19dabeast85

Just an update for reference of future engine builders here....I've put about 300 miles on the motor and I have an oil-burning issue. After coasting or idling, upon on-throttle condition I get a nice puff of blue smoke out the tailpipe. I pulled the plugs to find this: (NOTE orange ceramic= Lucas octane boost on first tank of 87, not damaging)



Cylinder #3 is obviously burning oil!!

I performed a leakdown test on the warm block and at 90psi I have undetectable-by-gauge pressure loss into the crankcase. So negligible loss past the rings and no loss through the valves nor into the coolant. AWESOME this means my rings are seated well!!


SO, the only other place oil can be introduced really is an exhaust or intake valve seal, likely intake but not necessarily. This also makes sense because I see oil burning immediately after a period of high vacuum....point further to intake valve stem seal. So I've ordered a valve spring compressor and new set of seals and hopefully in the next few days will AT LEAST get the #3 seals replaced. To be continued...

Punkaddic

i dont think your spark plugs should be brown like that

19dabeast85

Reading owns you.

When the old engine blew, the crv had a fresh tank of 87 octane fuel. I cycled the fuel out into clean water jugs, added Lucas octane booster and poured the 13 gallons back in. This way I wouldn't have detonation issues on my newly built 11:1 motor. A side effect of one of the key ingredients of Lucas octane booster is it turns the plugs orange. This is widely know and isn't damaging.......WELL long term use could damage the CAT. But since I've now got a full tank of pump 93 in there I no longer will be using octane booster. So with a fresh set of plugs after fixing my valve seal issue I'll be good to go!

But yeah, I've already said all of that ^^ in previous posts!

19dabeast85

Figured I'd update this. I've replaced the cylinder #3 intake valve seals with new Supertech ones....and it still leaks. I have a new set of Honda OEM seals I will be putting in tomorrow possibly. The Supertech seals have a thinner (supposedly) body for use with dual springs so I'm hoping the OEM fixes the valve stem oil consumption issue!


The motor developed a knock at about 450 miles. I located it roughly to the mid-to-rear part of the motor. I pulled the oil pan today and checked all my bearings. All of the bearings still have portions of the dull gray factory coating still on them. I imagine it'll take a few thousand miles to get through that.

I also found the knock. The lower bearing on the #5 main is grooved through its middle. Visible and can feel it. The top bearing on the mains has a factory v-groove for oiling in it and seems to have missed all of the damage. Also the crankshaft is immaculate. No signs whatsoever of any scuffing. THANK YOU Honda for giving us forged cams!!!

I did not recheck all of the oil passages for debris after getting the block back from the machine shop (stupid, lesson learned) and I'm thinking a piece of metal came through the #5 passage and gouged the bearing. There's also the possibility that the oil clearance on that journal was too tight (although I thing this would spin the bearing, not gouge it). Either way, I'm ordering new top&bottom bearings for that journal with slightly more clearance than I originally gave.

It'll take a few days to get the bearings so will post back when I get it back running!


Most bearings are similar to this:





And the #5 main top bearing:

dscarps

Ouch, sorry to hear about all your trouble! The build looks amazing though, I'm subscribed to see how it turns out with your Wideband and FIC!

19dabeast85

Well I started tearing apart the head today to replace all the stem seals....don't know exactly what told me I needed to pull the head and take a peak but I did and......












3 VERY deep gouges in #3 cylinder walls. Plus some crazy thick buildup on the #3 exhaust valve and a good bit of buildup ontop of the piston!

Needless to say this block is toast. Bearings, oil pump, seals, all toast. The YCP pistons themselves actually look to be perfectly fine. Not sure if I'll reuse them or not...probably not. I cannot figure out WHAT scored the wall this bad. There isn't any metal missing from the pistons, head, or valve. No chunks of ceramic missing from the plugs. The only thing I can figure is a metal particle was left in the motor after machining. But even this doesn't explain the THREE gouges in the wall. Even the piston rings seem ok, nothing missing as far as I can tell.

I'm thinking I'll source a jdm b20b(z) and call it a day.

19dabeast85

Just figured it out.... Looks like there was an oiling issue on one side of the #3 wrist pin causing the pin to eat into the piston which made the clearance fit a non-clearence fit(essentially floating wrist pin). The pin then walked itself back and forth in its tunnel rubbing on and eating away at the cylinder walls. Will keep you updated with what route I take next....

Btw, wrist pins are tough, this thing shows zero signs of wear on its ends.

WackyRicanMan

iTrader: (2)

Man that sucks to hear, just read through the whole thread. Good luck with the next route you choose.

