GSR head onto a b20 block
05-13-2003, 07:04 PM
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GSR head onto a b20 block
Hello
I want to put a b18c1 head onto a b20b4 or b20z block...
Which block is better for a turbo application?
I want to resleeve the block also
Can somebody tell me what needs to be done to put a gsr head on a crv block?
Ive never done anything like this before, and I dont know if i can do it on my own, because i dont know how to do it.
what work besides loosening and tightening needs to be done? any drilling or custom work?
thanks guys
I want to put a b18c1 head onto a b20b4 or b20z block...
Which block is better for a turbo application?
I want to resleeve the block also
Can somebody tell me what needs to be done to put a gsr head on a crv block?
Ive never done anything like this before, and I dont know if i can do it on my own, because i dont know how to do it.
what work besides loosening and tightening needs to be done? any drilling or custom work?
thanks guys
05-13-2003, 07:19 PM
#2
Re: GSR head onto a b20 block (94CRVtec)
Read carefully. I wouldn't do it myself. (tap for VTEC)
Frankenstein Engines
Perhaps the biggest bang for the buck is a Frankenstein Engine. A Frank is a bunch of swaps between different blocks and heads within the B engine family to make some non-factory combinations that work exceedingly well.
The most popular Frank swap is adding a VTEC B16A or B18C head from a del Sol, a Civic Si or an Integra GS-R to an LS non-VTEC Integra B18B or even, to make a really big engine, the mini-SUV CRV B20B or B20Z bottom end. The common, easy to find LS Integra B18A and B18B engines have a bore and stroke of 81x89mm, which gives you 1834cc. Powerful but expensive in salvage yards, the VTEC-enhanced B18C has a 81x87.2 bore and stroke, which gives you 1797cc of displacement. The smaller but powerful B16A has a bore and stroke of 81x77.4mm for a displacement of 1595cc. By putting the VTEC head on the LS bottom end, you pick up 35cc over the B18C and a whopping 239cc more torque-producing displacement over the B16A. The added displacement and stroke give the LS Frank engine a nice torque advantage.
Due to the B engine's excellent interchangeability, you can put a B16A head, a B18C head or even the expensive and rare B18C5 head from an Integra Type R on the LS bottom end to make a larger displacement, longer stroke, potent torque monster B18. It has the best of both worlds, the torque of the B18B or B18A with the screaming VTEC power of the B18C. This head swap adds about 40 hp to your typical LS engine with naturally aspirated wheel hp figures in the 170-190 hp range and torque in the 120-145 lb.-ft. zone easy to obtain on 91 octane pump gas. The engine will retain a compression ratio of approximately 10:1 with this combination of heads.
To add a VTEC cylinder head to an LS bottom end, you must tap and plug the VTEC oil supply hole found on the bottom left side of the head. A 1/8-inch pipe plug will work well for this. Next you must run an oil supply line from a T-fitting placed on the oil pressure sending unit boss on the block to the VTEC oil galley plug found on the intake side of the head near the distributor. To make the oil line, you need a piece of -4 braided steel line about 20-inch long, with two female A/N fittings attached (an industrial hydraulics shop can make this for you), a 3/8-inch NPT to -4A/N adapter for the head, a 1/8-inch NPT to -4 A/N adapter and a 1/8-inch NPT T-fitting with two female sides and one male side.
You must also open up the dowel pin holes on the VTEC cylinder head to 9/16-inch as the LS block has larger dowel pins to locate the head on the block. This is a pretty simple operation that can be preformed on a drill press. If you don't feel like doing this, the operation can be easily handled by any competent machine shop.
An LS head gasket is used with the appropriate VTEC ECU for your year and chassis of vehicle. A jumper wire running from the appropriate pin in the ECU to the VTEC control solenoid completes the VTEC activation. The proper VTEC ECU is the ECU for the VTEC model of your vehicle. Below is a chart with the pin locations where the wires to control the VTEC solenoid connect.
It is also critical to hook up the knock sensor or the VTEC function will not work. The engine's ECU looks for the knock sensor signal in order to activate VTEC. The B18A and B18B block has no provision for a knock sensor. In this case, or if you don't want to run a knock sensor, you can do several things. You can have a knock sensor not attached but grounded to the chassis and connected to your ECU, or Hasport has ECUs that are reprogrammed to allow VTEC operation with no knock sensor input.
Another very potent Frankenstein combination is using the B20 bottom end from the CRV mini sport utility, with a VTEC cylinder head. The B20 bottom ends that are desirable are the B20B ('97-'98 CRV) and the B20Z ('99-'01 CRV). With a big bore of 84mm and a stroke of 89mm with a whopping displacement of 1973cc, a B20 Frank has the potential to be the meanest of all the Frank engines.
