B17A1 Build plans: help (thoughts, opinions) needed

ASSISTANCE Hybrids & Advanced Aftermarket Engine Performance
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Colin, It is so refreshing to see someone else who is OK with there being emissions standards. I’m with you though; if I can modify my car and still have good emissions out of the tail pipe, it shouldn’t really matter what is going on under the hood as long as nothing is going to fall off.

I’ll have to poke around for pictures of your manifold. Hopefully I can bend that fitting back into shape without cracking it and hopefully won’t have to worry about actually removing it.

So the B17 bracket doesn’t work. Do you know if the ITR one works with the B17 block? The reason I ask is it is only a $60 bracket.

Basically what I was talking about as far as the catch can is that I would think about somehow adding a true air/oil seperator into the existing system, or in place of the breather chamber. Like you though, I’ll probably only be putting 2-5k miles on this car a year - at most. But I think you could figure out a way to mount a unit on the back of the block that would drain the oil back into the block and then feed dry air up to the PCV valve.

As far as an intake, I’ll probably just end up getting something fabbed up. I try not to sound like the cheap fucker that I am, but $250 for an intake is reDonkulous! As far as aftermarket, I haven’t really shopped around, but I would probably get the Injen one in black. Or if I see an OG AEM intake that are one continuous piece for sale used, I could see myself picking up a cheap one. I really am more of a K&N drop in filter kind of guy; the intake will probably be one of the last things I upgrade.

Oh, hey there is an ebay one for $20. I’ll probably go with that, a velocity stack and a K&N filter. Then I’ll paint it with some insulating paint and it will be a Hy-tech intake. har har har. People will be like “Damn, you have a hy-tech intake? I didn’t even know he made intakes!” and I’ll be like “yep, its hy-tech alright.”

You want your car finished, I just want to get started on my car. Right now I’m just trying to get even a vague estimate from Larry before sending him my head. I don’t want to send it down there without having an idea of what he is going to do to it.

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Oil pump

Since the B17 oil pump has replaceable parts I was thinking I may as well get new inner and outer rotors. I assume that outer rotor does not move (#6), so there would be no reason to replace the housing, correct? (of course I will be replacing gaskets and seals, don’t bother mentioning it. :wink:

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Yeah, I’m personally big on the environment, I love nature and hate what our society is doing to it. I’m a firm believer that there are plenty of ways to be green w/o significant (or often any) cost or inconvenience. I actually think that emissions standards on new cars should be even more strict, and it would be nice if there was some way to have relaxed emissions on cars which only saw a certain amount of mileage and were “fun” weekend or track day vehicles. Doing something like that would be next to impossible with our government though.

My build photos are located Here. And here’s a comparison between the stock P61 and ITR manifolds. But keep in mind that USDM and JDM manifolds are slightly different regarding the nipples, same goes for the TB’s.

Is your brake booster nipple actually bent or is it simply rotated? Mine was rotated way out of place and a few taps with a hammer got it back into place easily. (in the pics above you can see it’s pointing towards the throttle body a little, I needed to rotate it back to point up and slightly towards the brake booster).

I didn’t try an ITR brace, but my understanding was that yes, it will work. IIRC the p61 brace fit the block (obviously) but didn’t line up properly with the manifold. I’m pretty sure all b series have the same mounting location on the block. The b18a brace I had laying around was identical to my p61 piece. I too thought about buying the brace, lord knows that cost wasn’t an issue as I spent tons on other misc OEM stuff, but in the end I just didn’t see the need for it. I couldn’t find any evidence anywhere that I would have any issues at all w/o that brace, so I figured I’d save a couple pounds and not bother using one.

Getting an intake fabbed will probably cost close to what an expensive name brand one will cost. The problem is that there isn’t a 3" CAI on the market for the DA (that I know of). As with our exhaust/header conversations intake diameter is important. I spoke w/ someone at AEM and they said their 2.75" CAI makes more power and that’s why it’s smaller. Well then, why do you have a 3" version available for other Hondas (ITR). If an ITR engine can benefit from a 3" intake, then so can mine. But I don’t see AEM spending any time making a new intake for the DA. Plus, it’ll still be curvy to accommodate the stock bay components. There may be a 3" CAI available on ebay, but it’s almost impossible to trust those auctions regarding product stats, if they even have them listed. And again, they’re curvy.

