Here is an update with my AEM install/tuning project. I spent all day Sunday installing the set up on my low boost CTSC set up. I was pretty happy to only need to chase parts once for the whole day and it was the fuel system which was the most challenging.
I started with the pulley and injectors, figured get the dirty stuff out of the way. As long as I was digging in there I put new drive belt in too! The pulley is very straight forward, loosen the 4 bolts, loosen the adjuster, remove the 4 bolts and let the belt fall out of the way, then remove the alternator. I left all the drive stuff off to give me more finger room to get to the injectors. As long as I was digging in, I took the time to pull the fuel rails and flush them with injector cleaner, check all the hoses and connectors. The RC engineering injectors use a different seal then the stock injectors, didn't know this going in. The diameter of the end which sticks in the manifold is smaller than the stock injectors, plus the over all height from base to fuel rail is different too. I was able to buy a universal honda injector seal kit which came with o-ring and a short and tall seal. The stock injectors use a short seal with a plastic spacer mounted in the hole below the seal. The tall seal seems to work OK with the RC injector, with the plastic spacers removed.
The next step with the fuel system was swapping the rising rate fuel pressure reg for a 1:1 fuel pressure reg. I chose an AEM universal FPR for the job. It is a tiny part, about 1/4 the size of the Comptech unit, but it has a simular mounting pattern for the holes and I was able to use the Comptech 'L' bracket and all the Comptech lines and fitting to bolt right into it. The only parts I needed get were 2 plugs for the holes I was not using, second fuel rail return and the tap for a gauge. The FPR came with 3 different size return orifice(s), I was going to use the middle size, but broke the damn thing off using the torque spec in the manual, ended up using the largest one. It is pretty easy to change if this gives me problems, so what the hell. Plus with the Walbro 255 pump(already installed), there should be no problem with the getting enough fuel.
With the fuel sytem done, I went ahead and wove the new belt into place, installed the smaller pulley and tightened it. Next was the alternator and to tension the belt with the adjuster, once that was in place I checked the 4 bolts on the pulley to make sure they were tight, now I had the belt to keep the pulley from spinning.
Next step was the wide band O2 sensor and UEGO, I chose the dual wide band so I could keep tabs on both banks individually to hopefully prevent problems and be able to fine tune the A/F. Since you can tune each injector individually, the more info I have the more accurate the map can be, if I choose to go there. The wide band sensors perfectly replaced the stock ones, and for the first time in all my exhaust work, nothing was frozen! I pulled all the stock wires and the Competch extension cord back as far as I could so there is nothing extra wires hanging in the engine compartment. I put the UEGO controller inside the passenger compartment, pushed the rubber plug for the engine harness out and passed the 2 wires for the sensors through the hole for the plug. I ran the wires through the engine compartment and along the same route as the stock wires, over the rear head valve cover and down to the headers. Once the plugs were connected, I snugged up the wires and zipped tied them up and away from the headers, pulling some of the slack back into the passenger compartment. I slit the edge of the rubber harness plug, cutting it about half way to the harness wires, cutting from the center out to the edge on the passenger side of the car. I really wish I had thought about this before I put the alternator back, but I got it done and didn't even cut myself! I was able to push the wires for the sensors into the cut and then work the plug back into the hole in the firewall. Made a pretty neat set up and a decent seal. It was hard enough to get it all back in am sure it will stay. At this point I removed the stock ECU, left the 5 plugs hanging loose. Next was to make the connections to the wire harness and power/ground. The chassis ground is right next to the wire harness hole, AEM recommends a dedicated line to the battery ground, but I was tired and figured I will jumper the line later if I have problems(or never). I chose to use a pin off the AEM ECU for 12 volt power(B1), we will see if this is a good idea in the long run. The 2 wires for the O2 input into the ECU need to replace the stock O2 pins, so I soldered pins on the UEGO wide band output wires, pushed the stock pins out of the harness plugs and pushed the new ones into place.
The new ECU comes with a jumper to connect the Vtec harness into the 4 large connectors on the passenger side of the ECU and deletes the small connector on the driver side. This new jumper's pins are pushed into 2 empty holes in 2 of the connectors and plugged into the connector leading back to the Vtec spool valves. The AEM ECU pretty much squeezes into the hole where the stock ECU fit, with just enough room to connect the serial cable, put some velcro on the back and push into place. Once the box was in place, I connected the 4 harness plugs, connected a lap top and uploaded the start up map from the supplied software. The upload has some simple instructions to set the throttle limits and timing.
It started the first time, I let it warm up and drove to see Sean at Torque Freaks to get some real dyno tuning.
I am making this post mostly to clear this experience out of my head, this was a long 8 hour+ day. I am happy with the results and will post the dyno numbers when I get the car back later this week. I am leaving the car at Torque Freaks for a few days so they can do cold start tweaks on it after it has sat for a few days.
I will also post the map, once complete, for others to use as a base.
