Athazagoraphobia

                   As I come into the home stretch portion of my K-swap I took a moment to reflect on why this has been such a time consuming swap. Nearing 2 years of not driving my civic, I have almost completely lost touch with cars. Motorcycling has pretty much taken over my life, helped influence my friends to get motorcycles, or to get more serious with motorcycles. after acquiring my Brothers FZ 09 in may of 2014 my love of motorcycling began to explode, almost exactly 2 years later in April of 2016 I purchased this...

A 2016 R1M, which I purchased with track days in mind. I ended up catching the track day bug which directly affected the amount of money going in to the K-swap. It ended up being zero money for K swaps, and all money towards motorcycle track days. At the risk of babbling ill spare you the details, and jump into the Civic part of this post. 

As the civic sits today it will only need... Wiring harness, Kpro, Exhaust, and Primary O2 sensor. My goal is to have it ready for the Porsche club track day in march. Once i get the civic all the way driving i will do a complete write up on it. For now please enjoy these awesome pictures Ever snapped of my neglected project. 

Track Daze!

In December ever purchased an NSX! since then he has been turning it into an even more impressive car than Honda designed. This weekend was its inaugural track day event, and It was also another momentous weekend because Patrick debuted his freshly K swapped civic.  While patrick had encounterd a few small glitches with his tune, and a bad TPS. Ever's car performed flawlessly without even a minor hiccup. While the two of them were out on track enjoying their cars i was behind the lens trying to resurect FUNCTIONTHEORY.COM. This event was put on by the LVRPCA Las Vegas Region Porsche Club of America, and took place a spring mountain motorsports race track in Pahrump NV. Ever wasn't the only one with a mid engined super car, as you can see in the pictures below there was definitely some people with money out there.

Below are some of my favorites, and to see the other 200+ click the flickr links below. if you hover over day 1 and day two you can scroll through all the pictures, or just click each album to view in large format.

DAY #1

DAY #2

Here are my Favorites

please click on the picture to experience them in full size!!!

My work is done

It's official, Erics car is all the way done, K pro and tuned by church automotive. It's an indescribable feeling to have seen this project from start to finish, too see the happiness that his car brings him makes everything worth it. In the beginning his expectation and desire to have the fastest street dominating car was a bit unrealistic, so to convince him that a k20 would be fast when all he wanted was to beat super cars and motorcycles was a bit of a challenge. But to be honest with him having that much power in a daily street car would be pointless, all you would do is spin out everywhere and lose races because you weren't at a prepped  track rather on an inconsistent street. So I told him to have faith in me and let me build him a fast reliable car. With this weight on my shoulders and not knowing if an all motor k20 would meet his unrealistic demands for power, I proceeded to build his car.  I knew that a k20 would be more then enough power to make a fast car, especially in a civic hatch platform. Horsepower is just a number, it's all about power to weight ratio and how you use the power. I hate people that say " if we were at a track I would smoke you." Or "if I had slicks I could beat you." Eat a dick douche bag, don't bring a gun to a knife fight. Always in the back of my mind I was worried that his car wouldn't  be fast enough for him. But a month ago when I deliverd the car to him I was much excited when he was pleased with the performance of his car, and the constant phone calls trough the month to help drive home the fact that he loves it. Mind you this was PRE tune, stock ecu only making 210-220 hp to the wheels. 

So as of today I'm happy to say that the car is on kpro and completely tuned, with numbers exceeding my expectations  and his expectations. He couldn't be happier that the car is making 250 hp and 174 ftlb torque. He realizes that he's not going to be beating Ferraris and Lamborghinis but he is more then excited with the end result of it, which makes me feel very relived. 

I didn't have cameras or anything so all the pics and videos are from my phone. So sorry in advance for quality. 

Throwing some new plugs in before the tune 

Thanks to justin my Honda hookup with out him this project would have cost a million bucks. 

At churches

And the final reaults. 