My goal is to have as straight an intake as possible and have it be 3". Not anything I’ll be working on soon, just something I’d like to do eventually. It’ll just require that I buy some aluminum tubing, do some cutting and fitting, tack it in place w/ my MIG then take it to a shop to have it TIG’d.

Until then my 3" short ram and OEM ITR airbox will suffice. If AEM made a 3" CAI I’d buy it in a second mainly for the CARB sticker. I wish I could get a CARB sticker somehow and put it on my own custom piece :slight_smile: If you go w/ a K&N drop in you really should consider upgrading to an ITR airbox as the intake arm is larger diameter.

Look into the oil pumps some, everyone recommends using the ITR piece. I haven’t looked into it in a long time. I’m still using a newish (~30k miles and 8yrs old) b17a oil pump from my original build. My oil pressure is up over 90psi at any mid/high rpm so I really don’t see a need for anything better than what I’ve got, you’re really not even supposed to be any higher than the 80-90psi range from what I’ve read.

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I agree with you both… I guess in my previous statement I should have said ‘gotta love Cali CAFE/CARB/inspection laws’

I’m all for a clean burning motor… I just get fed up with the Nazi cops that think just because you have an aftermarket intake that you’re putting more crap into the atmosphere than the loud ass diesel truck that just went cruising by spitting out a black cloud of volcanic-esque soot into the air.

I think it would be nice if people would throw on a decent cat and lose their 3whp gain they got from their test-pipe and just deal with it. That’s one thing I found interesting about living in rural areas of Idaho, there’s no Safety or Emissions inspections. Just a quick vin check and they’ll register you right away. Odd imo.

As I said here they aren’t as strict… but you still have to pass the basic sniffer test, but that is prettymuch it. They don’t really hassle you about carb stickers or anything, which is how it should be. But yeah if you let a cop pop your hood they will hassle you about aftermarket stuff being illegal. Ehh, what can you do except be as friendly and compliant as possible?

Upon thinking more about the intake manifold bracket thingy… I was curious if the difference in deck height would be a factor? Being that the ITR and CTR I’M is the same unit I would guess not, but its just a thought. As Colin stated though, it isn’t a completely necessary thing to have, you should be fine without it.

Rebuilding the oil pump should be fine… But depending on price, New is always good too :wink:
My builder kept giving me shit when I would say that I got a Type-R oil pump. All 96+ vtec (and I think even non-vtec) oil pumps are the same. Before '96 they varied, but after they’re all the same piece.

Speaking of oil pressure, are you intending on running an oil pressure gauge rather than the dummy light? The gauge is definitely a good idea. The only issue I have with mine is where to mount the damn thing lol. I don’t really dig the a-pillar gauge pods. I was thinking of molding the ashtray and making a fiberglass piece and just mounting the gauge there. Colin, any ideas on good mounting places?

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Yeah. Indiana doesn’t have a visual inspection or a sniffer test. Very frustrating.

My feeling about the oil pump is that as long as it isn’t pumping so much oil that it is actually getting turbulent and little air bubbles in it, then it is all good. Since, as you say, all VTEC 96+ B-series oil pumps are the same, I just don’t see that there would be that much of a difference in the older ones.

As far as new vs rebuilding, a new pump is $100, the gears and whatnot for my car are like $30. If the mating surface is flat and I replace all of the moving or friction parts, I don’t really see how there is much of a difference…

I’ll have to give the intake some more thought. I was actually thinking that some kind of thick walled high temp PVC would be good. I should be able to ‘weld’ the pieces that I would need together with a torch and get something that is functional, cheap and looks decent.

As far as gauges, my thought was that oil temp, oil pressure, water temp and O2 would all be good to have. My friend’s dad has a 1968 Boss 302 and many of his gauges are actually dual purpose. So he has a sender unit in his transmission (for temp) and one in his differential, but only one gauge. He just has a toggle switch beside the gauge and one position is the transmission and one is the differential. Pretty neat idea, I thought.

