Background: A buddy of mine had a high mileage 01 Prelude and the engine was a heavy oil burner, so we decided it needed a refresh. We didn't plan on putting together anything crazy, just a reliable factory-spec rebuild. I am going to be honest, I am more familiar with domestic/American engines, but I like to learn so I agreed to undertake the job for him since he's already busy with other tasks. Long story short, what I assumed to take a few weeks has tuned into a handful of months Everything has been sorted out, minus one issue. Upon removing the pistons, I noticed the cylinder walls were completely smooth, no crosshatch whatsoever, and they were out of spec dimension-wise, what I just assumed was being nearly a 250k motor. In turn I sent the block off to be redone. My machinist mentioned that some Honda blocks come with FRM cylinder liners, the H22A4 being one, something I never heard of. He said that the liners it needed were expensive or hard to come by in our area. So my machinist, the owner of the vehicle, and I opted for standard steel/iron liners. Me being me completely forgot about the original liner material, thanks to what I'm familiar with, and now have a huge speedbump in the build. Am I stuck spending nearly $1,000 on forged JE/Wiseco pistons or is there another option out there? Will factory pistons ride okay on the iron liner? What do I do here?

 

If you have installed iron sleeves, you MUST use conventional pistons. They don't have to cost $1000, but you cannot use a $200 cast set from EBay. There are many brands that can be purchased for less than $675 per set with rings.

 

Thanks JR, I struggled to find anything that fit factory specs but I’ll do some more digging

 

Are you going to stay NA or do you intend to turbocharge this engine ?

 

I plan to stay N/A