ok here is the problem
i have a 1995 gsr block sleeved by golden eagle and assembled by my local machine shop (who does all my motors without any issues). I consulted a honda-tech member who does a lot of honda engine work and currently builds motors for a successful pro fwd team which runs in the sevens and is reportedly making over 1200 hp. I specifically asked him for bearing clearances (mains and rods) for a spfwd project that I was building. For the mains he told me to set the clearances to .0025 and the rods to .0022. He also told me to run 20w 50 motor oil- to be specific Valvoline Synthetic. The motor consisted of a 95 gsr block sleeved by g.e, manley turbo tuff rods, arias pistons, an ls crank, brand new gsr oil pump, acl bearings, the oil squirters were not removed. The motor was revved to 9500 rpm.


I ran at the track (10.8 @134) on friday and my motor was making noises after the run- pulled the oilpan off and discovered bearing particles all over the place from rod #3. The oil level was always on the money.

my question is -were the clearances too big? If so what would you recommend for my power levels (the set up will eventually see 10,500 rpm and 35-40 psi once the problem is fixed)


Just for the record- my machinist has tons of honda experience and is very well equipped and this is the first time I've had this sort of issue.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mec. pedri &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">For the mains he told me to set the clearances to .0025 and the rods to .0022.

my question is -were the clearances too big? </TD></TR></TABLE>

Without knowing a few more details, I would say no. I've run this in certain builds.

My question is - What was done to the crank, rods, block to get those clearances w/ acl's?

Jim

 

#3 cylinder is usually the first to have issues on b-series, because it runs the hottest. Detonation can ruin bearings very quickly, hard to imagine that being the only damage but it is a possibility.

 

How is Vince doing?

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by doublej &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
My question is - What was done to the crank, rods, block to get those clearances w/ acl's?
</TD></TR></TABLE>

I second that.

 

the block was line bored and the rods were honed to size

 

didnt cut the crank?

 

Pedro, you had to cut the crank to get the clearances you needed. If you worked the rod big end to get the proper clearances, then you went about it the wrong way. The rod big end must be a certain size in order to be able to provide the correct crush to allow the bearing to function properly. If this crush is removed ( by opening up the rod big end ) then that can cause the bearing to have suspect heating issues that can:
a. Spin the bearing due to insufficient pressure being exerted on the outer shell of the bearing

b. Cause excessive heat in the bearing making it loose it's integrity by not allowing full contact on the outer shell of the bearing to the rod!

This can also occur on the mains, but it's more prominent to happen on the rod bearing first.

My guess is that the clearances were obtained incorrectly!!! It's much easier to hone a main tunnel or rod big end to gain clearance, but it's not the correct way.
A B-series main tunnel should be 2.3232 + or - .0004", no more and no less!!! I can't remember the rod big end off the top of my head, but you get my point. I have built a ton of honda motors in my day, not all have been record setting set-ups, but you won't hear about them ever coming apart because of clearance issues either. I don't use plati-guess, I don't hear-say, I build motors that run and run good, both in street and pro race cars! I built the motor in my civic hatch and ran the clearances as big as i told you, all without ANY issues on a SOHC daily driver! I don't tell people things to sound cool, or to try to sell parts! I don't even sell parts really, only some pistons here and there. I don['t own a shop nor an engine building business anymore. I tell people what works for me. That is the honest answer. I HAVE NEVER HAD ANY ISSUES WITH SETTING UP A MOTOR WITH THE CLEARANCES I TOLD YOU wether it be a N/A street car or a turbo pro car.


With that said, you may want to look into the tune of the car as well. Detonation can KILL ANY set-up! Extremely hot or lean conditions can too! It happens to the best of us! Look into that, look into the person that actually did the machine work on your motor. If he obtained the clearances any way but cutting the crank, then he was just being cheap with you.

And take it from me. Don't listen to ANYONE that says they know how to build a Honda motor because they know the clearances that are in the work manual! The rods are different, the pistons are different, the bearings aren't stock, the head is worked, and cams are bigger, the fuel is more potent, the injectors are bigger, the valves are aftermarket, the valve springs are stiffer, the retainers are lighter, the compression is higher or lower and there is a ****** TURBO on the damn thing. You show me in a Honda manual where it say how to set-up a B-series engine for a turbo.......

Sorry Pedro, this is not directed at you. I feel that your motor was not properly assembled / machined or there was a tune issue! If you need anything, as always, let me know!

