ok, this is my lsvtec version 2.0.

last year i had this motor at 81.5mm and with pr3 pistons but for whatever reason i caught a small scratch on the intake side of the #1 cyl and it lost 40 psi compression and blew the oil out of the catchcan. after no joke 6 months of sitting at the machine shop and some other life distractions i got it up and running last night.
this time ive got the static at 10.8:1 according to zeal. i had some detonation issues with the first build and i had to take out in my opinion too much timing.

82x89mm ls block
gsr nippon pistons and ls rods w/arp's small end machined down
oe mains, acl race rod bearings. mains around .0015-.0017, rods at .0019
cometic 82mm .040" to give me enough pth since the gsr's sit just a few thou below deck
b16 head milled down .010 to help offset the thicker gasket
itr cams
sk2 pro im, alpha 66mm tb
25" long 3" intake tube with bpi stack.
toda rep header, 2.5" exhaust no cat


still have some small things to do:
make a bracket for the intake tube and paint it
mount the catchcan better
get some kind of mesh, paint it black and put it in the grill. this is my turbo chassis its in for a little while and the whole bumper is cut out for an intercooler.
i dont want any rocks and **** on the winter roads to trash my radiatior.
tweak with tps sensor. closed and open voltages were 0.0 and 3.53v repsectively. i set those as max/min parameters in the neptune preferences but it still threw a code. im going to rotate the tps sensor see if i can get it close as i can to the oem .5/4.5 v maybe the code will go away

alright, so i also came prepared this go around and bought myself knocksense ms. very happy so far it literally took 10 minutes to wire in and hook up.
only question i have is that i had to make an adapter stud so i could bolt it to the block. this is tapped into the inner upper alternator bracket hole that i tapped to 12x1.25 to accept the stock knock sensor. does this is any way reduce the effectiveness of the sensor?



anyway fired it up last night, had great oil pressue, got oil temp up to 170, bled the coolant and set the dist. timing. idled good at 900, pulling 21-22" vacuum so i shut 'er down and changed the oil. now i can clean my house its been getting messy with me in the garage all day

 

Congrats on the rebuild. Sounds like it's been well thought out and executed. did you drive it and load the Rings at all? I'm curious what your break in method is and why?
As far as the stud for the knock sensor, I would think any deviation from stock would have an effect. Every car manufacturer I know specifies an exact torque on the knock sensor and even certain sequences. It's even in a shielded wire in a lot of cases, but from what I understand you can adjust the ms knock sense to your engine so you can filter out noise old only see true knock.

 

I know it's kind of too late now but ideally the best place for the knock sensor would be in the stock location close to where the knock occurs in the combustion chambers.
Good vacuum, good oil pressure, good steady idle, good job man!
What are you tuning it with?

 

using neptune on this engine. i didnt drive it yet i might do it today. its been ****** cold out i think its 21 degrees now. yesterday i finished the odds and ends im going to go put the heater on in the garage soon and maybe take it out for a bit before i go to a newyears party tonight.

this is the same tune i had running the other motor so the afr shouldnt be too far off. i brought the vtec xover up to like 6200 and set the low cam limiter to 6000 so im going to bring it up to around that for the first time i take it out. ill drive it around town varying rpms and load every few minutes hit a straight a way and load it up good and engine brake back down to like 2500 rpm. ill watch the egt, make sure im getting a good sweep on it. its really all about heat cycles

i put the knocksense on my b20z in my daily last week to test it out. i followed the directions about adding timing until it lightly flickers than backed the adjustment screw back a bit. the only place i was seeing light knock was at 3800 rpm around 4" so i pulled like 2 degrees and it was all good.

 

Cool. I wanna get that knock sense system too. Seems more accurate than using my homemade det cans lol.
I've always followed "moto man's" break in procedure. Basically load the engine once pretty quickly after 1st startup to push those rings into the cylinders. Been working out for me so far, but since everyone has their own beliefs, I like to see what works for others as well.
Looks like a strong healthy build so far!

