Building for the road course...again

Cylinder head is all ready to go. Ports were vacuum tested for sealing. 0 leakage. That’s great.
Head was milled 0.004” I believe as there was a little low spot from where my head gasket blew out. I’m an idiot. Shouldn’t have kept driving. Whatever. I need to clay this motor anyways so no big. We should be OK. Cometic does offer thicker head gaskets but this affects squish which will kill power. I’ll see what my tuner wants. Guys overly specific. He doesn’t mess around


The ferrea valve train is super gangster. This shit is on another level of nice. The Supertech stuff was nice but this is even better. Retainers are thick and seem very durable which is what you want with titanium retainers. That have a limited service life unfortunately.


These are 90lbs beehives. Nothing crazy
removed in the spirit of competition


Other then the above, I’ve had a few things I’ve done.
Rigid collars installed in my front subframe. With my spherical control arm bushings this is basically a must. A lot of force will be sent through the subframe



Picked up a fucking set of full ass slicks. Non DOT. Real deal shit. These are Yokohama A005’s. Medium compound. Based on what I’ve read these are gonna be mental. They were $350cad(260usd) locally so I had to jump on the deal. They are older but we’re stored heated and damn they are still very soft. these will be for seat time ONLY. They will probably last me the season keeping my 200tw tires for competition use only


Here we have my 4 slicks, 1 set of used nankangs from 2023, and my set of hankook rs4’s. I have 4 more Nankang CRs 255/40/17 currently coming in. I need to order 4 more 225/45/17 for rears. That’ll be soonish



Also been collecting pieces for a complete front end overhaul.

Spoon extended ball joints. About as gangster as it gets. Directly from Japan. There are other brands that make “roll center correction ball joints” but they are snake oil. They add a spacer to the control arm side which does nothing. You need to actually extend the stud!!! Spoon knows this

I also have extended tie rods coming in to compliment the ball joints. Spherical control arm bushings going in as well as a set of 17x9.5 +18 RPF1’s for the front end. They’ll extend the track width a good bit up front and offer more sidewall support for my 255’s. Car should be stupid pointy for 2024. Exactly how I want it

 

I have been following for a while now and I havent stopped reading. This is getting serious and I love it!! Speed is speed and I can get behind anything you have in store. Im a street guy myself, only because I dont have the time and wallet to do it. I enjoy my waxing and crusing but would love to do what you do...dont stop posting.
I love grassroots stuff, but you have hit next level. Playing with bearing tolerances is NASCAR level. I want to see vids of those A005 being shredded and abused.

 

I'm just anxiously waiting for the 235 whp dyno sheet.....

 

The bearing thing is definitely new to me! Typically I’d just plastigauge it and as long as it falls within oem tolerance good enough!

I guess this is not so straight forward when you’re trying to squeeze the max out of an NA motor. Rpm has a ton to do with it as well. I’ve learned SO much throughout this build. The hours/days/weeks spent on research and trying to understand.

this is by far the highest effort I’ve ever put into a build. It’ll make sub 300whp but that was never ever the point here? Some get it. Some don’t. I really don’t care. I’m not trying to impress the internet. Just trying to have a good time and be competitive in my respective class. That’s all! I ain’t asking for much

The extreme attention to detail comes from my tuner. It boggles my mind he spends the time he does on my stuff. I’m lucky in that sense anyways for what I’m doing here. I’ve dove right into the deep end with this NA stuff and I’m enjoying it so far. There is a major learning curve and there is no “easy button” for this shit. It’s been pretty exciting for me.

For now there is not a ton going on. Hopefully this week I’m able to get those main bearing clearances dialed in. Then it’s onto the rod bearings. After that….
I need to clay this engine. Measure piston to valve. Another first. Another learning curve. It’s all good!

 

I can totally relate to this, I've been lucky to ride along on track a few times and it's absolutely amazing! I have just had different priorities in life and never made that a priority. I'm just happy to be able build my car for street use and enjoy it there.

OP I've also really enjoyed this entire thread and learned a thing or two from it so thanks!

 

Mains have been measured (plastigauge) with king STDX and STD split shells. It looks like we are GOOD here. We are around 0.0001 tighter then target but its borderline. I think we're in business. just awaiting sign off from the designer/my tuner then i will move to rods.

I picked up STDX rod bearings so we will measure those and see how they come out. Hopefully i dont need to do a split but if need be at least these bearings are readily available and very cost effective. I have a bit more of a range here for the target tolerances so this should be easier

Next up, i should at least assemble my pistons onto my rods. Been a while since ive put together aftermarket rods/pistons. Does the rod direction matter? or as long as theyre all the same? I know pistons it will matter for sure but the rods themselves?

I need to do a full crank/block cleaning first. Once i fire those pistons into the block i would rather not remove them again. Plan is to bring everything to the garage and hose it down good with brake clean. I will probably go a little crazy here lol, no mercy. I will see if my buddy can bring his pressure sprayer thing and we'll hit everything with soap and water. Gotta remember to install the oil squirters as well lol. That would be a bad miss.

Am i missing anything here?

 

Assembly lube

 

update,
main clearances measured and approved. We are good here. I learned a few things during this process so that’s fantastic.

Next steps,
Assemble pistons onto rods
Cleaning of block and crank
Install oil squirters
Final assembly w/assembly lube of crank/girdle

After this, load the pistons into the block. I bought the wiseco specific piston ring compressor tool. It’s supposed to be magical. I’ve always used universal ring compressors in the past with mixed results lol. Figured I don’t wanna play those games here

After the above, I’ll measure rod bearing clearances and go from there.

I don’t have a rod bolt stretch gauge and the ARP unit ain’t cheap.
My rod manufacturer states 55-60ftlbs for the 3/8” arp 625+ bolts. Is the torque method reliable enough for these? ive heard it can be but obviously a stretch gauge is ideal. Hmm

 

Just had DHL stop by. Few parts in from Japan,

We have a fresh 50* VTC gear, a type R oil chain tensioner(RRC to match my RRC oil pump), and a crank pulley bolt.

This came in from Japan. About $300cad shipped with duties paid for everything in the picture below.

local Honda dealer quoted me $550+tax CAD for what’s pictured below. Absolutely mental. Building cars in Canada is real expensive. We get hosed on everything. I’m glad my Japan source has had the goods so far.

 

Make a checklist

 

I’ve got some pretty serious spreadsheets keeping track of all the things. Many random parts on the list.
Even put together a blueprint spread sheet with all the weights of the parts, all my clearances, and calculations for oil clearances

 

I meant for assembly

 

Yea so I’ll add to my stack of spreadsheets. Something to make sure things are torqued and whatnot. I should compile all the torque specs and shit in that spreadsheet as well. One stop shop to long block assembly. Everything in one place.

great idea to make sure nothing is missed!

 

This might come in handy or you can make your own

Melling Pre-Lube Engine Oiler Tool https://a.co/d/1H0xuT2

 

Lol you can buy adapters

 

This is pretty cool. Would help that first start.

Bottom end will go together this weekend. I’m gonna lube it as best I can with the assembly lube I have. It’s thick stuff. Should hang on well until first start. These king bearings have that fancy coating as well. I’m gonna do as best a prime as I can with spark plugs out. Probably just dump oil directly onto the valve train.

These cams being brand new I keep hearing about how important break in is for fresh cams? Idk

 

If we had dry sump systems with external belt driven pumps you could just take the belt off the oil pump and use a drill to prime the engine in a few seconds. Man I want so hard.

 

Yea that would be great. Too bad a dry sump setup would cost me more then this entire build lol. Maybe in the distant future

 

He's building a honda