So trying to replace the crank girdle, I discovered 2 bolts did not want to seat properly. Sigh. Need to blast the threads again. Got the head studs, rear main assembly, and oil pump installed. Need to get to the store today and grab a few cans of carb cleaner and some WD-40. They threaded fine to check clearances but somehow, these bolts are being stubborn. Such is life I guess. Today will be head cleanup and install. Then, i should be ready to pull the B7. Honestly, I think I need to pull the oil pump again and see if I put the little o-ring in there, I think I may have forgotten it.. Another sigh. Better find that now than later though. Lol.

 

Girdle finally installed and torqued, oil pump ring seal installed. I went ahead and added some Honda bond for safer measure. I wasn't really impressed with that paper gasket thing with the seal kit, and crank set to TDC. Also installed the pcv canister. Now I'm off to get more cleaner-in-a-can for the head. I should actually be able to start pulling the B7 today!

 

Well.. Timing belt dance completed! I don't remember the B7 being So awkward.. After I got the head on and torqued down, I continued on to install the oil pickup tube and discovered I forgot my thrust washers. There they were, laying in my oil pan. Sigh. Pulled the bottom apart and got them in and re-torqued. Done and done! I am super excited I got a good bit completed today, so much that I might call in to work tomorrow to hopefully get it installed. Lol. So close and yet so far. Found a buyer for the A6 head so I'll need to have that ready to go by Thursday. Use that cash to cover half the cost of my injectors. Oohh yeeaahh!
To be continued!

 

B7 is out!! Woohooo!! I got rained on like a champ, but got it done.


I can't say how much boost the B7 could have held reliably, but I sure know how much it took to kill it.. Looks like piston 1 just ******* disintegrated. The head was untouched by the chaos. Thankfully. I traded the A6 head and my D15B block, and a couple other spare parts for some decent looking wheels. Been a good day today!

 

These are the wheels I traded for. Finally, I can ditch the steelies!

 

Scored some OsideTiger 440cc injectors so, got my injector issue solved now. Lol! High pressure 255 walbro should be here by Tuesday. Have 1 last problem to sort; that damn driver side mount. My B7 upper mount won't fit, and I don't want to wait for a new 3-bolt mount. I'll be swapping the main mount bracket from the B7 and hope it will fit and work. From what I've read, shouldn't be an issue other than maybe needing to trim the timing cover a bit. At this point, that's peanuts. I'll hack that bitch to pieces if it means I can get this engine in and running tomorrow. This **** is starting to drive me crazy. I'm playing every possible bad scenario in my mind on what could go wrong. I've done a lot of bad **** in my life; some because I had to some just because. Out of ALL of it, I don' think I've lost more sleep than worrying about this damn build...

 

Didn' get nearly as far with it as I wanted to. Stupid transmission being stupid... Thought I had it stabbed, then it didn't want to seat. Tried to loosen up the hoist a little and give a wiggle.. Release fork popped back off.. Sigh.. Stopped at this point as I seriously wanted to just start smashing **** with my pry bar.. Gonna pull it down again and retry today.
LOTS of little details keep popping up that I've yet to read about in any other swap threads I've seen. Fortunately, brief searching has helped in those instances, so I'm at least not the only one to have those issues. Lol!

 

Culprit discovered that was causing the transmission not to seat.. Turns out I had a dowel pin in the block AND on my trans still.. They were PERFECTLY butted together.. I could not have done that, if I even tried! Removed a pin and getting trans stab round 2 in. I may be able to get this mostly done today, if I'm lucky. My goal today is simple; just get this thing in and bolted up. That's it. That's all I'm asking.. I've got too many other things going on and I'm pressed for time since my work week starts tomorrow. Coffee and a breather for right now whilst strategizing my final aporoach!

 

Did you replace the girdle? I'm not sure where you grinded down but I thought you were supposed to grind down the very bottom edge of the cylinder walls to clear the bigger rods.

 

No. The girdle turned out that I just found a casting defect. An air bubble in the casting. It's fine. The cylinders did not require notching though. The rods cleared them with beautiful distance.

 

NOW I'm getting somewhere!! Harness and hoses are next on the list. BBQ rockin', Dos Equis ice cold, on the home stretch!

 

All that's left now is the shifter and linkage. I still have to finish the exhaust also. Coolant, oil, and she's ready to start up!

 

Near speechless is what I was left last night after topping off the fluids. Oil: check. Coolant: check. Discovery of major coolant leak from the stupid water pump: check.. Before it's asked, no, I did not replace this simple, little, inexpensive item before bothering with the day and a half driveway install. Also, before it's said; yes, I realize I should have.. Upon initial inspection, it looked ok and perhaps even not that old. My X-ray vision was not working properly to see that the internal seal was evidently ROYALLY fucked in some way, causing this thing to spew coolant like a champ from the weep hole. Lesson learned. Not a huge deal compared to the **** this thing just put me through, but still sets my timeline back an extra couple days since NO parts store in town has one in stock. "Pissed" does not fully express my emotions right now...
From my experiences so far with Honda, they have the tendency to throw little temper tantrums like this after a seemingly major project. For instance, after I installed alllll the new suspension, my passenger rear door just quit working from the outside. After I installed the my new timing belt and such on the B7, the driver door did the same. The brand ******* new fuel pump died on me after installing the turbo. So, these little tantrums are the norm.. I really hope this is all I face after the rebuild..

 

Haha **** happens like a lot

 

i had the EXACT same thing happen to me. My frustration was through the roof. Changed the head gasket, timing belt, all seals, etc to find my water pump leaking for the first time the moment i started the car and was ready to install the turbo parts.. We all have to learn this lesson eventually. Just grit your teeth and fix it, it'll be worth it.