Gauge placement is a tough one. For now I will probably just put 3 gauges below the head unit, but eventually I’ll probably put in a NAV unit so I’ll have to think of a better place. I have also seen gauges in the same place as the air vents. That looks pretty nice if done well.

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Oh right,

The B16B and the ITR both share the same block as far as I know. The B16B is just de-stroked. So the bracket would probably be in the right place, but just 17mm short maybe? (or whatever the difference is there). I guess it all comes down to where the mounting is. I poke around on the intertubes some more, I’m sure someone on H-T has done a writeup…

Colin, I’m with you. Everyone used to swear by the ITR oil pump, but a few years ago someone realized that they all have the same part number. Hell, even the bottom end price sheet Endyn gave me listed “new ITR pump” but it is the same as any other 96+ oil pump. They do modify it in some way though and I saw his comments about it somewhere. I think he wallows some stuff out and maybe even makes it flow better than stock for super high rpm engines.

EDIT: Cavitation is the word I was searching for earlier. Here is the Endyn modification page.

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I don’t think the difference is just in deck height. It’s possible, I do seem to remember the vertical fitment being off, but I sorta remember that it was also off front to back. It’s been too long, I can’t be sure.

I like that toggle switch idea on the gauges. I’m running water temp and oil pressure, I can’t believe I ran w/o these for so long, it’s such nice piece of mind. I mounted mine in a gauge pod I started making for my original build (~8yrs ago). I found it laying around and figured I’d use it instead of trying something else. It looks pretty good but is definitely less than ideal. Placement is out in the open (for cops to see) but also not very easy to see while driving (on track). Plus it deletes the little pocket under the stereo, which I never really used before, but now I find myself wanting to use it ALL the time, lol.

I don’t have any pics, but you can sort of see it in the background of this one:

I really can’t think of anywhere that I’d like to put them. Possibly in the radio delete would be a bit better (easier to see while driving). A pillar would be really easy to see but I hate that look. Whilst still not quite ideal IMO this pic is probably the best gauge setup I’ve ever seen in a DA. I’d like it if it was more “OEM” looking, but as far as having that much info available right in front of you and still being fairly discrete I’ve never seen anything I liked more.

As for the intake, PVC just seems ghetto and I’ve always heard it being bad. Of course you did say “high temp” so may be there’s some stuff out there that would work well. Just seems that if you were going to use a composite type material or plastic that it’d be a lot of work to get it to look nice whereas metal would be much easier.

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Yeah. I dunno about the intake. I imagine doing it and having it look perfect, but that would never happen. Still brainstorming. If I decide to do a drop in, I will take your advice about the ITR intake and box.

When I was talking about a bracket the most recent post, I meant an ITR bracket would probably line up but maybe be a little short of reaching manifold. I’ll get it figured out.

I really like that picture of your car. I guess you were showing off the 3 button blanks? I see what you’ve got going on in the pocket there and I could see how that is nice but could also be frustrated during actual racing. I was thinking the little removable pocket under the stereo. Using something like this:


(no idea what kind of car that is, I just grabbed this off a random website)

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It’s not my photo, but yeah, I think he was focusing on the button deletes. All I’ve got left is fogs and hazards, probably shouldn’t delete those.

I’m doubtful there’s room under the stock stereo to cleanly install gauges unless they’re pretty darn tiny. I could be wrong though. But even in that location I’m thinking they’re too low, although better than where mine are.

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I was pretty sure that is actually a din sized pocket. Oh, but DIN is only 50mm (2") high, so yeah, you are right that isn’t really enough room for good sized gauges. I’m sure I think of something ghetto-fabulous. Ha ha. Got it. I could program a PIC pretty easily to read the voltage of of the sender and then light up a series of LEDs. Oh man, now I really like that idea. The LEDs could be flush mount in the ledge in front of the gauge assembly and would shine up on the plastic in front of the gauges kind of like a H.U.D. It would be like something out of night rider!

Or I could put a ring of LEDs around the fuel gauge and water temp gauge and do a half circle’s worth for each reading.

I knew I’d think of something! Gotta go dig my PIC programmer out of the closet. BRB.

Oh, here is a pic of the vacuum nipple.

