20a2.
I had a basic ram air, unknown brand header running Into a 1.75" exhaust with kpro. Car was dyno tuned and reached 205whp, forget the torque (that was 4 years ago).I felt I had conquered the world, well as we all know too well it was time for more power.
Stage 2:
The following summer I started accumulating parts to up the power a bit, the car was a blast on the local circuits but lacked much more excitement than my sisters bone stock 06 PWP type s. So I did what many do looking for "easy power". I upgraded to a cold air intake, 70mm skunk2 throttle body running into a port matched RRC intake manifold, drag cartel drop in cams, 410cc rdx injectors, wavetrac LSD, stage 4 CC clutch and a 3" mandrel bent exhaust. A little bit to my disappointment but still heaps more fun, I was dyno tuned once again to manage 235whp/156 FT lbs. the power increase was enough to make the top end more noticeable, and the cams really livened up the midrange, but the LSD was the hands down best money spent here. The way the car rotates in the corner when gas is applied much earlier in exiting apexes really took away many of the characteristics associated with FWD macpherson strut design suspension. But once again, I said enough with the NA bull, time to get serious
Stage 3:
Now, as much as I enjoy lining up at the tree, there is no comparison to the circuit! Therefore, after going against years of my original plans for a full race sidewinder and schoolboy dreams, I learnt about the infamous ROTREX. I loved the NA powerband, with turbo territory top end power. Here lies my parts accumulation of the winter.
Ktuned fpr and fuel filter, 6 an black braided fuel hose (converted to full return system
Deatschwerk 300lph fuel pump
ID1000 injectors
TTS billet bracket, with EP3 front mount intercooler/radiator combo
Rotrex C38-81 with upgraded larger oil cooler
Tial Q BOV
Tial MVR wastegate 4psi spring
Mac 4 port solenoid for BBG
Those are some shitty, far from glorious pictures I had taken when I was removing the setup. the are just to give an idea of the pipe routing etc for now. I had the car running since late July. Was extremely motivated and having fun. Tuning with vit viper. We tuned to redline but were having problems with hitting max psi of 8psi at 4500rpm and boost tapering off after that. I was told to check all my boost lines, leaky couplers, belt slip etc. spent endless hours doing leak downs etx and could not for the life of me figure out what was going on. Right near the end of the summer after unhooking my solenoid to test boost coming off the compressor outlet, magic happened (the dark kind that's dangerous). MY FREAKING WASTEGATE STAYED THE F$@K CLOSED and I peaked 20psi off the compressor outlet. I was so pumped to have felt the tire roasting power of a k series with 20psi being force fed. I started tuning with vit realizing it was the boost solenoid settings allowing the gate to open causing my boost leak. Found out by default that with the boost solenoid not activated, all inlet source pressure goes to the bottom of the diaphragm pushing the valve open. (NOTE: I lost most of my pics following this build on my last iPhone that died, but If you can see in the pics the wastegate is reverse mounted, meaning the pressurized air is blowing the valve shut, so it's not set up like a conventional wastegate for controlling exhaust gasses.)
Regardless, disaster strikes again. I daily drive this car and for the 2 months I was driving it I was working on wind farm fields which consisted of miles of dirt road. I had neglected to change my 4 year old original swap filter which clearly needed to re-oiled or replaced and this happened
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