32 year old EK1 CVCC junkyard donor motor to resurrect my 1981 Accord ***PICS***

[81vintyminty]

Hello ALL!! Its finally time to breathe new life into my tired and trusty 1G Accord my kids and i call "Betty". Around fall 2011 i was still DD old faithfull when suddenly while cruising on a level freeway i drive weekly i could hear slight pinging (detonation) from the motor. All of a sudden within seconds the detonation was really loud and temp shot straight to hot. I pulled off the freeway and the motor was detonating horribly even with no load and slight throttle. I pulled over, parked and let it cool and checked oil/coolant levels. I stay up on all drivetrain related operation/maintenance so i knew something was up but i stayed optimistic. I let it cool and drove off. The motor started detonating right away and was now missing, pulled over and called for a tow. 1st thought right away was HG failure. Working exclusively on fuel injected hondas ive never seen a hg fail without a culprit that led up to a failure (non working fans, clogged radiator, bad t-stat, too much timing, etc etc). I did a quick visual check later that week and sure enough i was getting compression through the radiator =/ After checking the fans and wp belt i decided to remove the t-stat. There was a small rock size chunk of cast material that had cracked and broke off and was resting in the t-stat housing. From the smooth texture on one side and course on the other it looked to be part of the small coolant passages that are around the combustion chamber/sleeves on the block or head where they meet, im assuming its from the head. Has anyone seen or heard of this? The car would no longer start and was almost locking up while cranking because of the fluid that was in the cylinder(s). I was pretty discouraged and selling her was not an option so i closed the hood and walked away. Here we are a little over a year later!
I purchased Betty in late '03 and DD her an average of a 100+ miles a day till the day the motor broke. I racked up thousands of miles on the original motor so the correct mileage is unknown. Gotta love a 5 digi odometer! With that being said and internal damage unknown (metal chunk/overheating), unknown engine noise from the block when cold possibly piston slap or rod knock, AND an oil consumption issue the motor was a bit tired to say the least. Definetly served its owners well with 30 years of service. I opted to find a clean untouched longblock which was not an easy task. After about half a year with no luck and only finding junk and neglected motors i finally found the motor you see here locally at a pick-a-part type yard out of a clean donor that read 68k on the clock, actual mileage? who knows. . i popped the pan and checked the rod/main bearings and it was extremely clean. FINALLY! Cool thing was the junkyard was having a half off sale on everything in the yard the following weekend so i went back saturday and decided to just grab the complete swap to take advantage of the sale. I ended up paying $206 USD for the complete motor and trans and i mean COMPLETE from carb to the oil pan and every accessory in between, even included an early type hood with hood emblem i found in the yard. It was a good day at the junkyard!

For those unfamiliar with the car here are a few old links on the site hopefully they work. SORRY for the cell pic quality but you get the picture.

https://www.3geez.com/forum/general-1...-everyone.html

https://www.3geez.com/forum/general-1...more-pics.html

https://www.3geez.com/forum/general-1...more-%3Dp.html


FINALLY MOVED TO A PLACE I CAN WRENCH ON HER AFTER A YEAR OF SITTING



DONOR CAR AT THE WRECKING YARD WISH I WOULD HAVE TAKEN MORE PICS.



COMPLETE DRIVETRAIN FROM DONOR FOR A STEAL OF A PRICE



ACCESSORIES REMOVED AND READY TO REMOVE 30 YEARS OF GRIME



CLUTCH LOOKED REALLY GOOD WITH LOTS OF MATERIAL LEFT ON THE DISC

[Hazwan]

Oh yes glad to have you back! I'm glad you didn't sold the car too

Can't wait to see the new motor pics

[81vintyminty]

1981 SUMITOMO SPARKPLUG WIRES





COOLANT PASSAGE VERY CLEAN WITH BASICALLY NO CORROSION

[81vintyminty]

MADE MY OWN TIMING MARKS B4 REMOVAL OF DIST AND T-BELT.






HARD TO SEE BUT ALSO MADE MARK ON BLOCK AND LOWER TIMING GEAR. YOU CAN ALSO SEE HOW CLEAN THE BLOCK IS AT THE WATERPUMP LOCATION.



