Integra Project

[neil-ste]

I managed to get the Integra in the garage after much messing about tonight. Basically the car has been SORN since the turn of the month and sitting on my drive, I’ve been waiting for some old chap to move a motorbike out of the garage I’m using for ages, he's been making excuses and dragging his feet. Well tonight I got sick of waiting so just dragged it out with the steering lock still on and moved it elsewhere - what a **** on that was!

So now a bit of a background on the car:

Bought it a year ago, realised pretty soon it was burning a little oil and this has gotten progressively worse over the last year, I can tell the car is not feeling how it used to, down on power which would come with worn piston rings (a reasonable common ailment with Honda B series engines) Also the clutch has just started to stiffen up (another common one) and I fancied doing a few other odds and sods while I’m on. Pretty much deserves the tag of project if you ask me.

Plans are as of now:

Engine rebuild. Will remain pretty much standard spec. I'm going to go for EK9 civic B16b pistons to bump up the static CR a little, ACL race spec bearings, ARP fasteners where appropriate. Also all the obvious stuff which comes with a full rebuild. I want it nice and fresh basically, with just a little more pep eventually.

New clutch and flywheel. Something lighter, with a nice light clutch action still.

Polybushes. I don't know if I’ll be just buying bushes or buying new, more lightweight and possibly upgraded suspension components with poly bushes pre-installed. The Integra has some pretty clever suspension design as standard which makes it handle as well as it does, so I’m going to have to be really careful what I do with so as not to compromise or change it too much.

Freshen. Lick o paint, light rust removal and tidy up what I can. I'm not putting a strict time frame on things, I just want it done properly.

Aye, so that’s that then. I'll be updating as much as possible and I do want to take as many photos as I can so you'll be getting them too.

Back to tonight, car is now in the garage and I’ve started to strip the front end. Light have come out, so has the front bumper, air filter, horns, master cylinder brace and a few other odds and sods. I'm thrilled I’ve managed to make a start on it. I was planning on stripping the front end totally so I could bring the engine out the front, but it turns out the slam panel and it's mates are spot welded on - something I can't be arsed with taking off and putting back on, so it's all action with it still on.

Pictures of tonight.

B18C

Trusty Mondeo with new splitter

 

[neil-ste]

How I left it tonight:

 

[neil-ste]

Bloody hell in one of those pics the tegs turned into a mondy

Should be an interesting project, have you done owt like this before? whats the stock suspension setup like on the Teg?

JDM tyte Mondeo!

Yeah i've done similar stuff before, my 106 rallye and a few other mates cars. I'm not stranger to getting my hands dirty but this is going to be pretty complicated compared to everything else i've done before.

Standard suspension is pretty good apparently, I can't comment in detail as my car came fitted with Tein HA stuff and a few other braces. Having driven standard cars for a limited time it's still very good, just mine is a bit more stiff really

 

[neil-ste]

2 cylinders seem to have gone awry.

Good luck pal

Shush now On a slight aside, do you still have my torque wrench or is it lost in my garage ?

The mondeo would have it in the twisties!

Keep the post up to date, looks like an interesting little project

Strangely enough, the way the suspension is on the Integra, the Mondeo would do far better than it down a bumpy b road. Remeber it is the SI though, the sporty one

 

[neil-ste]

Made a bit more progress tonight. I've drained the coolant, got the air con condenser and radiator off.

Note to anyone : Air conditioning systems contain a **** load more refrigerant that you could ever have dreamed. You WILL kack yourself if you *accidentally* let it out by complete mistake. Little puff? Nooooo LARGE gushes of noisy fluorescent gas with a nasty smell, bonny lad. Not that I fell into this trap, you must understand......

I've also started to label things up, such as the wiring loom and the likes.

Best way I’ve found of keeping yourself right when tackling something with as much fasteners as an engine swap is to use some freezer bags and address labels. Put all bits in one bag (exhaust manifold nuts, for example) label it up and put it away No bother finding stuff, no leftover bits with umming and ahhing over where they are. Score.

Pictures will be added tomorrow when I’m not in a rush to get to the pub.

 

[neil-ste]

Today got off to a bit of a shaky start. Went to the garage and was just sorting stuff out ready to pull the car forward into the light and crack on and the garage door slammed shut! Jesus wept I nearly crapped myself! The old man that had the garage before had reinforced the door :? with massive planks of wood, which upset the balance and made the garage door unstable in the wind. I'm just glad it didn't slam when I had the car half way out, that would have been a nightmare. It’s now sorted with a bit of rope to keep it up

I didn't make a huge amount of progress today, but then again I didn't really need to, the engine is just about ready to come out tomorrow now. Today consisted of taking the power steering pump and air conditioning compressor off, I also took an engine mount off while I was on as it made things easier.

I've taken a few coolant hoses off, including those for the heater matrix, I disconnected the fuel lines, took off the washer bottle and did a few other little things.

Jobs for tomorrow are to remove the exhaust manifold, drain gearbox and engine oil, pop the drive shafts out then the engine is coming out to. A friend of mine has given me the use of his engine hoist in exchange for a few beers so that shan't be much hassle either.

Some photos from today and yesterday:

 

[neil-ste]

Pics removed

 

[neil-ste]

Yeah i'm aware of that, trailing arm bushes shall remain standard

Jonny, have you ever ordered OEM Honda parts from the states?

 

[neil-ste]

Let me know how you get on with removing the exhaust manifold, thinking about the best way to go about it without shearing stuff

I had it off a few weeks ago after I borked it.