Vince Tiaga



Modified by Mazda 3 Racer at 5:57 AM 9/26/2006

 

yeah, what vince said... opening up the be of the rod is not the proper thing to do. I dont even like to cut the crank, honda did an exelent job on the finish of the journals and i dont trust any local machine shop to this job. if i need clearances different from what i have ill go buy different berings to achieve the clearances i need. and if the crank has any imperfections it will spin a bering.

pull the motor apart, check every part for signs of detonation, when you are making a good ammount of power its easy to hurt a bering w/detonation or preignition.

 

Honda uses some sort of a nitrideing process to harden their cranks. This process makes the crank very hard but NOT brittle. The problem with cutting the crank to get more clearance is that it can cut thru this hardening process as it is only around .0005" deep. Maybe someone with more engineering knowledge can expand on this as I really don't know much about how Honda does this. It does make the oem cranks much stronger than the aftermarket cranks available.

 

This might be off on a tangent, but I just want to hear some opinions.

From whats been said:
1. Its preffered not to cut the crank
2. Its preffered not to bore the BE of the rod.

I'm curious how are proper clearances achieved when you use the Universal sized ACL bearings?

 

Ive had success cutting a crank on an H22 to give me the right clearance to use honda bearings. It never spun a bearing - sometimes revving to 9500 rpms.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by exospeedAMcrx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">This might be off on a tangent, but I just want to hear some opinions.

From whats been said:
1. Its preffered not to cut the crank
2. Its preffered not to bore the BE of the rod.

I'm curious how are proper clearances achieved when you use the Universal sized ACL bearings?

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

use different berings. normal acl, acl race, coated acl, clevite coated, uncoated clevite, etc, etc berings are all different thicknesses.

acl race berings are a couple tenths thinner than the calico coated acl berings and clevite 77 berings are not very consistent at all.. the last set of clevite 77 mains i used were between 0.0780 and 0.0783 inches thick... it took me 3 sets to get 10 consistent berings within 0.0001". all the acl berings i have measured were within that tolerance, just a bit thicker overall (average for an acl race main from what i have seen is 0.0787)

if aftermarket berings wont work, then its off to honda.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Mazda 3 Racer &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Pedro, you had to cut the crank to get the clearances you needed. If you worked the rod big end to get the proper clearances, then you went about it the wrong way. The rod big end must be a certain size in order to be able to provide the correct crush to allow the bearing to function properly. If this crush is removed ( by opening up the rod big end ) then that can cause the bearing to have suspect heating issues that can:
a. Spin the bearing due to insufficient pressure being exerted on the outer shell of the bearing

b. Cause excessive heat in the bearing making it loose it's integrity by not allowing full contact on the outer shell of the bearing to the rod!

This can also occur on the mains, but it's more prominent to happen on the rod bearing first.

My guess is that the clearances were obtained incorrectly!!! It's much easier to hone a main tunnel or rod big end to gain clearance, but it's not the correct way.
A B-series main tunnel should be 2.3232 + or - .0004", no more and no less!!! I can't remember the rod big end off the top of my head, but you get my point. I have built a ton of honda motors in my day, not all have been record setting set-ups, but you won't hear about them ever coming apart because of clearance issues either. I don't use plati-guess, I don't hear-say, I build motors that run and run good, both in street and pro race cars! I built the motor in my civic hatch and ran the clearances as big as i told you, all without ANY issues on a SOHC daily driver! I don't tell people things to sound cool, or to try to sell parts! I don't even sell parts really, only some pistons here and there. I don['t own a shop nor an engine building business anymore. I tell people what works for me. That is the honest answer. I HAVE NEVER HAD ANY ISSUES WITH SETTING UP A MOTOR WITH THE CLEARANCES I TOLD YOU wether it be a N/A street car or a turbo pro car.


With that said, you may want to look into the tune of the car as well. Detonation can KILL ANY set-up! Extremely hot or lean conditions can too! It happens to the best of us! Look into that, look into the person that actually did the machine work on your motor. If he obtained the clearances any way but cutting the crank, then he was just being cheap with you.

And take it from me. Don't listen to ANYONE that says they know how to build a Honda motor because they know the clearances that are in the work manual! The rods are different, the pistons are different, the bearings aren't stock, the head is worked, and cams are bigger, the fuel is more potent, the injectors are bigger, the valves are aftermarket, the valve springs are stiffer, the retainers are lighter, the compression is higher or lower and there is a ****** TURBO on the damn thing. You show me in a Honda manual where it say how to set-up a B-series engine for a turbo.......

Sorry Pedro, this is not directed at you. I feel that your motor was not properly assembled / machined or there was a tune issue! If you need anything, as always, let me know!

