Its a mistake I made and only noticed when I saw the crank pulley move when I was tensioning the P/S belt a few weeks after I put the motor together.

 

I ordered a couple new parts, including that guide from honda, so im gonna have to double check it again when i do it on the stand make sure its got plenty of distance.

 

those vertical marks come from the loose ptw and a bit of piston slap. i bet the very bottom of the outside of your piston skirts are worn too. here is that happening on my car with a ptw of .0045

heres the block after a hone with my 600 grit ball hone. you can still see some of the lines especially in the cylinder all the way on the left. if its not out of round and nothing really catches the fingernail or runs entirely from top to bottom as a gouge mark you are good to go

the wear on the bottom of the skirt

i also noticed that your timing map ramps up constantly throughout the rpm range. ive always been a fan of pulling a bit of timing at peak torque and then adding it back in and maybe even some more as rpm increase

 

those pics dont load

only thing im concerned about at this point is it happening again, i wanna get to the root cause of the wear before i reassemble it. The progressive wear from 1-4 is what confuses me thus far, if it was just the P2W i would have expected it to be uniform against all 4 cylinders.

 

Unless it was a machining/material defect in that batch of pistons

Have you contacted the piston mfg yet? Maybe their techs have some insight

 

havent contacted supertech because frankly i havent found any reason yet to point the blame that way, every major engine "guy" and machine shop thus far have said "user error" but I dont have any evidence to support that theory yet that it was somehow my fault or installation error. That maybe the next course of action though, but id like to have some more information to provide before I start pointing fingers.

 

So the new pistons are here! I know some people will frown upon my decision to go with made in taiwan pistons however these were the pistons I had originally chose for this build before I made the last minute decision to go with supertech. They seem to be of overall good quality for a cast piston, very very light, teflon coated and exactly the same dome height as the supertech's from a visual inspection. Wrist pins are exactly the same size as well which was another concern I had after seeing muckman's issues with his wrist pins bending.

 

Longer skirt - Should be a decent piston for you.

 

They should be fine. I wouldn't worry about the wrist pins. It's not like you're building some crazy high compression super engine like Muckman. I'm yet to hear a complaint about either YCP or Nippon aftermarket pistons...

 

im very curious toward those ycp b series pistons they should be an awesome value and work well. i ran the ycp vitaras in a d16 and they were great.

a closer look at your last picture what you are seeing on the skirt is the onset of what ive heard referred to as the black death. its piston to wall contact not in a good way. ask me how i know




were u monitoring egt? additionally was there any discrepancy in fueling between cylinders to cause one of them to be leaner? is it possible that the old supertech's were pretty different in diameter and the block was honed very specifically to match each piston to a cylinder and the order was switched upon assembly? just throwing around ideas

 

Never monitored EGT because it wasnt necessary IMO. Not a high horsepower turbo car. Especially running a 4-1 header and a 3" exhaust system. As far as all of the tuning that was done, there was no discrepancy's in fueling between any of the cylinders, based on infrared measurements on the runners of the header and constant checking and changing of the spark plugs.

Puzzle pieces are starting to come together now though, mainly with the cylinder head. We found the same progressive pattern between cylinders #1 and #4 with bad valve seats due to worn guides, which were apparently puking oil. #1's intake valves were heavily coated with carbon and the face of the valve the black oxide coating had actually begun to peel off indicating that the valve had overheated significantly on that side.

 

His p2w was one of his major problems..

 

P2W alone is not the root cause of the wear, we know that all of the bores measure exactly the same, so the P2W's would be the same across all 4 cylinders, and we know that I have at least .0030 on cylinder #4 with no issues of wear.

 

Again, check the rocker and valve tips. It's very likely the reground camshafts caused the guide wear, and may show on the tips of the valves as well.

 

Is it measured the same alllll the way down?

 

yesssir

 

What should i be looking for on the rocker?

 

Have you had those rods checked yet ?

 

The wear pattern and what it looks like. You want it to be small, but instances where the geometry is off, you may see the wear all the way to the edge of the "pad" on the rocker tip.

 

started studding the block for the oil pan today, also honed it out a little more to bring out the P2W with the new pistons, looks like .0028-.0030 is going to be the money for these YCP's. A little looser then I wanted, but that's what it came out to.

