I am currently building a stong 350-400hp turbo engine for my civic and I need some help. I have build a few mild motors and stock rebuilds but they are straight forward and pretty easy follow factory specs this I need to know what you recomend for bearing gap, piston to wall clearance, and ring gap. Below are the specs of the build please any help will be good help. I have been a part of this forum for a while and get tons of good info from here. I have searched high and low on google and lots of forums and read hundreds of threads only to be more confused when I started so that is why I need some help.

So the engine I am building is a high compression turbo LSV setup.

The motor specs -
Block stock b18a 81mm block honed
Weisco 81mm forges 11:1 pistons
Eagle forged LS rods
Stock crank
all rotating assembly will be ballanced
B18a stock oil pan with turbo drain bung and baffled
OEM GSR oil pump
OEM GSR water pump
Gates timing belt
ARP head studs
OEM honda bearings




Head is a b16a head
ITR valve springs
Delta cams not exactly sure witch ones I am working with them to get me setup.
Skunk2 intake manifold
RC600-750 injectors ( I have not bought them yet)
Adjustable cam gears ( Need to be bought)

turbo kit -

Precision gt3076R turbo
all 2.5" piping
Precision front mount intercooler
turbo smart 38mm wastegate
synapse bov

Car has full 2.5" stainless mandrel bent custom exhaust

tuning will be done with crome on a p28 and an ostrich 93 pump gas with water/meth injection

Also have

AEM wideband gauge
Autometer boost gauge
Autometer mechanical oil pressure gauge

trans will be a cable ls tranny



DIY water/ meth injection - will come on around 3 psi I have made a similar kit on my other car and it works great.

All this will be going in a 91 civic wagon that currently has full suspension b18a with hasport mounts and linkage and a cable ls tranny.



I am going to be using all OEM honda bearings and hastings rings

I am looking to see what you all think about what a good bearing clearance, ring gap, piston to wall clearance, weather or not to shim the oil pump or not.

I want to drive this car pretty much everyday I may not drive it everyday but I want it to be that reliable. I will be driving it a lot and not always on full boost but I want the power when I want it


Can you guys give me some good information on what your clearances and specs are on your engine I want this to be right the first time around and I want the motor to last for a while and I fully understand on pump and high compression the life of the engine will depend fully on how good the tune is and how often it gets beat on any and all info will be greatly appreciated.


So the major questions would be what would you or do you run -

Ring gap - ?

Rod clearances -?

Main Clearances -?

Piston to wall - ?

Shim the oil pump - ?

Cams - ?

 

www.theoldone.com

There is some useful info here that might help you.

 

I would not use hastings rings with wiseco pistons.
I would get a demon instead of chrome/ostrich. Don't cheap out on the controls.
Get a set of ID1000s instead of RC whatevers. Your car will actually run like stock.

 

i would just use a stock engine

 

This is my friends setup, forged pistons are overkill IMO.... just run something similar to his setup.
https://honda-tech.com/forums/forced-induction-16/350whp-250trq-ls-v-turbo-high-comp-3113698/

 

What rings would you recomend to use with those pistons

I looked into a demon but I have used crome and like it if it give me problems i will go that route.

Why do I need a set of 1000cc injectors for my goals I am not running E85 I calculated needing 550cc so 750cc should give me a good amount of saftey unless they ID1000's work that much better or something.

 

He's looking at the atomization of fuel is a bit better with EV14 Bosch Injectors (like Injector Dynamics, Grams, or Fuel Injector Clinic [FIC]) in a larger size, than even the smaller Rochester/Lucas style injectors like RC, Delphi, "Precision" Delphi, etc. I agree, as I'm not much of going 1000cc "just because", or "in case you want to grow" (that term always makes me laugh ) but in your case, its not a bad idea.

Once you get out of CROME, you'll wonder why you ever dealt with it in the first place, in 2012-2013.

As for rings, just call Wiseco. They'll send you rings when you call direct. Tell them the part number you have , and you'll know everything matches, no problem. Match everything up, and you're good.

 

^^^Co-signed everything you said.

My car drives like any other civic until you floor it then it's a little different. I have the ID1000's and get 32+mpg and make 425+whp.

 

While other tuning programs are better, Crome works completely fine. If you can't make it work then you can't tune worth a crap - plain and simple. For the people that still live on the edge of FMU and VAFC hacks, Crome is a great upgrade. The newer programs do everything for you and take ALL of the skill out of driving.

Maybe I am biased because I am "Old School" and still use a timed boost limiter for the lower gears, I don't know. You can make a lot of things work that aren't acceptable anymore on the Internet. The real world is a lot different, go outside and look around.

