Big Plans!!!!need Some Help

[Tony]

Ok, first off...the body and paint:

If you want it to last long, don't skimp out and buy the cheap stuff and cutting corners on doing the job right. Cheap bondo or bad application/too much bondo, will cause it to crack later and you having to grind it ALL down and do it over again. and yes, just using bondo to fill in your body line is too much bondo. You can use some fiberglass filler first and then bondo it smooth, but its still no subsitute for a metal plate being welded in to fill most of it and bondo the rest.

I would say at least 90% of a paint job is all prep work. If the vehicle hasn't been prepped right the paint will have problems sticking and will look fine at first, and eventually start peeling off and then your back where you started or worse having to strip it all down, because if you paint over paint that already isn't sticking, its just going to ruin your new paint job. And as far as the mask goes, you can just go down to like O'Reilly's, or your local parts or paint store and ask for a paint respirator, same thing as a primer mask, unless you consider a dusk mask a primer mask.

Now for the motor part:

If your wanting to stay N/A you will need to up your compression and reduce some weight on some key things, mainly get your crank lightened and balance and all that fun stuff, and anything else you can get lighter internal, do it. Now for getting lighter pulleys, stay away from them, they will put too much wear on your motor because of them not being balance for it. I am starting to hear more and more stories about lightened crank pulleys ruining motors, so I would just assume stay away from those and just get some lighter internals. With the lighter internals you will increase your rpms and make it alot easier for you to get up and hit VTec. Also, don't over look your headgasket. I'm about to start building a D16Z6 with a stock compression of around 9:1, just with some D16A1 pistons and a D16Y8 2-layer head gasket(stock metal 3 layer gasket), I'm looking to going up to around 12.4:1. Now if thats exactly what its going to come out with, we will find out when its done.

If your going to turbo, yes you will need to get lower compression and probably upgrade your fuel system, I don't know for sure because I haven't looking into boosting a car before.

Either way you go, tuning will be highly advised. Yes bolt ons will give you some more power, but you see optimal gains without getting it tuned right. Not to mention, you can always get the VTec activation sooner than OEM if you wanted it to.

[cody_stl]

Thanks.About the paint job,wouldnt i sand off all stock paint first anyway,therefore allready peeling paint not being a problem?i have no access to a welder,so ya think most fiberglass then bondo would hold fine?
I'm getting my engine internals book marked.I am looking at the Nopionline.come store,and they have Pistons that have a stated rod length of 5.429",all of them do,and ALL of the connecting rod lengths are 5.433",whats with that,the pistons are made by JE ad are domed with a Comp ration of 9.8:1 and they accept NOS and Turbo,and the rods are made by Crower,does the length Specs differences mean they arent compatible,or is this slight difference the normal in this area?I also cant find the valve specs on the stock engine,so i dont know what valves to get?they have like 5 different sizes.And in all HONESTY,how much would a port and polish cost,and what does this do?and when you have your car TUNED,what exactly do they do,and how much does that cost?i know WHAT they do,i mean how do they do it?This is my plan so far,Body Work,then
B18c1,
GReddy Timing Belt
Crower Spring/Retainer Kit
Crower Stage 2 Camshaft
Crower H-Beam Connecting Rods
BDL Cam Seal
Eagle Forged Performance Crankshaft (5.6lbs less than stock)
Edelbrock Victor X Intake Manifold (gonna go,go all out right?)
JE Domed Pistons (part #133-2471,incase ya wanna look em up)
Venom High Flow Infectors
JE Piston Rings
SOOOOO,with all this i guess tuning is gonna be a must,i hope it dont cost to damn much,this is gonna break me.I figure this engine will perform great N/A,and i left the N2O and turbo open ended for later application.You gottta know i aint messin round here.lol.The only reason i am still workin full time is to do this car,soon as it is done,its back to school full time,and till then my bills are minimal,and i am makin good money.I HOPE to have the body work done and the B18 sittin on an engine stand in my garage by April,Done and ready to be swapped by june,july latest.But seriously,how is tuning done,and about how much will it cost?How come i cant find those little cheater NOS sytems anywhere?you know the little ones you can put under a damn seat if ya wanted,just a little boost if ya need,unable to locate,but i have seen em before.smallest i can find are the five pound bottles.Anyone got a Oline link for turbo kits?Low Boost ones?What is the best body kit site?i am adding all these costs up so i have an idea of how long this is gonna take,i cant wait to get the engine and park it in my garage,its great having that sittin in there,piece by piece the monster WILL GROW.Any Valve recommendations?What kinda shiops fo the post and clean the head or whatever?Cost?Thanks guys,the quick responses have been GREAT!