Daigos Outta Control R35

How to clean K20 Idle Air Control Valve ( IACV )

                  I am making this post because... When i first started up my brothers K swap I was first excited that it was running well,, but after a min of smooth idle it would begin to surge. Which as most Honda owners know its most likely a Throttle Position Sensor ( TPS ) issue or a IACV issue. So after checking my voltage and correctly setting the TPS the motor would still surge once it was warmed up, (bummer)I did some research online and came to the conclusion that the IACV needed to be cleaned. all the articles said just take it off the throttle body and spray some carb cleaner in it and bam it should be fixed. Seems easy enough, bought some carb cleaner took off the throttle body and took the IACV off , sprayed the carb cleaner some black stuff came out. Put the IACV back on the throttle body, put the throttle body back on the car, started it and same issue once it was warmed up, surge surge surge. i knew there was something i was missing so i took it back off and just figured it out for myself. Below are my results, step by step on how to completely clean your IACV so it works good as new. feast on the fruits of my labor.


So Step 1.

 Is obviously take the throttle body off the intake manifold. you do this by taking a off  your intake, take off the throttle cable, remove the two small water lines that go to the IACV, disconnect the tps, disconnect the map sensor, disconnect the IACV plug, and there are 4 12mm bolts that hold the throttle body to the intake manifold. you should be left with this

 As you can see the IACV is on the bottom of the throttle body.

Step 2.

Get a Phillips screw driver and remove the two Phillips screws hold the IACV to the throttle body, make sure you press firmly on the screw driver as to not strip the screws out. Stripping the screws out isn't a life ender, but it would just be easier if you didn't strip them out.

Step 3. 

Pull the IACV off, it should come off with ease. Mind the rubber gasket and the two screws. i put the int he throttle body and set it aside so I don't lose any of them.

Step 4. 

You will now need to  disassemble the IACV, this is the most tricky part. You notice that the IACV sensor has two "star" screws holding it together, they aren't any Allen wrench sizes, and they aren't torx bit sizes. Im sure somewhere someone know hat tool to you to take the screws out, but i just use a grinder with a cut off wheel and just make a small slit in the head of the bolt to make it a "flat head" screw now.

Step 5.

Take a fairly large flat head screw driver and apply direct pressure and turn counter clock wise to loosen the two screws. I realize that in the pics it is hard to see the slits i created in the screw heads.

Step 6.

Now the IACV should come apart and you will notice that there might be rust, or other gunk in both pieces, this is where you will spray the carb cleaner into both parts to clean it all out.

Step 7. 

In the last picture from step 6 you see my left index finger is pointing to a small silver cylinder that has a small tab on it and a shaft the goes through a bearing. you must be able to freely spin this with your fingers this means that the IACV is going to be fully functioning. If yours is like mine and after spraying carb cleaner into it, it still doesn't spin. then you are going to have to use some WD-40 or other lubricant to free the shaft and allow it to spin freely. this is very important, The way the IACV works is is by sensing how hot the engine is and it does this by reading the coolant temp as it goes through the IACV. once warm enough it will allow the shaft to spin around blocking a small hole that allows the car to have a steady low idle, much like a choke. if this shaft cant freely spin then it can't properly block the small hole allowing air in, thus acting like a vacuum leak causing a surging idle.

Step 8.

 Now that your IACV is freely spinning with ease. ( note this might take some time, a lot of finger spinning, and WD-40 to continue to flush it out) if you don't take the time to make sure it is freely spinning then when you put it all back together its probably still going to surge. now re assemble to IACV using the two screws you made slits in.

Step 9. 

Re attach the IACV to the throttle body using the two Phillips screws and rubber gasket that you stashed in the throttle body for safe keeping. if you forget the rubber gasket then the coolant is going to leak into your throttle body.

Step 10. YOU'RE DONE!!!!!!! now just re install the throttle body and attach all sensors, hoses, throttle cable, and air intake. ( mine is missing a few sensor and im not going to be re installing it onto my motor, as the motor is currently not in the car and i need new gaskets) but this should help you get your car to stop surging.