 

I never recommend crome to anyone because when I did use it 2 years ago, I always had issues with the parts of the program that were undeveloped. Certain values would produce errors because they weren't complete, and it was always something i found rather risky, and the lack of support didn't help the cause. If your looking for something cheap and free to tune your "ebay" setup **** box, sure it works fine. But there is a reason we invest in the more state of the art systems for a little bit more money. The amount of program you get paying 200 dollars for ectune or neptune is leaps and bounds beyond what crome can provide, along with the security of knowing the program is complete.

 

I can understand completely. I still have Autronic on one of my vehicles and Apex'i Power FC on the Integra. But for the last, say 13 years, i have to say CROME is just terrible to work with, and since most of these guys have other people that tune their vehicles and not themselves, its just going to cost them more in the long run, by a professional that is being paid to utilize the system. Hell , even MegaSquirt 3 seems easier to use.

You gotta remember my friend, these guys (including myself) didn't start tuning themselves and don't have the time and resources as you may have. Hell, I even found Hondata Staged system better than CROME, and were in a format that was not known for data corruption like CROME is. If one has the time and risk to do it themselves, more power to them, but not everyone has that link of knowledge in their cranial database..

I'm old school too, but there's old, and then there's BAD and old.

 

Ok the injectors I can understand and thats not a problem because I have not bought them yet I have used RC injectors numerous times with great success. You have to remember I am not currently worried about the tuning software I am going to use. I have used crome in the past and it seems to work fine if I have any problems with it I have no problem switching to neptune and a demon. I tune all my own cars and chip socket and install all the needed hardware all with great sucess. I just find with crome and only shooting for 400 max I will be fine if I was building a 900 hp monster I would go s300 or AEM standalone I just find that uneeded at the moment. I am more interested in what you guys are running for clearances are you running stock clearances a little looser or what and what kind of ring gap are you running. That is the info I am more interested in at the moment I want to get the motor built before I change my tuning software.

 

I can't help that I am a bad old apple...

For PTW clearance with COATED Wiseco's and your power goals 0.003-0.0035" will be fine.

For ring end gap, well that can be left to interpretation... Somewhere in the 0.005-0.006" range will be fine. Whatever you pick for the top just add 0.0005" to the second ring.



For YOUR reference...

PS - Just so you know PTW and Ring Gap have NO relation other than set for WHP goals. PTW is for the piston and it's properties. Ring Gap is for the rings and their tension and design...

 

supertech always recommends 1.25x the top ring gap

 

That piston to wall clearance was right on par with what I was thinking and the ring gap seems smaller than I had expected from Wiseco's website I got .017" top and .023" second


Also I do understand ring gap and PTW are two totally different things just want to get them both right. Each one can cause its own problems.

 

What was your formula you used to get the ring gap? That is more important than your final numbers. People tend to put a little too much into what the final number is versus the initial multiplier.

 

I used wiseco's ring gap calculator to come up with a ring gap accoring to them they want 0.005" times bore for top ring and 0.0055 for second ring. I also decided to open them up a hair more than those calculations just to be safe so here is what I got.

Wiseco calculation -

top ring - 0.017"
second ring - 0.023"

The gap I think I want to run are as follows

top ring - 0.019"
second ring - 0.025

 

I would run the second ring any larger then .023" imo. Your just wasting perfectly good compression at that point.

 

good info

 

in regards to using chrome I am tuned on chrome gold professionally and its quite good. a little time on the street to clean up the tune and make it sip fuel is next for me. ive seen cars on hondata and ectune they run great too. but instead of bbg i run a 2stage boost controller and flip it to high boost once traction hits

 

So after lots and lots and lots and lots of searching and reading. Plus some calls to the local honda machine shops this is what I have come up with. These are the specs recommended to me by some very reputable machine shops for my build and from the manufacturer.

piston to wall - Piston manufacturer specs if you are really gonna push the motor add .0005"

Ring gap - Piston manufacturer specs and if you are really gonna push it (like high compression with boost in my case) add 0.001-0.002"

Bearing clearances - using honda OEM bearings set clearance to stock but on the loose side of stock. This is also for an engine that will never see more than 8000 rpm

I though this information would be helpful to anyone looking to build a 400hp honda engine. I would highly suggest contacting your local honda engine builder and some of the bigger ones like inline 4 to see what they have to say if you do not feel comfortable with factory specs or if you are using another type of bearing.

 

I have used crome in the past and like it very much. It may not be as advanced as some of the other stuff out there but it definitely has everything I will need.If I was shooting for 550hp+ I would look into something else most likely s300 or AEM standalone. I will be doing some street tuning initially and backing it up with some dyno tuning to really smooth things out. I plan on running a turboXS two stage boost controller so I can do just that most of the time the car will be set to around 6-7 psi when I really wanna go I will flip it to 12-15psi. It will be tuned to 15psi weather or not I use all of that is yet to be seen.