whoah... this blog has been abandoned for such a LONG time... reason why? I decided to stop blogging about Banshee coz theft rates of modified hondas has been pretty insane... I still will not post (much) about Banshee on this blog.. but will post any interesting stuff i can find.
recently there has been a couple of shares on facebook about an article on Import Tuner website entitled Piston Anatomy - Tech Knowledge
very good article... nice, long and detailed read.
as you may remember in my previous post, i blew my engine in SIC... so when i was rebuilding a B20 (which just went kapow again 4 days ago...sigh) i also did some research on what pistons to use and all that.
these are my findings which i posted on a forum a long while ago... the recent shares of Import Tuner's article has reminded me of this post. so i decided to blog it to make it easier to find in the future for my own or others reference.
basically summarizes what i discovered during my research which is also mentioned in the article linked above.
im just gonna copy paste what i posted.
theres basically 3 types of pistons generally used for engines..
1/ cast iron
cast iron are basically stock pistons...the good thing about them is
that they dont expand much when heated up and they take very little time
to heat up. this allows for tighter piston to wall clearance which
basically eliminates piston to wall slap. they are also the weakest type
of the 3.
2/ forged with low silicone content using 2618 aluminium
Example of the brand is Wiseco. this type is the strongest of all....the
downside is that both types of forged pistons will expand MORE than
cast iron pistons so will require greater piston to wall clearance.
another downside is that they take longer to heatup and expand. so
during cold starts, piston to wall slap is pretty common...at least til
the pistons warm up. wall slaps can scratch ur sleeve.
3/ forged with high silicone content using 4032 aluminum
Supertec and CP uses these... a common trait of forged pistons is that
they expand MORE than cast iron pistons so will require MORE piston to
wall clearance. the bad thing is, they take longer to heat up and
expand.. so during cold starts, piston to wall slap is common. again,
wall slaps can scratch ur sleeve. this type of piston however, expands
less than the one above. so u can get tighter piston to wall clearance
and minimize wall slap. they are also not as strong as the one above but
still significantly stronger than cast iron pistons.
myself, i went with supertec 11.5 pistons for my rebuild. my mechanic
wanted me to use wiseco, i refused as i didnt wanna take the chance of
slapping.. though i know hes built a number of daily driven engines with
wiseco with no issues...no slapping etc. but still i kiasu...so i dun
wan
ive also seen a picture on hondatech of a wiseco piston suffering severe
slapping... that the W on the side of the piston actually wore off and
were badly scratched.
up to u which one u wanna use. talk to ur mechanic if need be. im not
sure if u get 84mm forged do u still need to bore a little for the wall
clearance or not..
as for the (Ford) TX3 pistons, it was pretty common to use it in B20 a long time ago.. nowadays, i rarely hear of anyone using them.
other options cast iron are RS Machine and YCP pistons. both only
available on the internet and outside the country...mostly on ebay. both
have the same exact design: B18C-R design but with different sizes.
should give u around 10+ compression. the YCP is significantly cheaper
than RS Machines (which has alot more good feedback, barely hear
anything about the YCP either postive or negative)...but recently i
found a set of used RS Machine pistons on mudah
another option for cast iron would be the stock F20B pistons... these
however are 85mm and will require a rebore.. also, the pistons need to
be worked on by the machine shop in order to be fitted into b series to
ensure clearance and fitment.
Sooooo…..after around 10 years of my absence in Sepang International Circuit aka Sepang F1 Circuit, I finally made a return…unfortunately my return this time was followed by a loud kaboom as my engine blew… hahahahah
This was an event that was held on 30th July 2011, 2 days before the start of Ramadhan and it was organized by a workshop where they know Hizam, a friend of mine. Hizam was also the one who basically organized all the money collecting, name registration etc etc.. Special thanks to Hizam and the workshop for organizing this. It was a Honda Owners Private Track Day. So all the cars on track were Hondas. Best part about it was that the event was limited to only 35 cars. So there weren’t any traffic jams on track etc and you could go about on your own pace without worrying of other people.
Downside of the track day (as with any track day @ SIC) is the RM300 fee. This made it a lil tougher for Hizam to collect the numbers needed to make the event a success as there were last minute drop outs, cancellations etc. RM300 aint cheap seriously… so DAMN YOU KHIR TOYO FOR CLOSING BT3 TRACK! DIE MOTHER FUCKER DDDIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! I dare say that I, along with a lot of other people who would love to frequent the track, FUCKING HATE YOU! For those who don’t know, the fees for a track day at SIC is enough to cover 2-3 track days at BT3. Also, sepang doesn’t really open up their doors to the public that much these days for open track days… so hence the hatred for the dumbass Khir Toyo who’s responsible for shutting it down.. it was actually one of his first orders when he came into power…to shut down BT3 and turn the area into a housing project. Motherfucker must have made millions from the bribe to shut the place down… I have no proof of the bribery..but im pretty sure there was one.
