Building for the road course...again

On another note, it looks like my arp 625+ rod bolts have finally shipped. They should be here this week.

At this point, I can begin assembling the short block!

First off however, I think I’ll bring the entire rotating assembly to a machine shop to have it balanced. I am excited for this build!

 

Looks like I found my post track day exhaust issue.

I’ve noticed some extra noise under the car the last few weeks, also some extra exhaust smell.

When I was at the track last, I made a slight mistake and went off roading. It was ok. Decent place to go off into the grass. Nothing major.

After that however, I noticed I had gained a nice ugly buzzzzzz sound from the exhaust. Very bad raspy buzzing noise. I thought either I blew up my Chinese muffler, or I thought maybe I bumped the slip joint when I went off track and created a leak.

Looks like I found my leak lol


I grabbed it and gave it a shake. Some movement for sure. Started the car up and now it sounds worse and smells worse lol. Oops.

easy fix. I’ll be at the shop Saturday working on another civic so will throw mine on the lift and replace with better hardware.

 

Just showed up finally! This is some nice hardware. Real real expensive however. I did get lucky on pricing for 7 of the 8 bolts. The last one I had to pay full price. $64cad. Ouch lol.


Time to give my guy at the machine shop a call to get this party started. First up, balance everything!

 

I just spoke with my machine shop. He is good to balance everything for me. Rods/Pistons. Crank. I will need to bring him my crank pulley and whatever flywheel i will use(currently still in use, maybe i just buy another?).

I asked him to check the rods big end with the 625 bolts installed, just to confirm nothing is out of round. If resizing is required no big deal. Standard business he was saying.


Honda offers something like 5 or 6 different bearing sizes. This is so you can dial in your oil clearances like exactly. Pretty interesting. Same with the main bearings.

I asked if he could measure the rods big end, and the crank rod pins. This should help me get a starting point on what size rod bearings to first order. Maybe i should bring the block as well so he can measure the mains and suggest me which bearings to try first.

Final assembly will be done by myself at the shop. The boss man mentioned he purchased a rod bolt stretch gauge and would love to use it here. I think i have the required tools for assembly.

I have built a few engines in my day as you know, all turbo builds. This however is the first build with such nice parts, and extra machining(the balancing and whatnot). I am excited. Much learning to be had here.

Recently a fellow competitors/friends car had a new k24 built for it. Was built at my shop by my guy. It made 184wtq, and 245whp with a pretty soft tune.
I am hoping my engine makes a fool of this k24

 

Having some rather loud rattling coming from passenger side rotor. My discs are floating, So they are always rattling and making some noise. This is new, much louder noise though. I pulled the rotor off, caliper off. Inspected. Everything is looking perfect. Bearing seems good. Mounting is all solid. Nothing seems off.

Maybe rotor hardware is starting to wear causing more noise? I’m unsure but it is loud enough to hear from outside of the car. People love to look at me as I drive by. Sounds like rocks rattling in a tin can.

maybe this is normal, maybe not? No idea whats causing this.

It seems to be at low speed, like parking lot speeds, and it seems to only happen when turning left. turning right = 0 noise.

Any Ideas?

https://youtube.com/shorts/43GkMojy2q0?feature=share

 

What rotors are you using? Do you have access to a pair of chassis ears? That could help isolate the cause of the noise

 

Brake setup. Running the same rotors as always with this kit.

they are floating rotors. They rattle like hell on the regular but nothing like this

 

All the rotor bolts and washers secured with loctite?

 

Green “seeping” loctite. Comes with the kit. I checked the rotor hardware. Every bolt is tight. It doesn’t seem to rattle excessively if I try to move the rotor ring by hand. Seems just as tight as the drivers side.

