Pushing more out of Nothing

[EG1soul]

I was wondering what someone could do to an engine(b18c1 in my case) without having to change the timing of cam and ignition. Basically what can I do to make a small increase in output without messing with the timing of a motor.

Im going to school now for their "day program" and I have complete access to their machine shop for over a year. I have a b18c1 that I bought for rather cheap and am going to be doing a OEM rebuild and only spend about 350 for everything new. (yay for school discounts)

my plans were to:
-.030 overbore was basically just my major upgrade with the oem rebuild.
-Keeping the stock compression but at my disposal I have a flowbench along with a serdi valve seat machine. (I have couple of practice heads) was thinking about messing around with unshrouding of valves. etc.

Besides basic bolts on: what could I do with the cylinder head to increase power without tuning and timing: IF and if that is possible. Not looking for monsterous gains i just want to use the lab as much as possible.

I live in California, so computer and timing gotta stay the same for Bar'

Just let me know what you think I could mess around with? Very bland port? (not full on port just little bits here and there. of course i got teachers to help me out and some old timers that went to the school as well for advice.

[stealth512]

Just some ideas, although I'm not an expert.
you could look into:
-install flat faced valves
-use ITR cams with stock gears
-change the valve-seat angles
-port and polish
-grind some of the exhaust valve guides
-deshroud valve area in chamber

[9400rpms]

Originally Posted by EG1soul

I was wondering what someone could do to an engine(b18c1 in my case) without having to change the timing of cam and ignition. Basically what can I do to make a small increase in output without messing with the timing of a motor.

Your limiting your ablities right here, saying you can't fool with the ignition timing. Are you refering to your ecu or your dizzy or just the cam timing.

Im going to school now for their "day program" and I have complete access to their machine shop for over a year. I have a b18c1 that I bought for rather cheap and am going to be doing a OEM rebuild and only spend about 350 for everything new. (yay for school discounts)

Thats kool, still doesn't define if you know what your doing or not, but its a good place to start learning.

my plans were to:
-.030 overbore was basically just my major upgrade with the oem rebuild.
-Keeping the stock compression but at my disposal I have a flowbench along with a serdi valve seat machine. (I have couple of practice heads) was thinking about messing around with unshrouding of valves. etc.

Besides basic bolts on: what could I do with the cylinder head to increase power without tuning and timing: IF and if that is possible. Not looking for monsterous gains i just want to use the lab as much as possible.

I live in California, so computer and timing gotta stay the same for Bar'

First and formost once you move to a bigger bore, compression will get higher, therefore need to be tuned, a stock ecu will only handle so much again your limiting your ablities only saying you dont want to tune.
Put it this way, for 350 bucks you can do all your saying here, or you can go get a chipped ecu, and get it tuned on crome pro or hondata s200 and make more power then you would doing all this.

Just let me know what you think I could mess around with? Very bland port? (not full on port just little bits here and there. of course i got teachers to help me out and some old timers that went to the school as well for advice.

I did just the runners in and out of my head on my porting experince and i gained some nice top end from it, however my low end suffered. Think of it like this, your breathing threw a straw, its ok while ur sitting down. Now start doing jumping jacks and keep breathing threw the straw... hard isn't? think of the straw your stock head ports and the person doing the jumping jacks is your motor.

Case in point you make SHIT w/o the proper tuning ablities. Like i said, you only wanna spend 350 bucks? get your car fully dynoed tuned you will make MORE power over and under the curve then you would with the mods your talking about. If your on a budget you need to do alot more research before you decide what you want to do. Honda-tech.com has a great search feature and same with here. I learned alot from all motor honda books. I can tell you this u can become fast w/o having to go into the block. How do i know you ask? Because i've done it, i'm still doing it. Head work is where the power is at, that and a tuneable ecu. scrap your idea's. You want power? Mill your head .025, raise your compression, some cams, even type-r's will do and get the ecu tuned probably about 500~800 bucks depending on where u buy the cams and who you can get your ecu done by. All motor honda's make their power only one effective way, and thats increasing cyl pressure. Increase cyl pressure you increase power by alot.

[EG1soul]

Originally Posted by 9400rpms

First and formost once you move to a bigger bore, compression will get higher, therefore need to be tuned, a stock ecu will only handle so much again your limiting your ablities only saying you dont want to tune.
Put it this way, for 350 bucks you can do all your saying here, or you can go get a chipped ecu, and get it tuned on crome pro or hondata s200 and make more power then you would doing all this.

The main problem is I can not do any tuning as I stated, because I live in California and we all got smog hounds here. Nothing fancy cus ive been pulled over three times and asked to pop the hood. I gladly FLOSSED my stock d15b7 at them. The bar' sticker is important to me. Always have the big people pulling the chain around were i live.

