Hi folks!!! I am new here and I am from Argentina (South America).
I found this forum some time ago while I was searching some NA tuning "howto" help..

I am looking for info as to options about what to do with a B16. Because of the fact that I live in Argentina, my options for parts, swaps, blocks and such are quite limited. Everything I need I have to buy it in the US and wait for them to arrive here...

I have a Civic Si 99 (the only EM1 in the country) => B16A2.
I Dynoed the car back in 2002 and gave ~155whp (can't find the results sheet and I am not sure abuot the exact whp) with an AEM CAI, AEM Tru power pulleys (as if that matters), and no cat.
I Dynoed the car last week and gave 146.6whp, but with worn rings and 80k miles more.

So I decided to get the car back into shape...

What I am looking for?
185/190whp... though I am thinking about reaching my goals in stages (I am in no hurry to get there and I don't think I am ready for cams yet)...

and since I already have a set of P73-J00 pistons and rings, I thought I could do the following (working bottoms-up)

STAGE 1:
- put the new pistons & rings
- Port the head a little bit
- Check Injectors to make sure they are Ok
- Replace all gaskets (a thermal insulating one for the intake)
- Replace the tranny synchros (maybe with carbon coated ones?)
- DC Sports 4-1 exhaust manifold
- Replace the Diff with an LSD one
- New clutch and lightened flywheel
- Maybe drop in a VAFCII just to have a nice lcd with arrows and numbers.. and maybe correct a little bit the maps @ dyno

Most of this changes are just getting the engine in conditions and ready for later stages...

STAGE 2: Electronics
- Get an OBDI, S300
- Wideband convertion (Lc-1 maybe?)
- quick tune @ dyno

STAGE 3: Cams
- Well.. get some cams, springs and the whole head work to get the the expected whp...

As you can see, as I move forward to the latest stages I am not sure about what to do because I am still reading and learning. I cannot do everything at the same time because of budget constraints and due to the fact that before getting something I want to be completely sure that it's what I am going to need (getting things down here is quite expensive)....

I also have some questions that I am looking answers for... such as what is recommended to do with the cylinders (are they called sleeves in english?)... Should I get them machined?... or leave them as they are? (I am guessing they'll be a bit deformed after so many kms)

what are your thoughts? recomendations? maybe links to something that might help me out? Bear in mind that I am looking for a 'spicy' daily driver (hitting the racetrack every now and then)... so I am ready to sacrifice whp towards reliability

btw... I am going to do most of the manual work, so that saves quite a bit of money!

peace and high revs!

 

I would start off by purchasing this DVD: http://www.intertune.tv/ It will help you a great deal in what you want to accomplish and how to do it.

 

Thanks I will order one and take a look at it!....

anyone can help me with my question regarding the sleeves?

 

Have it all checked out, if you are soo worried about it then just get the cylinders bored .020" over, but then you need bigger pistons and head gasket too, so think and plan ahead.

 

having it checked out defeats the purpose of coming onto a forum and asking questions in the first place. and .020 over sure is an odd number, im not sure where you came up with that. probably heard a domestic guy say it. dont just throw out these blanket generic BS responses just for the sake of having yourself be heard.

this guy is genuinely curious and asking questions, has a realistic goal he wants to acheive, and a guy like you is going to send him out into his garage to mess up his car.

OP, that DVD is pretty good, you wont regret your purchase but you are goign to want to do a couple things differently. pull the motor and buy the .25mm over OEM pistons and have your block bored and honed correctly. they only did it the way they did in that video because the factory crosshatching was still there. it was a low miles jdm swap motor. he was also crunched for time because the camera man didnt have very long to be there and i think omniman might have taken off work for 5 days or so to make it. time crunch. time is money.

 

OP, I see that you have your build laid out in stages and a whp goal. This is good. One thing I would suggest is you should do is a compression and leak down test then check valve lash before you start re-building. Your loss in power could be something as simple as being out of spec on valve lash and a clogged cat. You can then use that money for some quality bolt-ons.

If you find that you have a ring seal problem then like chad said pull the motor and replace the rings, bearings, rear main, pumps, etc. Also, you should get the some form of ems with datalogging to tune. You mentioned s300 there are cheaper solutions that are just as good if not better, Neptune and ectune come to mind.

 

Hi All,
thanks for your replies!.. The've been all very helpful!...

