Hondata

I've rebuilt my motor recently and am currently in the tuning&break-in process. I have been keeping a journal of my builds on multiple Honda forums—where I simply copy and paste identical updates to each one, and will do so for this one too. In the end of all this, I want a turboed d16z6 for HPDE/autocross. Currently, I've only rebuilt the internal components and won't will be running NA for the time being.

Here's the major things I've changed:
Delta 272-2 Reground Camshaft
YCP Vitara 75.5mm Pistons
P2P0 Custom Length Rod
ARP Head Studs
Brian Crower Titanium Valve Springs + Retainer

My break-in plan is going to be exactly as how MotoTuneUSA described it, with my max RPM chosen at 8500.
1. (3x) 50%-TPS pull from 3400-5100rpm
2. (3x) 75%-TPS pull from 3400-6800rpm
3. (3x) 100%-TPS pull from 2550-8500rpm

Currently, I have done an initial start-up of the car, and idled for 15min before draining the oil. The second day, I attempted to practise with SManager by tuning the AFR at mid-RPM revving stationary. That absolutely failed as I didn't really know what I was doing, which is partial reason why I decided to post a thread and obtain feedback and advise. I desktop-recorded my second-time start-up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAnFltsPw9w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlQ4mznSAso

Copied from my other forum post:

PROCESS
I was suggested by someone to try adjusting the fuel trim. I was suggested to check and adjust accordingly for valve clearance, which was why I searched up for valve lash when I felt paranoid hearing what may have been improper valve clearance. As well, before starting the car, I made changes to "Rate of change" in Parameters/Closed Loop by making all 'Slow' values to 5, and all 'Fast' values to 99.


During the later parts in the video, I started revving the car up in hopes of getting a feel of tuning the fuel value for proper AFR. I honestly didn't know what I was doing =/. I read that when in closed loop, changing the short term adjustments of min and max to 0% would help prevent the car from messing up the AFR. Not knowing what to do and continuously witnessing high AFR at high RPM revving, I just gave up, and decided to report my findings and see what you all could say about it.

OBSERVATION
Changing fuel trim during the warm-up did have an effect on AFR. During that time though, my short term adjustments were at -20% +20% for min and max, respectively.
Changing the short term adjustments to 0% on min and max while the car's running didn't seem like it did anything.
Making the fuel value higher and pulling up on the 2D graph didn't seem like it richen the AFR during those mid-RPM revving.

Right now, all I really want is to nail down the break-in and seating the rings ASAP with relatively safe AFR levels, then proceeding to tuning the fuel in detail and ignition later on. I feel quite overwhelmed by all this.

I see you said you reved at idle and watched your A/F's. With no load on the car the AF is not accurate you must have a load as either driving or loaded on the dyno and hold that load/rpm for a decent amount of time for the A/F number to stabilize. Then you will change this to your desired and hold that same load again to check.

First off never do cloosed loop tuning with a Honda. Set yourself in open loop and properly wire in a wideband input into your ecu. You then can watch the overlay of the A/F in other parts of the table (please read Hondata's tuning guides in their tech section.)

Now we can talk about Closed Loop. Closed loop uses your narrow band sensor to adjust fuel trims depending on altitude changes, weather, etc. When tuning a car you want to tune to your target as well as possible (usually within +-3%). After tuning set your closed loop and watch your trims i usually set mine to 15 max and min. when you are driving it will adjust that to your target up to 15% (remember if you are within +-3% your trims should only fluctuate 1-3%) So if you are lean 2% the ecu adds 2% more fuel to keep you safe and on your target.

Hope this makes sense and good luck to you!

Forgot to mention about the wideband setup.
I bought the PLX SM-AFR with its Bosch Wideband and replaced my stock narrowband. I have the P28 ECU with S300 v2.

Copied from my other forum posts:

Here's what's done:
Installed and wired up my PLX SM-AFR with the ECU. On the SM-AFR's analog output, I spliced the upper right wire to wire D14 and connected lower right to connector D10 (Canadian civics don't have ELD, so slot was empty for me). The power cable has a black and red wire. I spliced the red wire into wire A25 and spliced the black into wire A24. After all the soldering, I electric taped everything sealed.


Connector D






To finish up the wideband setup, I plugged the computer to my S300, opened up SManager (vers. 2.2.7.0), went into Window/Parameters/Closed Loop, and changed "Closed loop operation" to "Closed loop - wideband input (lambda target) and checked "Disable O2 Heater", then went into Window/Parameters/Closed Loop Advanced, and changed "Wideband input source" to "D10 ELD".

I did the hard break in + initial tuning. Before tuning, my AFR would be at around 15 from low to high loads and WOT, sometimes even jumping up to 17. My break in consisted of 3 sets of 3 pulls at 50%, 75%, and 100% throttle at 2nd gear. Someone has told me my break in was done wrong and shouldn't have been done with 2nd gear but 3rd for more consistent load across RPM at steady TPS. At the end of the tune, my low load is aimed towards AFR 14.7, ~13.5 at mid loads, and ~12.5 at high loads >100kPa. During those pulls, I assessed the AFR and adjusted fuel accordingly to richen it back down, but had moments where, at WOT ~6000RPM, I would be at ~17 AFR for good 1.5sec.

After the 9th and final pull, driving back home, I noticed through the stethoscope there was a distinctive rattling or 'clacking' sound at the same frequency as the valves. This sound would start to come on at around 2,800 RPM when giving light/moderate throtttle, depending on gear. The cyclic noise sounds just like the valves, except louder. The next morning, starting the car up, I heard this clacking sound during the warm up, even without my steth on. Tugging on the throttle cable, I could induce that rattling sound. After a quick drive/tune around my neighborhood, I forgot and didn't check to see if the rattling sound was gone after warm-up.

At this point in time, I'm pretty upset and downed about the noise. My prediction is all over the place: rod knock, piston slap, valvetrain?, or too advanced timing?(as claimed by someone).
My prediction for the cause is also uncertain: too harsh of a break-in early on, floating at 17 AFR for those short moments at high RPMs, or poor installation of pistons & related components.

Gonna leave the car as is for the while and do more research.

Well I have broken in motors on the street before and I don't recommend dong so. Break in methods all vary and with mechanical problems you could hurt an engine in a matter of seconds just idling.

Biggest problem i read is you did wot pull right off the bat; you even kept in it while lean?? Proper way is to hold a car steady state on a dyno and get your target af's in order. WOT is always last and you can normally see your pattern in the map. 9 pulls without proper tuning is going to lead to a hurt motor.

In this case your engine could be hurt and that could be a rod knock you are hearing. there could be multiple issues that cause this like you said.