Monday, January 4, 2021

LED foglights

 A bit of a filler while I procrastinate playing with my KTuner (forgive my laziness, afterall, it is winter here in Canada with an average temperature of -5C and with snow and ice on the road).  I will get out there once the roads clear up a bit 😉

For now, I present to you a quick tweak of appearance (with high practicality value as well), FOG LIGHTS!  Since the early days of ownership of the vehicle I have had aftermarket Morimoto Xenons installed, modestly at 4300K (i.e. a neutral daylight) to help with illumination at night time driving, which has improved a lot but has always created a vast visual contrast with the stock halogen foglight.  

All this has changed last week when I have finally swapped to a pair of passively cooled LEDs, chosen for its compactness (compared to xenons with its ballasts) and simplicity (just heatsink compared to some of the LEDs out there that uses a fan for cooling).  It is a random find from Princess Auto and its look and construction is highly similar, if not the same, as Prolightz's PLX3 that I am using on my Odyssey with great satisfactions.  I've decided to give it a go given the low price, see below for a picture of the kit.

The first think you spot might be the socket type, the kit says H11 but the tabs are not truly H11, it seems to be H8/H9/H11 compatible after measuring out the tabs.  This is great news as our Accord takes H8 for fogs and I won't have to get my dremel out to mill out the middle tab as discussed in this thread (https://www.driveaccord.net/threads/fog-lights-h8-to-h11-mod.81990/)

The installation was straightforward, I reached the back of both fog light housing from the front wheel well by removing the bumper screw and taking the end of the bumper off the clips.  It's a bit tight but it is doable.  An alternative method is to remove the fog light housing as a whole from the front by removing one screw at the bottom that secures the housing.  You can find more detail instructions from this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elqiai6Sc-I

The final product can be seen in the picture below.  I personally like the JDM amber for the looks and more importantly the added light output really fills the gap from the driver's view, not to mention there's more light coverage on the sides too =)







Monday, December 28, 2020

J-Pipe installed!

 It has been a long time since I've posted, thought I should pick up the slack and document the latest modification done to the good old Accord.  This latest addition is downpipe and it is also known as the "J-pipe" because of its shape, it is something I have always wanted ever since my previous 2003 Accord V6 and have finally gotten my hands on one after all these years.  

So what's the hype?  Well, like all exhaust aftermarket parts, the goal is to reduce/minimize flow restrictions and in my opinion the bottleneck for Honda's J-series engines have always been this downpipe.  As you can see below a side by side comparison between the OEM and a RV6 aftermarket j-pipe, it is clear the stock pipe has a less than desired way to merge one of the exhaust output to the main pipe; The aftermarket pipe on the other hand smooths out the bend and you get a bonus catalytic converter delete for added flow.  This is the 3rd cat in the entire exhaust system (with two upstream of this J-pipe, one on each bank), so this deletion will not cause foul exhaust smell, nor will it introduce a lot of noise.  


There are two main aftermarket brands who supply J-pipes for V6 Accords, namely RV6 and ATLP.  Interestingly, they approach it in two different ways.  The former (the pipe on the right in the picture above) utilizes a long tube design while the latter (see picture below) uses a shorter tube but a bigger collector (3" for the '13-'17 V6 accord).  



I am no expert and there are plenty of discussions on the differences between the two designs, https://www.driveaccord.net/threads/atlp-vs-rv6-j-pipe.307553/, feel free to check them out.  

I went with a used ATLP because 1) it was a lucky find in the classified, so it is local and it is in very good condition, 2) general community consent is that RV6 rasps, so the choice is pretty much made for me.  What about performance you say? Well, since I am only changing the J-pipe, the full benefit/drawbacks will not be fully observed so I just went with whatever is available.  

Results, finally.  I am really pleased with this part. It drives/sound like stock in normal driving but the car roars and takes off with minor torque steer if you go beyond 4000 rpm at WOT.  Since it is fall/winter when I got it installed, the weather has not allowed for a good chance for me to take a video or do some decent audio recording.  I'm less motivated to do so now also because I had just gotten myself a Ktuner and plan do all the audio/video documentation all in one go.  But for now, you can listen to the cold start up in the video below.  


Stay tune, I will gather up more exhaust videos and document my KTuner tinkering journey.

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Rear sway bar (RSB) upgrade

Another improvement made to this vehicle is an upgrade of the rear sway bar. I do not recall our factory RSB size, I believe it is a 17mm?

Shared chassis is always a great thing because I was able to choose rear sway bars from TSX, TL, and TLX. OEM means more economical and more accessible as well.

The final decision was to go with the 25.4mm from the TLX v6 and the part number is 52300-TZ3-A51 and bushings (x2) 52306-TZ3-A01. Factory endlinks and bushing brackets can be reused. 

This setup greatly neutralizes the vehicle and does induce oversteer at hard turns, allowing for more dynamic driving compared to factory's understeer biased configuration.

I do not have pics of the installed product but the following is a picture of it waiting to be installed.


Monday, August 13, 2018

JDM hazard switch swap

My tinkering itch got the best of me so I went and bought a JDM red hazard switch to change things up a bit for my interior.  The part number is 35510T2AJ01 and it came from Thailand.  I really like the colour contrast it brings to the center stack.

I've followed the instruction in the following YouTube video:


And the end product:
Night shot, showing the red glow


Bright red button... ohh ya!

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Transmission slips

After owning my car for ~2 years, the first problem had come up.  It has to do with the transmission (this brings back good old memory from my 7th gen V6).  The symptom is heavy jolting at gear shift during acceleration.

I've made a video of it here:


Often times, the problem would go away if I restart the vehicle but would come back in a few days or so.  I do long commutes to work everyday so I have plenty of opportunities to run experiments.  I have tried various combination of ECO mode, sports mode, none seems to trigger it or remedy the problem while it was happening.  It was not temperature dependent or did it have anything to do with driving style.

I eventually caught a break, with the problem going on and off for a few months, the car finally decided to throw a code.  Unfortunately, I did not take a photo and it has been too long that I no longer remember what's exactly being thrown at the dash.

Nonetheless, the problem has to do with the 3rd gear pressure switch malfunctioning.  I got it replaced under warranty and it turns out to be the root cause of the transmission slip/jolt.