Well, I finally finished the B18C. I took my time with it and bought many many new parts. Install day begins this Friday. I work at Honda so using the shop and a fellow tech. Should be complete end of day Sat. I did all the work except for the machine work of course. Pretty excited, hope it starts and hope it runs hard!
Its a C1 block and pr3 head but everything was upgraded to C5 parts internally (pistons, cams, intake mani etc). The B17 runs well but is tired at 241k. I want to keep the motor while it runs well so if I ever sell I will have the original motor. I wanted a reliable motor I could have fun with while preserving b17.
A few pics…
won’t let me upload any more pics… I took pics of EVERY step.
Are you using the ys1 transmission? I used a 10 lb every flywheel on my poor man’s ITR. It made a big difference compared to the 8 lo that I had on the B16A in my Integra.
yup, YS1 trans. Stock flywheel for now. I may upgrade when the clutch goes bad. I will be tuning with Hondata S300 after break in with p60 ecu.
Poor mans R run pretty strong?? The B17A only dyno’d at 128 whp on a mustang dyno, pretty lame lol. There was a JDM Type R that got 160. Hoping for that or better.
The PMITR in my CRX is very strong and revs like a motorcycle engine. If I were you I would put in a new clutch now while it is out. It doesn’t make sense to do all that work and use an old clutch.
Check out page1 of my build thread… I listed all the specs. Basically an LSV, with ITR internals. 187whp/134wtq. But my tuner is phenomenal heh.
Personally I’d stick with an OEM flywheel… Hate how fast the motor idles down with an ultra light flywheel. Cruising seems more comfortable with an OE flywheel. Imo.
The clutch has like 4k on it. No need for a new one. I put like 500 miles a year on this car too and not going to be doing any crazy burnouts or driving. Just fun weekend cruiser that I can tach out occasionally
Well, install went well on Saturday. Started right up after we primed the oilpump. Only issue, had a torn injector seal. Changed the oil after 5 miles, no metal flakes :). Driven 75 miles and so far so good! Is a lot smoother and “free’er” feeling. Definetly has more power than the B17. Going to wait till 500 miles to get on it. SUCCESS!
Running on P61 right now, waiting for Hondata S300 next month.
Congrats! Wish mine had fired right up, still trying to troubleshoot some gremlin. Also, you mentioned that you were going to wait 500 miles till you “get on it”. Are you doing any sort of “break in” procedure? There are definitely some really important things to do and not do during this period - and babying the engine is a big no-no.
I am not babying it…just not taking to redline. I took to 6500 maybe 5 times. Going through the revs a lot. Not down shifting or compression braking yet. No highway driving either.
I’d try to load decel as much as possible to get the rings to seat. This was the big thing I was told about breaking in engines. I did multiple pulls up to the 4-6k range and then let the weight of the car slow the engine when I let off the gas. My compression numbers were really good, so it must have worked Other than that just making sure you’re constantly varying your RPM.
Clean build! Only thing I see wrong is you mentioned you will be tuning after the break in. That’s the biggest mistake you can do. You definitely want it tuned from the first start up. I’ve blown an engine because of this. Now I just do dyno break in’s and I beat on it right after. Never had a issue that way with two of my engines.
This sounds trivial but it’s not. You spent all that time and money (and did a great job) being organized and meticulous. You really need to take the same approach with the break in. I don’t know where people get the whole “break in” requires babying the motor for 500 miles thing from. It’s completely wrong and if done correctly, you could throw any amount of boost or whatever the same day it get’s broken in. If you want to do it right take it to the dyno after running it for a few minutes at idle to check for leaks etc. Once you get on the dyno, they can get the mixture perfect and you immediately take it to full tilt and the rings will seal nicely. That’s it, done. This will give you the best case scenario for a strong long lasting motor. It’s the difference between being one of those people posting random oil issues coming up a year later to you being able to tell people it pulls hard with no issues and you’ve never had a single problem with it for many years to come.
What you don’t realize is that whatever you believe, your mixture is not perfect. The ratio could be a bit rich (hopefully not lean) and based on the fact that it’s not perfect it absolutely could be too rich. This will wash out the rings and they won’t seal perfectly. In addition, you need to take it to red line to get the rings to seal, so all the babying is only giving you less of a chance to have them seal correctly. Hopefully you haven’t already compromised the new motor. It comes down to two things:
You seal the rings by beating on it hard right away, first day, “break-in” is done. Not by babying it.
You can’t even attempt to seal the rings and go 100% throttle unless the tune is 100% correct.
This usually leads to the same answer. The correct way to do it is to bring it to the tuner/dyno asap after the motor is running. Break it in, tune it, go home and change your oil, enjoy. When I broke in my motor, I ran it at idle to test for leaks etc for a few minutes at a time. I then put it right on a tow truck and took it to my tuner. Yes, that’s right I put it on a tow truck so that the very first revs going past idle were done 100% correctly.
Hopefully, this makes sense as I am just trying to help and clear up misconceptions since you spent so much money and time on a clean build
