ok my friend is doing his first lsvtec and he's got the right idea but he'll still screw it up i just know, thats how he does most of his stuff HalfAss! first he got a loan and started buying all parts new good so far then he tells me he's not going to take the crank out and he's not going to replace any rod bearings. maybe its me but if u were going to rebuilt the hole motor would u spend a little extra money to turn the crank and buy new rod bearings. he's putting new skunk 2 stage 2 cams, springs,retainer, itr pistons, skunk2 throttle body and intake, port job. now u tell me that theres no reason to replace rod bearing & crank. i just don't want to see them ripping apart the motor in a month or to cause of a spun rod bearing. i just would like some hard facts of why he should change rod bearings. i just want to see this hatch last longer than a year. his last 4dr was a piece like coilover broke, camber off a lot and broken motor mouts ( fix with duck tape so it wouldn't move so much) when a new mount is like $50. i just want to see this be a good lsvtec.

please posted some good advice

i would hate to see all this money and time go down the drain.

thanks

 

If he is planning on taking out the pistons, the rod needs to come out too...and the bearing is removed...why not replace it. It would be stupid to not replace them. Rings too. Installing the GSR oil squiters would help lubricate the pistons more, I'm not sure if the LS can accept those. The only LSVTEC I've ever built was litterally a stock B16A3 head to a B18B bottom end, the guy didn't want any work done so I never really check into it. He did put about 40XXXkms before the head gasket blew and he burnt all his oil and threw a rod threw the block.

 

he thinks he can save money by taking short cut, but in the long run he'll be spending more money.

 

I hope he's gonna change the rod and head bolts, tell him to go ARP. ARP has some rod and head bolts for LS/VTEC setups.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by si90rex &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">he thinks he can save money by taking short cut, but in the long run he'll be spending more money.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Exactly. I just got done working on my friends civic who thought the same way. He installed a used head from a junkyard and it was warped. Did not machine it or get a quality head gasket. A month later the valve broke and the car finally died. He then bought a parts car with a blown up raditor. The head gasket blew up while he drove the pparts car back to my shop. I hesistantly installed the motor due to him not having cash. Then a month later he finally decided to spend cash to do the job right. What a f'n headache.

The morale is, spend the cash up front no matter how bad it hurts. Cause if you don't it will hurt alot more when you have to pull it all apart and do the job over.