Tuning the Honda L series

"All you need to know about performance parts and tuning the Honda L series engine!"

Carref prides itself on providing the latest tips and guides to your modification project.

The Honda L series really good project engines and with the right uprated upgrades like remaps, turbo upgrades and camshafts you will certainly enhance your driving experience.

In this article we review and look at L series tuning and outline the best modifications for your car.

We rely on our visitors to pass on tips and tell us about their projects and what worked on their car, and this article is the culmination of the feedback we have received. First let us look at the history and specs of this engine and then consider which tuning modifications work best on it.

History of the Engine

• 2001 1.3 L L13A (Fit/Jazz)
• 2001 1.4  L13A (Fit/Jazz)
• 2002 1.2 L L12A (Jazz)
• 2002 1.5 L L15A (Fit/Fit Aria/Airwave/Mobilio)
• 2013 1.5 L L15B DOHC (Fit)
• 2016 1.5 L L15B DOHC VTC Turbo (Honda Civic/Honda Accord/Honda HR-V/Honda CR-V)
• 2012 1.5 L LEA-MF6 (Honda Civic Hybrid)

Tuning the Honda L series and best L series performance parts.

What are the most effective L series mods

When talking about the best ultimate for your L series engine, we are going to focus on the parts that give the best power gain for you money.

Significant gains on the L series can be made from camshaft upgrades. Altering the camshaft profile alters the intake and exhaust durations on the engine and can dramatically change the bhp and power output.

Fast road cams normally bump the power across the rpm band, you may sacrifice a little bottom end power but top end will improve.

Motorsport and race cams, bump the top end band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

For a typical daily driver must carefully try to match your engines power to your driving style.

You'll never have ever thought a L series Competition cam is a pleasure to live with when in heavy traffic.

Each engine responds better to mild camshaft durations so view each engine as unique.

The ecu map and fuel pump and injectors also have an effect on the torque gains you'll achieve.

Longer valve durations can alter the torque band and on most engines the exhaust and intake durations do not need to match, although most cams and tuners use matched pairs there are some advantages to extending the intake or exhaust durations.

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Modifying to Stage 1:

 Drilled & smoothed airbox, Panel air filters, Fast road camshaft, Intake headers, Sports exhaust manifold, Remaps/piggy back ECU.

Modifying to Stage 2:

 fuel pump upgrades, Ported and polished head, induction kit, high flow fuel injectors, Fast road cam, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust.

Modifying to Stage 3:

 Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves), Competition cam, Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression, Engine balancing & blueprinting, Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Twin charging conversions.

Remaps will help to establish the full potential of all the tuning mods you've done to your L series.

It will usually give around 30% more power on turbocharged vehicles and you can expect to see around 15% on NASP engines, but the outcome often depend much on the tuning mods you've fitted and the condition of your engine.

Forcing fuel and air into each cylinder is the whole point to any performance tuning project.

Intake headers take the air during the suck phase from the air cleaner and allow it to be sucked into the engine cylinders with fuel for the squish phase.

The size of bore and shape and rate of flow of the Intake headers can make a noticeable change to fuel delivery on the L series.

Many mass produced engine plenum chambers are ripe for motorsport parts, although a few OEM provide well optimised plenum chambers.

Larger L series valves, doing a bit of port matching and head flowing will also increase bhp and torque, this will make space for an improved bhp and torque increase on other modifications.

Which turbo upgrades are best?

NASP engines need quite a lot of work when you add a turbo, so we have a separate guide to help you take into account the pros and cons of going this route on your L series

The more air you can get into an engine, the more fuel it can burn and uprating the induction with a turbocharger upgrade makes massive power gains.

If your motor is turbo charged tuning mods are more reliable and turbocharged engines are made using stronger components.

However most engines have weakspots

See where you'll find these restrictions and upgrade to more solid crank and pistons to utilize the power.

It's not unheard of people spending a a stack of money on turbocharger upgrades on the L series only to watch the engine catastrophically fail soon after it's completed.

It is common that there's a restriction in the air flow sensor MAF/MAP on these engines when loads more air is being pulled into the engine.

You'll see that 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor sapped power at a much lower level.

Adding a supercharger or additional turbo will make large bhp gains, although harder to setup. We have this guide to twinchargers if you want to read more.

Fuelling

When you improve the torque you will need to increase to the fuel delivery.

More torque needs more fuel. We would recommend you to over specify your injector capacity.

The accepted safe increase is to add 20% when fitting an injector, helps cope with injector deterioration and allows some spare capacity should the engine require more fuel.

We think this one is common sense, but you'll need to match your fuel injector to the type of fuel your car uses as well.

Choosing the right performance exhaust

One of the most common mistakes and problems we see in tuning projects is usually down to the exhaust, or rather a poorly chosen exhaust for your engine.

You should look to increase your exhaust if the current exhaust is creating a restriction in flow.

On most factory exhausts you'll find the exhaust flow rate is ok even on modest power gains, but when you start pushing up the power levels you will need to get a better flowing exhaust.

Sports exhausts generally help improve air flow out of the engine but avoid an exhaust that is too big or you could will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.

Usual exhaust restrictions are in the catalyst and filters installed, so adding a freer flowing sports alternative will help avoid this restriction.

Weak spots Issues & problem areas on the

The engines are generally reliable and solid as long as they are regularly serviced and maintained.

Regular oil changes are vital on the , especially when tuned and will help extend the life and reliability of the engine.

For more information on Tuning your engine please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss tuning options in more detail with our owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

Please help us improve these tips by sending us your feedback in the comments box below.

We love to hear what our visitors have got up to and which upgrades work best for them on each model of car. Comments are used to improve the accuracy of these articles which are continually updated.

This article was written by Waynne Smith on TorqueCars, and I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Honda. You can leave a response below or join TorqueCars forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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