OK OK OK, enough about that dumbshit, corrupted ex-politician asswipe. Back to the event.
Most of the cars that day were powered by K series with only a handful of B series, myself & Banshee included. If not mistaken I think there were only about 3 B series… Banshee, Daymen’s CRX & an Integra DB8 belonging to Daymen’s friend. Both of them came down from Kuantan for this event.
Even though my engine blew, I had SO MUCH FUN! I was still laughing away at the pits after my car was towed back… it was a situation that would normally give me so much stress, but I wasn’t stressed at all. That’s how much fun I had. For those who like to play corners etc, seriously, do it on track. Touge, genting, bla bla bla… doesn’t even come close to the experience on track. Public streets isn’t the place to be doing it in the first place. Even if u do play on public streets, believe me when I say that ull be pushing even harder on track.
Im not really disappointed that my engine blew… truth be told, with the reputation of the B20s, I kinda expected it. I also saw it as an opportunity to build up the bottom end since that’s the most difficult to do since you have to remove it from the car to do anything.
For now, enjoy the pix… LOTS of it.. and since there so many, I didn’t really bother to arrange it that much.
Bumped into an old friend, before our session was a Superbike open track day session, knowing Adib is very much into tracking with superbikes, I expected to see him there and I did….this is also the guy that poisoned me into VTECs… he was also the one that convinced me to buy an EF (he was using an ori EF9 at the time). I probably would have bought a Ford TX3 1.8 DOHC if it weren’t for him…glad I listened honestly.
Yes, yes….thats me hugging Meor.. hahahahha. He had to drop out of the track day due to his clutch needing replacement…
Registration table… Hizam handled the registration
There is just something so wrong about this picture of Daymen standing behind me…
This cameraman very the power.. he brought all the power equipment..power camera bla bla bla…. But forgot to charge the battery HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
There is just SO MUCH WRONG in this picture.. god knows why Pejal is smiling like that while I was bending over… goddamn… SO WRONG! WTF WOI!!!!!
Here’s a video of me going around SIC, inclusive of me spinning out, and the engine exploding in different angles.
From the video you can see that I mentioned brakes a few times as well as a mention of tires. I was running on Toyo T1R 195/55/15 and from earlier posts Rapidstop 550c Brake Pads. The tires were seriously unsuitable for track. The tire wall was so soft, I had HUGE understeer everywhere. And almost every corner the tire felt like it was gonna peel off the wheels.
As for the brake pads. Very good for daily driving, with the occasional “spirited” driving. But for track use that has lots of heavy braking like in SIC… its totally unsuitable. My pads started smoking after only 1 hard lap…. I had severe brake fade and had to practically stand on the brakes much earlier than everyone else. Gotta look into better brake pads for the future.
Combine the brake fade and tire wall, u see what happened in turn 14. I also couldn’t get any faster….oh well…later later I guess…
After the kapow!
My wife, wearing Pejal’s uber cool helmet which he bought in Indonesia.
Brothers of UNrest
Pejal’s car. This car was there just to model itself.. it didn’t go into track at all… bz body je :P
Like I said earlier, it’s a good opportunity to upgrade the block with stronger internals… I also had the engine balanced. Unfortunately, during reassembly there was a problem encountered with the block… it seems that previously the block AND the head has been skimmed… so if u look at the picture closely, u can see my pistons jotting out a little from the block. I decided to discard this block n maybe sell it if I can. And build a new B20 block. Yes yes, a lot of people say not to go B20 for track… but I don’t track very often, and I’ve also seen a number of B20s taking track abuse pretty well…we’ll see. Hopefully with this new setup of stronger internals, the engine will hold up well. If kaboom… im going B18C-R n leaving it stock hehehehhe.
But I wont be going back to SIC for a LOOOONNGG while more… I had to borrow cash from big daddy for this rebuild, so until I pay him off and manage to save up some money for future possibilities of kapows, track is off limits for me.
The Block after rebuild/ re-assembly… high comp tuuuuuuuuuu hahahahhahahaa
I also took the opportunity to upgrade a few small parts.. like this Russell steel braided clutch hose, a cheap thermal intake manifold gasket and aerospeed magnetic oil sump nut. I also got the mechanic to make a custom oil sump baffle.
