Danny Fallas

Hi there, i´m planing to start building my h22a1.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But here´s my first stage and after the description i have my two questions maybe you can help me. (ANY COMMENT IS WELCOME). I want to get at least 230 WHP.

Stage 1:
-Stock headers, no cat, high flow silencer, straigt pipe. With 2.5" catback.
-Stage 3 camshaft.
-H22A TypeS pistons (new ones).
-High Compression Head Gasket.
-Forged bearings.
-Supertech valve springs & retainers

He comes my questions... This questions are only for handling higher compression topic (stage 1). They are not for the rest of my proyect.
-Do I need to change my rods? They are the same, I have h22a type s rods in my possesion, can i use those or i'll need stronger ones?
-Do i need to use ARP screws?
-Do i need to put stronger sleves?
-How do you see this stage!?
-Do you think that i can get 230 WHP with this stage? How much, why, what else do I need?
-Plz if you know recommend me

THANK YOU

Please, help me with my questions, after that if you have any suggestions i'll be more than glad to hear them (read )

carnot

Choose a power goal and/or budget first. The answer to the power goal or budget question is going to dictate if you should stay NA or use a power adder.

Danny Fallas

Thank you.... I know my goal! And I have it clear. But i want to know if I need to improve the rods on my engine so I can run on High compression.

The final stage is the one that is gonna say if it´s gonna stay allmotor or turbo

Clash0901

Turbo it. It's so much easier to make power. In some cases it remains more reliable if done right. All motor builds can get way too expensive and you don't get back what you put in for money vs power.

carnot

Care to share your goal so the community can give you useful feedback? Whether you need to upgrade the rods or not really depends on power production goal not compression ratio.

You don't really want to boost a high compression motor unless you are planning to run race fuel or e85. I get the feeling you haven't really done your homework and no one on this forum will be able to answer your questions with the information you have provided.

Danny Fallas

Oh yeah no!!! I want to get out 230 or more WHP with this first stage.
I will post my whole thinking for this proyect, but i wanted to post this to get any recomendations like yours, thank you BTW!!

But my thinking is, complete my 3 stages (that are NON turbo), forging and making it allmotor kind. If I decide to put a turbo, i have to be sure that my engine can hold at least 18psi for low boost, cause i don´t want 10psi or 8psi. And if i go turbo i will change my pistons and my rods. Buuuuuut!!! Here is where comes my question comes to light.
Do i need to put stronger rods to handle high compression (also prepearing for turbo) or not?

Thank you a lot man, your advises are making me think more in what i want

Danny Fallas

Thanks... well this was a turbo proyect, but i first of all wanted to forge it so i can handle at least 18psi for low boost.

Thats why i have 4 stages to complete it (cause no money yet and want to paint my baby). The 4th its optional because is changing pistons and installing the turbo stuff.

The other 3 stages are planned to forge and improve my HP with out the need of boost, so i don't know what will happen (i will go for turbo i know it will happen )

typemismatch

You have to decide from the beginning if you want to build a turbo or an NA car, especially if you are doing the low end.

Don't aim for a boost goal ... that's a useless number unless you take the rest of the setup into consideration ...

For example, my motor creates ~430whp @ 13psi, where my friends car with the same motor makes ~330whp @13psi, the difference is in the setup.

Let's start with what you want to do with your car ...

Are you going to drag race? auto-x? road race? daily drive?

If you're drag racing, do you have a goal? ET? MPH?

Knowing what you are doing helps us guide you in the right direction in building your motor to fit its purpose. Also, where are you? If you're in the midwest, e85 might be a recommendation.

I know you only want to know if you should upgrade your rods, most likely the answer is yes. But, I'm going to advise you against tearing your block apart until you really understand what you want to do with your car.

I don't know how much research you've done, it sounds like you haven't done much. Just to give you an example though, when I built my turbo setup, I asked around and read up for around 9 months to make sure I ended up where I wanted to be. I ended up over shooting my goal, but at least I know my setup is good for it.

