Project NSX: Part 21 – Foundry 3 K-Coil Swap

We laid out the Foundry3 K-Coil Wiring Harness onto our engine and tucked the wires to follow the factory wiring harness.  The K-Coil harness replaces the factory igniter and plugs into the OEM harness as well as takes power from the VSS speed sensor with a built-in jumper harness.  Simply unplug the VSS sensor, and plug it into the K-Coil harness.

We bolted the brass-colored mounting bracket to the valve cover, then we bolted the K-coil to the new mounting bracket.  After plugging in the new harness, the installation of the Foundry3 K-Coil Swap Kit was complete!

Foundry3 also offers an Audi R8 Ignition Coil Harness that works with the Audi R8 Coil (Denso P/N: 673-930).  This coil is a direct fit to the NSX cylinder head and do not require a mounting bracket or adapter like the K-Coil kit.  The R8 coils are less expensive than the K-Coils and are proven to over 800whp in a twin turbo NSX.  This is a great alternative that would be a good fit for most applications.

Since we are going to be pushing the limits of our NSX’s built engine, we opted for the K-coils.

While we had the intake manifold off as part of the Drive-By-Wire conversion, we replaced the old OEM narrow-band knock sensors with wideband knock sensors.  The original sensors were designed to generate an output voltage only around a preset frequency based on engine characteristics, which have an inability to separate knock from noise.

We installed the (2) WHP Wideband Knock Sensor Kits from ECU Master.  Our Motec M150 ECU will now be able to take full advantage of modern wideband, or flat response, knock sensors.  With modern signal processing, wideband sensors can enable modern ECUs to process the signal in its full range, filter the signal by crank degrees so that it only monitors the sensors at the engine positions where knock is likely to occur, and look for only sounds that actually represent knock.  This far greater sensitivity to knock and greater control over the engine will enable us to use engine protection strategies when knock is detected.