Just curious if I have any other options besides a D16Z6 bottom end.

**Cliffs notes are below I ramble**

Here's the deal. I have like 90pct of the parts to do my vitara build. (and have for almost a year). Two weeks before I was going to pull the motor I freaking spun 2 rod bearings when I was ripping on it on the highway like a jackass and hadn't checked the oil in a while... oops.

Anyway. I pulled the motor out and pulled the rods/pistons and 2 of the rod bearings were literally melted into different shapes... one of them was so bad the oil hole in the bearing had essentially welded itself shut...

This pissed me off and I had a ton of other things going on so I put it all on hold for a while. I recently decided to just go ahead and finish it one way or the other.. so I tore down the motor today and took some quick measurements and the crank suprisingly enough seems ok... it's got dark spots that look like they'd be depressed on the 2 bad rod journals but they're smooth to the touch and you can't even remotely feel ridges with a figernail... BUT... the freaking middle 2 cylinders are out of round. Not terrible but it will definately need to be bored a bit and I already bought 75mm vitara's...

So I'm either gunna risk sending out the crank and ending up with an un-usable crank (which I don't think will happen in view of how smooth the journals are) and sleeving the block locally OR I'm going to buy another bottom end or whole engine and use that instead.

**CLIFFS NOTES**

I spun 2 rod bearings and found out 2 cyl. are slightly out of round so I'm trying to decide between starting with a new bottom end/crank or get the block sleeved locally and having someone else inspect the crank.

so here come the questions...

1. What other bottom ends are direct swap. Any?

Keep in mind I have normal D16z6 Scat rods and Vitara's so my compression is going to be LOW... I definately don't need a bottom end with a shorter stroke on top of that. So is there another Dseries block/crank that's Identical to the d16z6? D16a6?

2. Everyone talks about the risks of anyone but the Holy trinity of sleevers sleeving honda blocks... but how true is this??? The local guy I was going to go to is BUTT CHEAP and builds REDICULOUSLY nice engines for LOTS of people... it's mostly domestic stuff but he started off with and still does lots of nissan 240's 280's and 300's... He'll sleeve my motor with Darton Sleeves for 200bucks... sleeves included. (he's a close friend of a close friend).

Any personal experience or reference posts to people who went local and dropped sleeves would be great...

I did search BTW I just wanted some more specific info to my case.

 

ive got a brand new built bottum end f.s d16z6

 

the sohc zc is the same as the z6 just remove the oil plug for vtec.

 

The D16Z6 and D16A6 will use the same oil pans, pumps, belts, etc. Same as that zc, which is the same thing, it will need oil for vtec. The only difference is the 'extra' coolant switch behind the block, possibly a different oil pickup (do not mix between blocks), and steel maincaps vs all-aluminum mains girdle. The y7/y8's will use a different oil pan & oil pump. I've heard you can use the z6 pan/pump on them together, but never seen it personally.

If you can get the sleeves for that cheap, with the extra work to chamfer the edges to keep from sinking - DO IT. There's always someone who'd be willing to buy your sleeved block for $250 later, and you could even go with 76mm if you wanted to.

 

^Thanks good info to have.

Well I thought my problems were solved when Jaubs offered to sell his machine shop assembled d16 for a good prices with some extras (a rediculously good price actually) but flaked when whoever he was going to buy his motor from flaked...

Unfortunately the end result was me spending the first non-major holiday I've had off in 3 years driving back and forth from Fall Rivah Mass. Sucks especially bad because I could have spent the day rechecking my crank and doing some comparative measurements of the main journals... Or calling machine shops around here to get prices for micropolishing the crank.

I'm leaning towards just fixing my block... hopefully I'll have some time at work tomorrow to call around and get some prices... There's a couple junkyards by my work I could stop by too.

 

Another note, d16z6 and the a6 share the same crank. That will help in your search for a new crank if the machine shop says the crank is too far out of spec.

 

Good to know. Thanks for the info.