Danny Fallas

Awesome dude. Mmm alright I want a Daily Drive car but with a lot of power. i Would like to know more about ur proyect so I can have more information. And well I have read alot. Want I want is 450WHP@18PSI and the capability to raise my psi with no fear to 22psi. Not for drag, for street!

patroick67

I will say that I would stick with one thing turbo or all motor and not do this in multiple "stages" first of all h22 is an expensive engine to mod in my opinion. I have probably 12-13k just in the engine on my drag car and I couldn't imagine if I would have done it in stages buying parts like stage 3 cams just to take them out when you went turbo. One part might be good for a all motor build but for example when you go out and buy a 750 dollar set of skunk cams then later down the road you pull them because you learn that stock cams make better power then those said cams you will be a little mad at yourself that you just wasted you hard earned money and your time on something because you didn't do your homework. I planned the whole time i was in iraq before i started building this car and still made mistakes! Lol i guess what I am saying is like what some of the other guys up here are saying stick with one thing and roll...unless your loaded then :l

patroick67

Homework

Danny Fallas

Thank u pratroick. I this is still a work in progress, for sure I need a lot to learn and to keep researching. I am in Costa Rica and I have to import things from the US. :s

Thats why i need to know if I raise the compression on my h22a1, if i would need to use forged sleeves or forged rods? Or if the h22a1 can handle the high compression (because of the type s pistons and stage 3 cams) like it is ?

Thats my question because i'm studying the first part of my project, i have to wait a lot of time to save money for the next stages. I won't buy everything just like that (it would be awesome)

Hidenplanvew

Alright.. So 18lbs from a gt35 is alot diffrent the 18lbs from a t3... I dont know why your scared of psi.. I ran 32lbs from an hx35 on my stock sleeves in a Dseries..

Stage 3 cams in a h22 wont be much fun on the street and might cause you issues, I would go for a stage 1 or 2 at the most. More of a streetable motor. You need to to pick some kind of way to tune for aftermarket cams and higher compression. So start looking at a hondata S300 and a p28 ecu. Might need larger injectors from a a eclips turbo 440's and removing a Cat on your car isnt going to really help but will make it pretty loud and annoying for 230 hp...

Danny Fallas

Great advise i will use stage 2 cams, it´s better for idle. Yeah the cat is going to be removed but i'll use a high flow silencer. Also, i wont turbo it yet its going to be in the future, but i know i am going to use a big turbo cause i want full boost like at 5k rpm.

Also, i know i will need an ECU but i'll wait with oem by now. I am still studing this stage so i can make it better!
Thank you, this is helpful.

And please i want to see a video of your car running!

typemismatch

My personal best 12.46 @ 117, running right around 420 whp, 12 psi max boost for the run

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDPiVTbqKw4

typemismatch

If you want streetable NA power with plenty of room to turbo later, run 10:1 compression pistons.

You shouldn't need to sleeve your block to make 400-450whp and you don't need cams either. I'm running stock cams at 470whp, could I make more power, yes, but cams can be changed after the motor is in the car.

Depending on your budget, you can either run eagle h-beam rods and mahle gold pistons, or you can go crazy and sleeve the block and get pauter x-beams with CP/JE/Arias pistons.

If you're not going to sleeve, you are going to need to use stock pistons or mahle golds. Stock pistons can be good to 300-400whp, you might be able to get more out of them with a good tuner.

A cheap boost solution would be to use the H23 short block and H22 head, or look at the G22/23 frankenstein build for the benefits of the iron sleeves of the F block without the cost of sleeving. This build doesn't sound like it's for your experience level though.

As far as your question, should you use forged rods ... yes, if you're going to rebuild, do it right, buy the extra insurance of forged rods. Eagle H-beams aren't that expensive, for cheap insurance.

patroick67

Heck im making 700 on eagle rods that ill be using till my new bottom end is done. They do the job.

snobordboy

Just food for thought, the fastest Prelude right now is running on stock cams. He has mentioned many times that you don't need big cams to make power on a turbo car.

Personally I have been in a 640 WHP turbo prelude, and again, he was on stock JDM cams.

If you want to do an N/A for now and boost later, it could be fun to do a cheap motor with stock crank, rods, sleeves, and type-s pistons, maybe the better cams if you want them for now, and get a good ecu setup for tuning. Then sell that whole engine off and buy or build a sleeved block with forged psitons, better rods etc.

Last year I spent 600 dollars building an H23 Vtec that ended up at 11.6 to 1 compression, stock cams, cheapo header, and made 200 to the wheels, and could have been tuned much better. That was a fun car, and went like hell, until I blew a piston abusing a 100 shot of nitrous. Swapped my stock engine back in to keep the car running, and I can either rebuild another cheap engine with stock parts, or just save for my big boost build. At this point, I have chosen to wait and go for a monster once I save enough up. Of course my plans are quite a bit higher, and will pretty much be drag strip only use.

patroick67

lol my civic is a "drag only" car but still sees the streets frequently

Danny Fallas

Thank you... Now what i got is, no i don't need to use forged sleeves and forged rods for N/A setting (at least not at this point)

Also h22a1 is the same as h22a type s, it only chage little things!

Now i have other question. If i use different camshafts shall i change valves?

