*updated... check last post.*

7/14/04

well as some of you may or may not know i currently have a b16 power plant in my 91 crx si. It ran okay for a year, but with more and more problems arising like... oil pan gasket blew out, cam seal timing side leak, burning oil : 1 qt. every 150-200 miles, lots of smoke, and now its been studering at idle...its time for a new motor to get dropped in. The b16 will be rebuilt and used as a spare just incase.

So i picked up a b17a which is from a 1992-93 acura integra gsr. it was found by my good friend Tbone. The motor sat in a shed for about a year from what i understand, but overall it looks to be in ok shape. the motor was recovered out of a crashed car. so far we found one of the mount points to have a few stress marks and a 1/4" hair line crack that leads to the bolt threads. everything seems to thread correctly, but its kinda scary.

the b17 was said to have aftermarket cams which upon inspection look like OEM cams to us. fortunetly my b16 has Type R cams, but upon inspection they were stock b16 cams :angry: i did not purchase those cams the previous owner got taken advantage of where ever he had the motor put in. Ohh well not a loss for me, but it would have been nice to have them.

*edit* wrote this up two days ago but didn't have time to post it up... thats why there is a date on top.


Modified by manson at 3:02 PM 7/16/2004


Modified by manson at 3:32 PM 10/6/2004

 

7/15/04

Well today we decided to do a leak down on the b17 and see what kind of numbers we would get. the test was done cold, but it gives us an idea on what steps we would have to take to make sure the motor will run correctly when we drop it in. Fortunately i was very lucky to have purchased this motor. the leak down number were between 2% and 6% per cylinder . So far so good.

As for my b16 we figured out why it was running so terrible. leak down number were between 15% and 40% per cylinder :DUH: . good thing i came across the other motor.

We decided at that point to go ahead and remove the b16 from the car and start to disassemble the motor and see what if any parts we needed to rob from my b16. only a few nuts and bolts that will be replaced were taken..nothing major. So off came the red valve cover, DC adjustable cam gears, motor mounts, tranny, ect..ect..

The b17 motor was dirty so i cleaned that up for awhile to prepare for installation. i wouldn't have cleaned it, but i wanted to be able to tell if there were any leaks after installation and im sure most of you know how hard it is to figure out where leaks are coming from.

the only problem we have found is the motor mount from my b16 would not bolt up to the b17. after taking a good look we figured out the mount holes were enlarged and tapped for some reason. i have to go to a machine shop and have the mount holes enlarged in order to use my mount. too bad i didn't have the mount that was used in the previous car.

after that we called it a day and packed up . we will continue on Saturday and I'll have another post with the addition of a bunch of pics.

check back tonight for some pics of the swap to date.


Modified by manson at 3:02 PM 7/16/2004

 

sounds like you got yourself a good project and motor to start with, wow, good numbers.

but you have the wrong "month (6)" down too

 

lol... wow its been july for 16 days and im still writting 6 HAHHA... thats insane!

 

I sold a B17a to some guy about 6 months ago and i had to enlarge the holes and drill the motor mount out to fit the larger bolts. It also had a crack on it like u stated, which was leading to one of the bolt holes. I heli coiled the block for use with 17mm bolts. The same guys car was stolen with that B17a in it...i wonder if some how u got it. Just a thought, cuz i mean how many B17a's are out there with enlarged motor mount holes. But seein how ur on the east coast, and im on the west coast...maybe not.

 

ODD

I wonder who Manson purchased this B17 from?
A B17 is already rare as it is and to be threaded and stuff - what are the chances??

Things could get interesting REALLY quick!

 

man you are lucky to have found a B17a, you are offically teh 3rd person I know of with one, take good care of it and post some pics. Ive always wanted one just to be diferrent from everyone else. Around here, everyone has a crx or a civic with a B16 or a Zc in it. But I will take what I got now for a while longer. I will someday have a B-series swap

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 4drEF &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">ODD

I wonder who Manson purchased this B17 from?
A B17 is already rare as it is and to be threaded and stuff - what are the chances??
Things could get interesting REALLY quick!</TD></TR></TABLE>

I actually got the motor, itwas going to be a spare for me and before I even went to look at it Mike called and said he needed a motor asap, I was like , you bastard,your going to get my spare. However I assure its not yours because there isnt any helicoils in the mount holes at all,, I checked. this motor has a stock clutch as well, did yours? I picked it up from a guy is Mass.