This is a pain

 

Had the car up on the lift on Saturday. Confirmed exhaust leak at 3 bolt flange. Could feel it pissing. Replaced that gasket and did our best to get the flanges flat as possible with some filing/sanding.

replaced drivers side outer tie rod as it was bad. Straightened up my alignment.
-3.25* front camber
0 toe

car feels a lot better with the fresh alignment.
It was pretty off lol. We checked subframe bolts and torqued.

we could not locate the source of the rattle. We have one theory though which makes some sense.

if you start the car, put it in gear on the lift, then hold the passenger side wheel stopping it from turning, there is an inconsistent clunk/rattle of some sort and the wheel will try and twitch forward, feels like something is “skipping”. This shakes the hell out of the rotor making lots of noise.
We believe the differential may be going. Dying. Something. It’s oem, 270,000km.
This theory made me remember my last track day and pulling out of a few slower corners, i could feel something was off with the way the car felt trying to exit getting on power. It happened twice and I noticed it wasn’t right.

maybe this idea is crazy but everything else is perfect. Do diffs die even? I don’t know lol but it makes sense considering this happens when I’m turning, so the diff would be active


Got home and swapped on my track pads and wheels/tires. Planned to hit the track on sunday.

went to torque this lug, before I even got any weight into the torque wrench it just fell off. Dead. I had to drill it out of my lug nut. Lost my drill bit in the process. Damn.

These studs have gone through some heat cycles for sure. Time for some arp’s.




replaced with a spare and we are good to go


This was saturday night, with plans to hit the track on sunday. I had a rear sway bar change to test, as well as some more driver mod. Wanted to work on braking later/harder

 

Had an incredible time at the track sunday evening.
There were deep standing puddles all over. Few apexs were completely gone, and a few exits were completely gone. Many people did the good ol 360 no scope(spun out) into the grass. I was doing my best to avoid this lol.

The car felt unreal. Rear sway bar change plus alignment adjustment made the car feel sharp and pointy as can be. It’s very confidence inspiring now with tons of front end again.

I spent the day taking my buddy for ride alongs. His ms6 is currently down so he just wanted to hang out. I had another friend there who’s just beginning to learn about on track driving so I spent some time with him as well.

Due to the track conditions I did not set any new PB, but I did come within 1 second while carrying an additional 200lbs, while compromising my line everywhere. The car is amazing. It was so effortless. Just drive. No thinking. Just driving. Amazing.

I was on a lap about to reach a new PB again as my passenger was screaming “I see a 21 on predicted time!!”. I had to slow for one golf GTI until he pointed me by.

I used sunday night as a test/shakedown. I was working on braking harder and later. The car took it extremely well. There is a lot of brake available here. More then I knew.
I also wanted to feel out the sway bar change. It is good. Really really good.

some pictures my friend took lastnight


I like this one. That front passenger tire doing nothing almost lol

 

Picked up some goodies recently.

Blox rigid collars after the recommendations of a few members on the k20a forums. Thanks for making the decision easy for me. Apparently the subframe can and will shift. This is no good. My alignment has been shifting all season so far. Probably because i did not crank the subframe bolts enough.


Also picked up a skunk2 ultra street intake manifold. This is for the new engine but I MAY install it on the car now lol…I’m impatient. Should I? Hmm…




check out the bell mouths. Apparently this manifold makes big gains past 7800rpm. It’s a game changer past 8500 rpm.

 

The differential could definitely be going out. Is it limited slip? If so is it viscous or mechanical?

 

its a mechanical type, i forget exactly which type it is though

 

at that mileage and the use it is getting its probably shot

i thought your redline on this motor was lower than the awesome range of the new intake manifold? will it even help in the rev ranges you are using?

 

Currently rev limiter is 8900. So past 8000rpm, there wil be gains!!

I could wait for the built motor. Or I could install it now and sell my oem manifold for 300-350$. I’m debating. I may install it and we’ll do some before and after dyno action and see what we see

 

Another update regarding my camshafts...

It looks like we may be going another direction. Initially the plan was to use a skunk 2 ultra 1 cam. This is a big boy cam, but still offers perfect idle and streetability.

removed for NDA compliance


This will bring the car to another level in terms of RACE. there is next to no information about these cams as im sure they are being used mainly by race teams in japan. That said, they dont mess around. they know what they are doing.

Excited for this build. Considering the above...usable power band will be like 4500rpm+. Get out of here. That is something else

 

do you have to pass emissions?

 

No emissions testing here

 

That cam also requires individual throttle bodies which your intake doesn't have. Do they have a step down that wouldnt be useless on the street