If a picture is worth a thousand words, a picture of him is worth ten thousand.
The cars he tunes tip him at the end of each session. Their owners offer their girlfriends in gratitude. He politely declines. Most of the time.
Bolts will spontaneously change size, according to which wrench is in his hand.
He can kill two birds with one crank pulley. And vise versa.
He once taught a Euro taillight to brake in JDM.
He is the most interesting man in the tuning world, and in fact, Eric Hsu can please all the people all the time. He just chooses not to.
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2000 Honda Accord - Question it.
Feeling lucky? questionit@importtuner.com
Cost Effective Swap
Is it possible to swap a 13B-REW engine into a first-gen Mazda MX-5 without fabricating or spending a lot of money on custom parts? Any help or suggestions you can give me would be great.
-Mike B.
via importtuner.com
No, it will not bolt in. Yes, it is possible to do the swap. No, it cannot be done easily without acquiring custom parts and, yes, it will require a good deal of fabrication and custom wiring. If you have plenty of time and some money, go for it. It would be a pretty damn fun car to drive!
Finding the Perfect Turbo
I built an '86 Toyota MR2 with a 2.0L turbo engine about a year ago, but leaned it out at 25 psi of boost, blowing apart the T3/T04 hybrid turbo and taking out a chunk of one piston's ring land. I'm currently rebuilding the engine with custom 0.5mm oversized coated JE pistons, ARP fasteners, a custom side-feed intake manifold with a Ford 75mm throttle body, 3.5-inch surge tank, and 1.5-inch runners with a liquid-to-air intercooler mounted directly to the intake. What turbo would you suggest and what size? I was looking at the GT30R but need a turbo that could utilize a T3 exhaust flange and be able to handle 25 psi of boost on the track with a proper AEM water/meth injection and about 15 psi on the street. My current setup uses an XSpower stainless header with a T3 flange. I really appreciate any input you may have
-Matt R.
via importtuner.com
First off, ditch the bullshit XSpower exhaust manifold. It will crack and/or break in a matter of hours (go to my blog and search "XSpower" for details). Otherwise it sounds like you have a pretty serious setup. You didn't mention what your power goal was or what kind of track (road-race or drag) you're planning to drive, since that has a huge impact on the turbo sizing. If you are thinking GT30, my guess is that your goal is around 450 hp. I like the GT3076R using a 0.63 a/r turbine housing for a 2.0L. If you're building for drag racing, you might consider the GT3582R with a 0.82 a/r turbine housing for upwards of 600 hp. Be sure to use a reliable wastega like a Tial 44mm or larger. And stay away from the made-in-China shit.
Honda Replacement
I own a '00 Honda Accord 3.0L VTEC engine with a faulty TPS sensor. A shop I know sells the sensor, but I am clueless on which one to buy because I do not know the engine class. Can you offer any advice?
-Anonymous
via importtuner.com
That's what the Honda dealership is for. Give them a call with all the information you've mentioned to get the right part.
Reflash or Stand-alone Dilemmas
My '93 240SX with an SR20DET swap used to run an HKS GT2530 turbo, with supporting modifications and a ECU tune, delivering 280 whp. Since then, I've redone the engine using a GT2871R (0.64 a/r turbine housing) and some Tomei Procams (260 duration/lift). I'll need another tune, and a chipped ECU would be cheaper but I know you're not much of a fan of mail-order tunes. With a target goal of about 350 whp, would a stand-alone be worth the money for such a mild setup? If so, what stand-alone unit(s) would you recommend?
-John Yang
Seoul, Korea
A properly tuned ECU, whether stock or stand-alone, would be fine. I prefer stand-alones, but the stock Nissan ECUs are pretty good if an experienced tuner is chipping/reflashing them. The only problem with mail-order tunes is that you need to have exactly what the mail-order map was designed for. A different air filter, intake tube, air flow meter, intercooler, or intercooler pipes can throw the entire tune significantly off. If you plan on matching the parts exactly to the chip for the stock ECU then you could give it a shot. If not, I recommend the A'pexi Power FC as a true plug-and-play ECU. The catch is that you'll still need somebody to tune it for you, or you'll need a tuner to load a base map in the Power FC for you-and you'll still need the same exact parts. With the Power FC you also have the "D-Jetro" option that allows you to eliminate the air flow meter and therefore the chances that the tune will be thrown off due to differences with air flow meter voltages from mismatched parts.
Elusive Pulleys
Can you please tell me where I can get a set of pulleys for my Honda S2000 Vortech supercharger? I am desperate to find a source and it seems that no one has the solution to my dilemma. So please, even if you don't know the answer, just say you don't know, not like those Super Street guys, who just ignore my thousands of emails and pretend to never get to them. That's the reason I stopped buying that magazine, and subscribe to Import Tuner instead. I hope you will not fail me like those SS guys did!
-Desperate
via importtuner.com
Uh . . . have you tried sourcing your pulley through Vortech Engineering? They list multiple pulleys on their website. You can also call them for custom pulleys at 805.247.0226. Use some common sense-I'm not too surprised you keep getting blown off on this one.