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[CITS]

Well the day started off with a bang, literally. My trailer decided to try kill me and break the car before I even got it to the track. No warning of this on a single axle trailer=good thing I had a change of undies in the car!

 

 

Went to turn my go-pro on for the first run and nothing... between my house and the track it had decided it did not want to be alive anymore so sadly no videos of the first outing

 

So at this stage i'm thinking bad things always come in threes (tyre and go pro are 1 and 2) so I wonder what the next/hopefully final thing will be. (keep reading to find the answer!)

 

The first run went well - didn't really exceed 4500rpm on the motor - doing short pulls then loading it up under vacuum down the hills. The motor felt really good. Did about 5 laps then came in for a quick inspection of everything before going back out.

Run 2 - Put about 50km (about 25 laps at Wakefield Park) on it going through break in procedure then went for an oil change and a general inspection of the car. Hadn't pushed the car at all up until now so had no indication of how any of the suspension or brakes were holding up.

 

Run 3 I decided to give the brakes and suspension a bit of a test - didnt push the engine any harder, just worked the car through the corners and Voila! problem number three reared its ugly head...

I was having really bad vibrations going round left handers at speed. Went back into the pits to check it out and on inspecting the driveshafts it appears as though one of them is too long. Holding the shaft between the cv's and moving it laterally (into/out of the gearbox) the left side (pass side) had about 5-10mm of play but the right side(drivers) had none at all, i'm under the impression that a bit of play is a normal thing for a front driveshaft. They were re manufactured shafts that were in there so I did a quick swap of the right hand side for an old one and the problem got better. Still feels too long(no lateral play but its older so naturally has more play so just worked a bit better I think.

So my question to anyone reading this is has anyone experienced this with the following combo of parts:

Complete teg front end(knuckles, lower control arms, brakes, engine, driveshafts) on a 3rd gen civic. I used all integra engine mounts as well. It could be a case of the engine sitting slightly lopsided (due to all integra mounts??) in the bay, causing 1 of the axles to extend and one to get squashed together.

Someone I know recommended that I open the driveshaft up and cut about 5mm off and put it back together - not overly keen on this though, seems like the bandaid solution for something that just shouldn't be happening. 

 

Apart from that the day continued on without hiccup! Breaking in the engine and checking everything constantly until I got to about 180km on the engine and just couldnt contain my right foot anymore so went for the first full run and managed to do a 1:14.21. There is still probably 1.5-2 sec left once I get used to this particular car and everything comes together. For reference of that time, the lap record for a 2.0L WRX is 1:12.65. So hopefully once I put a good cam in it and learn how to drive it I should be giving them a run for their money

 

So overall i've got a big smile on my face!

I will say trying to have patience on a race track breaking in an engine was probably one of the biggest tests of my character ever haha

 

Other minor problems to sort out before its next run:

-Raise car to prevent as much tyre rub (have already flared everything as much as I can

-High idle

-Takes a while to fire up on its first cold start of the day (after that its fine)

 

Im thinking the hard start and the high idle could be related but Ive checked all the idle system and everything appears to be functioning correctly - my last guess is that there is a vacuum leak within the dizzy causing the high idle. (going to swap one out this weekend and see if thats the case).

 

Looking at this stage that its next outing will be the 25th June so stay tuned! I'll try to start putting some build photos up soon!

 

Cheers All.

[CITS]

Ok as promised here are some pictures of the development - Tonights installment is the engine rebuild!

 

Teardown:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by CITS, 12 June 2017 - 05:26 AM.

[CITS]

 

 

 

 

On inspection of the cylinder walls this was found on cylinder number 4... Not surprising really this engine has been sitting outside (under a covered area) for about 2 years going no where. But I was still really annoyed as this was deep and I didnt know if even going .040 overbore was going to get rid of it.

 

So I decided to kill some more cars on the hunt for spare engines!!

 

First was a 1988 Integra - Took the D16A3 engine out of it and all suspension other goodies, so now I have two of everything.

 

 

Second was a 1990 CRX - Took the D16A8 engine out of it. This block cant really be used as its mounts are very different and its electronic advance dizzy and didnt have the complete engine harness. But I wanted it for a spare head - got given the car for free (someone had stripped everything else off to convert their old race car back into a road car)

 

[CITS]

So now for the rebuild:

 

I had pulled both of the engines apart that were removed in the last pictures and sadly the block of the other integra was in need of a re-bore too. So I was left with no choice but to head to the machine shop and see what the best path forward was.

Ended up having the original block bored out 0.040 and it was just enough to get rid of the damage.

Parts used include:

The crankshaft out of the recently acquired integra

The conrods from the D16A8 out of the CRX

The head and valvetrain out of the CRX

The gearbox out of the recent integra.

The head was re-furbished. I Used the CRX head and valvetrain as it has the PM7 cams (same as the ZC from what I read) and just generally looked in good knick.

All of the above was decided by lining up the three lots of parts and just choosing which ones looked the best.

The pistons were new P29 high comp pistons - From calculators I have used I should be running about 10.7:1 compression now.

 

Ok here are some pics:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plenty more to come so stay tuned!

[gtpilot]

So my question to anyone reading this is has anyone experienced this with the following combo of parts:

Complete teg front end(knuckles, lower control arms, brakes, engine, driveshafts) on a 3rd gen civic. I used all integra engine mounts as well. It could be a case of the engine sitting slightly lopsided (due to all integra mounts??) in the bay, causing 1 of the axles to extend and one to get squashed together.

Someone I know recommended that I open the driveshaft up and cut about 5mm off and put it back together - not overly keen on this though, seems like the bandaid solution for something that just shouldn't be happening. 

 

Do you run the intermediate shaft or two different length shafts?  I run the intermediate and use the same outer axle for each side without any issue and that is without using the longer radius arms like you do.  Perhaps the sheet metal pickup point where the torsion bar goes through is cracked?

[CITS]

I use the intermediate shaft and both axles are the same length.

I did find an article online about needing to use the original civic mount for the timing cover side of the engine. So I will swap that over and see if it makes a difference in the coming days.