Clean up time!

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With the intake and exhaust guides removed I took the opportunity to clean up the ports a little bit more.

Started with the exhaust............still a little bit dirty, not for long!

The F22A6 head really doesn't have much to remove when it came to the valve guide humps. I had the bulk of the guide humps removed fairly quickly.

 Took them up to an 80 grit for now.......they will be mirror finish when completed.

The intake had less guide material...

However the port itself was an odd shape. The long radius had a bit of a dead zone directly behind the valve guide.The transition from the throat into the seat has a pretty good step as well.

Once I get a flow bench setup I will spend a bit more time figuring out what to do with that dead zone for now I removed a bit of material from the front of the guide only.

 Looks like I may have to add some material to fill that dead spot....only time on the bench will tell.

For now the exhaust ports will get finished and the intake ports will have to wait.

Time to start wet sanding

Little bit of Guide Work

Cranked up the old oven to 150°C and got the workbench prepared to remove a couple valve guides tonight.

The exhaust side was a bit more work than the intake side. Now I know that if I get into doing this on a regular basis. I will have to invest in an air chisel with a 5.5mm guide bit. Too many trips back and forth to the oven for this cat.

Exhaust side removed....took a few swings of a hammer to get them out. The added surface area on the cylinder head for the exhaust guide acts as a heat sink. This is a good thing for cooling the exhaust valves. Not so good for removing the exhaust guides!

 Intake side removed, fairly easily as there is approximately half the surface area to overcome.

All ready for a bit more porting........

Next update should have all these ports ready for a valve job and new guides.

Keep the AFRs low

EPM Finished

Had some time tonight to finish the EPM cover, stuff the sensor back in and wire up the connector.

Mounted the cam sensor in it's stock location and gave the wires a little bit of added cover.

Next to be put into place is the shaft and rotor, complete with the bearing and stock bearing plate. You can see that the hole is still there for the stock ignitor (ICM). I could have filled it with a piece of aluminum. However, I decided that I wouldn't take the risk of possibly warping the bearing plate by welding anything to it.  

In the end it really doesn't matter because the overall cap covers all those holes and the bearing plate. The cap was filed and ground down a bit so that the cover would fit nicely into it.

Final cam sensor complete with a water tight connector taken from my spare GSX-R wire harness.

Even I'm not sure what part of this build I'll jump to next.

Stay tuned to find out!

DIY EPM (Engine Position Module) Take 1

Took a few hours to get my EPM started today. Last night I spent the night testing the electronics (Stock CYP Sensor) and taking all of the measurements and making all of the required adjustments.

First thing was to move the bearing on the distributor shaft. It had to be pressed approximately 20mm further down onto the shaft. Pulley puller worked like a charm to more the bearing into place. This was done to keep the overall height of the EPM down. I took it as far as I could go without interfering with the CYP sensor.

This sensor will be used as the cam signal in the my two trigger COP setup. So it's really not an engine position module as much as it is a cam position module. The 360° 12 tooth crank pulley (24 tooth 720°) and stock CKP sensor are the other part to complete the EPM.

Now onto the cutting, grinding and filing. If I had access to a machine shop I still probably  wouldn't use it. I need to keep up the practice with the hand tools.

Stock P0B F22B2 distributor marked for cutting on the table saw.

Inside shot

Not a bad cut for a 12" 3/32 cut off blade on a cheap table saw. Biggest things was making sure the blade and deck and guide were all square. That took longer than the actual cutting. It only took 2 1/4 passes to get it cut through......5-10minutes tops, cut like a hot knife through butter!

Really didn't have to do much filing to get it level and flat

There was more filing involved after the coil deck was rounded off. It required a step down in order to have a proper sealing surface.

Then it was time to fit the filler piece for that step, just so happened to be just shy of a 1/4". So a cut, rounded and shaved scrap of 1/4" aluminum plate did the trick.

No fancy O-ring grooves so a roughed up surface and some Honda-bond will have to do. Once that was cut and ready to go it was on to cutting down the distributor shaft.

There was quite a bit to cut off. You can see the rest of it laying on the work bench in the background. Shaft and bearing rolls true with the bolts in.

Got the EPM cap, another piece of 1/4" scrap, rough cut and put into the vice for final fitting just before it was time to go. This scrap was going to be an IACV block off plate at one time.....This is a much better use for it!

Little UFI

The stock height of this distributor from the base with the cap, not including the plug boot stacks, was approx, 120-125mm. The total height of my EPM is 45mm. I probably could have gotten it down to 40-35mm but that's cutting it close for the stock sensor sitting inside.

Hope to have the cover and wiring done by the end of the weekend.