 

^^^ what he said.

sorry for your loss, but im sure these are two different motors. like tbone said there is no heli coil at all.

 

Some pics from day #1


the start of the break down....b16 above

tbone above with the b17

rusty from sitting for so long

scotty with the rear mount

Looking much better b17

empty...motor was taken out from the bottom

assembled b17

more pics tonight...

 

If those pics are in fact the actual pics of the B17 u received...then it does not appear to be the same motor. I had put a NEW water pump on it already and it had some no name red colored cam gears. So if the motor mount holes have been retapped and they will no longer accept the original 14mm head bolts...what size bolts are being used??

 

where are the pics of the old head if u know what i'm talking about when we had it out of the car?

 

pics and progress look good.

but may I add my 2 pennys.

sounds like you lost a great deal of time and money(the whole year you had the b16) since the motor ran like pooh but you still upgraded it with ctr cams and from what I can tell cam gears and Im sure much more.

It would have been wise of you to rebuild the motor first before ever putting it in and then upgrading it......Its not the motors fault it was so unreliable it was a basket of worms waiting to happen and you just enticed it more with parts it couldnt handle.

just my 2 cents its out now and you have a new engine, but I hope you took the time to rebuild the b17 atleast with gaskets/wp/timing belt.

 

looks good. which tranny are you using with the b17? ys1?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Kasper-EF8 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">pics and progress look good.

but may I add my 2 pennys.

sounds like you lost a great deal of time and money(the whole year you had the b16) since the motor ran like pooh but you still upgraded it with ctr cams and from what I can tell cam gears and Im sure much more.

It would have been wise of you to rebuild the motor first before ever putting it in and then upgrading it......Its not the motors fault it was so unreliable it was a basket of worms waiting to happen and you just enticed it more with parts it couldnt handle.

just my 2 cents its out now and you have a new engine, but I hope you took the time to rebuild the b17 atleast with gaskets/wp/timing belt.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Ok where to start.
1.He bought the car with the swap. The motor was in terrible condition.
2. He never put ctr cam in it , it was supposed to have itr which we found out it didnt, they are stock.
3. He put cam gears on it because I gave them to him for x-mas this year.
4. When he got the car the motor was is bad shape, but he had spent all of his cash to purchase the car and couldnt afford to do a build.
5.I made some calls and located a b16 shorty my buddy had in his barn and he owed me a favor, cyl walls looked ok and the deck of the block so i grabbed a new oil pump i had off the shelf and installed it, Mike then charged a new waterpump, complete top end gasket kit with all new seals,gaskets and so forth.
6. We yanked the motor 2 days after he got the car and were prepped to take the head off and throw it on the newly freshened bottom end(oil pump,waterpump, thermostat , Main seal)
7. Pulled head to find that some of the valve seats were leaking by and 1 cyl's valves were sunk in visually..So now out of money mike had to send it to the machine shop for a vjob, got it back to find that the head had been in a serious blow up before and one of the combustion chambers was welded up and the valves were sunk and the seats were replaced incorrectly..
Out of money and Time, we just had ther head cut .020 and a v job to get a seal and had to put it together because he needed a car.

So as you can see, we took every effot to to rebuild the motor to make it reliable with new pump,seals,belts,vjob, and so on . But unfortunatly time and money were the limiting factors, neither were available..lol.

As far as the b17 goes, you would all cry if i told you what i picked it up for so I'll save you the tears.
All together this car and its 2 motors have cost less than the cyl head I run in my crx..lol

hope that clears some stuff up ...

Btw the new motor Runs great and pulls like a **** for a little b17
Just dont ever let mike install your throttle cable, you might get stuck somewhere on the test drive..lol

 

i &lt;3 zippy ties Whoot Whoot...

anyways Tbone really said it all. That is pretty much how it went. funds were a HUGE factor in last years build : b16 : and this years build : b17 : i haven't really spent very much money, but my funds are still very limited. at least we took the time to clean everything on the block and replace any gaskets that looked damaged. we also put in a new water pump, timing belt, tensioner, and the gaskets like i said.

all and all it was a fun low budget project and im looking forward to the next one...which i hope will be much larger than my past two. we ran into a few almost major problems and everything worked out as planned.

thanks for tbone and 94civickid for helping me out on such short notice.