ORIGINAL OEM HONDA TIMINING BELT? MAYBE.

[81vintyminty]

DURING CLEANING A BIT OF WATER GOT INTO CYL 4



CVCC HEAD READY FOR CLEANING, COMPLETE VALVE JOB, AUXILARY/VALVE SEALS, VALVE GUIDES, AND RESURFACE.



PISTONS MARKED

[81vintyminty]

SHORTBLOCK DISSASSEMBLY



RODS MARKED







FACTORY BEARINGS are CLEAN AND MARKED.. There's a reason Honda makes 7 different clearance "color coded" size bearings per rod/mains and i've never used "standard size" or one size fits all bearings. Honda makes the best engine so if theyre clean they are left alone, HONDA RELIABILITY!

[81vintyminty]

CRANK REMOVED. YOU CAN REALLY SEE THE MOTOR WAS WELL CARED FOR AND 68K MILE ODO READING FROM DONOR MIGHT POSSIBLY BE CORRECT, ALMOST NO SLUDGE OR BUILD UP. WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK??



MAIN BEARINGS MARKED FOR RE-USE.



BARE BLOCK READY FOR MACHINE SHOP. DECK-HONE-HOT TANK.



ALL BEARINGS MARKED. CRANK READY TO BE BALANCED AND MICROPOLISHED. PISTONS READY TO BE CLEANED AND ALL CARBON REMOVED FROM RING GLANDS.



A FEW PARTS READY FOR POWDERCOATING.

[81vintyminty]

..

[79cord]

Very exciting. Glad your long frustrated patience in finding the motor paid off so handsomely. Quite a steal, & good to have a spare 5-speed for the future.
Of course I prefer the 'hatchback' hood to the fussier US/JDM saloon raised hood, will further differentiate your Minty from Ivory if you go for it, good to have in reserve regardless.

[2geeSEi]

If you get it going soon, you should bring it to the California 3geez meet in May!

[A18A]

that's a mint looking motor on the inside!

[2ndGenGuy]

Looking awesome man! And killer work on that engine! It's going to run forever with the way you are doing it up right! Might I suggest some ARP head studs while you're putting her back together?

[Dr_Snooz]

Glad to see you got such an impeccable donor engine. How much factory cross-hatching was left in the cylinders?

This is a stock build, I assume.

[carotman]

Very nice work!

[AccordB20A]

good work man. will run nice when its done.

more pics!

[2ndGenGuy]

I'm just jealous that you have such nice factory bearings. I had to use the standard size bearings on my rebuild, since you can't find the OEM ones at all.

[81vintyminty]

Very exciting. Glad your long frustrated patience in finding the motor paid off so handsomely. Quite a steal, & good to have a spare 5-speed for the future.
Of course I prefer the 'hatchback' hood to the fussier US/JDM saloon raised hood, will further differentiate your Minty from Ivory if you go for it, good to have in reserve regardless.

Yes definately, i have an extra of everything now just incase. The hood i bought has the "H" emblem and is bit longer in the front and the chrome trim bends outward compared to my hood with the straight chrome trim. What's the difference with the hb hoods i always thought there was only 2 types of hoods for the 1G?

Here is the hood i purchased.





Current hood.

[81vintyminty]

Looking awesome man! And killer work on that engine! It's going to run forever with the way you are doing it up right! Might I suggest some ARP head studs while you're putting her back together?

[81vintyminty]

Looking awesome man! And killer work on that engine! It's going to run forever with the way you are doing it up right! Might I suggest some ARP head studs while you're putting her back together?

Thank you! Def would have considered those ARP studs. If i remember correctly from your rebuild thread you had to machine some ARP studs down or do they have an off the shelf application for the EK1? And to reply to your other post i got really lucky finding a motor with such clean factory bearings and clean crank considering the other motors i popped the pans off of looked terrible like they got very little maintenace and were ran into the ground.

[81vintyminty]

Glad to see you got such an impeccable donor engine. How much factory cross-hatching was left in the cylinders?

