EM202

Been a great week, got lots of presents left at my door. Finally in my house (took way too long)and...well...most of the way settled in so I figure its time to start giving the Vic more attention. Have a blown head gasket, so I figure I'll upgrade at the same time. So picked up an extra A2 head for $78 at one of my local salvage yards (came with the vtec solenoid , water tunnel, and egr valve both of which I'm gonna clean and put up for sale). I just dropped that off along with the crower stage 1 can and valve seals at the machine shop for a valve job and slight mill and cam install a few hours ago. Virtually every gasket and seal in the top end will be replaced.

Current mods:
Energy front lca bushings
Custom painted interior trim
Eagle alloy rims - need to go...













And yes those are advance brakes, ran the budget a little high before I got to the and mine are warped. S2000 oil filters, spec-d euro headlights, a em sri,block heater, both o2 sensors, arp head studs. I will be installing all this the last weekend of this month. In February I'm planning on HP Blues, Eibachs, 17" Kong Backbones and a decent set if treads.

krudmuphin

iTrader: (1)

Wow, off to a great start I can see!
I really wish I had the guts to dig around my engine bay a bit more, but I'm afraid I'll ruin my good piece of personal transportation

sl33pyriceboi

iTrader: (3)

dear God those rims are hideous...reminds me of my car when i first bought it

jk jk

EM202

Krudmuphin:you could always blow your head hasket, then you would have a great reason to do this, this will be the 7th or 8th head ive done myself, screwed the first one up pretty bad, but my help ditched me half way through it, right after one push rod was dropped into the oil pan, had to figure out the rest on my own...blew up a few months later...they get beter everytime

Sl33py: the rims have grown on me a bit, but im not a huge fan of them. The previous owner effed them up though...put the oem acorns on the conical rims a chewed the royal crap out of the mating serfice, had so many little stupid projects cause he didnt do anything right, its also the cause of the head gasket issue. He cracked the ac condensor and radiator, and unfortunitly I didnt find out bout the radiator until it was too late. The konig backbones or feathers look pretty decent to me and I can get either one from a shop for round100 to 120 each. But ill look more at whats availible when the time comes for that, want to spend less than a grand on rims, tires, and lugs if possible.

Ill post some interior shots later in the next week once I get a chancw to clean it out again, havwnt had time with the move and stuff.

EM202

Finally started tare down today

Before:

Currently sitting:

Really disliking the kid who previously owned it before more and more, there are some things that make me believe this isn't the first time the head has been off

A lovely lower timing cover:


Its also been almost wore through the ring at the pulley

As far as the heads go, there are a few things I'm curious on. Numbers on the bottom are differentthe one I pulled out of the car says PMR-4, but the one I got from the salvage yard just says 3, its from an 01, does anyone know the difference? The head I pulled off looks super clean except for the combustion chamber domes and intake and exhaust side a caked with carbon build up, same with the piston tops and a good ring at the top of them. The intake parts look really clean though. The spark plugs were really tough to come out too, wound up needing a cheater bar, was almost harder than the crank pulley, which was fairly easy to come off as well, broke it loose while it was still a bit warm the tightened it back up a bit till it all cooled down. Was burning coolant in 3 of the cylinders.

Now to clean the throttle body, spool valve assembly, egr valve, install waterpump and motor mount inserts while the bolts are at the best access and then put it all back together.

sl33pyriceboi

iTrader: (3)

Good work so far!

Muirsy

My timing cover looked like that as well and I know mine was never previously taken off. Its cause its plastic and the plastic breaks around where it bolts to the block. also did you have a problem when you removed the auto tensioner? when I removed the bolt it pulled all the treads out of the block, later I was told that is very common on the 7th gen

EM202

I had the same timing cover issue on my last civic, but it still had evert bolt in there holding the broken pieces, there was only one in both uper and lower, and 2 in the one under the cam. The auto tensioner and water pump are the only things I have left to remove, if the threads comme out, how do you fix it?

Muirsy

I had to get someone to come to my house and re-tap/helicoil the block. He said its very common on our cars and he gets those types of calls all the time.

