smit7277

Hey guys,

I know there's probably bunch of these out there so I figured another one wouldn't hurt. I'm starting this thread just to document everything as I go. I've had to do a ton of research to make sure this all comes out the way I want it and if it helps someone else not make a few of the mistakes I made during this whole process, I guess it'll all be worth it.

I'll post up as many pics as I can during the build so this thread will probably be a bit long but I think informative. I'll also post up prices of everything so people know what they're taking on before they get started.

Understand this...I do not proclaim to be some Honda or Acura expert, I'm just an enthusiast like probably most of you. Feel free to correct me along the way if I make a mistake on something. My goal, however is to be as accurate as possible.

Allright, here goes:

smit7277

The goals of this build is a nice, streetable build that's reliable first, all motor, and to use as many OE parts as I can (price willing of course)

I sourced a B16a2 block off a totaled 2000 Civic Si and it had a GSR head on it already. The guy I got it from said it had around 140k on the motor and head...but who knows what it really has. It won't matter much because this will be a complete overhaul of the entire motor and head. The plan is to do all Type R internals except the crank and the rods. Its my understanding that these are the same.

Here is a pic of what it looked like when I picked it up:




I paid $550 for it. It was a good deal, I know. They usually go for around, $900-1100
The guy was obviously gonna do his own build because the motor was assembled, but the pistons were out, and the valves and springs were already removed. Everything was labeled in ziplocks and I didn't see any signs of bent valves or worn or spun berrings.

smit7277

I started collecting new parts right away. I figured I'd start with the bottom and build that completely first. I started doing a ton of research on what pistons would give me the compression I was looking for but the reliability also. I searched for Civic Type R pistons from the dealer but I had no luck there at all. Apparently they've been discontinued.

First hard lesson, be careful when buying used parts! I became somewhat desperate so I bought a set of used CTR's off someone on one of my facebook groups. I only paid $80 for them but they were OEM. I thought they were a great find. Here's a pic:



The tops were almost completely black with carbon when I bought them but I cleaned the crap out of them with some B12 Chemtool Cleaner. Nothing else works like that stuff. Be careful how long you soak them though...and wear rubber gloves. Trust me. A small stiff nylon brush or light wire brush and a green pad worked wonders.

smit7277

Anyway, as it turns out...my machine shop guy said these pistons were shot. The protective coating on the sides was nearly worn down to shiny silver and one of them had a small nick in the ring land. After miking out my rods and PR3 pistons, he talked me into just reusing those with a new set of rings. I agreed at the time. called the stealership for new rings and the prices nearly floored me. They wanted like $300 for a set! Long story short...I called Hastings directly and with my military discount...I ended up paying $66 with shipping included for brand new, STD 81.00mm rings. I had the machinist put them on for me. Here's a pic:


so, after thinking about it...I decided not to go with the PR3's because I really wanted this to be all Type R internals. I did a bunch of research and found the CTR's I wanted for $417 shipped from inlinefour.com
I was a bit concerned about the compression because I know the GSR head adds about .2 so in the interest of keeping everything safe...I finally settled on a brand new set of ITR's. They are P73's, Retail hurt me on these but I'd rather have what I want. They should put me right at 11.1 CR as long as I keep a standard bore. Here's a pic:



Notice the protective coating on the side skirts and the 3 oil holes to help keep everything lubed up nice. Ahhh, Type R goodness!!
FYI: You have to have your machine shop narrow the small end of your stock rods by 1mm on each side in order to fit these pistons. I opted for the stock rods because of $$ and from what i've read, stock Honda rods are as good as it gets for all motor applications. *If you plan on boosting later, spend the money and replace the rods and sleeve your motor...you'll thank yourself over and over. Trust me.

smit7277

Now that I found my pistons, I began the dis-assembly. I bought a cleaning tank from harbor freight for around $100 on sale. It works great and saved me a ton of time cleaning as I went. The fluid for that thing isn't cheap though. It holds 5 gallons and the concentrate from Tractor Supply store cost me like $24 a gallon. It says to mix it with 5 gallons of water but the dillution seemed weak. I mixed 2 gallons of concentrate and 3 gallons of water to make a nice, expensive parts bath mixture.
Here are a few pics of the dis-assembly as I went along:


Head removed



here you can see the P/S and A/C brackets



Flywheel side, really greasy, dirty and grimy.



