Hondata

Alright so I bought my 2003 civic si in February and instantly had mod fever.
The motor is completely stock, I have put a short ram intake on it (aka hot air intake), and a cheap dnamotoring complete exhaust. The headers it came with were very similar to the stock ones but they came together smoother and didnt have a giant metal disc at the end right before it connects to the cat. both o2 are plugged in and it wasnt throwing any codes before I sent in the ecu (aside from a pcv code that came on the day after I bought it). However I could smell that it was running very rich (i know rich isn't an issue, but lean is). the exhaust is 2.5 in. if tat makes any difference/

My issue is that I thought that I would be able to just load up a base map and be good to go seeing as how these mods are fairly common. I have been reading a few different forums and found that I could have many problems running off a base map. If anyone could give any advice It would help me be at ease. The car has 89 octane in it right now because it just seemed to run better on it, but im not sure if I should use the stock map or high octane map. I am just worried about knock and all this stuff that I hadnt considered before shipping out the ecu. I should be getting it back tomorrow and have to return the car I was borrowing while my ecu was away.

I just wanted to add, I am not expecting any crazy increase in hp. I was just hoping to take advantage of the increase airflow into and out of the engine. In the future I plan to turbo and run about 7psi until I can get some forged internals in it. As of right now I am just panicking I wont have it running as smoothly as it was on the stock ecu.

Try pumping 91 octane and octane booster to bump up the octane. Running 89 octane you will be knock limited

Zperformance wrote:Try pumping 91 octane and octane booster to bump up the octane. Running 89 octane you will be knock limited

Thank you so much for the reply. so just load up the high octane basemap and throw in some 91 octane? should i bother empltying the 89 thats in there? if not I think I can find 93 which might help more in this situatuion. These basemaps are relatively safe to run daily? i wont be able to get to a tuner until next weekend at the earliest.

I also noticed a base rsx basemap for 89 octane and could just plug in ep3 gearing, which do you think is the safest bet?

I would rather run the basemap off of kpro for the k20a3 they should be capable to drive DD i wouldnt smash on the car unless you have a wideband to make sure its safe. And pumping 93 to blend with the 89. You would want close to a 91 octane mix. Try to get a good full 91+ octane mix before taking it in to tune.