Improving an appliance - Honda Content

I've been a long time lurker on this forum and wanted to properly introduce myself and my build. My name is Patrick, and I love Hondas, but I don't love the way most are modified nowadays. My current daily driver, and focus of this build thread, is my 1999 Civic LX.

I originally bought the car in 2007 with intentions of leaving it alone to focus on my 1990 CRX. That went out the window almost immediately, it was lowered within a month, and slowly but surely acquired more modifications. The CRX is currently sitting under a tarp at my friends farm, where it has sat for about 5 years. (sad I know)

Enough of introductions! I am already quite happy with the chassis, so this build thread will focus mostly on the drivetrain. A few weeks ago I came across a great deal on a JDM B20B paired with a ys1 (92-93 GSR) transmission with a quaiffe LSD. The swap came complete with mounts, linkage and axles for the cool price of $800. Here's a few pics of it after I picked it up.

The motor came with a spare pan, and a few spare manifolds. Teardown pics coming soon!

This is the CRX the B20 came out of. It's getting a J32 TL type-s swap.

Another cool project they had in the works. K20 lotus about to be turbocharged.

I wanted to add a quick mod-list before I get too deep into the project.

Current drivetrain: built D16z6 (Eagle rods, SRP 9.5:1 pistons), y8 transmission

Brakes/Suspension: EM1 Si front brakes, Tein S-techs Tokico Illuminas, CTR rear sway, 16x7.5 Kosei K1's.

Interior: Acura TL seats on civic seat pans, a nice stereo, cold A/C (recently replaced EVERY a/c component)

Aside from needing a few bushings replaced it's a great riding car. It handles well, stops adequately and is comfortable to travel in. It just needs more power and better gearing.

Looking like a solid start, I can't wait to see how this turns out. Most civics around my area end up in not nice shape after being driven hard by teenagers who really don't seem to care about the car which is sad.

I got the swap for such a great deal because the motor was known to have run hot before pulled. The motor was also boosted in it's former life, so it will need a tear down and inspection. A little bit about the B20. The B20b/z is not as highly engineered as it VTEC counterparts (b16, b18c), there is no block girdle to strengthen the bottom end, the rod bolts are smaller/weaker, and to accommodate the larger 84mm bore the cylinder liners are a siamese design instead of individually cast like the 81mm blocks. If I was building an race motor I would probably choose a different block, but for a stout DD it will be fine.

Let the teardown commence!

Separated the engine and trans, pulled off the clutch a flywheel

bolt trick to keep the fw from spinning

This clutch is toast. The spring in the top right was about to bust out. the retention tab is mostly gone.

I will probably reuse the pressure plate, with an Exedy full disc.

I was happy to find that this B20 came with the rare P8R head, which has the same sized valves as the VTEC motors and flows on par with a B16 head.

P3F means low compression 8.8:1, vs the PHK pistons at 9.6:1. These simply will not do!

The cylinder walls all looked to be in great shape, no scoring and visible hash marks throughout.

Overall the bottom end looked great. The bearings even looked like they had the original friction material intact.

Before and after a quick powerwash with my HF electric power washer (please don't electrocute me)

I cleaned it up a little bit more after this pic, then sprayed it down with WD-40, rubbed the cylinders and crank journals down with grease to prevent rusting and packed it up to be taken to the machine shop. I will have the machine shop check to make sure everything is copacetic, then have the block decked .010 and the head milled .010

That's all for now! I'm afraid this build won't move as quickly as some on here, but I hope you guys enjoy it. Thanks for tuning in.

Cool trick for the flywheel! Wish I knew that one when I tore my SR20 down. Count me in as a fan of this build.

Nice, I'm a sucker for a 4 door. Should be plenty of fun when you're done!

I hope a fuel cut switch is somewhere on this car. I know entirely too many friends who had their Hondas stolen as soon as they finished their build.

A few parts came in. ARP rod bolts, and YCP 11:1 pistons. The pistons were $180 shipped, and the bolts were $41. Everything else in the bottom end will remain oem spec.

YCP is a Chinese piston manufacturer. They've been making OEM replacements for a long time. They first gained popularity in the Honda community with the D-series Vitara builds. For those that aren't familiar with Vitara pistons, they are sourced from the Suzuki Vitara which shares the same 75mm bore as the D-series engines. Although they are a cast piston they have proven to hold boost extremely well. There are lots of YCP vitara builds running around with thousands of worry free hard miles. All that to say, I am not worried about using a Chinese piston in my mild NA build.

One drawback about using the P8R head (when the goal is high compression) is that it has a 47cc combustion chamber vs the 45cc chamber that all other non-vtec b18's/b20's share. I haven't been able to find definitive information concerning how many cc's the dome is on these pistons. So, I have spent some time playing with the compression calculator over at Zealautowerks Assuming the compression height of the YCP pistons is the same as stock (29.59) the dome would have to be 3.5cc to achieve the advertised 11:1 compression with the 45cc head. This means with a 47cc head the compression will drop to 10.6:1. This is why I plan on removing .010 from the head and the block (0.020" total) which will bring the compression back up to 11.17:1.

I will cover my plans for the top end of the motor pretty soon. I am still making a few decisions for cam and manifold choices. I will not be going with the ITR style blox/skunk2 etc manifold as it is designed for high rpm power production, but loses low end and mid-range torque. Appreciate the interest in the build guys....stay tuned!

In reply to lnlogauge:

No plans for a kill switch currently, maybe I will add one.

