The white-mess, my EM1 Si with a d16y8.

those MAC solenoids are great. it's a solid upgrade for my car to replace the factory solenoid (which i've destroyed once already due to heat)

Good deal. After I get the duty cycle figured out, then I'll start playing with springs in the wastegate.

That old wastegate wasn't gonna work. The top port was too high, and hit the hood when I'd connect something to it. So, now I've got a Turbosmart wastegate and instead of being almost 6" tall, it's almost 4" tall, so it clears the hood with ease.



I also picked up some OEM spark plug wires, so I can get rid of those horrible red ones. Getting close to being happy with it, just some cleanup needed, replacing the "temporary" hoses on the wastegate with permanent ones and then plumbing up the blow off valve so it's recirculating.

Then, I get to work on either welding up a new downpipe or welding the wastegate dump into the downpipe.

We always used to use NGK plug wires on builds. Not sure it makes any difference, but why did you go with OEM?

i thought that accel wires were all the rage?

I just don't like the red of those plug wires, lol. Car seems to run the same either way. If I stay D-series in this car, I'll probably go Coil On Plug eventually anyway.

I ran into an issue with my injectors -- size. 800cc/min doesn't flow enough to keep the AFRs at 11.5:1 above 5800 RPM at 25lbs. So I'm gonna turn it down to about 20lbs until I get new injectors. The injectors are running 100% from the time I get into VTEC in high boost. It's probably better that I don't run it with that much power normally anyway. Last night the datalog showed 104% duty cycle demand, and AFR drop at 5900 RPM at 24.3psi, so, oops. I suppose I can bump the fuel pressure temporarily, but that only goes so far.

So, now I'm thinking I'm going to have to go much larger than 1000cc to run e85, probably closer to 1500cc/min. Unfortunately this means I'm going to have to re-do my fuel injector wiring, lol, because Multec2 injectors aren't typically found larger than 96lb/hr (1000cc/min). So, if anyone wants a 800cc setup to wire pretty much directly into a d/b/f/h/k series, hit me up.

Actually...


I think I'll use something like this, and convert to the USCAR EV6 style plugs.



Since it uses the same family of the Delphi Metri-Pak GT-150 connector, I'll just have to de-pin and re-pin and be done and I can use the same 5-way connector I'm using right now.

Got some of the vacuum and boost sensing lines cleaned up, made a mount for the boost control solenoid, and turned up the fuel pressure to give me some headroom.




I also punched a hole in my A/C Condenser, so, yeah... A little pissed about that. Maybe I can get one at a junkyard for under $35, which is what they go for on Amazon/eBay. But, it'll give me the opportunity to re-route some of the lines, and potentially make more room in the engine bay.

How did you manage to do that?
Always sucks when you accidentally evac a working AC system.

So, uh, bad and good news. Good news first:

3rd gear, 8PSI. A little bit over 200hp on low boost, with super lean fuel tables. You can actually see where my timing kicks down a bit, lol.

Bad news:
I didn't get to do any pulls of like 15, 20, or 25 psi because I spun a bearing doing the pulls getting boost control working.


But, alas! It's not all bad news, I rigged up a "shop crane" for pulling this engine.



Got a bunch of stuff out of the way, including my punctured AC Condenser:




Rehersed how I'm going to do this:


And started to work on removing things I don't need to move with the "shop crane":


Oil is gonna get drained later tonight, coolant too.

I think I'm going to pull the head first, then use OEM head bolts to pull the block out. Maybe I'll have this thing back together by the end of January.

I got the head off today, and got the fluids drained, mounts pulled, wiring disconnected, and everything ready to pull it...

Except I forgot to pull the axles. Lol. I could not figure out why the hell I couldn't get the engine+transmission out, until I saw the axles still in... Oops.



The wood on there is so I could set tools down while I worked.

Pistons look good, and the head gasket was still in great shape.



After Christmas I'll pull the axles and get it pulled out, transmission disconnected, and then move over the pistons to the new block. Currently I have a bare block, bare crank, new water pump, new oil pump, etc, etc. that still needs to be assembled.

What crappy luck though. Atleast you get to enjoy it from time to time.

The injectors should support that power... I had 850s in my car...
Over 1000 are hard to idle as even at the lowest setting they dump too much fuel in.

Are you sure you're not limited by your fuel pump or filter or rail or line?

I spent like 30 minutes trying to get the axles out, and decided instead to just pull it, then deal with the axles.




And, yes, that is a combination of oil, soot from exhaust manifold leaks, and road grime. It looks like it's been brushed black with tar.


So, it's out. Not on the stand yet, but it's out. Yay.


In other news, I got a stupid great deal on some new gauges:
Innovate Motorsports MTX-D Oil Pressure/Temp
Innovate Motorsports PSB-1 Boost/AFR



The PSB-1 is a really cool gauge... It's an AFR, Boost, Shift light, and it can provide a boost cut by way of relay wired inline with the boost control solenoid. So, instead of losing all engine power under boost cut, you just drop back to wastegate.

The Blox gauge surround that came with it kinda sucks (even 20 years after release) and you can see all the places on it that indicate mold repair. That mold is BEAT UP... Lol. But, the point is that it blocks part of the OEM gauges, until I heated it up and kinda massaged it so it doesn't block from 1500 RPM to 0 RPM.

Thanks @reckedracing for suggesting the electrical tape. I had to use cheapo harbor freight tape, instead of good 3m stuff. I can barely see it, and it saves me like $50.

Got it cracked open. #2 looks to be egged out. Bearings look fine on all the others. It's a shame, because this crankshaft just got polished too.






So, yeah, got a spare rod, I'll just swap that out, then build up the new block.

Prep for new engine:
Port oil pump?
Shim oil pump?
Clean pistons
Clean rods

New engine:
Water pump install
Main bearings
Crank install
Rear main install
Oil Pump install
Timing stuff/cover
Accessories install


Then, sometime before the install, I'll probably clean the engine bay:

Yeah, clean it!

Ok, I cleaned it.

Paint it white

Haven't been online with the holidays and everything, pop on facebook and see the motor pulled.
Oooh jesus, what happened now, jump into the thread to see the mess.
You've got some bad luck with boosted honda motors. Is this the same one that you spun before? or was that just a loose end cap?
Good to see the electrical tape worked for you. It sticks out under the flash of the camera, but blends in pretty well otherwise.
Looking good.

Yeah, it was #2 again. The rod is most definitely deformed. It'll be next week before I can get access to some inside micrometers to actually prove that, but I'll let these pictures tell the story. My reluctance to pull the motor and rebuild it right the first time has caused quite a bit of frustration and blood spilled on my shop floor.

Here's #2:



And here's 1, 3, 4:




So, yeah, there goes my idea that I could polish the scaring out with abrasive paper. Good news is that the other rods look fine, all the pistons look fine, and I picked up some plastigage so I am going to assemble it sometime this week and check oil clearances.

Almost all of #2's big end is straw or blue or black. It wasn't in good shape, no wonder it ate so many bearings after the initial failure to resurface the crank's rod journal adequately. Now I have it sitting on my desk at work as a reminder to not take short cuts.