Eric Hsu
www.beyondthedyno.com/blogs/eric
Facts you might not have known about Eric Hsu:
1. Your car has keyless entry. The code can be either one of Eric Hsu's fists.
2. Eric Hsu can sit in the driver's seat of any car, and by holding its steering wheel firmly in his left hand, and placing his right index finger at a point on one of its visors, increase its torque output by 367%. Permanently.
3. Eric Hsu is invisible to radar.
4. Some tuners love C16. Others swear by E85. Eric Hsu likes both, but Q16 is his pick to pair with a rare steak.
Send your worst to:
questionit@importtuner.com
and put your helmets on.
Leaning Out
I own an '00 Integra with basic bolt-ons that include an intake, header, and exhaust. She has about 125,000 miles and has been running lean on bank number one. My friends and I have attempted to spray water around the engine while running to see if the problem was caused by a vacuum leak, but nothing turned up. Could the culprit be a faulty O2 sensor or a bad catalytic converter? I figured I'd ask the pros before buying any replacement parts I might not need.
-Ahmad Carter
Duluth, GA
The first thing to do is to check the engine's compression with a compression tester. While the spark plugs are out, you can do a good old-fashioned plug read to see if they are all similar in color. You mentioned "bank number one," but there's only one bank on an inline-four engine. If it does really say "bank number one" then it is likely that the short-term fuel correction and/or long-term fuel corrections are beyond the ECU's ability to correct. You can view these OBD-II parameters in real time if you have a capable scanner. This problem could be caused by the modifications you made to the car or a sensor issue, such as a bad oxygen sensor, bad air flow meter, or other mechanical issue like a collapsed catalytic converter or a faulty injector. Unfortunately, there's no way to correctly diagnose the car via magazine, so I would recommend you take the car to a knowledgeable mechanic for a proper diagnosis.
Low-Compression Build
I'm building up a 4G63 engine for my Eclipse GSX and I have a couple of questions: I'm looking to stroke it out to 2.3L but all of the stroker kits I've found are rated at either an 8.8:1 or 8.5:1 compression ratio. I want to get closer to 8.0:1 for my turbo setup and it's looking like I will have to buy pistons separately to achieve my desired compression ratio. Do you have any suggestions on the parts I should buy? Also, do you know of a good place to get a JDM steering rack? I want to do a RHD swap into my GSX to make it somewhat unique. The best I can figure is that the steering rack out of a Mitsubishi FTO will work because they have relatively the same wheelbase.
-Marc
via importtuner.com
What was the determining factor that made you decide that you must have an 8.0:1 compression ratio? I'm not saying it wouldn't work, just wondering how you came to that decision-8.5:1 should be fine. If you really must have a 8.0:1 compression ratio, the easiest way might be to buy an off-the-shelf 8.5:1 piston and then have an automotive machine shop take some material out of the dish. A good way to do this and to improve the piston is to increase the radius and depth of the valve pockets to increase the valve-to-piston clearance (especially if you are running bigger valves and cams). This way you can kill two birds with one stone. I don't recommend the RHD conversion because that would be a serious clusterfuck. I'm pretty sure all Eclipses were sold as LHD cars all around the world. But if you must have an FTO steering column, you might want to try some of the JDM engine suppliers in your area.