Looks like OEM parts. . . .






These parts came into the world as OEM honda parts (type-r pistons, type-s rods, type-r rings), but have been improved on in the following fashion.

Rods & pistons are balanced (by local shop), piston tops are coated (by local shop), Pistons, rods, and rings are also cryo treated.

Thermal coating on piston tops reduces detonation causing hot spots (good for high compression, awesome for nitrious) and also keeps heat from soaking into piston, which keeps the piston cooler & exhaust gasses hotter.

Cryo treating makes metals stronger. Rods are less prone to stretch/bending, pistons are more stable at high temps, rings will last longer & be more reliable under high cylinder pressures.

Of course, that's what all the stuff does in theory. I can't wait to try it all out & see if it translates into RESULTS.

I didn't realize it previously, but the type-r uses moly coated oil & 2nd rings. Type-r piston skirts were moly coated from the factory.

What kinda sucks is that I need to get the pistons re-balanced b/c I forgot to tell the cryo/coating shop that they were balanced & needed to be kept together with the wrist pins & retainer clips. Hopefully he can just weigh the stuff & mix & match wrist pins to get everything matched up again.


Modified by chunky at 7:26 AM 1/9/2005

 

Sweet, looks great!

Steve

 

your feeding estella? she must be growing!

good luck by the way

 

nice

 

Are you building the K20A3? If so, give us more.

 

well, the k20a3 unfortunately is through and through an econobox motor. in order to "build" the k20a3, you need to replace all the critical components, crank, rods, pistons, head. So the only things that are useable on the a3 are the block itself, oil pump, etc.

so for the average person, building the k20a3 isn't really worth it unless they've got a rebuild on the horizon as it is.

 

damn chunky..havent seen ya on the hatch in a while..good to see you still have your ep and are modifying her

the plans you have for you ep are awesome man...keep it up

 

hey, yeah, i've been around, collecting parts. but now i've got pretty much everything I need, so it's time to roll the sleeves up & drain the wallet.

what did you post as before? I don't know you under this username.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PapiTuyo326 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">damn chunky..havent seen ya on the hatch in a while..good to see you still have your ep and are modifying her

the plans you have for you ep are awesome man...keep it up

</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

ive always used this username lol...ive been a member of ephatch since back in the days of the "red background" and way before paxie bought it...i never posted much back then because i hadnt done much to the car...but things have changed a lil hehe..just remembered that you were one of the "OG" ephatchers that hasnt been seen in a while, good to see you still have your ep and continue to mod it

 

ahh. I suppose if you didn't post much you didn't stick in my memory too well. I have to say I'm really impressed with your 1/4 time.

I still lurk around on ephatch a good bit. but i've been keeping my plans with the engine under wraps for awhile b/c I wanted to get all the parts together first.

 

update.

Tonight I checled bearing clearances. Everything is within spec. woohoo!

I also assembled pistons to rods.

a few of the things you'll need. torch to heat up the piston, oiler to apply oil to wrist pin, rod small bore, and piston to ease insertion of wrist pin. A socket to help push the wrist pin. Oh, and gloves, coz that piston gets hot.



burnination! Heat piston hole to expand Al & the wrist pin slides right in with a slathering of oil.



All done. it's a floating rod, wrist pin has circlips (circular retaining rings) that snap into a groove in the piston.



bearings in upper block.







can someone tell me what's wrong with this picture?



cut a piece of green plastigauge & place across journal. I used a silicone spray lube on the journal to keep the plastigauge from sticking. Worked very well for me. the silicone spray lube also keeps the plastigauge from falling off the journal.



since it's a k20, you have to do all 5 of the main bearing clearances at once b/c all the caps are integrated together on a lower block piece.



tighten to 22ft-lb + 56 degrees with my trusty t-bar. that thing works like a champ. I barely had to brace the engine stand b/c it applies a balanced torque to the head of the bolt instead of just pushing on one side like a wrench or breaker would do.



and the moment of truth!



