Type R Club of America

owning a tesla isnt cheap. it just happens that in my situation both of my TDi's were sold back to VW and a 30mpg car will equate to roughly $450 a month in gas (this is when gas is in the 4.xx range, which is normal in SoCal.)

So if you look at it like this:

gas car payment + gas + insurance VS tesla + electricity increase + insurance

Car payments are going to depend on class of gas car, but lets say something equal in "luxury" to a tesla price, tesla insurance is slightly more, but it really comes down to gas vs electricity increase. The more you drive and the more free electricity you get, the cheaper it becomes to drive the tesla. But again, its not a cheap car. just cheaper than what it would cost to daily a new CTR for example, or even cheaper than a new fancy turbo 10spd accord msrp's for like 32k. Thats not too far off a base model 3.

noahf wrote: ↑Fri May 22, 2020 3:42 pm
Thank you! mine too. I always wanted one and somehow had the chance to get it. I think my color pref goes VSM > PY < CW when it comes to the ek9, but i really enjoy my CW ek9.

I was thinking SBP aka FBP> CW>PY>VSM. Silver is really a bland color to me. Which is both good and bad in the wheels dept. because any wheel color combo with taste, usually looks good in contrast.

JDMJNKY wrote: ↑Sun May 24, 2020 1:16 pm
I was thinking SBP aka FBP> CW>PY>VSM. Silver is really a bland color to me. Which is both good and bad in the wheels dept. because any wheel color combo with taste, usually looks good in contrast.

ha! i think its because the spoon sw388 is my all time favorite rim and theres some really good VSM + spoon pictures out there. Its also such a rare ek9 color, very similar to an MR dc2r.

I tried to document this as best I could but of course building + taking photos is always challenging when using gloves. so here is what I have:

Shortblock specs:
B20 Block - Bored to 85mm
GSR Crank - Polished and balanced
ITR Rods
P72 nippon racing pistons (basically 85mm jdm itr "style" pistons)
King race bearings
OEM Oil pump

Compression ration should be low 12's to 12.5,

Sprayed the block/oil galleys with break clean and then blew with compressed air.
Measured the main bearings and all were within spec.

The bearings im using:

measured the ring gaps to make sure they were within spec. they were .002 loser than a stock b20, but well within service spec. not sure if its due to the 1mm extra or piston to wall clearance, but i think they will be fine. no filing was necessary.

got the pistons and rods all setup with rings instaleld:

rod bearings i am using:



and then..... I realized that I needed a rod bolt stretch gauge to properly torque the ITR rods and that a torque wrench wouldnt work. I believe these are the only honda rods that require that (b series at least) and also are 13mm instead of 12mm rod bolts. So I ordered one from summit....

And while the shortblock is "together" and i didnt even get a picture, the crank spins nice and smooth with pistons in there.

A friend sent me a link to a GSR head that was ported by RLZ that was for sale. It seemed like a good deal, was a turbo head and had <10k miles on it, full part out. So RLZ cnc port and valves/springs. It was a lil dirty on arrival and while I waited for a rob bolt stretch gauge, I took the head over to get checked out for any leaks.

Had the valve seals replaced and everything cleaned up. 2 of the valves in cylinder 1 had a small leak but thankfully it was due to some residue build up on the valve seats. the machine shop cleaned those and now everything is ready to install:




This has been an interesting build as its been somewhat of a budget build. I think I have:
Block - free
Pistons / Bearings / Gasket set - 350
Rods - free
Crank - free
Machine Shop Costs: 200 (block/crank/rods/pistons) + 90 (head)
Head - 650
Cams - 350
Cam gears - 320
Oil Pump - 200
Oil Pan - 160
Water pump / tensior - 100
Gates Timing Belt - 97
Golden Eagle Vtec conversion kit - 202
ARP head studs - 152
Cleaning supplies/oil/etc - 100
Tools - 50

So a fully built long block oil pan to valve cover will have cost me roughly: $3021. More than I thought but way cheaper than my last k series build.

