Looking for the following parts for a B16, wondering if you guys had some ideas of good places to look to for them.

blockguard (dunno about brand, maybe someone can enlighten me?)

headgasket (looking to lower compression)

Piston/Rods (again to lower compression, Endyn w/ eagle rods?)

I would appreciate some comments on the parts - looking to do some FI action.

 

can't help you with finding the parts, but don't use both a thicker head gasket and lower compression pistons. Choose pistons that give you the proper CR for your setup. Those thicker head gaskets kill quench area.

 

Would be dumb to pickup a spoon gasket if my goals are to lower compression yes?

 

yes. If you are building the internals, just get pistons in the compression ratio you want and use a standard thickness gasket.

 

Thats what I thought, oh but then I could be mad cool and stick a SPOON sticker on my car and tell everyone I got spoon "internals" on the motor

Im probably going to need a little help with my piston choice... anyone knowledgeable in this area? I notice they have pistons that can drop compression down to UNDER 8:1 - is there a downside of going with something like this, other then needing to run more nitrous or boost to get into the power the car can make? Im not sure on what im doing just yet but since my area really doesnt have much as far as an import scene I was thinking about just strapping on a nitrous kit for the track. I would probably use it once a week or every two weeks or so... any way to figure out what compression rating I should be looking for based on a certain "shot" of the laughing gas?

 

If you're just going to be on the bottle, you definitely don't need low compression pistons. Nitrous loves compression just like NA, but it dos put a whole lot more stress on the pistons. For this reason, if you are going to squirt large amounts (I'd call anything over 75hp worth large on a 4 cylinder) or very often, you need pistons specifically designed to handle the combustion pressures and temps associated with nitrous. JE makes pistons specifically for this, you can check out their application chart here.

If however you are looking to run FI, then you *might* be wise to lower compression. Whether or not you should and what CR will work best depends heavily upon your specific desired setup and power levels, as well as how reliable you want the setup to be over the long term.


[Modified by texan, 7:08 PM 1/22/2003]

 

From what I've heard, the general consensus seems to be that the OEM Honda head gasket is good for 15psi of boost.

I don't know much else about that number tho. Who knows how long it'll last before blowing a leak?

 

The stock head gaskets are VERY good, as is the case with most anything Honda engine oriented. They're not perfect, but they will handle more than 15psi. I know this because that's a completely arbitrary number and doesn't speak to how much pressure the gasket is having to hold, Engine A might only develop 80% of the cylinder pressure Engine B will from the same amount of boost. A friend of mine boosted 13-14psi daily, with the occasional 18-20psi running on stock Honda gaskets and never had problems. Point being, don't worry about the gasket until you start having problems with them (an unlikely event at street boost levels), then figure out whether they are failing because they aren't strong enough or whether your engine is not tuned properly.