Latest posts of: Skippy

Welcome to the Bolt-ons subforum of ECM!

This thread is designed as an introduction to basic NA performance. The term "Bolt-on" describes any product that will directly replace a part of your motor without tearing it apart, requiring extensive modification, nor excessive shop fees should you not choose to install it yourself.

Some turbo kits are marketed as "Bolt-on", but their installation is best reserved for advanced modifiers and really should be handled by a qualified shop if you lack the tools or experience.

Most of the following major topics have their own thread to give more information about specific kits, and to let you know of products that may not work on your specific vehicle. An example would be MAF'd accords looking for intakes. This kind of information will be covered in the dedicated threads. If a topic does not have its own stickied thread (Pulleys for example), this means that all the information about them should be contained in this thread.

So on to bolt-on theory!

The three essential components for combustion in any engine are Air, Fuel, and spark. Your stock equipment is designed to move air in exhaust gases out efficiently while minimizing noise and emissions. This is not conducive to performance since these parts are made more restrictive in an attempt to reduce sounds coming from the car. If you increase the amount of air and fuel in the cylinders, and add a better quality spark, the amount of power you are able to make goes up.

The major bolt-ons that will be discussed are air related. These mods should be done first to free up your car's breathing system so that more complicated mods will have a better effect. Air related modifications are the easiest and least risky, and by far most widespread among people who modify their cars. Basic bolt-ons are designed to increase horsepower without messing with your engine management. This quick gain is only part of what can be realized if the proper engine management system is used to add more fuel. That gets into the more technical realm, so we'll leave that for an advanced thread.

Intakes
Usually the first performance mod people do. The intake gets air into the engine. The stock equipment consists of a convoluted set of plastic resonators that reduce intake noise and consequently makes it hard for the engine to breathe. All intake kits are roughly the same. All use an aluminum pipe and a filter. The difference lies in design and sometimes pipe diameter. There are two varieties of intake; Short ram and Cold air. Short ram intakes are generally less expensive than CAI's, and generally produce more top end power. These are also very popular in wet states when people don't feel like risking their motors to hydrolock when there are floods. CAI's develop more low end power and torque, but they are prone to hydrolocking if water is sucked into the charge pipe.

Exhaust manifold [header]
The header is mostly looked over in general. I don't know why people don't replace it when they go to all the trouble of doing the intake and exhaust. Whatever the reason, the header is the one overlooked part of most people's NA modifications. The header moves exhaust gases from the engine to the exhaust. Unfortunately, the K series is pretty diverse in header applications. RSX-S may opt to use a DC Race header. This is not possible on other K platforms because the exhaust design is different. Since the RSX-S was built more streamlined behind the engine, a long-tube race header may be accommodated. The accord takes after the TSX design, and may only use the standard DC header, or the comptech header for the TSX.

this thread is under construction