Of the two B20 engines the B20Z has more compression at 10.2:1 over the B20B's lower 8.8:1. This is because the B20Z has a flatter top piston when compared with the to the B20B's deeper dish. The lower compression B20B is more desirable for a bolt on supercharger or turbocharger kit because of this. If you wanted to run high compression with a B20B/Z there are no factory pistons that can do this, but any number of quality custom forged piston makers, such as JE, Aires or Wiseco can make a piston for the B20B/Z. This piston should be made with a dome volume to give about compression ratios from 11:1 for the street to 13:1 for race gas. With 11:1 pistons and a VTEC head mildly worked over, it can be possible to have a very impressive engine for very little money.
The procedure to swap a VTEC head on the B20B is the same as the LS swap with the exception of using the B20 head gasket. A naturally aspirated, mild B20B can easily get more than 200 hp on pump gas with more than 150 lb.-ft. of stump pulling torque.
As a warning, when the VTEC head is installed, there's not a whole lot of piston-to-valve clearance as VTEC heads have larger 33mm intake valves vs. the B20 engine's 31mm valves. If you are dyno tuning, contact will occur between the piston and valves if the cam is advanced much more than 4 degrees, so be careful. In fact this is so close it's not advisable to advance the intake cam at all.
If running larger lift and duration aftermarket cams in your B20/VTEC Frank, or if the head has been modified for higher compression by milling, the piston's valve pockets should be modified and the valve-to-piston clearance confirmed before the head is final assembled to the block. Carefully grinding the piston's valve reliefs with a die grinder with carbide burrs and polishing the result with cartridge rolls can obtain additional clearance. A minimum clearance of 0.045-inch on the intake valves and 0.055-inch on the exhaust valves is advisable.
Frankenstein Engines
Perhaps the biggest bang for the buck is a Frankenstein Engine. A Frank is a bunch of swaps between different blocks and heads within the B engine family to make some non-factory combinations that work exceedingly well.
The most popular Frank swap is adding a VTEC B16A or B18C head from a del Sol, a Civic Si or an Integra GS-R to an LS non-VTEC Integra B18B or even, to make a really big engine, the mini-SUV CRV B20B or B20Z bottom end. The common, easy to find LS Integra B18A and B18B engines have a bore and stroke of 81x89mm, which gives you 1834cc. Powerful but expensive in salvage yards, the VTEC-enhanced B18C has a 81x87.2 bore and stroke, which gives you 1797cc of displacement. The smaller but powerful B16A has a bore and stroke of 81x77.4mm for a displacement of 1595cc. By putting the VTEC head on the LS bottom end, you pick up 35cc over the B18C and a whopping 239cc more torque-producing displacement over the B16A. The added displacement and stroke give the LS Frank engine a nice torque advantage.
Due to the B engine's excellent interchangeability, you can put a B16A head, a B18C head or even the expensive and rare B18C5 head from an Integra Type R on the LS bottom end to make a larger displacement, longer stroke, potent torque monster B18. It has the best of both worlds, the torque of the B18B or B18A with the screaming VTEC power of the B18C. This head swap adds about 40 hp to your typical LS engine with naturally aspirated wheel hp figures in the 170-190 hp range and torque in the 120-145 lb.-ft. zone easy to obtain on 91 octane pump gas. The engine will retain a compression ratio of approximately 10:1 with this combination of heads.
To add a VTEC cylinder head to an LS bottom end, you must tap and plug the VTEC oil supply hole found on the bottom left side of the head. A 1/8-inch pipe plug will work well for this. Next you must run an oil supply line from a T-fitting placed on the oil pressure sending unit boss on the block to the VTEC oil galley plug found on the intake side of the head near the distributor. To make the oil line, you need a piece of -4 braided steel line about 20-inch long, with two female A/N fittings attached (an industrial hydraulics shop can make this for you), a 3/8-inch NPT to -4A/N adapter for the head, a 1/8-inch NPT to -4 A/N adapter and a 1/8-inch NPT T-fitting with two female sides and one male side.
You must also open up the dowel pin holes on the VTEC cylinder head to 9/16-inch as the LS block has larger dowel pins to locate the head on the block. This is a pretty simple operation that can be preformed on a drill press. If you don't feel like doing this, the operation can be easily handled by any competent machine shop.
An LS head gasket is used with the appropriate VTEC ECU for your year and chassis of vehicle. A jumper wire running from the appropriate pin in the ECU to the VTEC control solenoid completes the VTEC activation. The proper VTEC ECU is the ECU for the VTEC model of your vehicle. Below is a chart with the pin locations where the wires to control the VTEC solenoid connect.