Remote Thermostat

Rain again so I got to spend a little bit of time getting started on my remote thermostat setup. This will be consisting of an F22A PT3 thermostat housing and the F22B P0A thermostat cover. I will be using welded AN fittings on the block, upper rad hose housing, thermostat housing and the radiator.

Doing this will allow me to use the appropriate length of SS braided coolant hoses in place of the steel tube usually used on the back of the block. As well as using it for both the upper and lower rad hoses.

Here are a few pics of the cleanup.

Started off with a dirty rusty A6 housing with all of the coolant hose nipples intact.

Within minutes I was down to threading the old 1/4" nipple outlets for plugs and removing the 3/4" inlet hose fitting to make room for a welded -AN bung.

1/8" NTP 27 threads, both of these ports will have plugs in them. Considering I am not going to be using the IACV or FITV. However I decided to thread them just in case I ever need to run a couple -AN coolant lines in the future.

Here are a few shots of it all cleaned up ready for some bungs and plugs!

Mated with the P0A thermostat cover and fan switch. I will probably be replacing the fan switches with plugs as well. I am going to be using the ECU to control the cooling fan along with the electric water pump.

This isn't the -AN fitting that will be welded on, it is only there for representation. ;) That will be a 12-AN fitting and the inlet and outlets for the block, head, rad and housing will be 20-AN. As you can see I am also a few 1/8" plugs short. I used up the ones that I had on my -AN fuel setup. Updates on that to come soon!

Back at it again!

It's been a while since I felt like digging up dirt. So here we go. Seems as though my good old friend at Gen5 is trying to suck more people into buying another light weight crank pulley. Posted on the websites front page is a writeup about how the last one ran into some unforeseen difficulties. More like lies lies lies and poor business ethics is what it really ran into!

On another note, I like that the members forum has been down for well over a month for maintenance that was supposed to be completed in just a few days. Hopefully people will start to see through the BS and opt for quality over quantity.

Go to a shop that has a reputation for doing good work, not just cheap prices & parts. In times like these it's sometimes hard to go with quality. Every dollar goes a long way. However, Don't let this guy take your hard earned money and run with it. You could probably do the work better yourselves.

Just wanted to remind those frequent viewers that this is what the BBB gave their automotive store for a rating.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. Have a great weekend.

More rain in the forecast, more work on the car is a definite possibility.

Stay tuned for more updates soon!

F22A6 Port Cleaning Take 2

Rain Rain Rain and more rain....... so I decided to spend the afternoon working on my exhaust ports.

I opened them up at the outlet about 2mm, didn't touch anything else other than cleaning up the casing shift lines with a 180 grit cartridge roll.

The valves for the exhaust are going to be 1mm oversize, 30mm. I will end up having to blend the new valve seat again after it has been replaced and cut to the new size.

For now I am content with the way the ports are shaped so I went ahead and polished them. After the initial carbide bur shaping/enlarging and the 180 grit cartridge roll, there were a few more steps to get to this;

 

Another 220 cartridge roll on the die grinder then it was on to hand polishing. Wet/dry 320, 400, 1000 then 2000 grit. Finished off with a hand buff with green rouge then finally a white rouge.

There are a few light spots the could use some touch-ups but I think this should do.

So now in addition to having the intake ports with a rough textured surface to promote good flow. I have the rest completely polished to promote cooler combustion chamber temperatures. Heat will be reflected out the exhaust ports. Polished pistons and combustion chambers in conjunction with the exhaust ports will help maintain the temperature of the exhaust gases further out the exhaust track. In turn hopefully increasing the exhaust velocity and increase the scavenging effect. We'll have to wait and see..... Also it will reduce carbon buildup.

Piston Tops

Combustion Chambers

Exhaust Ports

Stay tuned for more......

PCV Air Pump

Well I took some time off from the porting to let some of the aluminum dust settle. Also to give my compressor a little bit of a break.

A rainy day and all I decided to fix the $20 Denso smog pump that I bought a while back. My thoughts are to use it as a mechanical crank case ventilation system. Considering there probably isn't going to be enough vacuum to do it as per usual.

Used a puller and got the thing opened up, it was a little rusty around the edges. After a bit of cleaning it was as good as new.

Pulled it completely apart to give it a thorough going over.

Gave the inside a quick wipe down. Didn't want to use anything to abrasive and remove any material. I wasn't able to find any way to adjust the clearances of the impeller blades.

All cleaned up!

Found that it was the front bearing that was a bit messed up.

I don't think it was the original one ether. Looks like it was a quick fix. The seal on the back side of the bearing was dented. I removed the seal and a few of the retainers were slightly crushed. So I'll pay the $5 for a new bearing and press it in. Hopefully that will be the fix to my $20 PCV pump.

Mounting this pump under the alternator using the A/C bracket will be the next step for this system.