Danny Fallas

Wow, awesome advice. Yes i want to put some money on my engine, but it's gonna take some time and mean while i want to run N/A (while i forge everything and safe money).

Danny Fallas

Damn, !!! Yes, i have been looking at that. The cams can help but not actually needed. But i want to upgrade em, for the time I'm N/A, but i don't know if i go to a crower stage2 cams for NA, or H22 TYPE S cams. The type s seems to have more lift and duration.

When going to turbo if i have crower cams, i'll change them for h22a1 stock ones. Thats what i had planned. But, i don't know now what to think.

typemismatch

Don't change the cams, you're just wasting money if you're going to turbo later.

You can't just look at the cost of a set of $600 cams and think ... ahhh for $600 I'll make more power ... you have to factor in the cost of tuning as well, which around here is $150-$200 for a simple N/A mod. You're not going to make big power by just changing a mechanical component, you have to re-tune the car whenever you make an engine change to make sure its safe and building power.

Forget psi period.

Also, forget horsepower, its really a meaningless number that's intended to be used as a comparison to a base line. Basically, its meant to be used to tell where you started and what you gained.

Decide what you want to do, what your real goal is, if you want to track the car, what kind of racing are you going to be doing? Drag? Auto-X? Road race?

Once you decide what kind of racing you want to do, then you can start building your platform. Building for the racing you want to do takes more thought than just ... I want 450whp ...

For example, for drag racing look at the 1/4 mile thread on here and set a goal, based on that goal [14s, 13s, etc] start talking to people about what you need to do to get there. Say you want to get into the low 13s ... you'll probably want to build a motor that makes 200-250whp NA or 300whp boosted, stiffen up the rear suspension, get some slicks for traction and a traction bar to prevent wheel hop. To get into the high to mid 12's you'll want to be in the 300whp range NA or 350-400whp range boosted, most tracks will require you to wear a helmet at the minimum in this bracket, so you'll need that too. Based on the amount of whp you'll need to get to your goal you'll need to make different decisions about building your motor, this is when you start looking at turbo sizing, cam sizing, compression ratios, etc. With a drag engine, you'll want a motor built for top end power, without a lot of regard for low or mid range power losses, because for the >15 seconds you spend on the track, you should never drop below ~6000rpms. The further up you push the power band, the less streetable the car becomes. So you have to start making trade offs between racing and street driving.

If you want to Auto-X you'll want less whp and more suspension tuning. Big whp on an Auto-X circuit is a recipe for major understeer leading to bad lap times at best and crashes at the worst. With Auto-X you'll want to build a car with lots of mid range power, because you'll be up and downshifting in and out of corners and you'll want to be able to accelerate no matter where you need to drop to when you downshift and brake.

If all you want is 450whp so you can be a badass on the street ... good luck ... getting 450whp to the ground in a Prelude on the street isn't going to happen. I'm not saying you won't make 450whp. I'm saying your traction issues at 450whp is going to take the fun out of driving it, unless all you want to do is buy new tires every season.

My wastegate tune is 285whp and I rip loose at full boost all the way into 3rd gear, so stop light racing is really out of the question.

All I'm saying is that to build a car to do what you want it to, you have to decide what you want it to do first.

JuggerNaut-CTR

This means absolutely nothing...you cannot mindread what power the motor will make @ such psi...what type of turbo isn't even mentioned either.

easy

1. - No. You will not make 230whp with types pistons and stage 3 cams only. more like 200-210 (depending on where you are/condition of the motor/other variables)

2. - As someone stated, you most likely won't like the stage 3 cams on the street. If you plan on racing it on the street as like a saturday/sunday drive around and beat on it car, then it might be fine. If you want to daily drive it, don't go stage 3.

3. - You should not need new rods for almost any all motor set up. What you may need instead though, would be an ecu since you will have to do quite a bit of tuning for a compression change and the new cams.

4. - If you are doing a 2.5in exaust, you might as well go 3in since it will make more power than the 2.5 in an all motor set up and if you turbo it it is a must have. Also, as far as the exhaust system goes, don't do the super awesome no cat, high flow res, and then leave the stock header.

5. - Think very hard about what your plans are. What you are talking about is doing 5 seperate motor builds. It will have to be cracked open/pulled out of the engine bay for all of the seperate segments of the builds you are talking about. Consider also, nothing ever works perfectly the first time after a build. There will be lots of fine tuning and most likely replaceing of parts, or swapping parts you thought would work and find out they just don't cut it. If you are willing to shell out $40k to build the motor a couple times, then it's totally within your reach to build a N/A build first and go F/I later. If you dont want to spend thousands of dollars on parts and then replacing them later, you need to pick a route and stick with it.

Just my 2 cents.