I did a compression test (I didn't know about the leakdown test, I'll do one!) that threw the following results:
cil1 --> 170
cil2 --> 171
cil3 --> 168
cil4 --> 170

The fact that I read that 220 was the optimal results for the compression test, plus the oil comsumption being quite high under severe driving conditions lead me to believe the rings required a change.
Even with this low compression the car feels as always (I do not feel the power loss that the dyno shows).

Valve lash was checked when I changed the timing belt (~56k miles) and was within specs, and I have not cat (replaced it with a tube/pipe of matching size).

Conan, what you said about crosshatching finally lead me to read about what I was looking for. Now I have another doubt.
If I open up the engine and found that the crosshatching (honing?) in the sleeves is gone, then I am guessing that just putting new rings on it and hoping they will break-in properly will lead to glazing. Am i right?
Considering the car has ~80k miles of hard driving, the crosshatching will probably not be there, so I will definitely need to hone the sleeves.

Now... considering that I already have normal bore pistons and rings... is this going to affect something?
Can I hone the sleeves and use stock bore pistons and rings and everything will seal right? Or I need to drop what I have and buy new overbore pistons and rings?

Mar778c --> I'll planing on reading more about neptune and ectune. I said S300 because I am looking for quick/on-the-fly ecu flashing and found out that s300 does that.
I also found Crome, but I am not sure about the flashing process (Do I need to remove the eprom and flash it with some kind of flashing board?).
I think I need to start reading the pgm-fi.org forums now!

btw.. what would you say are quality bolt-ons?
I have a
DC Sports Stainless 4-1 header,
AEM CAI air induction,
AEM Tru time pulleys,
and an OEM lightened flywheel..
(used to have an ACT clutch but when I started to use the car as daily driver I got tired of it and put the OEM clutch back on)

what would be your recommendations?


Thanks A LOT to everyone!

 

Well.. coming back with an update!!!..

engine is out, took it apart and everything was perfect conditions and I was ready to start working on stage1.

When I started measuring the cilinders, I found out that cil3 was out of specs (oval shape), so nothing to worry about right?
I though: "let's hone to 81.25", so I went to buy P73-00 pistons (the stock size pistons I have were not going to work) and I found out that P73-00 pistons are nowhere to be found. No one has them in stock and expected shipment date for backorders are for Jan 2010...

Any ideas on what can I do?... I am not looking for crazy compresions, and stock ITR pistons seems a good price/value option. Now I need to find either other brand of pistons, or re-sleeve the block...

I am kind of lost now as to what options I have... I've been looking at this --> http://www.theoldone.com/components/pistons/ but I am not sure if I should go with them.

All the best,
L.

 

Those pistons from Endyn are very good if you don't mind the price. If looking for a stock type of replacement piston, I would look for the P30 pistons which came in the JDM B16a. They are slightly higher compression than the PR3 pistons but had you used P73-00 pistons, you would have lowered your compression ratio from the stock level which is not what you want to do. If a cylinder is oval it is something to worry about and must be rebored and honed to bring it back into spec. Just make sure you have the new oversize pistons that you intend to use FIRST before you touch the block as the bores must be matched to the individual pistons.

 

rs machines should have a set of pistons for you or hunt ebay. OE pistons brand new should be easy to find. you could always go to 81.5 if you cant find the exact piston you want, or you could use a compression calculator to get a pretty good idea about what your compression would be by goin to another OE piston.

i would not resleeve the block. it is way over kill for what your looking at doing. plenty of stock honda blocks have taken lots of abuse and there is no reason to worry about it on an OE build where the bore is staying within OE specs. i was reading in a Honda Tuning mag where they made 507whp on a B16 with just forged pistons in the bottom end. it was obviously turbod, but it goes to show what honda blocks can handle when tuned properly.

that video is good stuff, alot of the info though is basic knowledge and can be found just by doing research on engine building. though, all of it compiled into 2 dvds along with tranny tech etc, is worth the money. or go in on it with a friend

 

@00Red_Sir: P73 JDM pistons would yield 10.6-7ish on a stock B16A block... am I right?..
stock compression with pr3 pistons is 10.2, and P30 should leave them at 10.4 if I am correct.

and yes, I will re-bore and hone by sending everything (pistons included) to the machine shop.

@raiden: P73-00 pistons are out of stock everywhere..

