Building for the road course...again

Just get some donk style graphics for it

 

I should actually get some sorta sim setup this winter. Even something basic. Might help. All the local tracks exist on assetto corsa so that would be cool

 

Can't be depressed if you're racing every person on the road. Gotta go fast.

 

Haha yea shit. My 2005 Corolla with all of 95whp is not winning much these days. Maybe fuel economy. It wins there

 

Was a little too efficient today
Did not plan to have the engine out but 5 hours later here we are. Drove the thing yesterday lol

 

Too much practice lol. Helps that none of the bolts or harness clips were stuck

 

Yea I mean fuck if I’m gonna be on the platform for a while which is the plan, I guess it’s good to be proficient at this lol

 

No worse than drag teams. They pull engines apart between heats, lol

 

Yea really lol. It’s ok. Just hoping I can have it back together before it’s too cold

 

What is the chance you could put a heater in you're garage? Are you lucky enough the panel is in your garage? Princess puts a 5000W unit on sale regularly.

 

Unfortunately not a ton of room for a heater. Not with the garage closed anyways. Bummer.

For outlets I only have 120 in the garage

 

Maybe a mini split (outdoor unit) on the patio to the left of the garage as you are facing it? For that small of a space you dont need a large unit. hehehe

 

Yea maybe that would be alright? With the door open any heater is mostly pointless but with the door closed I wouldn’t need much. It’s well insulated in there.


I’m thinking when it comes time to reseal this engine, sometime in the next 2 months I’ll need it to be at least 10c in there for the rtv to curve properly. I don’t wanna bring this dirty engine into the house lol

 

Anyone have any tips for removing keeps/retainers with head still on block? Need to do a valve seal replacement and it’s not in the plans to pull the head off.

I know it’s doable but I always find OEM retainers/keepers are jammed together like crazy and very difficult to separate.

I found the compressed air method(using leak down tester to keep valves closed). This may work but not sure how reliable.

Rope method seems good(send rope into the cylinder so the valve can’t drop. Use hammer method to break free retainer/keeper. There’s a tool for it)

Any DIY advice would be much appreciated

 

I have never done it myself but have always heard rope was more reliable.

 

Yea just heard this exact same thing from someone else. Rope/12 gauge wire apparently.

Hammer and socket to break the keepers free and that’s about it

 

This worked great. Rope from the dollar store. 17mm impact socket and a 3lbs hammer.


borescoped the piston tops after. Theyre all mint. That’s great.


Tried my Amazon valve seal pliers and they were absolutely garbage. I guess I should buy some actual good ones and return the China specials lol

 

K.I.S.S.

 

Had my ferrea valve springs tested today.

15 were all within 2% which is ridiculous.
1 spring was light by about 7lbs(7% off) I assume this is the one that took the damage.

I had one brand new spring I bought from Ferrea. It tested identical to the other 15 so it looks like I have 16 good springs. That’s sick.

My tuner gave me the choice of either 8500rpm and stock valve train or 9000rpm and run the ferrea stuff if it tests well.

Once you go north of 9k rpm anything less just seems too low effort.

 

Finally got around to putting together the entire video here. This is the last 3ish laps my car did before the wrist pin failure took over.
I did 2 kinda slowish laps just bringing myself up to speed and once i began adding some pace the engine let go. Really is too bad. I miss this engine more and more watching this video and comparing to a stock K20. Really sucks.

This track seems to have a problem with civics. In 2022, I broke my first ever rear hub here. Lucky i was able to get a ride into town to pickup a new hub. No problem. Back on track an hour or so later.
2023, I suffered a throttle body failure and i did not have a spare. That was the end of my day after only 1 session
2024, well, 13 laps in the morning followed by 3 laps in the finals where my engine let go.

This is probably one of if not my favorite track and it just claims hondas like no tomorrow. Ive had 2 fellow 8th gen civic owners reach out to me for advice/questions regarding my failure. Apparently these guys lost their engines due to oil starvation which is sadly way too common.

Here are some slow laps followed by failure. I will conquer this track in 2025!!
As a side note, look how well the thing pulls from 4000rpm onwards. Makes a joke out of these junkyard k24 builds lol. It was an impressive 2 liter engine package that is for sure specially given the budget for the build.