Long story short I bought my 16 year old son a Honda CRX SI and while he was learning to drive stick it over heated. I am pulling the head off tomorrow to see how much damage there is, but I am sure at least the gasket is toast. After doing some research I have found that if we damaged the heads it may be just as easy to do the Mini-me swap .

The Mini-Me looks like about 11- 15 hp gain and on a car that weight that should be a good jump. I guess my question is if the head is good, what would you suggest that I do. I see that going with a thicker head gasket will bring up the CR, then do I also put a light cam in it and or is it easier and more cost effective to do the mini-me?

Anyway I am sure part of this is the fact that I am a noob, but would greatly appreciate any help.

 

how does increasing the combustion chamber size with a LARGER gasket INCREASE compression?

Better make sure the deck is flat before you go throwing another head on it, or she will blow out sooner than you might want it to....

 

why did it overheat? how long was it driven hot? search some more on the mini me swap...you'll probably want a normal head gasket set

 

Just read about the mini-me swap, you'll find everything you need and more. As for the CR thing, ya got it backwards bud...

Think about it, if you put a thicker gasket in there, it moves the top of the combustion chamber further from the piston, so there is more volume there, so everything will be less compressed, hence a lower CR.

 

the main question is how much are you willing to spend?
i dont know if youre wanting to step up to a dual cam which is doesnt sound like but you could get a low mileage sohc vtec longblock and just be done with it,ghetto fab the old manilfold and injectors distro and wire a rpm switch to trigger vtec and keep the old ecu and not [freak] with the harness much or you could convert to obd which is a wiser choice in the long run,these days you can get plug and play harness so you can run the right cpu and injectors and not have a hack job distro thatll shock your *** silly and leak like a dirty bitch.
point is do you want to drop a chunk of change now and have a good solid running car or do it a little bit at a time and have to spend more money in the long run.

 

take the head to a machine shop and see if it can be resurfaced. if it can, have them do that and just replace the head gastket. probably won't spend more than $150. or if you want to raise the compression ratio have them mill the head like 20 thousandths. and like everyone else said getting a thicker head gasket will lower your compression ratio, not raise it. if you do reuse the si head then make sure you use the correct torque sequence and specs.

correct torque sequence.

9 3 1 5 7
8 6 2 4 10

correct torque specs

1st step: (bolts 1-10) 14ft/lbs
2nd step: (bolts 1-10) 36ft/lbs
3rd step (bolts 1-10) 49ft/lbs
4th step (bolts 1-2) 49ft/lbs

 

Thanks for the input guys it is very helpful