Boost got you under pressure

A Honda Civic Type R with a Jackson racing supercharger conversion was presented with major running problems.

It runs with a Hondata ECU which has proved itself to be very reliable and more than capable of running this conversion many times.
So why was this one idling at 2500 rpm and almost un-drivable?

With such a popular conversion, it was easy to find information.
This provided us with base maps, tuning specifications and hardware requirements.

The first thing to do was check for fault codes, however there were no codes stored.
So we connected the basic logging equipment to the vehicle and attempted to drive it on the dyno.
The result was extremely poor fuelling and massive overboost.

We now had a problem. The hardware was not compatible with the vehicle.
A change of supercharger pulley diameter was required.
Once this was completed the boost pressure was now within acceptable limits. But the car was still not right.

Looking at the map stored on the ECU, during testing it appeared to have some very poor calibrations.
The answer was a base map from a similar specification car. This is then fine tuned to suit the vehicle. In this case reducing the knock counter at certain load and rpm ranges by trimming the advance curve.

The result was night and day. The car now pulled like a train and recorded a very healthy 188BHP at the wheels or around 240BHP at the flywheel.

Why is it so hard to sell the concept of training to the UK automotive aftermarket?

Given the complexity of the modern vehicle, you would expect technicians to require regular updates about the advances in vehicle technology.
So why is it so difficult to persuade garages to train staff?
Why do technicians not want to advance their learning?

Most garages are aware of the skills gap they face, but they opt for the ostrich approach and ignore the problem. A common mistake is buying diagnostic tools and not taking advantage of the training that is provided. Instead the technician muddles on, doing what he always did. Getting what he always got.

I had a set of tyres fitted recently and I watched the tyre fitter closely.
He didn't remove the wheel weights before balancing the wheel, this resulted in a large number of weights being fitted without achieving dynamic balance.
He used an air gun to tighten the wheel nuts, then checked the torque using a wrench which clicked immediately meaning the wheel nuts were already over tightened.

When paying the bill, I asked the manager (his badge said he was anyhow) about the short comings in the procedures used by his staff. His reply was they needed training.

Great news, so I left my card, and waited for the call. After a week or so I called the garage. Offered my services and reminded the manager that a few hours training would make the garage more efficient, profitable and improve customer satisfaction. He response was he had no time for training.

I wonder how they are getting along with run flats, tyre pressure monitoring, and 4 wheel alignment seeing as they couldn't balance a tyre and tighten the wheel nuts correctly.