2001 GS-R: Engine rebuild, other refreshments

[Dave7CDMTYPER]

I placed an order with 4 Pistons today and shipped out the cylinder head! Intake and exhaust ports will be ported, valve job, resurfacing, hot tank and soda blast. I also decided to go with bronze valve guides. I talked to the guy (Luke?) and he said they last a long time. Since this isn't a daily driver necessarily, I figure it will be fine. New valve guides seem like a good idea for less valve stem movement.

I am pretty sure I am going to go with full ferrea valvetrain. That sounds so awesome to me. I'll install myself once the head gets back, apparently lead time is around 5-6 weeks. I'm pretty excited, and stoked about how much I've already learned in this process.

[DC231]

I placed an order with 4 Pistons today and shipped out the cylinder head! Intake and exhaust ports will be ported, valve job, resurfacing, hot tank and soda blast. I also decided to go with bronze valve guides. I talked to the guy (Luke?) and he said they last a long time. Since this isn't a daily driver necessarily, I figure it will be fine. New valve guides seem like a good idea for less valve stem movement.

I am pretty sure I am going to go with full ferrea valvetrain. That sounds so awesome to me. I'll install myself once the head gets back, apparently lead time is around 5-6 weeks. I'm pretty excited, and stoked about how much I've already learned in this process.

You will not be disappointed

That's good to know he vouches for them lasting long term. He would know more than me so I'm glad you spoke with him.

If you're anything like me it will be hard to stop drooling over the CNC port work and the beautiful machine work on the deck when you get the head back.

[Dave7CDMTYPER]

You will not be disappointed

That's good to know he vouches for them lasting long term. He would know more than me so I'm glad you spoke with him.

If you're anything like me it will be hard to stop drooling over the CNC port work and the beautiful machine work on the deck when you get the head back.

Exactly! There's no way I can take out my engine, fully disassemble my cylinder head, and not get that type of beautiful machine work done. It was an easy decision once I realized they specialize in Honda engines. Now the fun part! I will work on getting the drivetrain parts (Ferrea FTW) in time to install when it gets delivered back to me. Gonna be a work of art!

I was totally going to follow your advice about the valve guides. But he said their bronze guides have lasted 200k miles in his engine (IIRC), so that's fine with me. I don't see any way that I will be putting that kind of mileage on my gs-r. This is a fun project car, that will be used sometimes for daily driving, and track hopefully sometimes. I bet I'll put maybe 20k miles on it in the next 10 years. But it will be all VTEC.

I also plan to start disassembling the block pretty soon. I'm really excited about that. Then I will decide what do with the block in terms of machine work (if any), and which bottom end parts I want to use (likely will be stock compression).

[DC231]

You will not be disappointed

That's good to know he vouches for them lasting long term. He would know more than me so I'm glad you spoke with him.

If you're anything like me it will be hard to stop drooling over the CNC port work and the beautiful machine work on the deck when you get the head back.

Exactly! There's no way I can take out my engine, fully disassemble my cylinder head, and not get that type of beautiful machine work done. It was an easy decision once I realized they specialize in Honda engines. Now the fun part! I will work on getting the drivetrain parts (Ferrea FTW) in time to install when it gets delivered back to me. Gonna be a work of art!

I was totally going to follow your advice about the valve guides. But he said their bronze guides have lasted 200k miles in his engine (IIRC), so that's fine with me. I don't see any way that I will be putting that kind of mileage on my gs-r. This is a fun project car, that will be used sometimes for daily driving, and track hopefully sometimes. I bet I'll put maybe 20k miles on it in the next 10 years. But it will be all VTEC.

I also plan to start disassembling the block pretty soon. I'm really excited about that. Then I will decide what do with the block in terms of machine work (if any), and which bottom end parts I want to use (likely will be stock compression).

I followed all the advice Luke gave me for my personal k24 N/A build. In terms of his personal engine lasting 200k I would like to ask him what his maintenance schedule on the engine was like hehehe

[Dave7CDMTYPER]

I followed all the advice Luke gave me for my personal k24 N/A build. In terms of his personal engine lasting 200k I would like to ask him what his maintenance schedule on the engine was like hehehe

Your K24 must be awesome. Lol true, he must have maintained it very well.

[Dave7CDMTYPER]

I fully disassembled the block! It went much faster than I had anticipated. The pistons look pretty worn out to me, with the carbon buildup etc. Now I need to decide on:

1) What machine work if any I should do to the block. I definitely at least want to get it cleaned up with the hot bath thing, and blasted etc. If anyone has any feedback or advice let me know. I'm looking for a machine shop for the block. At least do some resurfacing. If the cylinders are fine then I don't think there is any need or benefit to getting work done on them.

2) What bottom end parts to use in the rebuild. Honestly after taking everything out, I really want to get some lightweight pistons and rods to replace the oem gs-r pistons. Or maybe just do oem ITR pistons/rods to increase the compression a little bit. I've heard Carrillo rods are amazing, so I wonder if that's a suitable choice for my build.

3) I want to replace as many of the small parts, bolts, nuts etc. as possible on the block with new oem parts. Including oil pump (I'm pretty sure I can do ITR oil pump).

General thoughts:
I've pretty much decided that I want to soup up this engine a little bit, nothing too aggressive. I'll have the 4 Piston head with Ferrea valve train. And then bottom end increase compression a little (I know I can use Mugen head gasket as well for this). Then I'll have to get it tuned, probably use Hondata and dyno tuning. I might move out of state at that point to not have CARB issues. It's just too fun to do all this, I don't really want to stay totally stock.

