Hello good peoples at G2IC! I thought it was time to put together a little build thread for my project.
I’m working with a '92 GS with about 200k miles. My motor was getting a little tired (~100 PSI in cylinder #2) and it was time for a refresh. I decided to stick with the B18A as I have a nice ported non-vtec head that wasn’t ready to retire yet. So I’m building a new motor with higher compression that will run on E-85. This is my first motor build ever so wish me luck!
Here’s the rough specs on the new motor:
B18A1 - .25 over with fresh bore and hone
Stock Rods (reconditioned)
ARP rod bolts
Stock Crank - polished and balanced
P30 Pistons (JDM B16A)
ITR Oil Pump
Ported PR4 Cylinder Head - "Stage 2", valve job, 25k miles on it and just refreshed and inspected for reinstall
ARP Head Studs
Crower 62-403 Stage 2 Camshafts
JG Adjustable Cam Gears
Innovate LC1 Wideband O2 Sensor
Socketed ECU (will probably run Chrome, but need to talk to a tuner still)
Transmission - need to decide if my 90-91 or 92-93 tranny is going on. Have seen conflicting reports as to if these are geared the same or not. I have a lightly-used ACT stage 2 clutch for the 90-91 that may dictate the 90-91 tranny going in.
Aside from that, most anything replaceable on the engine has been or will be replaced. Lots of new OEM gaskets, seals, o-rings, sensors, etc.
I don’t really have a budget; just wanted to build a NA engine - correctly. I’ve probably spent around $2000 already, with probably another $2000 to go. I’m just spreading it out, this has been in the works for a year already.
Currently the motor is almost assembled and getting near to install time. I’m also pulling the ABS and maybe A/C as part of the process. Pics to come soon.
Here’s the block I started with (thanks to BLKACK1):
Have you ever seen anything so dirty?!? It went straight to the shop for cleaning, inspection, boring and honing.
All clean and ready for some fresh pistons.
The machinist ended up having to take .006" off the deck. I guess this motor had some overheating issues. I’d already bought .25 over pistons in case there were any issues and had him bore for a ~.02mm piston-to-cylinder clearance.
Look forward to see how things turn out though. If you ever need an extra set of hands in the process let me know. I would be more than willing to help out. :werd:
thanks for the offer, i might have to take you up on that sometime. some pics are up now…had to figure out how to hotlink to picasa.
So next up was to get my bearings sized.
Oil up the bolts:
Layout the bearings based on bearing codes:
Drop in the crank:
Torque it down after putting on caps with plastigauge:
Then disassemble, measure plastigauge - and that’s when we realized how many brand new bearings won’t even be used because they’re the wrong size…:bawl:
Thanks again to BLKACK1 for the help here. We probably torqued that crank on 4 times and went through 3-4 orders of bearings before we got the clearances i wanted. But then we were finally ready to install:
We ended up with .0015" clearances on all mains using all pink and red bearings.
We dropped the pistons in next. We got lucky here and only had to change out one bearing to get .0015" across the board. A little but looser than I wanted, but they were even and within spec so i called it good.
Check out the dome on these things!!
That was a good point to pull the ported head from my running car to get it to the shop for reuse on this new block. Haven’t driven it since last year now and oh how i miss it!
I thought the champagne of beers was a good toast to hitting this milestone…haha.
My garage doesn’t operate without some sort of cold beverages flowing…usually PBR though…because…
Thanks mang. We’ve made quite a bit more progress. Getting ready to finish up the little details on the block…waiting for more parts. I’ll update pics soon.
I’m going to try and take a week off soon and spend a few full weekdays in the garage to get this thing finished. I’ll hit you up
Here are some pics of the head i’ll be running. It’s got a street port with a valve job about 25k miles ago. I had the machinist clean it up, check that the valve seats seal, and put new valve seals in. I had this on my stock motor with some Crane stage 2 cams and loved the results. I have high hopes for this with the new high comp motor and Crowers.
Has anyone ever had valves bend at the top before?
When he was inspecting this he found 13 valves that were ever so slightly bowed around 1-2" from the top (opposite end of the valve face). He said they were fine in the facing machine, but he noticed a little resistance when installing them. After rolling on a flat table, it was apparent they had slight bow shapes to them…very slight - I couldn’t get the camera to capture it. Any ideas why? He said he hadn’t seen that before. Didn’t think the shaved valve guides would cause that (as he’d seen many shaved guides w/out bowing the valves) but maybe detonation. I’m just curious how that happened.
Anyway here’s the head:
New Crower dual springs and retainers…and a camera strap
Well I’ve made a little more progress… ABS is removed and got the cams in and timed and valves lashed.
Still waiting for some parts to get this all put in. Innovative motor mounts have been back ordered for two weeks now. But I also ordered a box of OEM goodies, Innovate wideband, A/F gauge, Precision 440 injectors, walbro fuel pump, etc. Gonna put some time in this week and try to get 'er ready to drop in. If the damn mounts show up i might actually get it in this week.
Here’s Glynn reinstalling the cleaned M/C after we scrubbed down the engine bay.
ABS swap in progress:
And non-ABS brake lines and prop valve in:
Yes I probably should have pulled the brake booster to clean and repaint, but what can i say - I’m lazy sometimes…ha.
Here’s the timing belt on. A word of warning to anyone using a TypeR Oil Pump: you have to switch to an OBDII lower timing belt cover as well. I learned that the hard way. If I were to do it again, I’d rebuild an LS pump with the spring shimmed like the GSR/TypeR.