19dabeast85

So I have a JDM low mileage B20b on the way. I'm cleaning up this blown motor's head that was just surfaced and had a valve job performed. It should have negligible wear since metal tends to stay at the bottom of the engine and the PureOne filter is a great filter......plus I've found no metal flakes up in the head, only in the oil pan. There's lots of oil buildup in the #3 bowl and exhaust runners I need to clean then brake clean the whole thing. I'll install BLOX flat faced valves on this stock head, stock cams. I don't plan to touch the JDM block other than check and make sure it has PHK pistons and estimate the health of the motor itself. As long as it checks out I'm leaving the crank, bearings, pistons, rings, oil pump all alone. With the flat faced valves and slightly milled head I should be sitting at 10:1 compression on PHK pistons. This will be a nice setup that the stock ECU will still be able to handle. Might have to run 89 octane, we'll see.

19dabeast85

I pulled the head to check the pistons, sure enough they're PHK, awesome! Cylinders have some glazing but still visible hashing. I found out however, that this motor has a no-name water pump and a Bando brand timing belt.....it has had its 100k service....this being a motor with supposedly 40k-50k miles. SO I decided to pull it all apart and check wear.

Check out the cylinder head....I bet this motor got great gas mileage, lol, a little too lean for me!




Main bearings:







I see a fair amount of wear on the lower main bearings (highest load bearings). I'm no expert but I'm seeing 150k+ miles OR a poorly maintained 100k ish.







The rod bearings look a little better but still higher wear on their upper bearings than I'd like to see.

I have bypassed getting the block measured and ordered all new bearings for this motor according to the color codes on the block & crank & rods....and double checking with the bearing colors I removed. The crank looks perfect, just needs a light polishing and stock sized bearings will be perfectly fine IMO.


On another note check out the oil pumps: USDM top, JDM bottom.






You'll notice the USDM timing belt gear won't fit on a JDM oil pump. I knew that they didn't use a crank position sensor on JDM motors but didn't expect the actual oil pump housing to be different. This means a new USDM oil pump is in store.....too bad I can't use the one from the last motor but it's filled with fine metal particles so a no-go.




While reading up on "high compression" valves there was a ton of flak because they add weight to the valve, thus lowering the rpm slightly at which you'd experience valve float, etc...so I decided to weigh the oem vs BLOX valves and see what the difference actually is on my digital scale like so:



Here are my findings:

OEM intake valves average 51.68 grams. Blox intake valves average 49.54 grams. That's a 4.1% REDUCTION in valve weight.
OEM exhaust valves average 49.43 grams. Blox exhaust valves average 48.35 grams. A 2.2% REDUCTION.

Awesome! Everyone had their panties in a wad over nothing lol! The profile of the Blox valves is also much improved, these should flow better than oem!:





One unexpected surprise of the jdm motor is the exhaust manifold it has. The flanges on both ends of the usdm and jdm are the exact same size and the manifold flange is the exact same as the oem exhaust gasket, however the usdm stamped manifold is MUCH smaller at the inlets and outlets as you can see:





Specifically, the usdm inlets quickly neck down to 29mm X 41.5mm just past the flange while the jdm manifold retains the full 34mm X 46mm. At the other end where it bolts to the downpipe, the usdm is 35mm I.D., while the jdm is 41mm I.D.

That's approximately a 28% larger opening at each of the 4 manifold inlets and a 37% larger opening at each of the 2 manifold outlets by cross-sectional area. Needless to say, I will do my best to mate this to my usdm downpipe, every little bit helps!



Monday the block goes off to be de-glazed / honed, crank polished, and head from the last motor will have the Blox valves matched. I have new OE size NPR rings and will put this block's pistons/rods back after cleaning them up.


I've contacted my engine source to see what they'll do about the motor not having the low mileage they claimed....not crossing my fingers for anything from them though.

Don Jefe

Subscribed

Great thread.

ARMED

damn....i just rebuilt my motor too....blowing white smoke, from a dead stop...opened it and come to find out...head gasket is blown, burning coolant...

19dabeast85

Thanks, hopefully there's content in here that'll help others in the future.

That sucks man, I know how you feel. But hey, at least it's just the hg! Use that copper sealant spray stuff on your new hg, forget what it's called, but people swear by it!



I dropped off the block, head, and crank today. But before I did I decided to do a bit of gasket matching on the head. I was thinking of merging the throats-to-seats and working on the valve quench area in the bowl but I figured since this was my first attempt at carving on a head I better keep it simple, lol!

I focused purely on gasket matching and smoothing out the casting marks as deep as possible without screwing in the throat. LMK how I did:

19dabeast85

It's high time I updated this. I got the new block put in with all new everything. The only thing I reused is the thermostat/wp, timing components, and oil pan gasket.

One mistake I made with the first block that potentially contributed to its demise is not priming the oil pump. This time, after the timing was a set and valves adjusted I attached my cordless drill to the crank and ran the motor until oil was spraying out every cam lobe oiler. (drill at 300rpms won't plaster oil outside the head btw)

So with that done I buttoned it up and fired it up. With good oil pressure and after topping off coolant I next set base ignition timing. I planned to retard it for safety but the motor hated everything other than advanced. It's not fully advanced but set at the 18 btdc mark on the pulley.

Following the factory manual, I let the motor idle for 30 minutes to break in the bearings. After that I took it out and set the rings similar to before. The first day I noticed a few puffs of oil smoke but none since!