[DC231]

I fully disassembled the block! It went much faster than I had anticipated. The pistons look pretty worn out to me, with the carbon buildup etc. Now I need to decide on:

1) What machine work if any I should do to the block. I definitely at least want to get it cleaned up with the hot bath thing, and blasted etc. If anyone has any feedback or advice let me know. I'm looking for a machine shop for the block. At least do some resurfacing. If the cylinders are fine then I don't think there is any need or benefit to getting work done on them.

2) What bottom end parts to use in the rebuild. Honestly after taking everything out, I really want to get some lightweight pistons and rods to replace the oem gs-r pistons. Or maybe just do oem ITR pistons/rods to increase the compression a little bit. I've heard Carrillo rods are amazing, so I wonder if that's a suitable choice for my build.

3) I want to replace as many of the small parts, bolts, nuts etc. as possible on the block with new oem parts. Including oil pump (I'm pretty sure I can do ITR oil pump).

General thoughts:
I've pretty much decided that I want to soup up this engine a little bit, nothing too aggressive. I'll have the 4 Piston head with Ferrea valve train. And then bottom end increase compression a little (I know I can use Mugen head gasket as well for this). Then I'll have to get it tuned, probably use Hondata and dyno tuning. I might move out of state at that point to not have CARB issues. It's just too fun to do all this, I don't really want to stay totally stock.

4piston can do all of your machine work on the block as well.
#1--considering the route you went with the cylinder head I would def recommend throwing some supportive mods in there and go with a fresh bore. Here's where questions come up again when it comes to considering piston type. Forged or cast. Cast run much tighter clearances so you can jump right in and go without the need to let the engine come up to operating temperature. Forged(most anyways) will expand a large amount from cold to operating temp so there is a need to let the engine run and get to operating temp before you can jump in and go.

#2--Carillo rods are amazing units. I do not think you can use OEM type cast pistons with Carrillo rods. I would probably use p73 or pr3 type pistons depending on compression desired and leave those on the GSR rods.

#3--all obd2 b series oil pumps are the same part number from any Honda or Acura. You could go with the 4piston ported OEM oil pump.

I love Florida.... NO EMISSIONS

[Dave7CDMTYPER]

4piston can do all of your machine work on the block as well.
#1--considering the route you went with the cylinder head I would def recommend throwing some supportive mods in there and go with a fresh bore. Here's where questions come up again when it comes to considering piston type. Forged or cast. Cast run much tighter clearances so you can jump right in and go without the need to let the engine come up to operating temperature. Forged(most anyways) will expand a large amount from cold to operating temp so there is a need to let the engine run and get to operating temp before you can jump in and go.

#2--Carillo rods are amazing units. I do not think you can use OEM type cast pistons with Carrillo rods. I would probably use p73 or pr3 type pistons depending on compression desired and leave those on the GSR rods.

#3--all obd2 b series oil pumps are the same part number from any Honda or Acura. You could go with the 4piston ported OEM oil pump.

I love Florida.... NO EMISSIONS

That's amazing that 4Piston does block work too, I think I will do that. Very good point about cast vs forged operating temp, I will consider this. I might go with forged pistons so that I could potentially use awesome connecting rods. But if GS-R rods are the best for my final decision then so be it. But I really want something cooler than gs-r oem if possible. I want to have lighter weight engine internals. Great to know about the oil pumps, I did see the ported oil pump on 4Piston, I'll definitely do that.

It looks like this is the 4Piston page for b series block work: https://4pistonracing.com/collections/e ... ock_street

It seems like their general set up is to do the machine work and assemble the block. I want to assemble myself. So I guess I will talk tho them to see what my options are. But they do balance the rotating assembly (which would be amazing) and do other things with the engine parts that I don't know much about yet. So I could potentially just order everything and tell them to not assemble. But also, their list of available rods doesn't include any that I want (but I don't really know much about their brands/options) and they offer Wiseco pistons in any c/r and hone. I'm not sure what pistons I want yet either.

So that's where my head is at right now lol. But I'm eager to make the decisions and send off the block!

[GeHonda]

If you aren't throwing forced induction at it or trying to run 9000+ RPM, which it sounds like you aren't, the stock rods are more than adequate. I would reuse your rods but have ARP rod bolts installed by a competent machine shop.

The OEM cast pistons are hard to beat as well. There are many options in the OEM range to bump compression, see calculator below. If you play with compression or cams significantly you have to have an aftermarket tune done to maintain reliability, which then means an OBD-1 conversion w/ Hondata, etc. I would decide carefully how far you are taking things now, so you end up with a reasonable result that meets your intended use.

https://www.zealautowerks.com/bseries.html

[Dave7CDMTYPER]

If you aren't throwing forced induction at it or trying to run 9000+ RPM, which it sounds like you aren't, the stock rods are more than adequate. I would reuse your rods but have ARP rod bolts installed by a competent machine shop.

The OEM cast pistons are hard to beat as well. There are many options in the OEM range to bump compression, see calculator below. If you play with compression or cams significantly you have to have an aftermarket tune done to maintain reliability, which then means an OBD-1 conversion w/ Hondata, etc. I would decide carefully how far you are taking things now, so you end up with a reasonable result that meets your intended use.

https://www.zealautowerks.com/bseries.html

Great points, I'll take my time to consider the best options. I actually do like the idea of OEM pistons, that calculator you posted is awesome. AFAIK, oem cast pistons would last much longer for reliability. JDM GS-R oem pistons have a slightly higher c/r of 10.6, compared to USDM GS-R of 10.0. Or just doing a 2 layer head gasket would bump up to 10.16.

BTW, I've already sent my head off to 4Piston to get porting and valve job.