Cool thread! I'll definitely be following this as I just picked up my first Honda, a '92 DX. Mine's way too rough to be ready for performance upgrades, but it's interesting to absorb this stuff nonetheless.

Those Vitara pistons look pretty aggressively domed, cool idea for a budget build.

In reply to ssswitch:

Those aren't vitara pistons! Just the same manufacturer, YCP. Vitara are 75mm pistons for a 1.6L SOHC. This is for a 2.0L DOHC, 84mm bore. I just mentioned those to lend some credit to the quality of this Chinese piston manufacturer.

They make a cheap high comp piston for a b20? Cool. Last motor swap I did was a b20 vtec in a em1, made one pretty quick car I would love to see what 11.2:1 is like

Got my pistons/rods back from the machine shop. They charged me $10 for each piston and $10 each for rod bolts, so a total of $82 with $2 being an environmental charge, whatever that is.

• $180 Pistons
• $41 Rod bolts
• $82 Machine costs

Running total for the build is $303, I'll try to keep a tally going. I think it will end up being a fairly economical build. I have always joked that N/A Hondas are the expensive way to go slow. We'll see if that holds true for this build.

I also learned that these pistons have a 1.3cc dome and a compression height of 30mm, meaning I have a piston to deck height of .017" Needless to say I am changing my plan to remove .010" from the deck. Instead I have decided to just go ahead and mill .030 from the head for a comp ratio of 11.5:1. I dropped the head off at the machine shop today.

So I previously hinted at some of my plans for the intake manifold. As I said before I don't plan on using the ITR style IM because it loses power everywhere under 6k RPM. My goal for this motor is not peak numbers, but instead a big fat usable torque curve. I will probably rev it until it stops making power for the tune, but set my rev limiter <7500. A lot of guys will modify the B16 manifold to fit the LS/B20 head, this seems to be a good compromise between mid-range and high RPM power. However I have a better idea. The GSR manifold is a dual-runner design and makes more low-mid power than any other b-series IM available. My peak numbers would certainly be higher with a Skunk2/Blox/ITR type of manifold, but the GSR mani is more in line with my goal for this motor. I scoured old forum posts for someone mating the GSR mani to the LS/B20 head and did find a few people that have done it, but no pics.

So I took some of my own!

The secondary butterflies measure appx 44mm each.

The primaries are smaller and longer for better low end. That's a 10mm socket for size ref.

Here's a shot of the secondaries from the runner.

Here's a shot of the mating surface, the bolt pattern and coolant passages are different, so as you can see there are a few obstacles to overcome here. The gasket is a Blox thermal gasket for the LS head/manifold. The 4 bottom bolts line up, the top right would have to be elongated, and the other 4 top bolts redrilled.

The GSR mani intake runner/port is a little taller than the LS (It actually matches the larger port of the p8r head better that the p75/LS IM). So the gasket is blocking the spray pattern of the injector.

Coolant port probs.

I may just chop off this corner of the manifold and thread a fitting into the head for the coolant port, that's what everyone does with the B16 mani on the LS/B20 head.

So, I just made the decision to go ahead and chop off that whole coolant port mess. I know some people will think this is pretty ghetto, and maybe it is, but I don't think it will bother GRM too much. Anyway, it will be functional, and allow me to use this manifold by just drilling a few holes and modifying the gasket some.

As you may notice the gasket has multiple bolt holes between cylinders 3/4 and cylinders 1/2. I'm not sure which ones to use yet, and since my head is at the machine shop I won't know until I get it back to compare.

This guy did a similar build with 10.2 compression and a ported head. He made 212whp and 157ft lbs. I'll be happy with much less than that, but it is inspiring.

http://honda-tech.com/all-motor-naturally-aspirated-44/my-new-b20z-non-vtec-crower-iii-3148502/page2/

Today I hack sawed off the coolant port and drilled/ slotted a few bolt holes. I spent a lot of time trying to keep my hackjob cuts nice and straight.

Man, 11.5:1 is going to be pretty awesome.

I've seen so many upgraded intake manifolds for cars with the coolant ports blocked off (especially on some of the carbed D-series builds) that it doesn't really surprise me to see you hack it off. Let VW worry about emissions, you pay the Honda tax.

I have been looking for a decent truck to drive while my car was down for the swap. It turns out buying a 10 year old truck is more affordable than buying a 20 year old truck. People want gold for nice examples of 20 year old trucks. After having a few good deals bought out from under me I got tired of the game and just stopped at a car lot.

This 2006 was 5.5k doll-hairs which is more than I wanted to spend, so I just financed it, payments are super cheap. I like the body style of this truck a lot, it's a regular cab short bed. The drivetrain is not my favorite, it's a 4.3 v6 5-spd with 128k miles. It's a bit under powered, and shifting it is like rowing a boat. After my Honda is back on the road I may make a few improvements to the truck. For now it will just do truck things.

Truck looks good, tho I have always liked the sharp edge body style

Those are my 06 2500HD (Heavy Chevy) and 11 Colorado (Parts Runner)

That diesel is sweet! I'm already considering my first mods, changing my rear end gear will probably be first. Mine are 3.23 90mph is 2.5krpm in 5th. The 4.3 could definitely use more gear.

Its just the 6.0L gas in it. It doesn't get the mileage of a diesel, but it costs a lot less when something mechanically needs to be repaired

I'm diggin on the monster motor. Was the B20B stock in CR-Vs?

In reply to AntiArrhythmic:

Let me know if you need a new valve cover gasket for the b20. Rockauto shipped me one by mistake and didn't want it back so you can have it if needed.