We have probably all come across this scenario; working around a tight budget to modify our cars. Not everyone has tons of disposable income to work with to get some serious horsepower gains.
This car had some modifications that was done on a relatively small budget. It was supercharged and had the engine left intact and had only bolt on parts fitted to it. The whole idea was so that the owner can effortlessly revert the car back to stock condition (to sell) without having to incur too high a labor cost.
The Accord Euro R had only these power adding parts fitted to it.
- HKS Hi Power Silent Exhaust
- Toda Exhaust Manifold
- Comptech Supercharger Kit
- Hondata KPro ECU
- K&N Air Filter kit
- Hondata Intake Manifold Gasket
- AEM Water/Methanol Injection Kit
- RC Engineering 550cc/min injectors
Initially, I was rather wary of the high comprsesion of the JDM CL7 engine. It had an 11.5:1 CR and that was normally a no no with any form of forced induction. After all, Honda did not design this car specifically for any form of modification. Honda probably meant it to be enjoyed in its entirety. It was a comfortable sports luxury sedan; and pretty quick to boot. 220bhp on paper, it actually had closer to 210WHP when we had the basic Intake, Header and Exhaust modification done. Very decent. Very quick.
After the customer agreed to a prudent amount to get the car done up with the Comptech Supercharger and a custom Hondata KPro with harness to get it all working perfectly with the CL7, we went to work. In fact, we worked overtime to get the car out of the workshop in 1 day, including the water injection kit. After which, it was time to get the car to the dyno to have a proper tune done.
After about an hour of tuning, this is the final WHP figure we achieved.
We managed closed to 286whp, that was a figure that was normally reserved for fully built K24 motors that have probably about $15k worth of mods to them.
What was interesting was, the difference in power we achieve with the water injection kit. It was a 100% water mix without any methanol and we got about 25whp increase. Very respectable figures for a cheap mod.
The lower hp line was a tuned map without water injection, whereas the higher hp figures was with water injection and tuning. I could actually bump up ignition timing by as much as 7 degrees and was still safe. The air fuel mixture was also lean out somewhat, which will assist somewhat with fuel consumption. I must say that the charged intake temperature must have shot up the roof without any aftercooler. The Comptech Supercharger kit does not provide for that, unlike the Merc’s Kompressor design. Overall, considering the price of a water injection kit, the value of hp/$ is really huge with the gains we obtained with this car!
In comparison with some other supercharger kit that I did. This was on a TSX motor. K24 with 10.5:1 CR, everything else was the same. We only achieved about 255whp.
You will notice the higher torque that was achiveable with the K24 motor, but a little more lacklustre at the top end. The K24 didn’t have any cooling aid, it might have been able to perform better with some water/methanol injection though.
Comparing with another car that I tuned that was a circuit machine. It was a K20, NA, with high compression, big cams, IHE, etc. It had about $20k worth of modifications in it.
What more need I say? Basically, the K20SC (supercharged) just killed it everywhere in the rpm range! It is a perfect build for the street and has plenty of low end torque for useable everyday power.