Looks like its coming together nicely.

Build looks great! Are you going to put inserts into engine mounts? I think something is required or engine will move around so much as to cause shifting problems. Why are the rods to big for the pistons , seems like the piston and rod manufacture could get em to fit.
Once again nice job!

Thank you I'm not sure yet to be honest. It all comes down to whether or not i already have them. If i havent then i'll get them fitted for sure. I have recently fitted a engine torque damper and thats seemed to of helped shifting a fair bit.

Thats a good question, its the other way around though i.e. "why is the small end gap on the piston to small for the rod ?". I can't really answer it to be honest and my guess is probably as good as yours... Maybe theres some other rod out there that they recommend .

more info on them?
how much power are they good for?

What exactly do you want to know ? You maybe best off contacting Darton by phone, email or pm as i told them what i wanted from my setup/budget and they recommended them to me.

Here is the H-T darton rep https://honda-tech.com/forums/members/darton-999451355/

Give him a shout

Hey Rich777. Cool build you have going on. I'll make sure to follow.

Sounds good man

Got chance to do some measuring today guys. Everything so far is spot on.

Here are the results :

-All crank main and rod journals are close to perfectly round ( i don't like using the word "perfect" on its own because it doesn't exist). Thats within .0001 for both of them. Honda call for .0002

-All crank main and rod journals tappers are within .0001 Honda call for .0002

-Crankshaft run out (straightness) come out at .0004 on the dial indicator. The true reading is half of that which is .0002. Honda call for .0008 as max on a new crank and .0012 as the service limit. I'm not sure though if there talking about the gauge reading or true. Either way i'm well within spec .

Here are a few pictures : (note, i took a few of a sleeve and the block. This is to give a idea of how they'll look when installed) :



Sorry about a few of the poor quality pictures....

Also, just incase anyone is wondering YES arp studs do send the mains out of round and decrease the journal tunnel size when torqued up properly. I am getting the mains lined bored anyway for a few reasons. It ensures the mains are perfectly (close to lol) inline and round. It will give me one bearing size so i don't have to mess about with OEM bearing colours and pay the sky high prices for them (UK prices & there still quite expensive when imported because of shipping and tax). The bearings i am now going for are made by "Taiho" . Taiho manufacture bearings for Honda OEM so these are a true OEM bearing equivalent. They also cost £59 for a full set of mains, rods & thrusts. Also i felt that it would be a good idea to run ARP main studs as this is a B16. If it was a B18 with a girdle then i'd say different, i feel as though the extra clamping load on the main caps will help keep everything in place "better" when the engine is placed underload and starts binding as twisting (slightly).

why the difference in sleeve OD?

I'd imagine it has something to do with supporting it. Remember though theres are dry sleeves.

sorry for the dumb questions...

but are oem sleeves "dry sleeves" ?

what i'm not understanding is if BOTH sleeves are same BORE and the darton sleeves are suppose to be stronger = wouldn't they be thicker than OEM sleeves?

unless i'm reading it wrong or missing something, stock sleeves outter diameter is 95mm vs darton sleeves on 90mm..

I PM darton but they have yet to replay back.
Thanks for sharing your build with all of us.

Its ok, ask as much or what ever you like.

Yes OEM sleeves (correct word is liners) are dry. In other words they are pressed into the alloy support which is part of the block. If you take a look at the picture of the block and liner you will see how there are two different shades of colour, one being the liner and the other the block. Dry sleeves or liners are never directly in contact with the coolant.

Wet sleeves completely remove all the material that supports the upper of the sleeve so there in contact with the coolant. Hence "wet"... Take a look through this : http://www.darton-international.com/Honda%20Manual.pdf . Hope it helps

Also its not all about thickness, quality also plays a big part in sleeves strength. All though there is always a recommended sleeve/liner thickness in relation to power output. e.g. 2mm thickness on stock liners may support 400whp but 1mm on the dartons will also support it safely... (thats just a example of the top of my head, no guide line what so ever)

Yup I can understand how the MID are installed but I couldn't find any info on install guide for 200 or 300 series sleeves so i'm having hard time picturing what is involved in installing them.

obviously i won't try to install them myself but it's always nice to reasearch as much as you can about a process before handing money over for a shop to do it for you.

thanks -charlie

No problem, i'm sure if you had a block in front of you, you'd understand better. There basically just bored out and pressed in. The 300 series will require some extra metal taken off the top of the sleeve support.

oh i think i know what you mean now....

the dart liners require the oem liners "cut/bored" out and darton ones to be pressed in for tight fit.

in addition, if you have the darton "flanged" liners...
it will require additional machining of the OEM outter linner which touches the coolant(not sure if they are called) to be CUT at the TOP to make room for the INNER darton sleeved since it has a enlarged FLANGED to sit over the OEM outter linner...

is that correct?


your darton ones are "flanged" ... is that the same as the 300s just renamed or something?

also you were only measuring the TOP flanged ... it's not that size all the way down, right?

