VTEC Kicked in - YO!

JonArmstrong Wrote:
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>> I was planning on using an external catch can with
> some Prelude screw in vent tubes on the block.
> Wasn't planning on any additional tubes going from
> the valve cover though. Can you elaborate on the
> breather problems you were having?

Jon,
Breathing issue with the B20: with the vent tubes piped into the blockplugs everything was fine in street use/straight line. But, when I ran the engine around a track with high cornering forces and high RPM(6K-8K) it would push oil up the vent tubes and flood the catch can. I tried all kinds of mods to the system and the only thing that worked was to not vent the B20 block at all and instead add 2 more vents on the valve cover. But I am not sure what the long term effects of not venting the block would be. Interestingly, Sport Compact Car had a B20VTEC powered car in Honda Chellenge and they ended up not venting the block and instead added valve cover vents because they had the same issues.

Another consideration is that the GSR block has the girdle joining the bearing caps together. I had added an aftermarket girdle to the B20 but the factory unit is much easier to work with. In order for the aftermaket girdle to work perfectly, the tops of the caps need to be machined evenly flat and the mains need to be line bored with the girdle installed. The good part was that other than the breather issue, the B20VTEC was bulletproof in about 15,000 hard miles.

George

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Civic Rally Car

Well, I got my B20/VTEC engine in the car finally. Did some last minute late-night tuning, and considered the 1 hour drive to the track as the engine break-in. Many thanks to RallyTaco from this board for the help shoehorning the engine in at 4:00 am.

Took the car to the Michigan Super-RallyX and did some laps. The 2.0L engine feels a little better than the oil burning 1.8L that came out of the car. Still no torque before VTEC kicks in though.

A pic from the event:
http://kathryn-rapier.smugmug.com/Other/Super/10092097_8uikj/1/694991881_hETJN#694997667_mKkh5


But, just as you suggested George, my catch can was rapidly filling with oil. I was running the two lines from the back of the block to an aftermarket catch can, and ran the top of the catch can to the PCV valve. So, it looks like the two lines at the back of the block are not a good place to vent the block. Makes sense, since these are the oil return passages from the head to the block. Pulling blowby gasses through the oil return passages just picks up a bunch of oil as well.

So, it looks like I will have to add some fittings to the valve cover. Any good pictures of your valve cover? Did you weld in fittings, or drill and tap? My MIG welder can't weld aluminum for shit, so I am going to try and drill/tap into the valve cover.

JonArmstrong Wrote:
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Still no torque before VTEC kicks in
> though.

> But, just as you suggested George, my catch can
> was rapidly filling with oil. I was running the
> two lines from the back of the block to an
> aftermarket catch can, and ran the top of the
> catch can to the PCV valve. So, it looks like the
> two lines at the back of the block are not a good
> place to vent the block. Makes sense, since these
> are the oil return passages from the head to the
> block. Pulling blowby gasses through the oil
> return passages just picks up a bunch of oil as
> well.
>
> So, it looks like I will have to add some fittings
> to the valve cover. Any good pictures of your
> valve cover? Did you weld in fittings, or drill
> and tap? My MIG welder can't weld aluminum for
> shit, so I am going to try and drill/tap into the
> valve cover.
>

Jon,

I am attaching a picture of my valve cover where you can see the 2 bungs I added to the front of the cover. This is a good spot as there is a "dam" behind this location so oil does not go directly out the additional breather tubes. I connected the 2 additional front vents to a baffled catch can and drained that. The original valve cover vent can go either to the intake tube or a second catch can.

I am now using a GSR block to avoid these issues. My motor is also a 2L and actually has very good torque(but I did a lot of homework over the years). It makes a lot of torque between 4300 and 7000. Max power is actually at only 6800 but it revs to 8000. From 2500 to 4300 it makes more torque than my old SE-R did at peak!

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Civic Rally Car

A few more build pics of my EK attached. Brakes are 11" front and rear using Integra calipers,spacers, Corrado+Maxima rotors. Shocks are 50mm Bilsteins revalved and modified so I can recharge them/revalve them at home. Rear wheel travel is 8.75",fronts will soon be at 8". Steering quickener gives 2.2 turns lock-to-lock but I am on my 6th version of a modified power steering pump-still have not improved the minimal assist. Pedals have been moved back 4". All rear suspension lateral links are Cromoly with spherical bearings(except shock bottom mounts). Rear trailing arms have been reinforced to keep the spindle flex from fatiguing its mounts and ripping them out. Front skidplate has been mounted with a Cromoly structure upfront and the frame rails have also been plated. Skidplate rear mounts were welded on suframe and the skiplare incorporates lateral tie-bars for the subframe(also a couple of longitudinal stiffeners and side protection). Trans has shorter gears and final drive along with a helical LSD. The plate LSD is waiting for the even shorter geared trans coming next.