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Looks like you could just squeeze it with some vice grips and get it back to semi-round. It won’t be very visible when in the car anyway. And depending on what brake booster hose you’re using, it’s already pointing in the right direction. The angle on yours is about perfect for use w/ an ITR brake booster hose.

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Yeah, shouldn’t be too hard to fix. Good to know about the hose, thx.

I just don’t understand how stupid people can be about shipping stuff. Supposedly he actually paid a place to box the manifold up for him so I can’t really blame the seller. How could you possibly think that some loosely packed styrofoam peanuts would do anything? I’d rather they left the damned peanuts out because now I have to find a place to drop them off. Ugh. Ok, I’m better now.

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more itr im questions

I just noticed these two chunks that seem to be missing from the ITR IM I got the other day. Uh, is that normal? I saw the same angle of picture of another ITR IM on line, but I could only find one. I wasn’t sure if they come like this or if they are just easy to f up.

Maybe it is normal and will make perfect sense when I have the TB in my hand, but I don’t have one yet.

EDIT: Nevermind. I found a few more pictures online and I guess that is normal. So weird because it doesn’t really look cast into it; it looks like shit just broke off…

IMG_0666.jpg
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Props to you guys for all your work, and contributing to this great thread. I’ve learned a LOT so far!

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Sweet, that’s what we’re all here for… to learn stuff from eachother.

buymysoul, yes that is normal… My R manifold has that, my two B16 manifolds had that, my LS manifold has that… I have no idea why, but yes it is normal. Im sure it does have something to do with the casting process, or maybe when removing it from the mold… Shrug

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Vince, that is why originally came to and why 8 years later I came back to G2IC. Unfortunately they are fewer and further between than in past years but the guys on here who are smart and intelligible and knowledgeable are really just the best. I for one tend to get a little ornery sometimes but it is all in good fun.

Unified, I actually felt a little silly about having to make that post but I’ve just never had a reason to take a TB off an IM before. I realized quickly that if you aren’t searching specifically for ITR manifold pics, there are tons out there that show these marks. Weird.

I ended up picking up a later B16 manifold and TB from a guy on Team-Integra for $40. I’m not hip on my B16 lingo but it is one of the later (Gen2? OBD2?) B16 manifolds that doesn’t have the PGMFI sticker on it so it should have a 60mm TB (as opposed to stock 58, right?) and won’t have any crazy extra vacuum ports for the FITV. I figured having the manifold around won’t hurt; I’m interested to see what the difference is vs. the GS-R and ITR ones.

Did I mention that I decided who is going to do my bottom end work? I found this place because when I was searching about balancing, someone linked to the picture they have of their fancy pants balancer. So I called them up and talked with someone briefly. I asked him about Hondas and he admitted that they hadn’t really build many but that Honda guys come in and use their dyno all the time :wink:
Anyway, I asked about prices on work that they do. This obviously doesn’t include any parts but does include machining costs.

So:
Disassembly
Inspection
Ultrasonically clean all parts
micropolish crank
balance rotating assembly
replace pistons
hone cylinders
resurface deck
check all bearing clearances
(I’ll order bearings then)
reassembly of entire shortblock
$750.

That sounds pretty reasonable, right? And he said that was on the high end of what he would actually expect it to be. I dunno, I’m still going back and forth of the challange/fun of rebuilding the bottom end myself and the peace of mind of having a trained individual do it…

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That is an OBD2 manifold… Notice the big fitting on the top of the manifold, as well as the Air Intake Temp mounting location being blocked off? If its OBD1 there is no big fitting on the top, and that blocked-off mounting location will be open. OBD2s had the Air Temp Sensor in the intake tube, OBD1s have them mounted in the runner of the manifold.

As far as TB size, I really dont know which came on which :think:

When you say “replacing pistons” do you mean pressing the old ones off your rods, and installing the new ones? Or do you mean the cost of new pistons is factored into that cost? Im assuming you meant just swapping the new ones on, but figured I’d ask.

The price doesnt seem too bad. I think for mine the machine work was like $220, and full assembly of the block was $400. But I got a good deal as my builder hooked me up at cost on the machine work and discounted the build price. Normally a full build is about $550, plus machine work… or at least that is what people around here are charging. That includes degreeing the cams etc… oil pan to valve cover.