EM202

Hopefully I wont have that problem, gonna start workin on it again in bout half hour or so, whats the best way to cleN the gasket material off from the cylinder tops, they are full of it, but the rest is almost complwtly clean, this is the second open deck block ive pulled apart, normally I just use 400 to 600g sand paper, but fount that harder to do on these

EM202

Tensioner came out good, can thread the new bolt in fine

Muirsy

Thats good.. was just a pain having to get someone to come and waiting for when the could do it

Civicnoobie

Just curious how one blows a head gasket?

Muirsy

it just wears out over time.. if you start burning coolant or notice coolant getting into your oil or vice versa usually means you blew a head gasket

Civicnoobie

Oh Wouldnt that be a leaking gasket? Expensive job i hear. I want to try to avoid it

EM202

In my case' previous owner damaged the radiator and a/c condensor, I noticed the condensor, but not the radiator until it was too late. If the shop would have replaced the a/c condensor in the beginning like they said they were gonna do when I told the dealer to fix the AC system and a few other things when I bought it, it might have been noticed then. Not 9 months later when I went back to the dealership telling them the a/c quit and it was supposed to be fixed when I bought it. I just attributed the coolant leaking out the resivor to the HG, the frame, radiator, battery and transmission were always soaked with coolant, somyself and the other shop I took it to after it started loosing a lot of coolant just thought hG, couldn't fully tell on the radiator.

I have over 1500 in parts right now, but that's also including a bunch of after market stuff and headlight housings, and some other maintenance stuff, brake pads, rotors. Still need to balance and rotate the tires (hopefully my shudder/shimmy will be gone) Figure I'll just do everything at once and get it over with

So when I went to take the rear motor mount out to put the inserts in, I noticed this, its the bottom bolt for the mount on the tranny side

How does this happen, and I'm assuming that should be OK for a little while at least?? Also missing one of the front bellhousing bolts and a waterpump bolt

judas009

ive done this before on an ATV engine. basically it jsut happens from over torquing the bolt. Instead of stripping threads it just blows the thing out.

EM202

Got the timing cover and bolt for the waterpump today. I think the reason the old one wasn't there is because someone previously stripped it out, soooo... I'm gonna run to town and get some thread sealer quick and go from there. Got the head torqued down, intake and exhaust and brakes done last night. Just got the timing, alt, p steering, belts and crank pulley and mount to finish

EM202

Almost ready to start her up. I'm assuming the crankshaft pulley doesn't actually go into the splines on the crankshaft? As far as I can tell the sprocket is as far back as it can go, and the pulley doesn't go on any of the threads, just the woodruff key. Is this correct or do I have something together wrong?

EM202

Fired her up last night, got it ready today for a drive and did a few quick pulls, runs and sounds great, still need to reinstall the hood and bumper, put on the new lights and waiting on a type r grill. Also need to adjust valve lash still, gonna be interesting doing this one hot but I've got some crazy ticking going on, and fix a leaky iacv hose. Cant wait til break in is over... Up next is Tokicko blues, eibach pro kit springs, energy rlca bushings and sway bar bushings as well as some new kicks

In my experiences it was pretty simple and straight forward, the worst part was the intake mani. First one I haven't had to touch the pb blaster on. More pics soon...

EM202

Been lurkin and reading a lot lately and now its time to start buying my Turbo parts over the next 6 months or so. But first I have a few small questions. I'm only looking for 150 to 200 hp on stock internals 5-8psi from the Turbo. Simple install nothing major (for what it is).

1) Friend of mine has a Greddy Turbo kit he bought a while back but never installed and is now trying to sell the car so he doesnt need the kit anymore, told me $800 for all. Includes Turbo, Mani, injectors, bov, fmic w/piping, oil lines, etc. What do I need to check with the kit to make sure everything is good before I buy? I know the Turbo needs zero shaft play, but what else? I believe its a T3.

2) Arp head studs, with the Turbo do I keep the 4x ft-lbs of torque or do I need to go a little more?

3) Will the stock fuel rail be fine for this setup?

Parts list I'm looking at:
Turbo kit
K-pro tuned
Walboro 255 fuel pump
Custom exhaust to apexi ws2 muffler 2.5 inch
Stage 2 or 3 clutch
Stage 2 Turbo cam w/ springs and retainers
Turbo timer

GolNat

iTrader: (7)

Good luck with the turbo. Will be nice when it's all done.

1.) Look for shaft play and bearing noise. Also make sure it spins easily.
2.) what does ARP recommend? It's 4 lb ft not ft lbs, I do it too trying to stop.