I have searched around and it seems I cant find a good straight answer. Im building a LS Vtec engine. Its going to be my daily driver and rev no higher than 8800 rpms. Im going to balance the bottom end. My question is that do I really need a main girdle. Im using ARP main studs also. I found the Golden Eagle kit and its like $420 plus you need to have the mains bored/honed. I need it to last a while but Ive heard alot of people spinning bearings because of the girdles. I need some feedback from people who have done this or have seen what happens.
Thanks for input.
J

 

bump

 

anyone?

 

it would be worth it to have a girdle to make the bottom end more rigid

 

bump any one else ?

 

i rev my built ls/vtec to 9500 no girdle here

 

from what ive seen the b16 has no main girdle either. I plan on only using b16 arp main studs on my build

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by neogenesis2004 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">from what ive seen the b16 has no main girdle either. I plan on only using b16 arp main studs on my build</TD></TR></TABLE>

You are correct the b16 has no main girdle but that is only because of its superior internal geometry compared to the 1.8l b series block. Piston speed is lower at high rpm on a b16 (less friction) and the r/s ratio is in the neighborhood of 'perfect' (less friction, less vibration.) For these reasons, honda did not put a girdle on the b16a's...

 

I think im just going to buy a gsr girdle, ect and modify it to fit my ls block instead. I decided Im going to go ahead and put it on there.

 

put a girdle on it.
honda does **** for a reason.
at least some of the time the engineers beat out the accountants and functional parts make it onto a production engine.
the girdle on the vtec b18's hold the bottom end together at high rpms.
if you take a non-vtec b18 bottom end and make it spin to vtec rpms then it only makes sense to modify it accordingly.