Quick introduction, I've recently bought a 1993 EG hatch fully built for the track. The previous owner did a great job, everything is well done and the setup is great BUT the engine is a bone stock B16A SIR2 with reliability in mind, which is nice but underwhelming. I do share with him the desire to have headache free track days but I feel at the same time that I could get a bit more out of the engine.

So my question to you knowledgeable people is if I rebuild the engine at the end of the season and improve the internals, etc. how much can I improve the whp while always keeping reliability as the focus point. Rest assure, I do not aim for a 200+whp setup or have any interest in turbo/supercharging the engine. In the end, am I looking to see if I rebuild the engine and invest in it what are the scenarios, and what costs am I looking at. Let's assume I have a decent budget to work on the engine without obviously turning it into a 150k$ spoon race car.

I do not want to go off topic, but I've been suggested a b20vtec conversion using my b16 head BUT this seems like a lot of work (more of a niche job than rebuilding maybe?) and I'm not convince about the reliability side for a track car. Although, I'm no Honda expert like you guys.

Thanks!

 

If you dont want to go through the trouble of a rebuild, overboring it a bit and installing high compression pistons is a must. Its hard to go "too high" with CR on a B16, many off the shelf pistons dont increase the CR that much, and if its a race car you can run it on 110+ octane fuel and never have to worry about being knock limited. Id just get whatever the biggest dome Wiseco or JE piston available for the B16.

The next big thing will be choosing a camshaft. Many of the cam grinds are for the 1.8-2.0+ B series setups, so you dont want to go too crazy. Even a mild cam will be a huge improvement over the stock B16 cams. You will also need to upgrade valve springs at the same time.

Stock rods and crank are good imo, but double checking the balance on them is definitely worth while for high rpm race use.

This would also be a good time to do some mild porting of the head and intake manifold. It doesnt need much, but cleaning up the casting a bit will show some gains.


Just doing this, and tuning, will get you into the 180hp range pretty easily. To make much more youll have to start pushing the peak power out to 9k+ rpm, which is not going to be good for reliability.

 

A mild LS/VTEC build with forged rods and pistons and a semi-high compression ratio like 11->11.5:1 along with a good set of bolt ons and ITR/CTR cams would get ~180+WHP and be absolutely bulletproof if it was properly assembled.

Plenty of B20VTEC or LSVTEC build threads you could look at. I recommend an LS block if you're more interested in reliability simply because the sleeves are beefier.

 

What type of track are you interested in?

itr valvetrain/cams, itr pistons, a good exhaust/exhaust manifold, tune = should see 175-178whp. have fun

 

Sorry for the late replies, busy summer! I'm only looking for track days at my local track not looking to do actual races or events. I read carefully what you guys said and I can frankly say that it is really valuable information. Only thing though is I would rather avoid running it on race fuel, being in Canada, it's not only ridiculously expensive but also hard to get. I have access to good 94oct fuel which is nice but that's the best I can get my hands on easily. Where should I look to know more about the costs of parts for both options? I can get a block on marketplace easily (saw plenty of those) but not sure about the costs of the actual parts. Thanks!

 

You'll have to piece the parts list together yourself and see what's available to you. Especially now, prices are fluctuating and it's hard to find certain things that are readily available.

94 octane fuel is perfectly fine for up to at least 12.5:1 compression, plenty of people here and elsewhere running on that compression with 91 or 93 octane in the US without having to retard timing ridiculous amounts.

If you're taking the time to rebuild an engine internally, then personally I'd definitely go with an LS or B20 bottom end for more displacement, but you know what you want better than anyone, especially if you don't care about power/torque much.

Just search "B16 all motor build" or "B16 track build", "B20 Vtec build" etc, you can find a lot of examples of people with these setups. People use LSVTEC and B20VTEC builds for daily drivers often due to the overall simplicity and reliability.