Need opinions.

[83Sleeper]

Okay, some of you might remember a previous post I made a few weeks ago. I'm the guy attempting to hop up an 1983 Civic Wagon. Anywho, I bought myself a B16 and tranny last week and it just came in. It has roughly 17,000 miles on it and I'm in the process of replacing as many components as I can before I stick the thing in the car. I have plans to turbocharge the sucker as well, but I haven't started ordering turbo parts yet. I'm just lookin' for opinions as this point.

I'm looking to build a quick, streetable sleeper car and was wondering how much boost a stock B16 can reliably handle. I was thinking that somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-14 psi being acceptable. Am I on the right track?

Secondly, what turbo would you use if you were in my position? I've looked at a lot of kits and many of them seem to use a T3/T4 or a T25. Also, a buddy of mine has a WRX with a TD04 in it and it also seems to spool quickly and produce the amount of boost that I'm looking to make. Which would you say is the quickest spooling turbo for producing boost in the 10-14 psi range?

Last issue: I am considering replacing the head gasket while I still have easy access to the engine. I've noticed that Mr. Gasket makes some gaskets that are a little thicker than normal and will supposedly drop my compression ratio. Is this a bad idea? Should I consider other (more expensive, unfortunately) methods of lowering compression.

[Transparent]

stock honda motor is safe in the area of 8-10 psi

lower compression is a good idea for running boost. safer and easier to tune

as far as which turbo, read around in the turbo forum, some good info in there

[UltraMagneticAL]

vtec in it's stock form and turbo =

here's why: vtec is an NA trick that helps the engine breathe in high rpm's. in the b16, it opens the valves higher and longer. long enough to where both the intake and exhaust valves are opened at the same time (called overlap). overlap causes the air and fuel to be sucked in and out of the combustion chamber a lot faster. turbo's don't like overlap because you're trying to keep all the boost inside the combustion chamber. w/ the overlap from an NA tuned camshaft (ie, the stock b-series cam), you will get some of your boost to leak, along with some of the gasoline that you'll need to safely buffer any predetonation.

you could remedy this by getting some turbo camshafts, but i don't know any companies that are mass producing them just yet. which means a grip of money on custom camshafts.

[83Sleeper]

Wow, I had no idea that a turbo and VTEC didn't get along real well, this really changes things. I have a budget of roughly $2600 left, this is gonna be close.

[UltraMagneticAL]

actually if you can harness the vtec correctly, you'll have an awesome turbo motor...but it takes money to build right. you'll also have to get lower compression pistons and beefier rods if you want better reliability from your block.