Here is what it looked like from the other side. You can see my blue and red wash tank in the background kinda, lol



This one shows some of the sensor locations for later reference.






Block is looking bare now, brackets removed, pulleys removed

smit7277

Tomorrow i'll post some pics of the water pump, oil pump, timing belt assy and a few other things. I'll flip the motor upside down and remove the oil pan and then get down to the internals. Stay posted.

1FASTHF

Good luck on your build. I have a ITR valve train for sale, if interested hit me up.
http://hondamarketplace.com/showthread.php?t=3144598

smit7277

Thanks for the offer...I think i'm just gonna buy everything as a set from somewhere...you can save a ton if you buy it all together. I don't want to spend anymore than about $1200 - $1400 on the valve train. The machinist wants $375 to do the valve job and assembly. (seems kinda high tho)

Good luck with your sale though.

1FASTHF

If you buy everything I'll make you a good deal..

smit7277

Allright, so here is the motor turned upside down with the oil pan removed..

sk8shorty012

iTrader: (3)

Looks good so far. Builds (especially engine) are always fun, but it looks like there's a alot of work ahead - good luck

smit7277

Then out comes the oil pickup assy and the oil splash thingy...I think its called the windage tray. Once that comes out...you'll have a clear view of the crank and all its glory:




Notice how the main caps are all stamped with their respective number and the arrow all points to the front of the motor. Then I removed the flywheel and rear crankshaft oil seal:



Last look with the oil pump, rods, and crank seal removed...then comes the main caps and you can remove the crank:



here she is with no crank...the next few shots will be after i cleaned it up real good. I was surprised at how nice this thing cleaned up...It had thousands of miles just caked into every crease:



I almost forgot to remove the 4 small oil squirters...you can see them at the bottom. Here she is all cleaned up and looking good:




i was really surprised at how well it cleaned up. This thing hasn't even gone into the hot tank yet at the machine shop!!! The next series of pics will be what she looked like after picking it up from the machine shop. While there...I had a chance to pick up a few dealer items i'll be needing for re-assembly.



picked up this ring compressor tool from a tool supply house for $16

DCRB

pix of the casting stamp on the head? that intake manifold looks like a stock b16 intake manifold, which doesn't bolt to a gsr head...

smit7277

OK, so after careful consideration and calculating compression based on an all Type R drivetrain...3 layer OE head gasket, with the .2 bump in compression from the GSR head and the sweet new ITR pistons...I decided that boring out the block was not necessary. Just a hone and deck on the block, polish and balance of the crankshaft, and re-surface of my flywheel for good measure. BTW, for those interested...it cost me $215 and about 2 weeks of waiting for all the above work. I don't know if this is an average price or what but I was ok with that price. The machinist took the time to explain everything to me as he went and also was very meticulous with his inspections. He miked out everything as he went and did a great job. He also gave me a few tips. He said I should use Lucas Extra Heavy Duty Oil Additive during the build and setting all the new berrings...of course I already paid like $8 for engine assy lube.

While the block was off at the machine shop, I decided to to do the Valve cover. I searched around and found a great forum on repainting the valve cover. It came out awesome but I take no credit...someone else posted the steps and I just followed them. Here are some pics...

Before...all black with a rough texture:


Then I bought this nasty jelly stuff from home depot....its clear and looks like KY Jelly and I'm telling you, this stuff will burn the ever loving skin right off your hands, fingers, hell even your eyes just for looking at it so be careful. Its like an airplane stripper. Buddy, this crap works if you need the paint off something. I'll go grab a picture of it so you guys can see what it is. Cost: Around $14 from Home Depot. You apply it with an old paint brush, let it sit for 20 minutes and the paint literally just melts and scrapes off anything.


ok, so i'm being a bit dramatic with the pliers holding the can...but u get the point.

Here's a couple of that B12 stuff that cleans pistons and throttle bodies, IACV's, FITV's and basically anything else that gets carbon on it...this stuff is phenomenol. $13 a can at any auto parts store...its actually even more online with the shipping.