I put 400 miles on the first batch of Castrol GTX 5w30, and currently have about 1000 miles on this oil change. I have powerful magnets attached to the oil drain bolt and so far have nothing attracted to it! I plan to change again at 3k and then switch to synthetic every 5k.

I have yet to do a dynamic compression test and probably won't for a while longer to let everything break in better first. I have solid oil pressure with hot pressure about 5 psi above the original motor. I'm hot idling at 22 psi and anything over 2k is registering 85 - 95 psi.

The motor pulls strong as ever and will likely get stronger as it breaks in over the first 15k miles or so.

ARMED

nice to hear that its all good to go.. i had to change my valve guides...it was leaking on the valve stem... i changed everything but the stupid valve guides...it went out after a month.. shes good now, no smoke whatsoever, pulls hard too..

19dabeast85

You have to pull the head to change valve guides right? I didn't check the guides themselves (machine shop did) but one thing I was concerned with was the new BLOX valves fitting correctly. Instead of checking against the old valves which would be slightly worn I checked against factory spec and the BLOX valves are PERFECT diameter according to the Honda manual! Just an fyi for anyone wondering.

OneBadTurboCRV

Yes, guides must be pushed out from combustion chamber side with valves removed. I have heard of people saying you want to push them out in the same direction they get installed though. Personally I purchase guides that have a seating lip on them for quick DIY so they have to be hit out from CC side.

Throw the head in a oven set to 200 - 250 *F for an hour or two and knock them out. Heat head back up same way and knock them in. Ream to size and assemble head. Some people knock them out without heating them up, this is more of a PITA than it is worth and promotes galling of the bores.

If ARMED meant valve stem seals then No, the head doesn't have to be removed for seals.

19dabeast85

A few additional notes and pics:

The UEGO is showing that the stock ecu is controlling this 10:1 compression motor very well. It's very interesting to see when the ecu chooses open/closed loop. The ECU is definitely designed for maximum fuel efficiency which is fine with me. At WOT I'm seeing anywhere between 11.5-13.6 AFR depending on rpm and load. At partial throttle cruising it is bouncing between 14.2 - 15.6 AFR showing that it's staying safe while maximizing efficiency. I doubt I will install the FIC because frankly I don't think it'll do much in regards to performance plus the cost would be about $500 plus alot of time to optimize it.

Priming with a drill is the way to go. With no load the assembly lube protects the motor during the 45 seconds needed to fill up the oil pickup, pump, and passages at ~300 rpm. My main concern was getting oil up into the wrist pins.

Here's a few pics since I know everybody loves pics lol!


These are the same pistons you saw installed in the jdm block after I cleaned them up. I scraped the ring grooves and drilled the massive buildup out of the oil groove oil return holes. Next I soaked them in a gallon of GUNK brand carb/parts cleaner you can buy from the auto parts stores. I left each one in for an hour, pulled out and scraped any crud buildup with a soft brush/pick depending on specific location of crud. Then I soaked them again for an hour plus. They came out looking like new!






Block fresh from the shop, this time I told them to make sure it has a perfect surface. I don't remember the brand but their honing machine uses set size diamond stones as the final hone that puts outward pressure until a specific diameter is reached making the piston exactly the same top to bottom down to the nearest .0001". That might be standard for machine shops but I was impressed, lol! I took a precautionary step this time and brake-cleaned the crap out of this block before any assembly. Used a whole can blowing out oil passages and cleaning the cylinder walls.




Pistons installed. Instead of spraying a light coat of wd-40 as some do I followed the factory manual and wiped the walls down with motor oil. Seems to have worked just fine for me! I used a oiling bottle with a very small nozzle and oiled the wrist pins extremely well, forcing oil through the wrist pins' oiling holes. NO wrist pin failure this time dangit!




Bottom end assembled. I used APR fastener lube on everything, their lube is the 2nd best option with the best option measuring bolt stretch during torque. Because this is pretty much a stock block 6500rpm limit and I'm not setup to measure bolt stretch I saw no need in that kind of precision. What the APR lube did is give the peace of mind that all the fasteners are torqued consistently!





This is the oil pickup from the jdm motor. I cleaned a pit of crud from the screen, back flushed it with water, filled it up with foamy engine degreaser, rinsed with water, cleaned it with carb cleaner, soaked it in the parts cleaner, cleaned it again with brake cleaner and let it air dry. Good as new!

ARMED

yeah the head needs to be off..might wanna change it if you can, same thing happen to me, it checked good no leak, clean valves.....then after a month it decided to leak...

i dont know if its over kill but i replace my oil pump with the stage 1 p72 and a type R water pump

OneBadTurboCRV

Stage 1 by whom exactly? Don't tell me it is one of the Apocalypse pumps... The P72 and P73 water pump vanes are pitched differently. You will lose a little flow in low RPM with the ITR pump but will alleviate cavitation issues at high RPM. Same reason ITR crank pulleys are under driven from the factory but for the accessories.