[cody_stl]

BTW all these parts are from nopionline.com....incase ya wanna look em up and gimme some pointers.Thanks

[cody_stl]

ONE MORE THING.....anyone know the paint order in coats.I was thinking silver flake on top of silver base coat with 7 clear coats?Does it go,Prep,Primer,Base,Flake,Clear?Any tips on Coatings?I sand the old paint off first right?I ASSUME to paint the engine bay i HAVE to remove the engine?duh.Kinda sucks i will barely able to be able to spare my car once for paint,let alone for the swap,only transportation i have.Maybe i could borrow my old car i sold to my Momma....hehehe....01 Stratus R/T
Thanks, Later

[cody_stl]

I have looked up and down hasport and i CANNOT find the hydro to cable tranny conversion kit!i must be blind,can someone post up the exact link,or hit me with the price?

[turtlecrxsi]

Tony has some great info except there is absolutely nothing wrong with light weight crank pulleys. I've had mine on my engine that was like the one he's building and the high compression was stupid fast but it detonated and it sucked. So the pulleys went on the engine I use now which is basically stock minus the cam and I have been driving it like this for 2 years (almost 4 years total). So don't let the crank pulley drama scare you. Unorthodox Racing makes quality stuff and I stand behind their products.

[Tony]

Alright, well I could have been kinda harsh on the pulleys, but I have heard some bad stories about them, just main the crank pulley because of the aftermarkets ones not being balanced like it should be, since the crank pulleys technical name is a Harmonic balancer, but I'm sure there are some good ones, just gotta do some research first.

I'm still fairly new on the engine stuff, but I'm about to build me a race car and help build a couple more so I will get a crash course on it soon.

The paint orders are: Prep, Primer, Base, then Clear. The "flake", a.k.a. metallics, are part of the base coat. There are some 2 step base coats, but those are mainly true candy colors. If someone says they have a candy coat paint job, but only had 1 stage of base coat, its not a true candy job. Most commonly clear coats are put on 3-4 coats depending on the clear itself. A couple extra coats couldn't hurt either, especially if your gonna be sanding and buffing it. As for your old paint, you don't have to strip it down if its under a certain millege, usually 2-3 paint jobs...4 would be pushing it in my opinion, but you can keep putting it on as much as you want. To prep it, first I would take off anything you can take off with relative ease, i.e. taillights, headlights...etc. If you want the engine bay painted, you will need the motor and everything out that you don't want painted, you would be better off taking the engine harness out and try stuffing the rest of it back into the car, or you can find away to try to keep it up off the service, but then you run a possibility of it hitting the wet paint sometime.

Now for sanding, if your current paint is in pretty good shape, not too many chips, you could probably start off with some 320 grit dry sand paper and go over it and feather any of the chips or imperfections out. Once you get all those done, take some Laquer High Build Primer(not the best primer in the world, but relatively cheap and does a pretty good job on filling in spots if mixed right, approximately 50% primer/50% laquer thinner) and throw some paint in your feathered areas and if you had any accidents with the primer, lightly hit it with the 320 paper, might get some 320 wet paper if the spot isn't too bad(wet paper leaves less aggressive scratches). Now some paints you can actually stop here because the paint is thick enough to fill those scratches, or if you have a higher build primer, you can mask the car off and primer the car now, which I would probably go ahead and do. Now get some rattle can paint, something that will stand out from your primer color and lightly go over the car, you know how you see those Under construction low rider trucks rolling around with primer and black lightly sprayed over it. Your rattle can paint will provide you a guide coat to show how much you have sanded and any high or low spots. Get you a decent size sanding block, you can try to start off with some 600 wet or dry paper, if wet is taking too long, hit it with dry, and if that takes a little too long, hit it with some coarser stuff then go back with 600. Either way, to be on the safe side, finish with 600 wet, your base and clear should be able to fill that in pretty good.

