New Heads = Lots of Fun!

[w00tw00t111]

Hey guys! Got another question for the genusis of 3geez. I want to buy a 3rd gen head from a junkyard. The price I was quoted was $100. I'm not sure how good this is but, its just the price that I found. What I essentially am wanting to do is raise compression in teh chambers. I also thought about doing a little pocket porting on the head. I know that you can slightly raise comp. by getting a different head gasket. But since I am wanting to port the head I thought that I might as well go all the way! Would decking the head be my best bet for power?(decking=taking a layer of the steel off the head) I would obviously have a machine shop do this :-)
You might be wondering why I don't overbore my cylinders to raise comp. I don't want to do this because I don't want to have to pull out the whole engine. I figured if its gonna be in the shop I might as well do a little bit of extra work. I'm pretty sure that my dad wouldn't relize that its a new head.
I am also looking at getting a "hotter" cam. I was thinking inbetween a "mild" and a "wild" grind.
Besides these two things is there anything else that would be good for power? Such as unshrouding the valves? Thanks in advance you guys!

[smufguy]

you can shave the head and our heads are aluminum and not steel. there is only soo much you can shave off before you hit the valves on the piston heads. you can unshroud the valves if you want, but the best thing you can do is switch the intake valves for two exhaust valves in their place (take the stock two intake valves, throw them in the junk, get two exhaust valves and put them where the stock intake valves were). overboring is for more volume, not higher compression. you cant overbore these blocks anyway, u can go 30 over like the manual says only cause it gives you a clean straight cyl walls. balance the crank and get some high duration cams (check the perf sticky threads for the camshaft group buy and order your's according to the power you want to make). and some stiffer valve springs to raise the rpm and you will be good. It will be a good time to change the ignition system to a msd or whatever brand you like. also fuel pump can be changed to a 150 walabro and an adjustable fuel pressure regulator (cosmo racing or B&M) and you will be set. I hope you have the exhaust taken care of too. Getting a different intake manifold like a B series (skunk, stock, or B&M) will help you out with the higher rpms of the motor.

hit the search and you will get a lot of info. guys do this all the time .-

[w00tw00t111]

Thanks my friend. I've already upgraded the ignition and am wanting a DC header but, can't seem to find them. With very few engine mods would you happen to know about what HP increase this would make? Also what is the best way to find out how much you can shave off? I was talking to my grandpa today and he was warning me about shaving to much off and start having the springs hit.

[mouchyn]

i wouldn't up your rev limit with just stiffer valve springs. the weak spots in these engines are the rods and bearings. you really should upgrade the rod/crank bearings if you're gonna up the rev limit.

why not just slap in some higher compression pistons and leave the head gemotery the same? it's safer and stronger.

[w00tw00t111]

i wouldn't up your rev limit with just stiffer valve springs. the weak spots in these engines are the rods and bearings. you really should upgrade the rod/crank bearings if you're gonna up the rev limit.

why not just slap in some higher compression pistons and leave the head gemotery the same? it's safer and stronger.
The main reason is b/c I am going to be replacing my head gasket so, since my heads would be off anyways I said why not make them a little "hotter". I didn't know what all was involved in changing out pistons but, I figure that it is pretty involved and difficult.

[mouchyn]

The main reason is b/c I am going to be replacing my head gasket so, since my heads would be off anyways I said why not make them a little "hotter". I didn't know what all was involved in changing out pistons but, I figure that it is pretty involved and difficult.

it's not hard at all. have you looked through the shop manual to see? i'm guessing not.

i rebuilt my a20a3 from the bottom to the top in less than 8 hours.

[HondaBoy]

i'm personally going to send the extra head i want to get to a company of my choice for machine work. probley gude. i can get the head for $40-$50. i thought our engines only had one head and camshaft? lol. i still want driveability out of my car so i dont want to go too crazy with what i do. i think i want to have my compression about what it is now or 10:1, but not much more than that. again driveability is an issue, also i want to use either 87 or 89 octane.

[w00tw00t111]

it's not hard at all. have you looked through the shop manual to see? i'm guessing not.

i rebuilt my a20a3 from the bottom to the top in less than 8 hours.
I looked at the Haynes guide for it but, then again they make checking your oil sound hard :) Where would you suggest gettting the head and pistons from. I looked at junkyards for the head and they all wanted to sell me the whole engine but, finally one guy said he would give it to me for 100 buckaroos.
Would JE pistons be my best bet?
Right now the only Performance related mods I have is a Blaster SS coil and 8.5mm wires. I'm looking to get a civic air box this week and get a CAI.
To Do:
New head $100
Pocket Porting $40(for the bits...doing it myself)
Cam $120
Getting the Head Decked $120??
Pistons $450??
So it would total up to about $830 give or take. How much HP would that give me? What is the stock compression now? Would running 10.5:1 or 11:1 be a little dangerous for a daily driver?(in the reliablity aspect)

Thanks you guys!

[smufguy]

with a 10:1 ratio, u prolly be hitting around 135hp with no problem. given the fact that the intake and exhaust it taken care of and the camshaft is on a lil wilder side with good head porting and valve job. a full stock rebuild can get u the stock hp output, which is 120hp on the efi motor, with a cam with lots of overlap and good enough lift, and good fuel and ignition u should be able to get atleast 15 more regardless of the exhaust. So who knows......... i have not personally done any of it, so its just a big estimate.

Justin (openloop) got his 3g to around 140hp but it was a fully built motor and OBD-1 conversion.

[w00tw00t111]

Yeah I don't want to dump too much money into since it won't be a track car. Just occasionally street races. I honestly need to do something to increase my 60ft times. That is where I always lose. But, then when I hit 3rd gear I start catching up. So, what would be the best thing to increase that. I'm guessing it would be low end torque but,that is just a guess.

[smufguy]

two things to improve it, 1) youre reaction, 2) traction.

launching a car without spinning the tires a lot gets u nice 60ft times on street tires. but if you ask dragsters, with their slicks, they wanna get off the line with spinning their tires like mad, getting that tire real sticky and quarter way thru the trac that tire just sticks and then their enormous power just moves the car.

this is coming from a dude who never launched his car or have taken it to the track. BUt from personal experience, dont dump the clutch. You def need a new clutch atleast stage two that grips and does not overheat fast and then starts to slip. Launching the car around 3K - 4K will give you nice times i guess on regular tires.

but like i said, you will be making nice power at the top end, like from 5K to 6.5K with the camshaft and a B-series intake manifold. But always its hard to get the car get to where we want to, unless we make it happen.

[rjudgey]

http://www.cardomain.com/id/rjudgey
look on my webpage their's some pics of headwork i've done myself that will give you some ideas of what you can do, as for unshrouding valves etc, i'm a really big fan of that as it really increases flow especially if you blend the valve seats into the chamber roof too, but with this you loose CR ratio as your taking metal out of the head, but if you shave the head you'll gain some back, but best bet is just to use some High CR forged pistons, but you'll have to pull your block out as they need more clearance to move than cast.
P.S using the exhaust valves as inlet valves was my idea so if you need more info just ask theirs pics of the conversion on the webpage you can really see the size difference big style, but if you go down this route you need to do some serious exhaust port flowing and increase the exhaust valve to 37-38mm and run a cam with longer exhaust duration otherwise you'll have a severe bottleneck at 7000rpm.

[bobafett]

interesting...would the classic delta 272 cam work with this valve swap? sounds very interesting, considering im about to start the accord rebuild.. :D :D