Vince Tiaga

Modified by Mazda 3 Racer at 5:57 AM 9/26/2006</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

X marks the spot

 

earl nitriding is about .020 to .030 one way to do it is immersing the crankshaft ina high tempeature salt bath which reacts with the steel to free nitrogen.the nitroen then penetrats into the surface of the steel to form a matrix of hard wear resistant compound.the nitriding crank will grow about .0005 to .0006 and will go out of round about .0002and it will double the hardnees from 30 to 35 rockwell to 60

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Fabman &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">earl nitriding is about .020 to .030 one way to do it is immersing the crankshaft ina high tempeature salt bath which reacts with the steel to free nitrogen.the nitroen then penetrats into the surface of the steel to form a matrix of hard wear resistant compound.the nitriding crank will grow about .0005 to .0006 and will go out of round about .0002and it will double the hardnees from 30 to 35 rockwell to 60 </TD></TR></TABLE>

Thank you Fabman. There are 3 different ways to Nitride treat a metal surface.
1. Liquid Nitriding ( what Fabman is talking about )
2. Gas Nitriding ( which you can find on some premium pistons rings )
3. Ion Nitriding - Which is what I do to all the cranks I cut past .010" from stock. I also have it done to any race crank that will see extreme pressures.

Nitriding doesn't neccesarily make the part stronger ( it does, a little ), but it sure does increase the wear resistence significantly! Here is a small explanation of the different processes:

1. Liquid Nitriding - Uses molten nitrates of different salts to provide the source of nitrogen.
Pros / cons
Fast heat transfer
Low cost
High chemical waste
Inefficient

2. Gas Nitriding Uses nitrogen and ammonia at 600 C
Pros / cons
Low cost
Low level of control

3. Ion Nitriding Use partial pressure of nitrogen and form plasma around the parts to accelerate the nitrogen ion into the part.
Pros / cons
Good Control of the compound layers
Uniform hardening
Shorter cycle time
High cost

Ion Nitriding modifies the engineered surface of a ferrous part to resist wear, corrosion, and fatigue, to reduce friction or to give it a non-adhesion property.

Finished parts are placed in a vacuum chamber, under low pressure and high voltage. Ionized nitrogen gas, in combination with other gases, is introduced to the chamber. The process gas is ionized and the positively charged ions diffuse into the surface of the parts forming an intermetallic compound zone, or diffusion zone. This is a chemical bonding. By controlling temperature, voltage and amperage, and gas mixtures, we can create the depth of penetration and degree of hardness that is optimal for your work.

Ion Nitriding:
Increases wear resistance
Improves fatigue strength
Increases corrosion resistance
Minimizes distortion

Materials that can be Ion Nitrided:
Cast Iron and Plain Carbon Steel
Low Alloy Steel
Tool Steels
High Speed Steels
Hot and Cold Work Steels
Stainless Steel
Ferritic and Austinitic
Martensitic
Precipitation Hardening
Standard Nitriding Grade Steel
Titanium Alloys
Micro alloyed Steels
Maraging Steels

Hope this helps with some of your questions Earl.......

 

Thanks Pat and Vince. I knew you engineering guys would have the right details.

 

You say the crank should be cut to size a bearing properly, not the big end of the rod--but what about cutting the rod caps, boring the big-end and maintaining the orginal big end bore? The rod will now be very slightly shorter, I know--maybe 0.002-0.003"?

 

why did you use acl bearings.should stick with oem honda.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by IT’S ME DAVID &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">why did you use acl bearings.should stick with oem honda.</TD></TR></TABLE>Why do you say that? Give all the exact facts you know.

 

LS crank should have a long rod set-up for revving 9500+rpm!! NO??? While there are people doing it on stock length rods, its not ideal and throws another variable into the diagnosis.

 

gsr block, with ls crank and ls rods are good for revving to 11,000rpm

post what u said on my site ahhh here ill just post it!

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by trickeng &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">HEY, why isn't winstons car competing??? stickerguy tuning??? or you going to blame it on the engine builder or something other than you improperly tuning the car and turning huge rpm becasue you improperly spec'ed the turbo.

PLEASE, explain why winston won't be competing which doesn't blame the engine builder becasue we all know RJT is on point specially with winston's motor.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

i told you the car had been revving to 9,500rpm back when it was only a 81mm block and revved there for about 2 years!

 

are you kidding?? grow up.

my post here was a serious question aimed at the real engine builders here. not for some nubie tuner who is only running high 20's for boost with a monster T72 only making 350ft/lbs.

try running a smaller turbo and making 600hp around 8000-8500rpm and the car would most likely not be in this situation.

and what does the GSR block have over the LS for spinning high rpm?