 

thanks man!

update i took it for a ride made it to the end of my neighborhood lol. tps light was on and i was getting no tps reading so i went back home. i had the max and min voltages 0 and 3.5 set in parameters but it coded anyway. i swapped in another tps sensor same thing. eventually it went to 0 volts and read nothing no matter what position it was in. im like wtf and drove home.

anyway, i cut out one side of the tps mounting holes and had to rotate the **** out of it. finally i got .2v closed and 4.4 open. new parameters set in the neptune and cel went away. i just took it back around the block to make sure then my laptop battery died. i would have liked to romp it but im not really worried it didnt knock nor run excessively rich or lean and grabbed 25" on decel real quick. oh well is almost beer oclock here for new years ill deal with it more tomorrow when there is a lot less traffic on the roads.


just wondering, im sort of a newb with aftermarket throttle bodies but is it normal to have to really crank the tps sensor around to get reasonable readings out of it or do i have an issue somewhere else. this is a sk2 66mm alpha on a pro series im

 

I've always ran my skunk2 70mm, never had a problem as far as calibrating it.

That sucks your laptop battery died. I'm really interested to see an update on this. Happy New years!

 

happy new year!!! i have a bit of oil in all of my cylinders.

im going to blame it on the valve seals, which we all really know at this point in life are worn guides. perhaps engine braking at 5000 rpm sucked enough oil back down through and "broke the seal" they had.

im quite tired of this, and since i dont give a **** and this is my 3rd civic at the moment, im going to put exhaust valve seals on i think. i know they are tighter i guess thats the whole point. the ones on there now are supertechs, which ive used in the past with success. its getting annoying that i have 3 b16 heads and they all seem to leak oil through the intake valve seals. its also relatively annoying that the cost of new guides is about equal to a new "used" head but that will also likely have the issue. i smell a swap to k series in the future these damn b series parts are getting old and beat down lol

 

Sucks to hear that. Ill be putting new guides in my b16 head so I feel your pain on the cost stand point.

 

How many miles do you have on the engine now? It might just be the rings still breaking in.

 

Don't know if you have a catch can or not, but it definitely helped oil consumption on my last build.

 

38 miles now. wouldnt be surprised if they still have a bit more to seat. the damn thing runs so cool its been hard to get my egt up above 600c without really laying into it in vtec. issue is the oil in the cyl is ruining my octane and its knocking i have the timing super low in the low 20's to try and avoid the knock. gotta fix the oil thing first. i ordered guides last night, but i know it would take my machine shop 6 months to get them in which pisses me off. currently testing out a new shop gotta see how that goes.

i do have a catchcan, its staying empty shy of a bit of condensation. i also have a hose hooked to the vc nipple and its bone dry.


ok, has anyone ever put exhaust valve seals on an intake valve? do they pop the spring loose since its a wider valve stem? last time i ran this engine the intake seals were leaking but i replaced the oem with supertechs and it stopped it

im not driving it anytime soon. we got a few inches of snow yesterday and its gonna get below 0 at night later in the week. im gonna drive it from my garage 10 ft over to my side yard so it can sit and my daily can at least be kinda warm when i go to work at 6am

 

Yikes that's pretty frigging cold! It's 85 and sunny here in Tampa bay: )
I'm surprised your still getting knock with 10.8:1 CR and freezing temperatures.
You could always try and dial in a little more cam overlap to reduce cylinder pressure and avoid knock. I assume your getting knock on the low cam.

 

I thought the valvestems were the same diameter on both intake and exhaust? 5.5 mm IIRC.

 

dude i hate you and your 85 degrees lol.

i was pretty sure the intake valve are 6mm, exhaust 5.5mm

the knock happens because the oil in the cylinder burning along with the gas lowers the octane. i ran into this a few years ago with a b20 i had. stock low compression at 105k miles it detonated like crazy my plugs were fuzzy with specs. previous owner did not maintain the motor and upon disassembly the oil control rings were all gummed up and stuck allowing oil to pass up into the cyl

 

Ahhh.. always heard of that but never experienced it (yet) knock on wood.
I don't have any loose valves handy to check, but they share the same retainers and keepers and spring seats so I assume they're the same.

It's 45 here in Atlanta if it makes you feel any better: )

 

Im sure I dont have to point this out to you, but if the guides are worn, then seals arent going to help you.


I got supertech guides/seals cheap from Velocityshop... but pulling the head, sending to shop for install, plus a new HG isnt what you want to hear after doing a build. Mine had the same thing happen and one day I just sucked it up and sent it off and got a new HG.

Everything is fine now. But nice job on the build..