The clearances were (in mm):

#1 .025
#2 .038
#3 .038
#4 .025
#5 .038

a clearance of .017-.041 is reccomended for journals 1, 2, 4, 5, service limit is .050

a clearance of .025-.049 is reccomended for journal 3, service limit is .055

As you can see, clearances are all within spec, and max variation is .013mm I could easily have used all greens and been within spec for my clerances, but the max variation would have increased. If I was really ****, I'd tweak with bearing sizes to make the clerances all the same.

right now i'm using:

#1
brown upper
green lower
#2
brown upper
brown lower
#3
brown upper
green lower
#4
black upper
black lower
#5
brown upper
brown lower

for #1, I'd go to a green upper to loosen it up a smidge or a green upper/yellow lower if i need to loosen more. And for #4 i'd go to a brown upper, or brown upper & lower if changing just the top doesn't do it.

I'm not sure if it's really worth the trouble $$ to do that though, everything is comfortably within spec, so I will probably just leave it as such - the bearing selection is by the book.

next session will be checking ring gap.


Modified by chunky at 5:00 AM 12/25/2004

 

****! it's great to see you doing such great and informative work and posting your experiences with us all. damn, keep us updated

merry xmas

 

Hotness, love seeing clean engine internals

 

Awesome. Good luck too.

(And why do people have avatars that screw up the whole page? Damn you!!)

 

Damn Chunky its looking good. When do you think she will be done? Cause I'm looking forward to seeing her.

Oh, and what do you mean IF you were really ****?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by LucidMoments &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Damn Chunky its looking good. When do you think she will be done? Cause I'm looking forward to seeing her.

Oh, and what do you mean IF you were really ****? </TD></TR></TABLE>

hehe. you know me well. :D I'm going to change the top bearings on the #1 and #4 journals to bring the tolerance down some. Crank bearing halves are only like 8$ each, so it won't cost me much.

 

I checked ring gaps tonight. type-r rings require no additional gapping for the type-s block as I expected. All the rings were very close to the losest factory spec in the Helms aside from the oil rings which were all about halfway between the loosest & tightest allowable factory spec (with the exception of cylinder 3 which was at the loosest factory spec).

Lots of oil, gloves, feeler gauge and piston/rod combo to push the ring in to within .8" of the bottom of the cylinder



A fully assembled piston/rod/ring combo.



I noticed that the 2nd ring had the most drag as I pushed it into the cylinder. The top ring & oil rings slid in with relative ease in comparison. Just the piston itself slid in with almost no drag whatsoever - but there was almost no freeplay between the piston & the cylinder wall. Mobil 1 is good stuff.

Next step will be to order & clearance rod bearings.

 

Looks good

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by chunky &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">can someone tell me what's wrong with this picture?



[/i]</TD></TR></TABLE>


You forgot to put in the oil squiters, and the crank is in backwards...


Oh and nice pics t00!!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Trey &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">


You forgot to put in the oil squiters, and the crank is in backwards...


Oh and nice pics t00!! </TD></TR></TABLE>

ding ding ding! we have a winner. although, I left the squirters out on purpose. I like to put them in at the very end to prevent damage, so they're sitting safely in a plastic box until I'm done checking clearances & ready for final assembly. :D

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by chunky &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I left the squirters out on purpose. I like to put them in at the very end to prevent damage, so they're sitting safely in a plastic box until I'm done checking clearances & ready for final assembly. :D</TD></TR></TABLE>

I thought you weren't going to do the squirters? And what did you decide to do about the oil pump? Are you still going to use the A3 pump?

 

well, I was gonna leave out the squirters, but i've been talked back into them as they will keep piston temps down, which is a good thing. I'll just have to be sure to buy an oil pressure gauge to keep a tight eye on my oil pressure. And I'm still split on wether to use the a2 or a3 pump. The a2 pump I have has significantly fewer miles on it, so I may just go with that for now.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by chunky &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

I noticed that the 2nd ring had the most drag as I pushed it into the cylinder. The top ring & oil rings slid in with relative ease in comparison. Just the piston itself slid in with almost no drag whatsoever - but there was almost no freeplay between the piston & the cylinder wall. Mobil 1 is good stuff.

Next step will be to order & clearance rod bearings.</TD></TR></TABLE>

You're not planning on breaking it in on Mobil 1 are you?!?

 

considering that mobil 1 is factory fill for corvettes, porches, etc, I think it'll be fine.

it may take a little longer for rings to seat, but we'll see. I'll let you know how it turns out.

 

learn something everyday. very nice info.