I shook it down at a rallycross event in San Diego and it was better than I ever expected. Problem is I like it too much to beat up on it...

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Civic Rally Car



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2009 12:37AM by gkd.

More pics of EK rally car

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Civic Rally Car

Love the pics. Want to know more about your shocks.

JonArmstrong Wrote:
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> Want to know more about your
> shocks.

As luck would have it, the off-the-shelf OEM replacement Bilsteins are 50mm monotubes for the 96-00 Civics! A friend of mine revalved them and adjusted some interior spacers to increase the travel. On the fronts increasing travel is a bigger challenge. Also, a bung was welded at the bottom of the shocks to allow nitorgen refilling at home. I will test them over next year' s rally events and see how they do. I can also add remote reservoirs via the bungs at the bottom of the shock. Hard to beat the value, performance and revalvability of a Bilstein.

George

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Civic Rally Car

Another question - about your front upper control arms. Did you make those yourself, or purchase them? I am using Skunk2 upper control arms and they seem to work OK and have plenty of adjustability. However, the upper ball joint actually is the limiting factor on droop travel. It would probably not be an issue if the car was lowered like all the normal rice burners, but I run roughly 1" higher than stock ride height, and 1.5degrees negative camber.

So, do your upper balljoints limit droop travel as well?

JonArmstrong Wrote:
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> Another question - about your front upper control
> arms. Did you make those yourself, or purchase
> them? I am using Skunk2 upper control arms and
> they seem to work OK and have plenty of
> adjustability. However, the upper ball joint
> actually is the limiting factor on droop travel.
> It would probably not be an issue if the car was
> lowered like all the normal rice burners, but I
> run roughly 1" higher than stock ride height, and
> 1.5degrees negative camber.
>
> So, do your upper balljoints limit droop travel as
> well?

I bought those and although they are not binding at the balljoint( and they also have spherical brgs at the pivots) I am not sure that they are that strong. Time will tell. They are "Hardrace" brand from Special Projects Motorsport. No negative camber yet.

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Civic Rally Car

This just turned into my "I need this on my future civic rally car" thread. I'll probably come back to this and get some questions when I start fixing one up.

George, how much does your civic weigh? Curious what a prepped EK tips the scales at.

Andrew_Frick Wrote:
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> George, how much does your civic weigh? Curious
> what a prepped EK tips the scales at.


Andrew,

I should know soon and will post it. I expect no more than high 2500s ready to run(full of fuel, spare tire, tools, etc). The current cage rules and structural/suspension reinforcements do take their toll on weight.

George

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Civic Rally Car

Nice Civic!

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Welcome to the cult of JVL drink the koolaid or be banned.

Well, I Drilled and tapped the front of my valve cover and installed some 3/8 NPT to 1/2" hose barb fittings. I ran these to my catch can which in turn was hooked up to a PCV valve and then on to the stock PCV pickup in the intake manifold. I blocked off the fittings at the rear of the block.

We had another rallycross last weekend to try out the new PCV routing. Lots of runs with two drivers - For a total of almost 30 minutes of Wide open throttle. The new setup seems to be working fine, as the catch can did not fill up with oil, and I didn't seem to burn any appreciable amount of oil. Hope this works out in the long run.

Thanks for the help.

I'm working on a dual master cylinder pedal box right now. Will have some pics soon.

Here are some belated drawings of the dual master pedal box assembly. I had two made, but haven't actually put it on my car yet. However, the second set went on my friends rallycross civic roughly a year ago.

The idea was to remove the vacuum booster and replace with this contraption. So, it is fully bolt on.
It did require a little grinding to get it to fit in the brake booster recess on the firewall, but overall seemed to work fairly well. We had to drill a new hole higher up on the stock pedal to change the pedal ratio from stock ~4:1 to 6.5~1. A rod with spherical joints was used to connect the stock pedal to the master assembly.

There are some concerns with fatiguing the firewall over time, but no problems experienced in the past year of rallycrossing (which is admittedly alot less mileage than a rally).

Here are the drawings for it: