1988 A20A3 Rebuild/Preformance

[hammer3rd]

I am looking for ideas on building/rebuilding my engine and have a few ideas but I cant seem to find a real indepth performance build thread to compare to. I am looking for a good performance engine but I also want no problems for daily street driving.

Here is a little of what I am thinking of doing.

83 mm b series pistons in a 10 1/2 CPR.
Colt stage 1 triflow cam/Bisimoto stage 2 cam??? Dont quite know which one yet. Any personel experience would help.
Mild P&P head with 1 mm bigger valves,bisimoto springs and bronze guides.
B16/18 intake and throttle body.
OBD1 conversion.
Some kind of header(choices are slim)and exhaust.
And a good quality bottom end rebuild.

Any threads,help or personal experience would(mabey even a HP guess) would be very helpfull.

[88lxi-shortram]

youll need a cam gear to go with that cam and i dont think they produce gears for us... but maybe you can get something like a golden eagle cam gear and make it fit

[hammer3rd]

Cam gear? Do you mean adjustable. And which cam. The colt or bisimoto cam.

[rjudgey]

Just lookup some threads created by myself or replied by myself her and at www.preludepower.com

If you gonna change valves don't waste time just going 1mm bigger 2mm bigger all round is better and there are valves available from supertech which you can convert which have a narrower stem and use Civic valve train this is more extreme mod but worthwhile look up threads from Smeado on this, or you can get SI valves to make them for you like i did the stems will be thicker but will be more reliable and you can use all your stock retainers and springs etc reducing cost.

Spend the money on the head this is where the performance gains are to be, wouldn't waste money on B series pistons, just get A20A3/4 oversize pistons at 83mm these are pretty tough items and not too heavy, if you wanted to save weight on rotational mass then get some titanium wrist pins made up but this would be costly! looking around for some patent part wrist pins is cheaper and they tend to be lighter than honda I've never had one fail! I've used Sealed power ones i think. As for the rods the stock ones are lighter just have them stress relieved/polished and shot peened the stock rod bolts are also very good items and can be re-used just torque them up a bit tighter than stock and maybe use a lock thread glue on them as they tend to vibrate off after 20k miles or so of hard use! Just make sure everything gets balanced correctly including the rods, pistons and pins, crank is normally spot on from factory unless you have it reground or modified leave well alone if in good condition, the flywheel and clutch plate will need balancing as well. To increase the CPR just skim .25-.5mm off the block and then take off 1mm on the head you can go further if you want to but will reduce service life of the head and block, you will need to alter the cam timing this can be done with stock cam by modifying the key position or by getting a cam gear i believe some golden eagle ones are around on ebay or Bisi has some. Cam choice go with something around 270-280 degrees anymore and you will need to spend big on custom exhaust header and the system will have to be around 2.5" mandrel bent same as the collector size on the header or it will restrict powerband and power. With a milder cam like a 260-270 you can use a OBX or Pacesetter with a 2.25" mandrel bent system without too much of a bottle neck. Biggest issue will be induction bike carbs or webers are cheapest route but will need someone with good tuning knowledge to set them up, or you can go throttle bodies and find a computer ECU tuner who has good experience with custom setups. Typical power from A20 from mild to wild would be around 150bhp upto 230bhp possibly more but no one apart from me has even attempted to get above 200bhp Natrually aspirated. I had a ET1 that put down 200bhp and i have a A20 and A18 hybrid in the making which will have a higher CR ratio around 11.5:1 with 33mm inlet valves and 37.5mm exhaust valves, thinking about titanium wrist pins possibly as well. This will be running a custom exhaust header and system as the camshaft is 285 degrees all round.

[hammer3rd]

Thanks for the time to wright so much. Will be put to good use. I hear what you are saying but will all this be cool on a daily driven motor. I will have all the old man stuff. You know air,power steering and cruise controll. I also dont want a real choppy idle. I would love to have 200 pluse hp at the ground but 140 or so at the ground would make me very happy. I am also going 5 speed swap with a stage 2 clutch and light weight flywheel. You didnt comment on the b16/18 intake. By my calculations it would be more than enough air flow to make the kind of hp I am after. But I have never built a 4cylinder before. And please if you can think of anything I didnt cover send it to me.

[cygnus x-1]

Thanks for the time to wright so much. Will be put to good use. I hear what you are saying but will all this be cool on a daily driven motor. I will have all the old man stuff. You know air,power steering and cruise controll. I also dont want a real choppy idle. I would love to have 200 pluse hp at the ground but 140 or so at the ground would make me very happy. I am also going 5 speed swap with a stage 2 clutch and light weight flywheel. You didnt comment on the b16/18 intake. By my calculations it would be more than enough air flow to make the kind of hp I am after. But I have never built a 4cylinder before. And please if you can think of anything I didnt cover send it to me.

