Im just curious how long your motors have lasted during your racing/track days. a full season, several season, approximate mileage? is your motor mostly stock or built (internals)?

reason I ask is Im wondering if 3500 miles is reasonable for a motor that is often on track, or if thats above expectations.

 

Do you mean for a motor to last 3500 miles? One track weekend is typically ~250-300 miles of on-track driving, give or take a bit. My OEM motors (completely stock internally) seem to last about a year before they start to lose some power, but I also have lots of street mileage on them, and general abuse.

 

I did four track days this summer. D series turbo, 15 psi, stock internals. It was driven to the tracks, mileage not sure of, i put about 4-5 thousand on the motor this summer. Its currently in my 98 four door now, waiting a different turbo kit for daily. I don't know, i think i could have easily gotten another 4 track days out of it. But who knows, hoping to get a few years of daily out of it now.

 

bone stock b18b1 : approx. 50,000km within 3 years of solo2/lapping, daily driving (Quebec = violent winter) etc...still running strong. It never sees over 4k RPM in the street and 6500 on the track.

 

d15b in my first autocross/track carlasted for ever. its still in teh car for daily use with at least 140k on it. thats autocross every weekend for 2-3 years and about 2-3 DEs a year in that same time span. its pritty tired now tho.
my b18c has been on track the last 2 years and seen a bunch of autocrosses as well as about 7 track weekends this year and about 4 last year. it was tired when i got it and is still tired (1/2-1 qt of oil per session) and is getting a rebuild this winter.

 

so far, 40K miles total on the car/engine and 4 years of 14 to 20 track days a year, and it's still running strong. OEM engine with I/H/E only. to Honda.

 

oe never had the head off 210,000+ mi motor. Three years of racing and a couple years of autocross and hpde use before that. Still going strong

 

I figured most close-to-stock setups would last quite awhile. anyone running a "built" motor with forged internals or oversized pistons?

 

Before I went too uber crazy with mine....I had a 14.8:1 c/r 8V 1.8L in the GTI, running stock fuel injection, and it was problem free. I got a full season out of it and probably did 10 or so events. I have no doubt that it had another season or 2 in it. Then I got greedy and switched to a 16V head....Since then, I've gone through 2 motors in 2 weekends. One valve broke and one ring broke. The ring took out the block, the valve took out the second block, piston, head, cams, rod, everything. Now it sits busted in the garage.

 

oem stock RULES. period!

if you want it to really last, start with a good manufacturer (honda, mazda, nissan, porsche, etc) and leave it internally stock. tune it up well, but leave a margin of safety. shift it at or around the recommended redline. change the fluids often. it will last and last and last and last.

evidence of such:
- my probe (stock mazda KL V6) has at least 30k track miles on it. close to 190k total miles. motor still going very strong.
- my h1 honda; stock k20a2. a little over 2 yrs of hard racing; probably 4k to 5k track miles; engine still going really strong. had a valve refresh before the nationals (trying to get it to make best possible power). bottom end all orig. still going great
- my previous engine was a B18B. i kept it stock for 3 years. many thousands of track miles and also was the DD at that point. engine came out in perfect shape.
- my buddies SSC Protege had over 40k race miles on the original motor. plus about 25k street miles. engine was running great when we pulled it finally for a refresh. after the stock rebuild, we have put about 15k more race miles on it. still going very very strong (rest of car rusting/cracking/falling apart tho!).

i think if it is stock, and not over revved, and the oem design is good, it will last a long long long time.

when we tend to see major failures is when they are seriously overstressed (can anyone say LS VTEC or B20VTEC?) and then revved super high. those motors have life spans that sometimes can be measured in days......

good luck

todd

 

I got over 55K on my 2002 H1 champ B18C5, plus a few months of boost.

 

ours lasted one season. we bought a motor from http://www.hmotorsonline.com and you never know what you are buying meaning how hard the previous owner was on this B18C. It made good power but over time we had a rod bolt come loose and basically grenaded the motor. See that here: https://honda-tech.com/zero...age=2

mike

 

One key to this is just how much do you need out of your motor; how competitive do you want to be?

I used my 180K motor racing it hard. The car's body rusted before I had engine issues. Oh, that's right, I didn't have engine issues I just choose to eventually built a race motor. Hey, it's a Honda.