It is also critical to hook up the knock sensor or the VTEC function will not work. The engine's ECU looks for the knock sensor signal in order to activate VTEC. The B18A and B18B block has no provision for a knock sensor. In this case, or if you don't want to run a knock sensor, you can do several things. You can have a knock sensor not attached but grounded to the chassis and connected to your ECU, or Hasport has ECUs that are reprogrammed to allow VTEC operation with no knock sensor input.
Another very potent Frankenstein combination is using the B20 bottom end from the CRV mini sport utility, with a VTEC cylinder head. The B20 bottom ends that are desirable are the B20B ('97-'98 CRV) and the B20Z ('99-'01 CRV). With a big bore of 84mm and a stroke of 89mm with a whopping displacement of 1973cc, a B20 Frank has the potential to be the meanest of all the Frank engines.
Of the two B20 engines the B20Z has more compression at 10.2:1 over the B20B's lower 8.8:1. This is because the B20Z has a flatter top piston when compared with the to the B20B's deeper dish. The lower compression B20B is more desirable for a bolt on supercharger or turbocharger kit because of this. If you wanted to run high compression with a B20B/Z there are no factory pistons that can do this, but any number of quality custom forged piston makers, such as JE, Aires or Wiseco can make a piston for the B20B/Z. This piston should be made with a dome volume to give about compression ratios from 11:1 for the street to 13:1 for race gas. With 11:1 pistons and a VTEC head mildly worked over, it can be possible to have a very impressive engine for very little money.
The procedure to swap a VTEC head on the B20B is the same as the LS swap with the exception of using the B20 head gasket. A naturally aspirated, mild B20B can easily get more than 200 hp on pump gas with more than 150 lb.-ft. of stump pulling torque.
As a warning, when the VTEC head is installed, there's not a whole lot of piston-to-valve clearance as VTEC heads have larger 33mm intake valves vs. the B20 engine's 31mm valves. If you are dyno tuning, contact will occur between the piston and valves if the cam is advanced much more than 4 degrees, so be careful. In fact this is so close it's not advisable to advance the intake cam at all.
If running larger lift and duration aftermarket cams in your B20/VTEC Frank, or if the head has been modified for higher compression by milling, the piston's valve pockets should be modified and the valve-to-piston clearance confirmed before the head is final assembled to the block. Carefully grinding the piston's valve reliefs with a die grinder with carbide burrs and polishing the result with cartridge rolls can obtain additional clearance. A minimum clearance of 0.045-inch on the intake valves and 0.055-inch on the exhaust valves is advisable.
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05-13-2003, 07:59 PM
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Wow
First time I've EVER got exactly what I was looking for haha!
One question: When you turbo a car... you generally retard the timing right? Will that make the valves hit?
Thanks
First time I've EVER got exactly what I was looking for haha!
One question: When you turbo a car... you generally retard the timing right? Will that make the valves hit?
Thanks
05-13-2003, 11:50 PM
#4
Re: (94CRVtec)
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote »</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You must also open up the dowel pin holes on the VTEC cylinder head to 9/16-inch as the LS block has larger dowel pins to locate the head on the block. This is a pretty simple operation that can be preformed on a drill press. If you don't feel like doing this, the operation can be easily handled by any competent machine shop.
An LS head gasket is used with the appropriate VTEC ECU for your year and chassis of vehicle. A jumper wire running from the appropriate pin in the ECU to the VTEC control solenoid completes the VTEC activation. The proper VTEC ECU is the ECU for the VTEC model of your vehicle. Below is a chart with the pin locations where the wires to control the VTEC solenoid connect.</TD></TR></TABLE>
True, but it's actually easier to tap the block and relocate the dowel pins on the block, and to use a SiR headgasket. Drilling into the head isn't hard, but it's easier to modify the block. Now, on a B20 setup, since you need to use the B20 head gasket, you then need to mod the B16 head to relocate the dowel pins on that (we just did both setups this weekend so it's easy for me to say this, but that's just from my personal experience with working on LS/VTEC setups).
