ARP Rod Bolts Install

[bomerman19]

basically It's like the title says. ARP Rod bolts these things are great because one of the biggest weaknesses of the D17 is the rod bolts they tend to stretch over boost or high RPMS. I believe there are guys on the site that are running up to 250 hp on the arp rod bolts no problem. And these things are cheap, they are like $38 from summit racing. The List: 1. ARP D16 rod bolts, they say that they don't make ones for the D17 but the D16 ones fit perfectly without any problems I know cause there in my engine right now. here's the # for them at summit ARP-208-6001 2. 10mm socket 3/8's drive 3. 12mm socket 3/8's drive 4. 1/2 S.A.E. socket 3/8's drive 5. 17mm? socket/wrench for oil drain bolt 5a. 14mm wrench 6. 19 mm or 3/4 sae socket to turn the crank and take off lug nuts 7. 3/8's drive socket 8. 3/8's extension at least 6 inches long 9. tube of permatex high-temp red RTV or hondabond (rtv seems to work better) 10. 1/2 in drive socket helps 11. torque wrench 12. A giant set of needle noise pliers with angled nose 13. jack and jackstands unless you have a lift 14. a flat screwdriver or pry bar 15. a drift or something to knock the old bolt's out I had a piece of 1/2 in round bar that was like 8inches long 16. hammer 17. bucket for oil 18. oil for car 19. rags to clean up mess 20. oil filter 21.most importantly Beer, hooray Beer! Alright so lets get down to business. 1. you want to jack up the car and put it on jackstand 2. take off the driver side tire, disconnect the battery 3. get your magical bucket and 17mm-ish (i think it's 17 i can't remember) wrench/socket and drain the oil. don't forget to undo the oil cap on top of the engine otherwise it cause a vacuum and the oil will just slowly drip all over you. and you can leave the oil filter on for now if you want to. 4. Now you want to grab you 3/8's drive socket with extension and 10mm socket and start taking off those nuts and bolt on the oil pan. I couldn't find a required order for taking off the 18 oil pan nuts and bolts so I would use a basic criss cross method loosen one then go to the next farthest one away. once you get all of those off you want to take the 14mm wrench and the 12mm socket and remove the engine stiffeners which are on the transmission side of the transmission. 5. Now the oil pan is not going to just drop cause it is glued up there with hondabond so you are going to have to crack the seal on the oil pan but you have to make sure not to damage the block or the pan. This was by far the hardest part cause it just did not pop off. If you are staring directly at the crank pulley to the right side of it there is a little bit of a gab to stick in a screwdriver or a pry bar. stick it in there and take a hammer and carfully tapp it in untill the seal pops. once the seal is broken it is pretty easy to get off. 6. Once the pan is off you might want to pull out the dipstick so it doesn't get in your way get your rags and wipe off the excess oil on the girdle and stick the 19mm or 3/4 socket on the crank bolt so you can turn the crank back and forth. 7. turn the crank till you have clear access of one of the rod bolts use the 12mm socket with extension to loosen the nut. once it's loose spin the bolt down a bit but don't take it off completely (this will help protect the threads just in case you can't get it out). take your drift or metal rod place it on the nut and give it a couple of nice taps till it pops loose, it usually took about 3 taps for me but can vary. unscrew the bolt and you made need to give it another tap to get it all the way free. 8. Grab you long bent needle nose pliers reach up grab the bolt and lift it out of the top. Take a brand new ARP rod bolt put the little bit of lube on it that is included in the package and use the needle nose pliers to reach up and drop the new bolt. take your finger reach up and press down on the top of the bolt so it sticks out on the other side. It did not stick out that far but just enough that I could take the ARP supplied nuts and spin them on with my fingers. Once you get the bolt started you can use a 1/2 in sae socket and tighten it down which will pull the bolt through. I believe you are supposed to torque it down to 26 ft lbs I no that doesn't seem like much. once you tighten it down, loosen it torque down again, then loosen it one more time and torque down again since you are only doing one a time and you probably don't have this on an engine stand all torn apart give it a couple extra foot pounds to make sure the rods seat back down. **as a side not I did have one bolt that did not want to stick out enough to get started so what I did was found some thing "L" shaped to reach up and yank down to tap the bolt in just a bit further (you can get away with this with the 3/8's drive socket wrench)** 9. Now repeat steps 7 and 8 for the rest of the bolts but!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MAKE SURE that when you take out a bolt you replace it with a new one before moving on because you don't want to remove both bolts on the same rod cause you will unseat the rod and end up pushing the piston up into the cylinder and you won't have any room to drop in the new bolts. 10. Go back and check EVERYTHING!!!! if something comes undone in here you can very easily put a hole the size of your fist through the block with one of your rods 11. Grab that oil pan and some of that funky smelling orange stuff (RTV) put a nice bead of RTV around the all the edges of the oil pan and then stick it up there. the stuff is usually goopy enough that once the pan is pressed up you can just lightly hold it with one hand while you start getting the nuts and bolts started. Tighten the bolts to 8.7 ft lbs or 12 Nm and do in the same criss cross pattern as early but in reverse you don't want to get it too tight on one side and warp the pan. 12. don't forget to put those engine stiffeners back up either 33 ft lbs for the big 14mm bolts and 17ft lbs for the smaller 12mm bolts 13. while your down there pull that old oil filter off slip on a new one and make sure that drain plug bolt is on tight 14. put your tire back on take of the jack stands and let you car back down to earth 17. drops some oil back in that beast slip you dipstick in put the oil cap back on hook up that battery. 18. and now for the most import step sit back and grab a beer! and relax and wait about a half an hour before you start the car to allow for the rtv to dry. 19. make sure you check for leaks around the oil pan when you do start it up and listen to make sure everything sounds all right Sorry there are no pics I couldn't find my camera I should be doing this again on one of my friends engine some time this spring, at which time I will try to post pics and Video! in this thread. Please be kind this is the first real DIY I have actually written up. I do not take any responsibility if you blow up your engine. lol your on your own at that point. If you have any questions feel free to post and I will do my best to try and answer them.