 

It's always better to be a little loose than a little tight. I don't think that clearance is too excessive to be honest. I was in two minds whether or not you should treat them like an OEM pistons as there design/alloy is probably different. It's a pain that they never give you a spec sheet.... I guess sometimes it is purely down to trail and error...

It's nice to see more people out there are copying my stud idea for the sump/oil pan

Have you had the block resurfaced or not ?

 

how much power do you think those ycps could handle?

 

KingMotorsports has been selling this kit for 8+ years.

 

Block was resurfaced less then 1000 miles ago, and i didnt really have any intention on getting it resurfaced again. Ive done head gasket jobs on car's with 300k miles without ever resurfacing and they work fine, so im feeling pretty good about this.

I knew I had saw the studs for the oil pan thing on here recently lol wasnt sure where, main reason im doing it is cus im tired of the uneven seal of the gasket with the bolt and random stud placement combo. I always have some parts where its puking out and other spots where its fine.

These YCP's are virtually the same as RSmachines pistons, and from all the D series builds ive looked at, ive seen anywhere from stock specs, to .0080 P2W with no cylinder wall wear...so go figure..

heres the info i could get on 4032 vs 336 cast, but this is 336 without the T6 heat treatment

http://www.efunda.com/materials/allo...itle=AA%204032

http://www.efunda.com/materials/allo..._Title=336%2E0

 

So i had another muckman day today, as im learning to call them now. About 3pm I get my crower 403 cams in the mail, and open the box and im inspecting the cam card, when I realize that the specs on the card....are not the specs that they list on their website...which means that I now have a cam that is completely the opposite of what I had originally intended to shoot for.

When I made the original purchase I was expecting the profile listed on their website...

Part Number/Work Order Number 62403
Engine Application ACURA 1.8 LS/RS
Grind Number 238-237 DOHC
ADVERTISED CAMSHAFT SPECIFICATIONS:

INTAKE: Duration: 238º Lift: .425 Clearance Hot: .006
EXHAUST: Duration: 237º Lift: .413 Clearance Hot: .008

INTAKE Opens: -2.0 ATDC
Closes: 31.0 ABDC
EXHAUST Opens: 39.0 BBDC
Closes: -10.0 BTDC

LOBE SEPERATION 110º

Duration at .050" Intake: 209º
Exhaust: 209º
LOBE LIFT Intake: .243
Exhaust: .236

4 degrees of advance have been ground into this Camshaft.
If using "Lobe Center" method of degreeing, cam should be installed on an intake centerline of: 106º


and when I opened the box....

Part Number/Work Order Number 62403-2
Engine Application ACURA 1.8 LS/RS
Grind Number DOHC
ADVERTISED CAMSHAFT SPECIFICATIONS:

INTAKE: Duration: 295º Lift: .422 Clearance Hot: .006
EXHAUST: Duration: 295º Lift: .411 Clearance Hot: .008

INTAKE Opens: 5.5 ATDC
Closes: 35.5 ABDC
EXHAUST Opens: 43.0 BBDC
Closes: -3.0 BTDC

LOBE SEPERATION 109º

Duration at .050" Intake: 221º
Exhaust: 220º
LOBE LIFT Intake: .241
Exhaust: .235

If using "Lobe Center" method of degreeing, cam should be installed on an intake centerline of: 105º


So I contact crower, and round and round I go with the guy about what the cam specs should be, as he tells me they are the same cam as on the website, and I explain to him that the card says otherwise. So he comes back from talking to the cam grinder and the only information he can tell me is that they are an "updated design" which from google research has been updated since 2005 and crower just doesnt bother to list the updated profiles on their website AT ALL.

As if that wasnt bad enough, I started taking the old pistons off the rods to get ready to swap the new ones on when I noticed something...odd.







Yes thats right, I have the only YCP pistons on the planet that are PRESS FIT FOR OEM RODS ONLY. Which means now I am completely F'ed in the A right now as to how to proceed from here. I loosened up the P2W clearance with the hone to accommodate the new cast pistons without ever even realizing there was a problem with the piston/rod fitment.