Edelbrock VictorX

OK, This is the combo as it will be soon:
B18A, CAI, DC style header, full 2.5" exhaust, no cat, street lite flywheel, CenterForce Dual Friction clutch, ZEX N2O kit jetted for 60hp, and a mugen chip. There is also some other dinky stuff like adjustable FPR and such, but nothing that really makes that much perf difference. Anyhow, a set of colt cams (likely street or something a little hotter) are going in soon with a set of adjustable cam gears.

I don’t really want to get into the engine that much, so I’m kinda out of ideas on what else to do. My only other ideas are to bolt on an aftermarket intake manifold like the VictorX and a bigger TB. However my concern is that the stock intake will be out of breath at the RPMs I’ll be turning to make the cams work, but the VictorX may be overkill. It lists its power range as being between 7000-10000RPM. I’m just going to be getting into that. Is it worth changing the intake?

nope. maybe port your tb a little bit. But wise choice with the cams.

what’s an intake manifold? :shrug:

(not mine, just what mine will be like)

The VictorX is probably too big, go with a skunk2 or ITR, or even a extrude honed LS manifold.

And if you want to have a strong NA engine you NEED to raise to CR, otherwise you’ll just be dissapointed. 9.2 is shit for an N/A motor.

And get a real tuning device, when you drop those cams in there will probably be a good 10whp you can pull out of em with tuning, and that Mugen chip is premade with a setup completely different then yours, so if you wanna get your money’s worth you’re gonna need to be able to tune.

If you’re out of ideas get rid of that shitty grocery gettin LS tranny, and put in something with some nice short gears like a b16 cable tranny. It makes a huge difference to acceleration, and if you’re shifiting your powerband up, you need a short tranny to get through the lower RPMS where you’re gionna be pretty gutless, and the closer gear rations will help you stay in your powerband so you’re not dropping to 4500 everytime you shift.

mugen chip == very advanced timing != good with N20

Ben

Yeah I’m amware of the timing issue. SOP is to just pull a little more timing out then reccomended and run a little higher octane gas. I’ve been checking the plugs after N2O use and they have come out looking OK every time, and there is no audible sign of detonation.

Thanks for the suggestions! I’ll look into the skunk2 and the ITR. Will the ITR bolt up to a non VTEC head? The thing that attracted me to the VictorX was just that they specifically listed a model to fit the B18A.

The tranny swap seems like a good idea as well, my only concern is how rare are those trannys? Will I be able to source one easily without auctioning a kidney?

Also what is the reccomended tuning device? Hondata?

Sorry for all the Qs my background is afterall as knuckle draggin’ 'stang guy.

The b16 trannies are fairly rare, but if you just check sites like ef-honda.com, honda-tech.com, and car-parts.com theres b16 cable trannies for sale ALL the time, between $300-$600 depending, well worth it though, there’s one’s with LSD going for about $800.

For tuning you can use a piggyback like a SAFC or Greddy E-manage, they will probably be best suited for your build since they’re cheaper than the hondata. If you do decide to go with NOS though, you’ll probably want something that can control timing like the E-manage or Hondata. You need to be OBD-1 to use hondata though, so if you have a 90 or 91(OBD0) that means a conversion.

The ITR won’t bolt right up, bu it’ll fit, i’m not sure on the process but I know it’s not that hcomplicated. The Skunk2 has a bolt-on for the LS, it’s almost a replica of the Type-R slightly bigger, but not as giant as the VictorX. However all the manifolds will shift your powerband up quite a bit, which means you should have the cams to match. And that means some high lift/duration cams, and they will need a higher CR than 9.2 or your just might LOSE power.

So my advice is either drop the NOS, up the CR, upp your redline, gett the manifold and get some mean cams 5000-7500 OR do the nitrous, forget about the intake, keep your stock redline and just get a mild set of street cams.

tune it yourself. Chip your ecu, get a chip burner and a wideband (or find someone whith one), then download one of the free editors. There has been a TON of development on the PM6 program which plugs into an obd0 pr4 no problem.

Ben

Cool, I’ll keep my eye out and hopefully score one in the near future.

The ITR won’t bolt right up, bu it’ll fit, i’m not sure on the process but I know it’s not that hcomplicated. The Skunk2 has a bolt-on for the LS, it’s almost a replica of the Type-R slightly bigger, but not as giant as the VictorX. However all the manifolds will shift your powerband up quite a bit, which means you should have the cams to match. And that means some high lift/duration cams, and they will need a higher CR than 9.2 or your just might LOSE power.
So my advice is either drop the NOS, up the CR, upp your redline, gett the manifold and get some mean cams 5000-7500 OR do the nitrous, forget about the intake, keep your stock redline and just get a mild set of street cams.

Interesting. I’m not really looking to open up the motor, so I think the compression is gonna stay at the N2O friendly, but otherwise crappy 9.2:1. :slight_smile: I see your point about the cams though, the long duration of a wild cam may result in bleeding off some of the cylinder pressure, and with such a tame compression ratio, the cylinder pressure ain’t that big to start with.

Colt makes a cam that is in between the street and race doesn’t it? With adjustable cam gears, do you think it would be possible to advance the intake cam somewhat to offset some of the potential loss in cylinder pressure? Basically closing the intake valve a little sooner? I was hoping this would allow some of the breating advatages of higher RPM, but offset the losses of running a long duration cam.

I mean, it is somewhat of a crutch for low compression, but do you think it would be a viable option?

People have had good results with Crower 403 type cams on stock CR, seems to be about 150whp with good bolt-ons, and no biug losses in the bottom end. They have a Duration@.050" of 211/210, and gross lift is .423/.409.

So something around those specs would probably be best, you’ll still lose some cranking pressure, our engines hate losing any dynamic cranking presssure at all, but it’ll probably be less than 1%.

FOr reference, stock cams(b18b) have a duration: 185 / 187 with a lift of .395 / .380. Something like the crower 404’s (Duration 216/218, Lift: .446/.432) would result in almost a 3% loss in dynamic cranking pressure, that’s alot, and you would lose power everywhere except the last 2000rpms.

And ya, adding some overlap would definately help reduce some of the lost cranking pressure, but you still wanna run something reasonable.

About chipping it yourself, that’s a good option, but it’s not all that cheap, you need bunrer that’s $120+shipping, you need to get it chipped($70), and it’s alot better if you can find a cheap old laptop to use($100-200), and also you might wanna buy a back up ecu if your modded one decides to take a dump($40), at least that’s what my local tuner recommended.