This is a stock build, I assume.

Thanks. Suprisingly the factory cross hatch was really visable and even through all the cylinders with no excessive wear. Yes stock build only thing im going to modify or upgrade for performance is getting the flywheel lightened and add a msd 6A ignition box and maybe modify the air cleaner similar to hazwan's. I thought about cleaning up the ports and getting the camshaft reground by WEB-CAM but being just a cruiser i opted to keeping it stock. With the weight of the sedan and rated with a whopping 68hp factory i believe, its not the best powerplant platform for gains imo.


I also have this "nos" ANSA muffler from the late 70's im going to install. Not sure it will make much difference performance wise but it will at least look cool and go good with the oldschool type look. Car already has straight piping to a stock type muff.

[81vintyminty]

Snapshots from dealer repair manual of the different bearing info/sizing if your interested or wondering why i marked and plan to re-use the original factory bearings opposed to using aftermarket bearing sets.

[81vintyminty]

........PARTS......


I'd prefer oem parts but in this case dealing with a 30 year Accord that Honda no longer supports second best thing are parts made in the cars homeland.....





EK1 MASTER GASKET KIT. RING SET. TIMING BELT. WATERPUMP. TENSIONER. ALTERNATOR. CLUTCH DISC. DISTRIBUTOR CAP & ROTOR.



ENGINE MASTER KIT CONTENTS.

[79cord]

What's the difference with the hb hoods i always thought there was only 2 types of hoods for the 1G?

Only 2 I know of, just that all HB seemed to have the early style pointed hood, where '79-81 USA & JDM saloons had the other style, ( even though most other markets saloons also retained the early hood).

[Dr_Snooz]

Snapshots from dealer repair manual of the different bearing info/sizing if your interested or wondering why i marked and plan to re-use the original factory bearings opposed to using aftermarket bearing sets.

I'm still wondering about this. I've rebuilt two Honda engines (pretty sure one was an EK-1). In both cases, I used aftermarket bearings. When I plastigauged them, the tolerances were almost all exactly equal. Do the factory bearings really make that much difference?

[81vintyminty]

I'm still wondering about this. I've rebuilt two Honda engines (pretty sure one was an EK-1). In both cases, I used aftermarket bearings. When I plastigauged them, the tolerances were almost all exactly equal. Do the factory bearings really make that much difference?

****Disclaimer: the views expressed are strictly my views and opinions and have nothing against people using aftermarket bearings!**** Dealing with moving parts seperated by a thin layer of lubrication rotating at different rpm's and loads it just isn't worth (imo) the risk not having factory exact clearances/tolerances. Curious, say when you plastigauged the bearings and the clearance was too tight on say one or two main or rod bearings, would you then have to machine the crank/block to get the correct fitment/measurement since all the bearings in your aftermarket set are all the same size? Honda engineered and produced engines that were way ahead of their time as far as reliability, efficiency, not to mention durability to handle constant high rpm beatings where other companies motors would surely fail. I believe this has alot to do in part with tight/ precise clearances. I worked at a independant honda shop that sold strictly "remanufactured" engines with all "new or machined parts" (reground cranks, reconditioned rods, pistons, aftermarket bearings, etc). Some of these motors were complete junk and did not last. When they would do an "in car" rebuild say for an oil consumption issue or upsell a hg job they would always install aftermarket bearings even when ALL the factory bearings looked brand new, that really blew my mind. They wouldnt even plastigauge the new aftermarket bearings! Some but not all of those cars would return with knock. Needless to say i chose not to continue working there! I'd take a clean used motor that was assembled by honda anyday over a zero mile reman motor. Not to say your motor or anyone that uses aftermarket/oversized bearings are "doomed" as i've also had friends that have ran aftermarket acl race bearings in high hp b-series with no issue's what so ever, you and 2ndGenGuy can also attest to non issue's. Its just not worth the hit or miss aspect and as you stated "the tolerances WERE ALMOST all exactly equal" know what i mean? At the end of the day its all personal preference and views. I understand in some cases dealing with these older cars and engines oem bearings or parts are not an option but if it is an option i say oem, always!