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[civicsrcool]

sweet post. i was wondering about the part number for the rod bolts for forever. i have spun 3 rod bearings already and im tired of it. lol... the only thing that i dont know what your talking about is the stiffner? whats the stiffner? lol :/

+1 rep! rep back please. i need it

[bomerman19]

^ when you get under neath the car attached to the side of the transmission and to the oil pan is either two little aluminum blocks or one bigger "U" shaped block depending on the model that it is, that is designed to strengthen and support the engine/tranny the shop manual calls them stiffeners

[TRIZ]

Very nice write up.

[bomerman19]

thanks! I really wanted to have a video like your awesome spring retainer install but I can't find my stupid camera maybe in the spring it will have a video

[speedfoos]

Hmmm.... I might just order these in the very near future as insurance for the car until it gets the built gut. Good write-up. I'll rep you again when I'm able.

[skipbarber]

nice work. kinda risky though. i was told you cant just pop in new rod bolts without having a machine shop check the rod bore. when you remove the factory stud, the squeeze point changes and when you insert the new one, it isnt quite the same. the instructions that come with the rod bolts say something about it too.

[TRIZ]

Hold up on the part number here...

Check supermex's thread:
Found ARP headstuds for D17's (They fitted pics inc.)
Part number is said to be ARP-208-4301, not ARP-208-6001.
The 6001 price is 38, where as the 4301's are 96 bucks.


Sooooooo???????

[tuningmycivic]

he's installing ROD bolts Triz. Hector was installing HEADSTUDS....different ends of the motor and a slight oversight on your part

[TRIZ]

Hahahahaaaa. I blame this water tasting starbucks latte.

[HwNpRyDe_CiViC]

and thoses are made for stock rods right? what is u have crower rods?

[bomerman19]

the $96 dollar rod bolts are a different size they are larger and will not fit in the stock rod, I believe they are used in the b-series motors.

the $38 rod bolts that i stuck in are used for the stock rods if you have Crower rods you don't have to replace the rod bolts because they are already plenty strong enough. If you put down enough power to bust the crower rod bolts on the crower rods the rod bolts are going to be the least of your concerns LOL.

also like edwin said if you can try to get a machine shop to check the rod bore then do it. You can get by with just sticking them though, but if i was building the whole block up and it wasn't sitting in my car then I would definitely check the rod bore.

I can honestly say since sticking them in I haven't had any problems with them and I have been revving to 8000rpms. My car has been revved over that on the dyno but the stage 2 cam just quits making power and dead ends at 8000 rpms