The B18 manifold is a decent upgrade. If you're going to do this use either a B18B or a B16 manifold. The B18B doesn't have so many extra ports on it like the B18A does. The B16 is good too but the runners are a little short, which is better for mid-range and higher RPM power.

Don't bother with the stage 1 Colt, it's kinda lame. I have one. It's an upgrade from stock but not much. A Bisi or Webcams stage 1 would be better. Any of the stage 2s will affect the idle a little and are tuned more for mid range, so low RPM torque may suffer a little.

Other than that, listen to THE man Rjudgey.


C|

[2drSE-i]

Hey rjudgey, what do you think about playing with rod lengths? We can score some eagle h beams in 140.5mm, raising the rod/stroke ratio a tad, which should lower the reliance on the head a bit. Seeing as how our heads don't flow very well, I would think the longer the rod the better, no?


Clearance becomes an issue at a certain point. What is the a20s piston to valve clearance like?

[snoopyloopy]

Thanks for the time to wright so much. Will be put to good use. I hear what you are saying but will all this be cool on a daily driven motor. I will have all the old man stuff. You know air,power steering and cruise controll. I also dont want a real choppy idle. I would love to have 200 pluse hp at the ground but 140 or so at the ground would make me very happy. I am also going 5 speed swap with a stage 2 clutch and light weight flywheel. You didnt comment on the b16/18 intake. By my calculations it would be more than enough air flow to make the kind of hp I am after. But I have never built a 4cylinder before. And please if you can think of anything I didnt cover send it to me.

he did comment on the intake. itb or individual carbs.

[hammer3rd]

The B18 manifold is a decent upgrade. If you're going to do this use either a B18B or a B16 manifold. The B18B doesn't have so many extra ports on it like the B18A does. The B16 is good too but the runners are a little short, which is better for mid-range and higher RPM power.

Don't bother with the stage 1 Colt, it's kinda lame. I have one. It's an upgrade from stock but not much. A Bisi or Webcams stage 1 would be better. Any of the stage 2s will affect the idle a little and are tuned more for mid range, so low RPM torque may suffer a little.

Other than that, listen to THE man Rjudgey.


C|

Thanks cygnus and I will listen to rjudgey on the A20. But my goal is not an all out performance build. I want a balance between driveability and performance. So if the colt cam didnt make you happy mabey it would be all I would need to make the power I am looking for. I also want to keep the legendary honda reliability. So you are telling me that the colt wouldnt make 140 whp but the other cams loose bottom end torque. So if you guys will tell me about your cams and what they feel like and how they idle. This is why I started this thread. So I could leaern from all you who have built a good A20. I dont want to have to build it twice. Like I said I have never built a 4 cylinder so torque is very important if you dont want rev 10,000 rpms. Thanks again for all you guys help I am takeing notes so I can build this motor and completely rebuild and paint my poor little 89 sedan lol.

[88lxi-shortram]

idk if youve already looked into your cams but bisimoto gives you a great description of how each of their cams affect idle, performance and what mods are compatible or neccesary.

http://www.bisimoto.com/sport-compac...ries-camshafts

[2drSE-i]

The A20 is a torque monster comparatively speaking, so losing some bottom end torque isn't going to be a huge deal, considering the top end power you may gain.

[hammer3rd]

The A20 is a torque monster comparatively speaking, so losing some bottom end torque isn't going to be a huge deal, considering the top end power you may gain.

Thanks for the info. I really dont care if it revs any higher than stock. But with all the factory ac.cruise and power steering still on the car I think bottom end torque would be great.

[hammer3rd]

idk if youve already looked into your cams but bisimoto gives you a great description of how each of their cams affect idle, performance and what mods are compatible or neccesary.

http://www.bisimoto.com/sport-compac...ries-camshafts

Yeah I read all the info but I have also installed cams based if the card and it not be quite what it says in a V8. So I thought I would ask. I like what is says but if no one likes it or has tried it I will go a different route.

[hammer3rd]

A little love guys?????

[rjudgey]

I wouldn't go any higher than 270 degrees then web cams stage 2 would probably be best for you. Has more lift but keeps duration sensible, you would need to change your guides to bronze ones from SI as any uprated camshaft will put more wear on your guides and as they are cast iron tend to wear out quickly. Having port work done and nice valve seats cut with valves heads matched to them makes big differences. Exhaust header stick with a classic 4-2-1 design pacesetter will do unless you got some dollars for someone to make one from scratch. 2" or 2.25" exhaust will be plenty big enough. B18 manifold should be fine just finding a way of controlling the fuel is next issue megasquirt is effective and cheap but you have to be a bit of a electronics wiz and knowing how to tune EFI helps! If not then I'd maybe stick with something simpler like fitting the bike carbs although they will need tuning still. A weber 38/38 is worth considering or even having custom manifold made and running a large single weber dcoe 48 or 50.
I would start with the simple things first, 1 make sure block is healthy so compression test, if not then rebuild it with new pistons, rings and bearings etc. The rebuild the head and have it worked on, header, exhaust, mild cam some larger injectors, adjustable pressure gauge, and see how you get on. should be easy enough to get 140-150bhp from that setup i think a member on preludepower is running a low comp A20 with bolt ons and he's getting really good numbers on dyno.