YES !! Your getting it... Thats right.

Yeah from as far as i know the 300 series are the flanged. The 200 series are just straight liners with no flange.

Yes i was only measuring the top of the liners where its thickest. Here are pictures of the bottom of the liner :





Thats 88.38mm.

$200 shipped Titian Motorsports
$400 for install
Darton Dry Cylinder Sleeves
B18A B18C No Flange DAR# 200-014
Bore = 3.18
O.D. = 3.465
Wall = 0.143
Length = 5.11

$275 shipped Titian Motorsports
$500 for install
Darton Dry Cylinder Sleeves
B18A B18C W/ Flange DAR# 300-014
Bore = 3.18 = 81mm
O.D. = 3.475
Wall = 0.148
Length = 5.5
Flange Thickness = 0.375
Flange Diameter = 3.58

BINGO.. i got it now.. thanks boss.

I want to make 450whp but on occassions could see the need to hit 500whp (just for bragging rights). My buddies gsr (je pistons & eagle rods) stock gsr sleeves made 480whp on stock sleeves before #3 sleeve cracked. lol

So needless to say I just want an additional saftey buffer for my setup rather than spending $1450 on GE sleeved block (shipping cost included) which is overkill and money spent on "potential" I'll never shoot for.

Now i just have to decide if $175 extra (200 vs. 300 flanged) is worth it. lol
probably is just for piece of mind...

Ha,ha, thats good....

I was in the same shoe's as you as i was originally going for the 200 series. To be honest i think you & me would of been fine with either but then again its not actually a hell of a lot of extra cash for the 300 series.

You know my inital turbo choice (was the silver surfer) but i just happend to get a good deal on the speedtrap GT3540S, if not for that I would of for sure gotten the SS... lol


we indeed are now on the same vein of thought.
$175 extra is not a huge deal..

Now i just have to find a local shop who has experiance in sleeving.
Shipping a 60lbs bare block to Darton would be $60-70 each way.

Q? did you happen to weigh one of the Mahle 9.5:1 81.25mm piston yet?

also what bov and wg are you going with?
what injectors size and EMS?

No i never knew that, what power is the GT3540S good for ? I think i have seen some pictures of it that you posted up somewhere. Did you go for black on the compressor cover and exhaust housing ?

No i havent weighed one of the pistons, if i get access to a set of scales i'm going to weigh them and the rods. They look very well machined/made though. There also a 4032 alloy piston so you can run a tighter piston to wall clearance without any issues compared to a 2618 alloy (cp, je, ect..).

I have a Tial 50mm BOV and a Tial 38mm wastegate which i will be using. I only have a set of RC's 550cc injectors at the moment. I'm going on holiday/vacation to California in June so i will be bringing some parts that are needed to finally finish this setup (like injectors). At the moment i'll just have to make do with what i've got as i need to watch my spending a bit lol. The machine work is going to cost me a few £ as it is... As for the EMS, either Ectune or Neptune, as i have both of these.

i dont' want to cluter up your build thread with my pictures
but here are the links
https://honda-tech.com/forums/showth...07793&page=282
https://honda-tech.com/forums/showth...hlight=gt3540s

since all my discussions with mac over 2yrs has always been about smaller turbos and the SS, i was kind of worried about the lag that the bigger brother gt3540s would have but it wasn't all that bad.

SS on stock gsr & ramhorn 10psi gets full spool by 4200rpms (IIRC)
and my gt3540s 10psi gets full spool by 4700rpms

yeah i'm looking for forged pistons which will allow me to run tigher p2w clearance as well. I never heard of Mahle before... lol

That turbo looks so damn sexy, i bet you was drooling when you opened the box lol. I remember opening my Surfer box up and thinking to myself "I don't even want to stick this on my car and have exposed to dirt, rain and other problem from the outside world" lol. I was well impressed with Greg's (Go-autoworks.com) work to. I feel they both give EXCELLENT value for money.

I'd take a further look into the Mahle piston if you can. As your from the United States it maybe a idea to call them and see what they say. Incase your wondering why i went with 81.25mm its because at first i was going to run stock sleeves and i wanted to keep as much metal on the liners as possible. If it was now i'd go bigger...