 

No, the P73-00 pistons will give you 10.19:1. CTR/PCT pistons will give you more at about 11.7:1.

 

http://www.ff-squad.com/tech/temp/pistons.htm

i guess the info here is not correct then

 

No, a lot of the compression ratios listed on that site for the different combinations are incorrect.

 

your both right but there are 2 different p73 pistons USDM and JDM

 

i dont know why you are so set on using those ITR pistons,the dome is smaller than the b16 dome so they wont raise the compression . did you know the compression height is taller also than the p30/pr3 piston? and the itr pistons in a b16 motor will hit the head because of it. might want to be aware of that. if your not trying to do some retarded time bomb build and want something that will last 100k miles+ and want to run on pump gas, using the pr3 or p30 in overbore .25mm/.010inch will fine. the pr3 is 10.2 comp stock and with a high comp valve (+.3 compression) .025inch milled from the head (adds .2 cpmpression per .010inch milled) will give you 11-11.2 depending on what oem b16 piston you use. and you can still clear any cam on the market with no clearance issues.

how far were the3 cylinders out of round? they are fine if they are within .001inch top to bottom and side to side. the factory service manual provides accpetable tolerances imposed by the engineers who designed the engine.

 

just to add to that statement...... a lot of the compression calculators are incorrect not because of the math, that part is right, its the inputs that are wrong. such as compression height, piston dome volume and combustion chamber and head gasket thickness. if you take it upon yourself to input the correct numbers you will have the correct compression calculations.

itr pistons
b16a pistons
b16b pistons
b20 pistons

all the pistons listed above have different compression heights. a ton of people dont know that. look at every aftermarket piston manufacturer, they all use the same compression height regardless of the motor its going into. they probably know about it but just use the shorter one to avoid confusion and having a ton of part numbers.

also the stroke of a motor changes compression so does the bore. if you have an 81mm piston that is 11:1 in a motor that has an 87.2mm stroke (ITR Stroke) and put that piston in a B16 (77.4mm stroke) the compression will be less.

 

I have seen multiple forums stating in there build theads that it works with no interference.. To me if you already have the pistons use them.. Its a DD

 

quick update..

I finally got my hands on a set of rollerwaves, engine is on the process of being built right now.

here you have some low quality pics

 

bump this was a good thread and i learned some good info

 

Quick update...

Finished porting half of the head.
Went to the flowmeter (?) and compared ported dome against stock.... overall gains of 11cfm...

gained A LOT between 2 to 6mm aperture (intake) ... I don´t have the data sheet right now (just came back from the shop) but I remember it was +24cfm at 2mm, +16cfm at 6mm...

we lost 3cfm at high flow speeds, but that was because we didn´t completely finished the port job (we were eager to see if we actually improved something before moving on)....

 

Another quick update.

Stage 2 finished.

Dynoed (96 octane fuel, rom+mom/2):
169whp with the stock ecu, but with a lean mix(+14 after 6k rpm). I believe this is because of the great port job that made the ecu not be able to compensate for the extra flow of air.

168whp with a remapped ecu and a safer mix thru all the range.

We gained ~11whp in the mid range (what I was looking for) from 3k to 5.5k rpm.

VTec xover point was left at 4300RPM.

I will soon post the dyno results, I am not sure I will continue with stage 3 at this point, but I am satisfied with the results so far...

 

did i get you wrong or do you make less power with the remapped ecu ?
if so youre doing something wrong !?
what afrs under WOT conditions ? and whats your ignition timing ?
do you have screenshots of your tables ?

 

the top power was less, yes (1 whp less),
but with the remapped ecu we got a +11whp gain thru the mid range with a better afr than the stock ecu...

stock ecu was making 169whp with a afr above 14 from 6k rpm to 8.3k

I do not have a digital version of the dyno sheets, but will get them soon....

 

well... I am back here with some questions...

current status of the build is 168whp, with +11whp gains of the entire mid range, though power curve was almost the same as the stock curve above 7k rpm.

I believe this was because of keeping the stock exhaust pipes (I only changed the exhaust header for a tri-y replica)

So right now I am looking at replacing the exhaust completely. What are your recomendations?

I want to keep the noise as stock as possible, any recomendations? what diameter would you recommend? I am thinking of sticking with the stock size, 2.25'', and getting an exhaust header that has collectors of the same size (the one i bought is 3'')