I'll have some finished pics up as soon as i get them off the digi cam.

FourthGenHatch... We are using the oem bolts and mount from the b16. we ended up using a time-cert kit we picked up off a last resource. after going to 3 places to have the mount drilled out to accept the larger bolts : tranny bolt size : and nobody was able to drill through them. we needed a machine shop with the correct tools...there just was no time left. 6 drill bits were distroyed in the process and it would have taken alot more to finish the job. my last resort had the time-cert thing which is similar to a heli coil, but better from what i understand. i won't take the time to explain how it works, but you can search for it.

5litereater... we are using the JDM s1 with a Action 1MS 6 puk sprung clutch and clutchmasters lightened flywheel. the cluch has been used for a year now and has 20,000 miles on it. the clutch has been BEATEN to hell and back and has very minimal wear. actually it looks like it should last another 25-30,000 more miles. the pedal even feels just like stock, but grabs hard as hell. it costs less than all of the major clutch companys out there. a must have for a tight budget with the performance and more dirabilty than all the others. good stuff.


i'll have more pics up later tonight.

 

well good im glad it didnt turn out to break the bank and it is much better then the b16.

i just went off of what I read and it seemed like you guys were just kinda rushing into things, but from what I can tell you gave it all you had and it still wouldnt be your friend


go drink some beers.

 

*** yea the motor mount is hard as hell to drill through. Talk about broken drill bits... *sigh*. I had to heat it up first, then drill. I also used some tranny bolts (17mm head). I sold that B17 bottom end for $360, and that included the modification to the mount holes and mount. I really would like to know what ppl pay for these blocks (for future reference ). I'm ready to cry if u really did get it for CHEAP...so let me know

 

no i would say we wernt' really rushing, but time was an issue. we know how to build motors and make them work. hell seach for tbones build and you'll see he atleast knows what's up...11.78 all motor Nuff Said...

anytime we had to put a motor in time is an issue. this is my daily driven car without it i don't go to work and since i just got my job i would be easy to replace. i was able to borrow a car for the few days of my down time thank goodness. the job had to be completed from start to finish by sunday and we beat it by a day and worked out the kinks... 1 problem was a loose starter wire which made me think the battery wasn't holding charge and that was it..BTW that was the ONLY problem so far and i have 50 miles on it which isn't much but its enough to kinda not worry anymore.

with that said i won't tell you exactly what i paid, but i will tell you it was more than you sold your block, but not by much

pics up tomarrow of the finished job.

 

150 miles on the motor still running strong. kinda has a hicup at low rpms also got a code yesterday for the o2 sensor after i washed the engine bay. hasn't come back since i reset the ECU. figure if it is bad i'll pick up a DIY wideband w/ o2 and that will help me with tuning when the time comes.

Pictures taken... just need to upload... will be up tonight.

 

using the b16 ecu? (pr3) ?

 

using a zdyne single wire...which is up for sale.

check the signiture.

 

7/29/04

well after having some issues with the distributor yesterday i decided to install my Hondata w/ P28, obd1 distributor, obd0-obd1 conversion harness, and run the wires.

took about 3 hours total after running into some serious wiring issues on the distributor. after a whole lot of trial and error we finally got no codes and i rushed home. we have not street tuned the car yet so im running a b16 program until tonight. the car seemed to feel stronger, but that could be in my head. my car is strong anyways...love my b17!!!

so tonight tbone and i will wrap all the wires nice... wire up the check engine light to the ac button and burn a new chip for the b17... whoot whoot!!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by manson @ 8:58 AM 7/21/2004 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Pictures taken... just need to upload... will be up tonight.</TD></TR></TABLE>

You liar!

Good luck getting everything straightened out. Also, I'm glad to hear the Hondata setup ended up working out for you.

 

lol... i know the pics i took are garbage so i figured i wouldn't post them up till i cleaned everything.

im glad the hondata worked out too, but im using the woodglue looking ECU till i can trade up with tom for a p28 or p72 that he has. GIMME THE P72 TOM!!! j/k

well if all goes well these next few moths i may have a pretty nice tuned car here. still need to replace the steering rack, install camber kit, cross member, header, cams, and then some bling bling for the interior.

BTW the only thing on that list thats bought is the camber kit....lol