For the most part it all sounds good… Just make damn sure they dont GRIND the crank, just micropolish. If they grind it, you’re done… it will throw bearings quicker than you think. You probably don’t need it, but see how much they would charge to line-hone the mains on the block. It makes it tons easier to get bearings as you can get one size across the board… which would allow you to get Calico/King/ACL-Race bearings. Not a huge deal, but I like the idea of everything being perfectly even.

I agree with you, I was kicking around the idea of assembling my own motor… But being that it was a ‘performance’ oriented motor, I decided to pay a professional to handle it for me lol. If i was rebuilding my D16 in my daily, or even my B18B in my beater Integra… I’d do it myself… but on a high-revving performance motor, i’ll pass the task to someone else.

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Here’s some pricing from my machine shop experiences.

My machine work bill from 2007:
Disassemble short block $45
Hone block & pressure wash $90
Resize rods and install customer supplied ARP bolt kit $48
Assemble short block and polish crankshaft $150
Valve job $220
Resurface cylinder head $50
Total $603

Then there were some bearings, valve seals, chemicals… which totalled another $176. To total out the door price was $792.64. All work was done by John Edwards from Costa Mesa R&D. They do all sorts of cars but in the past 5yrs or so have been doing a lot of Subarus and a lot of Hondas. Patrick (Tnd2gen) was the person who recommended him to me.

Back in 2002 my machine shop invoice looked like this:
Assemble short block $350
Bore cylinders $105
Balance 4cyl $132
Mill block $132
Hot tank block $50
Remove & Replace pistons $29
Polish & shotpeen rods $100
Polish crank $48
Recondition valves $330
Parts $120
Total $1384.64

This work was done by Bensons Machine shop, who has since moved out of state.

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Benson’s, huh? Fancy!

Ok, maybe I need to talk with them a little more. Compared to Endyn’s $375 hone only, $750 seemed like a bargain to put the whole short block together…but after seeing what you guys paid, maybe that isn’t that remarkable and I should see who else is out there who may have a bit more knowledge about Honda engines

Stupid me. I should have done more homework. I actually forgot about OBD0 B16, so when I saw this one, I was like “oh yeah, that’s a 2nd gen.” dur. Oh well, $40 for 2mm and no dashpot is acceptable.

I think this project is making me stupider by the day.

Unified, I know about the cranks being no grindy grindy territory. The actually have an outer candy shell on that surface, or something, right?

Finally put in some serious work over the weekend and got the engine out and the head off. Man I fucked that head up good! There were three distinctive spots between the two camshafts where there was just no oil at all. Oh, and then that one spot on the intake cam that was covered in melted aluminum. Man. I pulled the two oil control pins out and one of them just came right out. so I think that it probably died because I didn’t replace 3 little o-rings when I did the cam seals. Fucking brilliant. I sure am glad I saved that $8. ha ha.

It is so nice taking the engine out knowing that you are going to replace everything. My friend has these Craftsman shears and they made quick work of all of the coolant lines. “Oh, forgot one” snip. Fun stuff. I haven’t removed a whole Honda engine in almost 10 years.

I’m going to make one last attempt to actually discuss my project with Larry before blindly sending him this other used head and a ton of OEM Acura parts. I am getting about this close to just sending the head to Portflow though.
EDIT: Just pressing off the old pistons and pressing on new ones that I supply.

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I definitely know what you mean by feeling dumber the more you read and experience lol. It definitely won’t hurt to call around and see who else is out there that can build your motor for you.

Is there no one that is local that can do it for you? I think I’m just spoiled and used to having a pretty wide choice of people to go to around here and find it surprising when other cities/states don’t have the same options available to them.

How do PortFlows prices compare to Endyns? As we breifly touched on earlier I still believe PF does good work and is definitely worth the money they charge for their services. If the prices are somewhat close between the two, I would peronally have to go with PortFlow.

Make a few more calls and search a bit more and see what local places you can find for assembling your block… from valve cover to oil pan, if someone is wanting more than like 600’ish then I would say look elsewhere. Yes you want quality, but at the same time there is such a thing as overpaying for said services.

I tried to look around, but for the life of me I couldn’t find my receipt from my motor build… damnit!