 

Upon further inspection, the pump was actually cracked. Wtf?! Not only could I have avoided such a headache, I've just discovered my eyes aren't as young as they used to be.. New pump will arrive tomorrow, I may call in sick **cough cough** so I can install and get a first startup. At this point, I'm afraid to start it for fear of what else will be wrong. Is this normal?! All I have left of this is to finish my exhaust and get this water pump done.

 

It's ALIIIIVE!!! Although it took a couple attempts and a few frustrations. Fuel pump did not prime. I thought I may have botched the ECU VTEC conversion. While cussing myself and looking over the engine bay with a cold beer, I discovered my thermostat ground was not connected properly. Bolted it down and presto! Turned key to p2 and heard that beautiful walbro hum. Cranked it and it started, sputters, dies. ****. Hook up the laptop and open Neptune, ****, forgot to set my injectors. Loaded the proper settings and bam, instant idle smoothness. Ran it for a bit to burp the cooling system, ran smooth. Looked around for leaks, saw none... Tomorrow, I finish the exhaust, re-calibrate my LC-2, and take her to the road. Gonna drive it about 10 total miles then change the startup oil. I **may** have a tad bit much tension on the timing belt. I'll know more tomorrow on the road. Top end sounds a little whiney, not too bad but it says t-belt may need loosened.
If anyone is still reading this, that has done a rebuild and turbo, should I be really easy on the boost for a little bit? Or should 6 psi from a .63 exhaust, .60 compressor be ok to start me out?

 

Don't even worry about going into positive pressure that much. Just get the car to idle and have a little drivability. If you're tuning yourself start very light with perhaps 3-4psi. (Again, I have to see whicht3/t4 combination you have, as you keep spitting out those housing numbers. )

Head to the FI FAQs in the Garrett Turbo Tech 101,102,103 to see what I mean.
https://honda-tech.com/forums/forced...2A%2A-1024174/

 

sorry. Lol! I'd figure the housing info may help. The turbo specs on CXRacing has them listed as:
Product Info and Spec:
T04E Turbo/Wastegate:
- 3" Air Inlet, 2" Air Outlet
- Wet Floating Bearings
- 1/8 NPT Oil Inlet
- Standard T3/T4 Flange
- .60 A/R Compressor
- .63 A/R Turbine
- 5 Bolt Standard Hot Side
- 38mm 8psi Wastegate

I got in my first road test today! I cranked down my boost to 2psi. At least, my datalog did not record anything higher than 1.9psi. My 2 biggest issues right now are 1: I need to fix my turbo drain line; I noticed a good little cloud of smoke after boosting. 2: Engine stumbles HARD when VTEC kicks in. I had to disable it entirely to finish my road test. The positive side to that; at least the conversion works! A P06 VTEC ecu. Nice!

Despite those couple items, this thing pulled HARD for only 2psi. Especially after I disabled VTEC. Changing startup oil tomorrow and shortening my drain line. I hope seals didn't go, but I only got on boost a couple times. It didn't smoke any at all on the B7, and the only difference is the way that drain is situated. It even looks a tad positively sloped. Wife is gonna kill me if I tell her the turbo is blown and have to get another. Lol!

 

Yeah, that doesn't say anything about the turbocharger's airflow ability at all. Those are just housing sizes you're getting.

This is why us vets use the term "buy once, cry once" when it comes to getting the right equipment. They can take a lot more abuse from novice users than the CX Racing and similar series.

 

nothing in there to get a rough estimate? I couldn't find any info a out a compressor map for it. I'd have to search garrett's site to find a close match.

I've got a gig coming up in about a month that'll net me 2400 bucks. I'e already planned on upgrading my snail.

 

You won't find anything. You must remove the compressor/turbine housings and measure the wheels themselves in order to make any comparisons. In addition, they won't compare to ANYTHING CX Racing creates.




Basic knowledge of turbocharger components (also found in those FAQs i've mentioned time and time again about)
Turbo Tech 101 - Tech-Knowledge - Import Tuner Magazine

Not to infer that CX Racing is your typical eBay turbo (you can judge for yourself when you go beyond their lower thrust load limit of about 8-14psi) but yeah, they tend to falsify their data to avoid copyright infringement issues.

 

I **may** pull the snail apart if adjusting my drain doesn't stop the post boost smoke puffs, primarily for further damage inspection. I got a larger hose and shortened it just a tad to give it a good no bend slope. The other hose was 1/2" and the new one is 5/8". I don't know if the larger diameter will make any real difference but didn't believe it would hurt anything either. However, it was raining ALL day long today, so I couldn't get it installed. Tomorrow is another day though! I may have broke some ground on the VTEC tuning also. The fuel was REALLY lean on kick in, and kick in RPM also happens to coincide with turbo spoolup; 4500 rpm. I'll fully admit I know very little about that particular feature but after reading up a bit today while trying to wait out the storms, the amount of air I'm pulling in at that moment is drastically increased (figuring in beginning turbo pressure too). Lol! Increased my fuel by about 100% over what I was previously at that point. If I am at least close, it shouldn't bog down now like it did. We shall see.

 

Go back to 1/2" going to 5/8" made it worse.. Check the opening size of your actual drain flange. You'll see what I mean. Port it if needed

 

The opening on the drain flange is purty big. I had a decent little fight slipping the 1/2" hose onto it. I'll shorten the 1/2" enough then a little to take out that positive slope. It's really barely there, but enough to notice. That being said, I see it as an issue. Only other thing I could think of is residual oil when the B7 blew. Could that have worked it's way inside and just needs some running to burn Out? There was A LOT of oil dumped. You can still follow my trail to where I pulled off the road, well over half a mile. Lol. Anywho.. Maybe that's a possibility?