[hammer3rd]

Thanks a bunch for your time. I will put it all to use. As for the fuel how about the b18 intake and throttle body and a obd1 conversion. Do you think this would be enough???

[MessyHonda]

in my opinion the a20 is not a good NA engine. only if you turbo it will it make some serious power. i bought this car and i been putting it back to the specs if not better now. https://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57136 right now im happy...3 clutches later and 2 transmission later...it makes too much power in first gear and i get alot of torque steer because it has no lsd and the the axles are not the same lengths

[2drSE-i]

B16 lsd fits...

[hammer3rd]

Thanks messy. Sounds like wha I would like to build. But I won't give in. So i will build a very mild daily driver. Around 140 whp will be a big improvement over stock. After all these posts I belive I am going to go with my original set up with the colt cam and follow rjudgeys idea on the head. If it doesn't get me 140 whp it will be very close. And messy if you are haveing thoes problems with torque steer and breaking stuff try going back to a factory transmission. The gears are higher and transfer less torque to the ground through your clutch and axel shafts.

[MessyHonda]

B16 lsd fits...

i know but for him it might be worth it to pick up a GSR engine and drop it in with a type R trans that comes with LSD. now that we have mounts.

Thanks messy. Sounds like wha I would like to build. But I won't give in. So i will build a very mild daily driver. Around 140 whp will be a big improvement over stock. After all these posts I belive I am going to go with my original set up with the colt cam and follow rjudgeys idea on the head. If it doesn't get me 140 whp it will be very close. And messy if you are haveing thoes problems with torque steer and breaking stuff try going back to a factory transmission. The gears are higher and transfer less torque to the ground through your clutch and axel shafts.

i have the integra gears in my trans...witch are short...i like driving it but i just have to practice my launching because the engine revs so fast

[rjudgey]

I haven't any issues breaking transmissions or axles and the torque steer isn't too bad although a LSD would be a great improvement. The only thing i tended to wear out was the syncros but no I've been using Honda MTF that seems to be a thing of the past! Only issue was clutches i used to break them all the time till i found Clutchnet and then praised them so much that everyone else here now uses them!! I've been modding these engines for like 15 years now so there's very little i don't know about, and i know everything they like and everything they don't like!

B18 manifold is fine but to be honest I've allways found these engines respond much better to ITB's or Race carbs, but for the cost it's worth putting one on but definately get the biggest throttle body you can find on it! As for OBD1 i wouldn't bother more hardwork than it is worth, just go down the megasquirt route and DIY the ECU yourself and the additional wiring and crank trigger fitment onto the crank pulley, cygnus-x1 can sort that part out for you and some other bits for a small fee for his time. The engine can definately make the power, and are in fact a superb N/A engine offering incredible torque and some seriously high RPM's!! My engines have no issue revving to 8k rpm on the right cams!!

[2drSE-i]

rjudgey, have you ever experimented with rod lengths in these engines? From what I understand, the longer the rod, the lower the dependence on the head to flow well. Just curious what you think.

[hammer3rd]

I haven't any issues breaking transmissions or axles and the torque steer isn't too bad although a LSD would be a great improvement. The only thing i tended to wear out was the syncros but no I've been using Honda MTF that seems to be a thing of the past! Only issue was clutches i used to break them all the time till i found Clutchnet and then praised them so much that everyone else here now uses them!! I've been modding these engines for like 15 years now so there's very little i don't know about, and i know everything they like and everything they don't like!

B18 manifold is fine but to be honest I've allways found these engines respond much better to ITB's or Race carbs, but for the cost it's worth putting one on but definately get the biggest throttle body you can find on it! As for OBD1 i wouldn't bother more hardwork than it is worth, just go down the megasquirt route and DIY the ECU yourself and the additional wiring and crank trigger fitment onto the crank pulley, cygnus-x1 can sort that part out for you and some other bits for a small fee for his time. The engine can definately make the power, and are in fact a superb N/A engine offering incredible torque and some seriously high RPM's!! My engines have no issue revving to 8k rpm on the right cams!!

Thanks. Just looking at the B18/16 intake for cost and dependability. I have had full house built cars in the past and were fun but they needed regular tuning. And why is it easier to megasquirt than obd1.

[Sickest3G]

Im trying to follow this conversation and im understanding everything but this ITB thing....what is an ITB? And to make sure of it...the b16 LSD will fit into the 3g tranny?

[hammer3rd]

Im trying to follow this conversation and im understanding everything but this ITB thing....what is an ITB? And to make sure of it...the b16 LSD will fit into the 3g tranny?

Individual Throttle Bodies. ITB. Thanks for your info on the lsd.