well, my plan is this… right now my b18a has like 150,000 or so miles on it (it was rolled back, im not sure what the falker had on it before…) so, anyway, i plan on getting a fully built b18b.
so i was wondering a few things… should i get a b18a head over b18b, or is the b18b definetely better? and also, in the same respect, is the b18a better than the b18b bottom end and vice versa?
my ultimate goal is to go turbo, so i just want to prep my engine for turbo now, and down the line, once i get money, i can go turbo
well i may be wrong but the b18b is the engine used in the 94+ ls models. so i believe the heads are not to different form the b18a. if you have a whole b18b you shoild be fine as it is. i dont think that swapping it with a b18a will make a difference. but like i said i can be wrong there can be somthing im missing. usually the heads that get changed are from the v-tech series i.e b16, or b18c, from the SI or g3 gsr.
b18b head is better. it has slightly larger ports, which equal out to about 2hp extra… not much, but hey, you gotta take what you can get. Also, the 92+ heads (b18a and b18b) have better cams than the 90-91 b18a cams. Lastly, the 92+ intake manifolds are also better.
bottom ends are the same, neither is better or worse. If you’re going turbo it really doesn’t matter anyway. Because you’ll be replacing nearly everything anyway (new sleeves, rods, pistons, rod bolts, maybe a block guard…). It all depends on how much boost you want to run. Turbo ain’t cheap.
alright, so basically whatever i can pickup the cheapest for a bottom end, and preferably grab a b18b head?
so… if grab say, an ITR IM, can it be mated to the b18b head, or do i need to keep my intake manifold to the engine specific (ie vtec goes to vtec, etc)
and when upgrading for turbo, would i want to upgrade my valvetrain at all?