Here's a few good pics of what that stripper does to a set of rear drum brake covers that were first painted hot orange by someone, then repainted black on top of that..we stripped them down to bare metal, then painted them a nice silver.



so sorry about the poor quality of these last couple. They are a picture of a picture. Hopefully you get the idea. Here they are with all the paint stripped off and down to bare metal:



Here they are completed. I wish I had a better picture but oh well:

smit7277

This is not a stock B16 mani...Its a tried and true Integra Type R manifold bolted on to a GSR Head. These head castings all had the same headstamp...PR3-x. In my opinion, probably next to a Victor X, the best bang for your buck for an all NA setup is a Type R mani for flow. Let me grab a pick of the head stamp:



here's one of the whole mani:



you can tell its a type R because of the water inlet hose location, and the center mounting hole between the 2-3 pipes. I'll try to find a pic somewhere that shows the difference but here are a couple more:

smit7277

While the block and flywheel were away at the machine shop...I did my valve cover. I searched everywhere locally for the right paint but I could only find it in black...being this will be a Type R replica, I wanted the OE red...I finally resorted to ordering it online. It was like $29 after shipping!!! Yeah, $29 for 1 can of spray paint! Ripoff!!!



Here is what it looked like after I stripped every molecule of black paint and then meticulously taped it all off with blue masking tape and an Xacto knife. 3 Hours later!:



don't ask...The Honda Motor Company part was a nightmare...but worth it once you see the results.




Ready for the paint now. The tutorial I found on a forum out there said to lay the paint on real heavy and then put it in the oven on 200 degrees or near a heat source for a good hour. Mine went in the oven and my house stunk bad like burned paint for 3 days. here it is just before the oven:


an hour later...then letting it sit untouched overnight...then removing all the tape, here is the result. I was really happy with it. If you look close, you can see the wrinkled texture. The oven was the key to get it to wrinkle properly:



Here's a close up of the texture. I'm really diggin' it:



I cant wait to see it when its all done. This build is getting fun now.

smit7277

I found these pics of the difference in intake manifolds:



Not my picture but I just thought this was kinda cool. Look at the differences in the domes. Man, I still wish those CTR's I bought were in better shape. I'd much rather have those pigs in my motor instead of the ITR's. I'm just a bit nervous about the compression and I definately didn't want to go through all this and have a valve hit or something. Better safe than sorry.

Mr. Dabolina

GSR B18C1 head stamp should be P72 and a Type R mani doesnt bolt to a GSR head because theyre a different casting and bolt pattern. It will bolt to a B16A2 head because theyre the same casting. PR3-3 is either B16A2 or ITR B18C5.

Salami

Yeap. You 100% do not have a GSR head. B-16 or ITR like stated above.

emergencybm

iTrader: (1)

sooooooo you got a b16 with b16 head. sounds about right lol no biggie

KaburaGarage

iTrader: (2)

lol, its stock b16a.

smit7277

Yep...makes sense to me. So I guess that's even better because I was a bit concerned about the compression. Looks like the CTR's (PCTX) pistons would've been just fine. Allright, so after come calculations, It looks like the end result with all Type R drivetrain will net me about 10.8 or 10.9 CR- I'm good with that. Thanks for clearing that up.
Anyone have any recommendations on cams other than the Type R's? I'm going for reliability first but if I can squeeze a few more ponies out with a more aggressive cam...That'd be a good thing.

smit7277

Btw, I didn't think I had a Type R head...just the intake mani. I know for sure that's a type R manifold. I think perhaps the guy I bought it from was saying the head internals are all from a GSR. Truth be known, I really don't know for sure...it doesn't really matter anyway, I plan on redoing the whole head anyway. How can I tell what cams are in this thing? I'll post a few pics when I pull them out...hopefully they're stamped somewhere.

Deetz

So much confusion in this thread, i will only cover a couple of topics.......

- 1st thing, that is a 2nd gen B16A with a stock P30 (b16) intake manifold, NOT Type R! they are very easy to tell apart! The cast lines on top are a dead give away, as well as the stamping in the back of the manifold

- a stock Integra Type R P73 piston, makes LESS compression that both a stock B16 piston, the PR3 and the P30 versions

- you won't have "all" type R internals......both the crankshaft (fully counterbalanced, and heavier), plus the rods (which are too long for a B16 block).....both ITR and CTR blocks use the taller P72. Not interchangeable with the shorter B16 engine block

kyden

I hope you didn't pay too much for that.