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i know what it is bro, but gearbox is talking about doing something thats worth it and on a D17 well it's simply not. Unless you happen to know how to completly strip down and rebuild an engine and just so happen to have a machine shop in your garage. Go, turbo and leave the stock pistons in with a milled head you should get a little more power, but be careful about cranking up the boost cause of the higher compression you now have. but the compression should not be all that mush higher. a stock ex is 9.9, so if it's a D17a2 you probably have like 10.3 compression or so.

 
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Ya my pnp head is a lil bit too geared for a turbo car. It's milled 1mm which is alot and way over spec. I'm surprised the bolts didn't bottom out. But it seems fine and this spring I'll check the compression to be sure. Ports are too big, but I'm making 100whp now with my auto. Not bad I guess. I want to get the cam gear on and tune it once more with the pullies and maybe new header. Blueprinting would be way too expensive and won't even matter with our engines.

 
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how would it be way to expenisve...the only thing i for see it beeing expensive is buy the percision tools

 
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Please tell everybody you were joking.

 
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ur an idiot have u built an engine before?

 
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You milled your head 1mm and you didn't fix the cam timing? That much milled off the head will retard your cam by over 2 degrees. Also, since your timing pickup is on the cam gear, it retards your ignition timing by the same amount. Since advancing the cam gear 2 degrees from stock gives like 3HP and you are retarded 2 degrees from stock, you would need to advance yours like 4 degrees. I would expect ~ +5 HP over your existing setup at about 5500 rpm. Your case is EXACTLY why adjustable cam gears are available.

btw, cam timing is considered part of blueprinting and in this case, blueprinting just your cam installation would have given at least a 3% gain (probably over 5%). I would not be in the habit of simply naysaying proven engine building techniques as not working on D17's. The one thing that does not work on D17's, or any engine, is simply bolting **** on helter-skelter. Whatever gain you may have had with the increased compression was likely more than offset by the decrease in power from the retarded ignition & cam timing due to the changed geometry between the cam & crank sprockets.

 
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You crack me up!

 
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ur still an idiot... if u never balanced ur pistons before

 
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I may be an idiot, but you my friend must be quite dangerous around an engine!

I hope you don't use a hand drill and a 1/2" wood bit to take that excess piston weight off

 
Rep Power: 379

lol thats exactly what i was thinking, and he also asked why it should cost alot? tools are not cheap. i mean we live in a day where a decent wrench will cost you $15. what do you think the machineing tools cost? its not worth doing it to our engines a b or k seres yes. but not the d17. and good explination on how the cam gear works wit hthe milled head.

 
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OK, I cant pass this up I generally try to refrain from being a smartass but I just cant help it.

DIY Piston Balancing: (mods, sticky this for future reference)

1) Remove pistons from motor.
2) Have friend weigh them on the triple beam his brother uses to weigh out his pot.
3) Clamp each assy in your bench vise being careful not to spill your beer.
4) Grind off weight by "drilling on the skirt somewehre".
5) Put back in engine.
6) Start engine.
7) Disassemble engine because it was making "funny" sounds.
8) Inspect cylinder wall galling due to holes "drilled in skirt somewhere".
9) Throw ruined pistons & block at "friend" for suggesting something so wrong.
10) Buy another shortblock on 7thgencivic.com.
11) Reinstall engine without garage/DIY/drill balanced pistons.
12) Enjoy!.

 
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^^^^LMAO, so thats how you do it. A Dremel tool a pot scale and BEER!! Beer fixes everything. But now im confised i thought you need to wrap the pistons in duct tape first, that should prevent the cylinder wall scoring.

 
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no no no! wrapping the pistons with duct tape?!?! that would be stupid!. You're supposed to use packing tape.

 
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u actually can use a hand drill...

u take out the piston u basicly disassemble the piston from rod..rod cap and what not...

put it on a scale in grams

find the piston that weight the least
thats ur base weight
weight each other piston drill on the skirt where its flat or under the head just not somewhere that has metal to metal contact
hone the piston walls
install pistons...make sure ur away on the position of the rod bearings...they are indexed...tq to specs and have fun...there is a lot more u can do while ur crank is out and what not but thats one of the small things u can do to balance ur engin

 
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thats where im going wrong. thanks for clearing it up.

 
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koolaidman, your advice is a bit off, considering you have no idea the backround of gearbox's motor.

Mirage is accurate in his statements in this thread.

 
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Sorry for bringing this back, I'm just trying to learn more about this. Gearbox, based on Mirage's post since your ignition timing is retarded here could this be why you need 3 or more cranks for the engine to start? I thought I read on another post you where having this problem.

 
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Nah it starts up fine. By three cranks I mean the starting noise it makes before the engine turns over. Just every once in a while it won't start on the first try. I'm still waiting for the new cam gear tho for another few months.

 
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I will be milling/p&p/cam gear in around a few weeks however I wanted to drop in a cam at the same to to save on Labour!!! However there is still no cam???

 
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nope no cam yet.

 
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I got a stock 02 EX and if WHEN a cam comes out, what else would I need to replace to accomodate and what kind of gains would I be looking at? Also, I think this question went unanswered: what kind of gains come from pnp? How much does that cost and would I need to do anything else to my engine to accomodate?

When I say accomodate I mean anything that should be replaced so as to keep the engine running fine in the short/long run (i.e. installing a copper head gasket and high cc injectors to ACCOMODATE a 9 psi turbo or whatever)

 
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I have pnp and I think it made around 10whp on my auto. Manual should see more gains. It's a straight swap of the head, with new gasket and bolts. No problems after a year, cost a bit over $1k for everything (head, pnp work, parts, install).

 
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sorry,
But what do you'all mean with p&p????

 
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port and polish cylinder head. The exhaust ports are widened and enlarged, and everything is polished for smoother airflow. Some companies also put enlarged valves for better flow. It's just making the head less restrictive.

 
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Thanks G !

 
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How much they'll charge you to do that? just P&P ?

 
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$740 from DH-racing but they don't do a great job and just terrible overall. KMS did a good job with someone else's.

 
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Hey Mirrage I tried pming you but you don't recieve private message.
I am the one that brought an ecu from you before,( JDMBB )
I have a question on cam gear, and I think you might be able to help me out.
I have intake header and exhaust with no catalyic converter, and I have Aem power pulley kit and also unorthodox crank and lighten flywheel and clutch
do you think if i put a cam gear in my car I will feel difference how much gain do you think i'll get?
And would you recommend that to be my next modification? Hope you can help me out
Thanks

 
Rep Power: 812

cam gear for you? It will have to be set at 0 stock. If you adjust it, you'll prolly lose power. The only time you need cam tuning is for milled head, compression changes (with pistons, etc), camshaft changes, or any other types of internal engine work for the most part. Basic boltons forget it.

 
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Hey jdm_bb,

Sorry, I abandoned the Mirage account so I didn't get your PM.

Yes, you can put on an adjustable cam gear and will get a modest gain. On the first page of this thread I posted data from a series of dyno tests that were run on an essentially stock d17. There was power to be had and you can choose how you want to set it based on those graphs.

But like I said in the earlier post, the power gains are not that large with a stock cam. Look back at the attached dyno runs. I think the best power was at 2 degrees advanced and made like +3 whp. anyway, look at the data and decide for yourself