Other costs:
s300 v3 ecu - 500
skunk2 Ultra Race manifold - 400 + 250 for porting
skunk2 74mm throttle body - 250 * not finalized yet
ID 1050x injectors - 520 * not finalized yet
Fuel Rail setup - 200 * not finalized yet

Even simple builds add up. Cant wait to see the final whp. Is E85 readily available near you?

kind of. I believe im not too far from you actually. There are a few places on certain freeways near here that have it, but im not sure I would want to go full e85. My STi was flex fuel and though it was a beast on e85, I hated getting <200miles per tank and having to fill up so much.

That said, if the tuner thinks I will gain a lot from e85 then I will likely swap some parts out. injectors will already be in there and fuel pump will be upgraded to adjust, so then it would just be filter/fuel lines to conform.

noahf wrote: ↑Thu Jun 11, 2020 11:06 pm kind of. I believe im not too far from you actually. There are a few places on certain freeways near here that have it, but im not sure I would want to go full e85. My STi was flex fuel and though it was a beast on e85, I hated getting <200miles per tank and having to fill up so much.

That said, if the tuner thinks I will gain a lot from e85 then I will likely swap some parts out. injectors will already be in there and fuel pump will be upgraded to adjust, so then it would just be filter/fuel lines to conform.

Oh man, then yes E85 is available. For the 20-40 Extra ponies it's definitely worth it. We operate on SPG ("Smiles Per Gallon") round these parts!! Plus at the price of E85 the ratio was better, nearly 2-1 if my math was right. I get the frequent trips, but it's all about the journey anyway, right? Who's tuning it for you?

JDMJNKY wrote: ↑Thu Jun 11, 2020 11:41 pm Oh man, then yes E85 is available. For the 20-40 Extra ponies it's definitely worth it. We operate on SPG ("Smiles Per Gallon") round these parts!! Plus at the price of E85 the ratio was better, nearly 2-1 if my math was right. I get the frequent trips, but it's all about the journey anyway, right? Who's tuning it for you?

@armentuned will tune it. You really think 20-40 just on e85? If thats the case, might have to order fuel lines. Time to research all what I need.

I sincerely do. Bone stock K20a2, put down 219whp on E.

its been almost a year since my last update. crazy.

My housing situation drastically changed last fall and so my CTR project basically went on ice. Ive been doing a lot of house work and havnt had much time for me, but finally starting to work on the R again. I had a dyno appointment for today and was buttoning things up to get it all done but of course ran into some issues.

I purchased a skunk2 ultra street manifold thats cnc ported from 4piston and when they sent it, they sent it with the wrong intake gasket. I called them and they sent the correct gasket + accessory kit over. But it wasnt until last Friday when the intake was in the engine bay and I went to bolt up the 76mm skunk2 throttle body that I found out the plenum is actually the wrong plenum too. So somehow they sent me everything for a k series except for the runners, which are b series. They said they would 2 day me the correct piece but its been 6 days and it hasnt arrived yet. So dyno got cancelled.

But in the downtime, i bought new 5lug off of eg6rob and did a full suspension refresh. I bought my favorite honda special koni gc's, pci front upper arms, pci rear lowers, all new wheel bearings, new ball joints, new oem inner/outer tie rods. The only thing thats not getting swapped are the inner and suspension bushings on the front lower arms. I was going to send them to king ping, but with the lead time Im going to wait until off season maybe. Im really hoping to get the car running and actually to the track before end of summer.

only other real modification is s2000 clutch master to clear the throttle body.

Oh and my twin loop hytech exhaust arrived last summer, fucking finally. was only an 16 month wait on that part. it will be on and the custom intake will be built out for the dyno, which im hoping is within the next 2 weeks. once the car is actually together, ill make the appointment.

and it does look like Ill need to run some of that e85 even though i didnt want to.