 

oh dude i know. i bought guides they are in the mail. the machine shop that i trust to do this though takes a while i could be out of that head for 6 months.

originally last build i had some oil im blaming on the seals more than guides. i replaced the seals and it didnt leak again that was at least 6-8k miles. i have tons of oem seals lying around and a few hours of my time. if that can buy me time while i get another head (in my shed actually) machined and back ill be happy. id really like to at least get the rings finally seated and the tune pretty solid before it all comes apart....



ok valve seal install question here; when you guys put new seals on do you put a bit of oil in the "cup" of the seal and then push them on or go for it dry and then put oil on the top of the seal once installed? i usually get the corner of a shop towel damp with oil and run it through quick kinda like you are supposed to do with axle seals and other seals like that

 

A dab of oil or assembly lube for the seal install. A quick swipe with a q-tip works nice.

 

guides are in. i took a head off a b16 i had lying around. that motor had good compression and leakdown but also blasted through valveseals. one day after work this week im going to bring it to the machine shop and get that process rolling.

in the meantime since i have dozens of new oe valveseals from over the years i may try and replace them again see if i can buy some time. my machinist takes a loooonng time to get parts back...

 

now im just sayin...

i spend the last few minutes with my dial calipers and some valves. i tested a few intakes and a few exhausts and they were all 5.4x mm as measured on the valve stem around where it would go through the valve seals.... i thought that intakes were 6mm stems and hence had different seals...

even on a dry fit the oem exhaust valve seal slid over the intake valve stem without really pulling the seal up and down or visibly messing with the spring. i can imagine that once lubricated it would move ok. later this week i may try and toss some exhaust seals on the intake side....

i also need to get another iacv for this motor. this one on there now seems to randomly jump up or down a few hundred rpm every few min while warming up. on the previous car i know i had the duty cycle up like 25% on it or it would stall coming off a hard acceleration...

 

They are both 5.5mm there's no difference between the seals except material on the oem parts. OE seals have a fluorocarbon (Viton) rubber on the ex side to handle the heat. The common aftermarket blue seals are the same high heat suitable fluorocarbon and are completely interchangeable.

 

ok cool, i guess that saves me a few hours in the garage. at least the weather is **** and i dont feel the need to drive the car now


another question: while doing pulls to break in the engine i engine decel after the pull rather than clutch in and go to neutral. does that high vacuum at like 5000 rpm pull oil past the seal and effectively loose its seal from there on?. i get the feeling that this oil wasnt in my cylinders after initial startup. what do you guys do/think?

 

so...

i had the cams out and both manifolds off yesterday. no oil or residue on the exhaust valve stems.

the intake valves all had a little spot of "wet" about the size of my pinky fingernail on the low side of the valve nearest the intake port. it was more tacky than thin and slippery. now i stuck my finger in there and there really wasnt any oil at the very top of the stems where they emerge from the guide, so i kinda doubt its leaking down between the guide and the valvestem. only the #4 cyl had a tiny tiny bit of oil there on one of its valves.

ok so could that wet spot on the top of the valve just be fuel ?

anyhow, i didnt replace any valve seals. i retorqued the headstuds, a few of them came a tiny bit loose they were brand new. i also swapped to bkr6's instead of 7's maybe see if i can get the combustion chamber temp up a bit and burn that **** out. while driving it around i really wasnt seeing over 600c and would like to see it closer to 650-700c

 

put another 30 something miles on it today, up to about 70 total. working on the tune pretty good got the afrs right about 13:1. motor likes a bit more timing than i thought out of vtec, but right at the xover (4800) i have to drop the timing to around 23 degrees and ramp it back upward of 25 after 6000 or i light up the xmas tree aka knock sensor led. i only had it up to about 7000 rpm in 3rd gear on the highway. ill make my way to redline in the next few times it comes out. kind of a bit of traffic today i didnt want to get into a bad situation.

there seems to be a bit less oil on the slugs in a few of the cylinders, maybe it just really needs to burn out of there. it does not smoke so im gonna ride it out for a bit see what happens.

it has great low end but feels a bit flat in the mid 4000 rpm range. im gonna move the crossover around a bit and see if i can get it smoothed out or if its just a result of the parts combination. back in the garage it is for now, a bit of snow in the forecast the next few days...