I took the AC condenser fan and radiator fan off, unbolted the manifold and twisted it round to come out under the car. It was much easier than some people made out. I didn't even put the car on axle stands, just drove it onto 2 bricks.

 

[neil-ste]

Did you have any trouble getting the manifold bolts out from the block? Did you take any precautions? (Plusgas, blowtorch etc?)

None at all, they were 12mm and came off quite easily

 

[neil-ste]

looks like fun.

how many miles were on it when you started the rebuild? did you test the compression at all before hand?

The car has done about 100k miles. I hadn't done a compression or leakdown test, but for the car to be burning the amount of oil it was something had to be very wrong with it. It just didn't feel right any more either. Also, I intended to take it off the road over the winter to do the suspension and give it a tidy up anyway

 

[neil-ste]

*touches faux wood desk*

Everything has came off very easily so far, nothing at all has seized, sheared or rounded, it's awesome coming from working on Peugeots in the past

 

[neil-ste]

Been a while since I updated this, hasn't it.

Well i've done quite a bit really, some of it I have photos of, some of it I don't. Infact i've done so much I can't really be bothered to post a step by step breakdown of what i've done. If you want to know anything, pipe up

Basically, the engine is now out and in bits in my garage.

It came out of the car with very little hassle at all really, the only things that put up any sort of fight were the 2 lower ball joints, which I learned an ace trick to split Also the so called "bitch pin" which is a split pin in the gear selector, after a bit web browsing I found out how to get it straight out, doddle when you know how :wink:

So now I have the engine out, on a stand, in my garage. Well at least I did have a couple of days ago, i've spent a few hours stripping the engine down and it's apractically in bits now.

 

[neil-ste]

 

[neil-ste]

Holy thread revival Batman!

I've been through and updated as many pictures as I can lay my hands on at the minute becasue my web hosting expired.

Haven't done a huge amount since the last update (apart the one before this which I copied from another forum) until this week really. New bits should be with me in a day or 2 now Block has gone off to be bored, honed and decked ever so slightly.

This week i've started to clean things up really, not the best Idea to be working outside in the cold

I'm finding whatever I take a picture of looks parp, but I think thats just me because I know what it looks like when it's all as it should be.

Corroded aluminium is a total bitch, even when it's clean it still looks scabby and poo, so i've had to spray a few things black to hide the hideousness.

Inlet manifold and fuel rail came out a treat though, injectors will have to be replaced because they were hitting an uncomfortable amount of duty on the old setup. Some H22 injectors should be enough.

The looms will be gone through and that parp looking sleeving replaced.

Towed the car round to my house today with the everstrong Mondeo, so that I could get to work getting the engine bay ready for it's new engine.

The car had been in a bit of a bump at the front, which I suspected when I bought it. The repairs were a bit rough though and it looks like mastick has been used as seam sealer (not that I know what normal seam sealer feels likethough) Anyway, out it comes.

 

[neil-ste]

Let's get cracking with it. This made a total doddle of it, I was expecting getting rid of the rust to be a total nightmare, not at all. I've never done anything bodywork related before so if anyone wants to tell me how to do things properly i'm all ears. I'm in "if it's rusty it's getting wire brushed back to metal" mode.

I also got going with elbow grease, engine cleaner, blue roll and a alloy wheel brush. I managed to get half of the subframe sort of clean, i'm still not happy with it but it's much better. I'll finalise it when it's not so wet.

Side I haven't done:

The one I have:

More to come, i'll be doing loads of work over the next few weeks so there should be updates aplenty

 

[neil-ste]

good luck

although none of the pics are showing for me

edit: make that the pics in the first 2 posts aren't

Yeah, my hosting expired without me backing up the stuff that was on it. I should have all of the photos here somewhere, i'll have a look tonight and update the first posts if I can.

 

[neil-ste]

Right, now that ive rolled over and paid for Fotki I have loads of pics to update.

Most of my parts came the other week, I ordered them from Sons Acura dealership in Altlanta of all places. Len, the guy who runs the parts department, was incredibly helpful, always double checking stuff and he even made a fake little invoice for the robbing **** at customs (circa 90% less than it should have been )

New pistons avec rings. .25mm oversize in standard compresion. I'm gutted I bottled getting uber high comp ones but i'll just save up so I can get them + cams + mapping all at once, shouldn't be too hard swapping a new set of pistons in later, a weekends work probably.

New oil pump, The mounting for the timing belt cover is slightly different, otherwise identical to the old one.

The back side of new head gasket, exhaust gasket and inlet gasket

Timing belt, tensioner and water pump

Oil pickup and new gasket for this too

 

[neil-ste]

Thrustbearings and valve stem seals

Random other seals and little gubbins

What the customs man didn't see

...what he got instead

Which resulted in

Happy days

I'll update a bit more later 'cos i've got to hit the dirty pub now. I've already done some more today but i'm sure you can wait.

 

[neil-ste]

I couldn't see the first lot of pictures, lots of red x's. You seem to be getting on well with it, keep up the good work! B series engines seem so much easier to work on than the H and Ks!
I thought you had a red UK integra, or is that someone else on here (or did you sell it?)

The other -Neil- has a UK spec one. I've got a JDM in white, obviously. My hosting was playing up and i've moved over to Fotki, I don't have the old pictures saved locally.

If i'm honest it hasn't been hard to work on at all, it's just another 4 cylinder engine after all. That said, I haven't started on the head yet