Originally Posted by 9400rpms

First and formost once you move to a bigger bore, compression will get higher, therefore need to be tuned, a stock ecu will only handle so much again your limiting your ablities only saying you dont want to tune.
Put it this way, for 350 bucks you can do all your saying here, or you can go get a chipped ecu, and get it tuned on crome pro or hondata s200 and make more power then you would doing all this.

I am planning to keep static compression the same by cc'ing alot even though I mess around very little with the combustion chamber, effective with be kept the same because timing of cams with not be changed nor will different cams be added, nor will the rod ratio be changed.

Originally Posted by 9400rpms

I did just the runners in and out of my head on my porting experince and i gained some nice top end from it, however my low end suffered. Think of it like this, your breathing threw a straw, its ok while ur sitting down. Now start doing jumping jacks and keep breathing threw the straw... hard isn't? think of the straw your stock head ports and the person doing the jumping jacks is your motor.

Thanks for the info, I do know when you mess around greatly with the ports you usually gain more top end and lose bottom. I was not planning on hogging them out. I was wondering that if minute changes (very minute) to the bowl, short turn, throat angle, divider (like if rounding the port divider more would help with creating less turbulence ,instead of going the other way with a really sharp divider creating more?), bends, etc.

Originally Posted by 9400rpms

Case in point you make SHIT w/o the proper tuning ablities. Like i said, you only wanna spend 350 bucks? get your car fully dynoed tuned you will make MORE power over and under the curve then you would with the mods your talking about. If your on a budget you need to do alot more research before you decide what you want to do. Honda-tech.com has a great search feature and same with here. I learned alot from all motor honda books. I can tell you this u can become fast w/o having to go into the block. How do i know you ask? Because i've done it, i'm still doing it. Head work is where the power is at, that and a tuneable ecu. scrap your idea's. You want power? Mill your head .025, raise your compression, some cams, even type-r's will do and get the ecu tuned probably about 500~800 bucks depending on where u buy the cams and who you can get your ecu done by. All motor honda's make their power only one effective way, and thats increasing cyl pressure. Increase cyl pressure you increase power by alot.

I dont want to scrap my idea, because power is not that important to me, (slight increases make me happy)and i want a motor i can learn on and use once its done. I know for big power you need better valve event timing along with better cylinder filling, and making you BMEP graph look awesome, but i believe you can make a stock motor better with slight modifaction, and that is my goal

You make it sound like I want 35-70whp and make some monsterous big n/a motor. Which is fact not what im looking for. My goal was to make anywhere from 5-7whp (without the addition of bolts i/h/e etc.) with having some fun in the lab. I have access to basically a full machine shop. I want fun experince but something I can use when Im done with some slight custom work done by myself with guidance of teachers, cam designers, professional cylinder guy. The 350 bucks is what it will take for me to put the motor back together with all new oem parts.

I already have planned to get a dispersal coating on the p72 intake manifold, along with a barrier coating on some c.a.r.b legal header i buy and full on exhuast. Which by that im already expecting some sort of gain.

I was hoping to get some good information about machining a motor before I actually get into it, only having about the opinions of the four or five specfic people that help at the school anyway.

Can anyone explain about tuned intake tracks and exhaust tracks? (waveformish thingy) Some porter didn't have the time to tell a "story" about how that works. Would be an awesome sticky!

[stealth512]

Here's an idea...i'm not from cali or have been there. But couldn't you chip your computer without the testers knowing about it...cause unless they open up the ecu how are they going to know and besides it going to run better after you tune it.

[festivagt]

Why are you asking us for help? You have ALL of the tools you need to make changes to your casting, MEASURE and DOCUMENT the changes. This would be like NASA showing up to your house and asking YOU to build them a better space shuttle. Sounds pretty ridiculous, EH?
There are STACKS of parts you could install on your engine that are OEM that could yield you more power and look stock(cause they are) and unobvious when you get stopped on the side of the road. Even if you want aftermarket you can still have it on your motor just by making sure you have the carb exemption stickers. They can't bother you about those mods then.
As for doing mods and not tuning for them - ANYTHING YOU DO TO YOUR ENGINE WILL REQUIRE IT TO BE TUNED! Tuning it will clean up the exhaust emissions and make it smoggable. YOUR GOING TO HAVE TO TUNE. I haven't had a single cop or inspection jockey EVER say "Lets pull your computer apart to see if there is a chip in it."
You have a FULL machine shop worth tens of thousands of dollars at your disposal, People that should be trained to help you understand what your doing and motors to start with. Your there to LEARN.
Any change in VE will REQUIRE tuning to compensate for the changes being made. Otherwise WHY BOTHER?
HENRY