Now if your ready for your base coat, go ahead and mask it and go for it. Before any one else jumps in and corrects me, there are several different types of primer, and several steps to it if you have the time and money to go into it. But using laquer primer as a main primer will work, i did that to a wrecker for a race track and the paint held wonderfully for the hell the thing went through, only places it chipped were where something drug across it hard or over an edge. You just gotta take your time on the prep work. If your not sure about doing the base and clear, if you do the prep work and prime the car, you should be ok to take it to someone else and have them do it, like MAACO or someone. Other than that, I wouldn't take my car to MAACO or some cheap place because they skip steps on the prep work, only way they can make money on it.

[kingpinn]

clawhammer


Scientists have discovered that most women will, at some time in their life, contain intelligent DNA. Unfortunately, over 95% of them will spit it out.



is the funnest thing i have ever seen

[civic_boy91]

if you want to beat the hell out of the srt4's get a b16 swap and turbo it 10psi, and get really good front tires... your really going to need them.

[cody_stl]

Thanks alot guys...i appreciate the replies.
any word on the POSSIBLE cost of an engine tune and porting and polishing and all around cleaning up of a used b18.If i replaced stock pistons,crankshaft,connecting rods,valves,cams,and any other internal i can get my claws around,would that require having a shop tune the engine or whatever? would 9.8:1 Comp Ratio Dome pistons be a good natural aspiration choice,with a possibility of nitrous and turbo?I prolly wasnt planning on a turbo just nitrous,what pistons should i get with that in mind?What kind of horsepower could i put out of a b18 N/A with a shot of N2O?i'm looking for around 200 before a 55 shot of nitrous....could i achieve this with less than $5000?
Thanks again

[turtlecrxsi]

If you're going to build it up, go with some nice 10.5:1cr pistons and all the rest.. pp, h-beam rods, pulleys, i/h/e, ecu tune and maybe you'll see 200hp N/A. Regardless, you'll have a badass b18. Remember b18b IM flows a little better but pp would probably do same for b18a IM. And b18b head as slightly more aggressive cams than b18a. Will you replace those as well?

[cody_stl]

Originally Posted by turtlecrxsi

If you're going to build it up, go with some nice 10.5:1cr pistons and all the rest.. pp, h-beam rods, pulleys, i/h/e, ecu tune and maybe you'll see 200hp N/A. Regardless, you'll have a badass b18. Remember b18b IM flows a little better but pp would probably do same for b18a IM. And b18b head as slightly more aggressive cams than b18a. Will you replace those as well?

I thought about buying a edelbrock intake manifold....would it flow better than the b18b IM?i dont know what i/h/e is,sorry?or pp?and my big question that is giving me the headache of my lifetime is what does tuning your engine entail,and can it be done by me,the novice?what is this hondata,neptune shit i keep seeing?no matter which site i go to researching tuning EVERYONE talks like evryone knows their little tuner dialogue and terms and crap....SO AGGRIVATING!Even threads intended for beginners i cant make heads or tail of what they are talkin bout.I have been also compelled towards the boosted b16 route....or maybe a b18c1 with better pistons,and connecting rods,then boosted.....instead of N/A,thing is i am still open to other routes,i just have a target power of 200hp,and as close to 200tq as i can get,before the 50 shot of N2O i plan on getting...with a VTEC engine,i want the high revs.BUT,trying to get a grasp on the inner workings of turbo and tuning is SERIOUSLY turning me away from the whole freakin idea of going that route!I mean no one will tell the basics through BEGINNER terms ya know.What is the maximum SAFE comp Ratio i should shoot for being able to run 8psi and a 50 shot of N2O without running into detonation?anyone know of a performance shop in the Saint Louis Area?Thanks

[turtlecrxsi]

pp=port and polish
i/h/e=intake, header, exhaust

If you want to get 200hp and you're thinking about boosting. Get yourself a d16y8 engine... It's a sohc 16 valve 1.6 liter vtec engine. You can take it apart and get stronger connecting rods and lower comp pistons (stock I think are 9.6:1) and boost. If you go vtec supposedly it is better to be OBD1 so you'll need a modified harness (see www.rywire.com) or you can re-wire your own harness. You'll need a p28 ecu for sohc vtec. Get a junkyard turbo like a T-25 that's in good shape. Get a "log" exhaust manifold or use an "HF" exhaust manifold with custom made adaptor plate. You'll need charge pipes (2.5") a downpipe (2.5") and exhaust (2.5"). Or just buy a turbo kit with everything. There are some relatively inexpensive fuel and spark management availabilities. You can easily obtain 200hp with 10-12psi with this application. Go to www.homemadeturbo.com.