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 94CRVtec »</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
One question: When you turbo a car... you generally retard the timing right? Will that make the valves hit?</TD></TR></TABLE>
The only time your valves will hit the pistons if if you advance the cam timing, and when using a larger lobe cam, such as Type R cams. I dyno'd my old LS/VTEC CRX (way back in 98... heh) and it was running stock LS pistons, stock B16A head, and we advanced the cam timing 4-5 degrees. A few weeks later, I threw in some ITR cams, leaving the cam gears set as they were, and started the car up.... no problems. Then, in the garage, I revved it up past 4400 rpms and into VTEC (Mugen PR3) and the valves where hitting the pistons, and it was a loud, nasty grinding/clangging sound so we shut it off. Took the cams out and said fuggit. Bottom line, I've seen ITR cams in a LS/VTEC and B20-VTEC motor w/stock pistons, but you cannot advance the cam timing or the valves will hit the pistons. Look at the pict below.... that's my old LS block w/LS pistons. Remember, I only had the Type R cams in for under 2 minutes, and the valve **** the pistons for only 1-2 seconds. If you look at my number 3 and 4 pistons, you can see a nice mark on the intake side of the pistons. That was caused by the stock B16 cams over time.
Doesn't mean that this will happen to you, but clearance is very important as you can see what can happen if you don't take it into consideration.
An LS head gasket is used with the appropriate VTEC ECU for your year and chassis of vehicle. A jumper wire running from the appropriate pin in the ECU to the VTEC control solenoid completes the VTEC activation. The proper VTEC ECU is the ECU for the VTEC model of your vehicle. Below is a chart with the pin locations where the wires to control the VTEC solenoid connect.</TD></TR></TABLE>
True, but it's actually easier to tap the block and relocate the dowel pins on the block, and to use a SiR headgasket. Drilling into the head isn't hard, but it's easier to modify the block. Now, on a B20 setup, since you need to use the B20 head gasket, you then need to mod the B16 head to relocate the dowel pins on that (we just did both setups this weekend so it's easy for me to say this, but that's just from my personal experience with working on LS/VTEC setups).
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 94CRVtec »</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
One question: When you turbo a car... you generally retard the timing right? Will that make the valves hit?</TD></TR></TABLE>
The only time your valves will hit the pistons if if you advance the cam timing, and when using a larger lobe cam, such as Type R cams. I dyno'd my old LS/VTEC CRX (way back in 98... heh) and it was running stock LS pistons, stock B16A head, and we advanced the cam timing 4-5 degrees. A few weeks later, I threw in some ITR cams, leaving the cam gears set as they were, and started the car up.... no problems. Then, in the garage, I revved it up past 4400 rpms and into VTEC (Mugen PR3) and the valves where hitting the pistons, and it was a loud, nasty grinding/clangging sound so we shut it off. Took the cams out and said fuggit. Bottom line, I've seen ITR cams in a LS/VTEC and B20-VTEC motor w/stock pistons, but you cannot advance the cam timing or the valves will hit the pistons. Look at the pict below.... that's my old LS block w/LS pistons. Remember, I only had the Type R cams in for under 2 minutes, and the valve **** the pistons for only 1-2 seconds. If you look at my number 3 and 4 pistons, you can see a nice mark on the intake side of the pistons. That was caused by the stock B16 cams over time.
Doesn't mean that this will happen to you, but clearance is very important as you can see what can happen if you don't take it into consideration.
05-14-2003, 06:53 AM
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I dont know if you got the whole Knock sensor thing 100% right. I have done several swaps and in more than one case, the knock sensor was never hooked up, with VTEC fully operational. In some cases, with some ECU's maybe, most likely that is true about the knock sensor, but I am pretty sure that knock sensor hook-up is not as critical as stated above. Still a good idea to have it on a street car though. Bump for a few great posts above..
05-14-2003, 01:49 PM
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Re: (vivid02)
Nice thread, lots of helpful info. One thing that i would like to mention is that on the if you use ARP head studs instead of the stock head bolts You just can take out the dowels and bolt it all together. 
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05-14-2003, 02:03 PM
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I am not sure what happened in my case but, I had 2 OBD-1 GSR swaps. 1st: 95 CX, OBD-1 GSR, Knock never connected. No CEL's, VTEC worked. 2nd: 92' CX, OBD-1 GSR. Knock never connected. No cel's, Vtec worked with just the connection of the harness, no further wiring. When knock was connected, ( probably not correctly), the car ran poorly and got a CEL.
Correct me if I am wrong but, P28's have no knock sensor at all, is this accurate???
Correct me if I am wrong but, P28's have no knock sensor at all, is this accurate???
05-14-2003, 02:06 PM
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Re: (bigblockEG)
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by bigblockEG »</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Correct me if I am wrong but, P28's have no knock sensor at all, is this accurate???</TD></TR></TABLE>
Yup P28's do not need knock sensor.
Correct me if I am wrong but, P28's have no knock sensor at all, is this accurate???</TD></TR></TABLE>
Yup P28's do not need knock sensor.
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