Slowly But Surely

In this installment of my blog I am covering a recent update. I haven't had much time to work on this project. Life, snow and just not enough hours in each day has hindered my output. Alas the weather is getting better. Soon I will be able to get major work done :).

 Before I get into the updates, I would like to notate what my vision is for this car. Ever since I was a little kid I have enjoyed race cars. My Dad turns wrenches and has two projects of his own, a '69 Chevy truck with a high compression 383 with a 5 speed and a '67 MG GTB Special with a 215 cubic inch Oldmobile all aluminum v8. Seeing a clean engine bay without clutter makes me smile and has since I can remember. This is something that I strive for in my race car. Clean and functional engine and engine bay.

In effort to get rid of the unnecessary,  I worked on removing the coolant line tubes going in and out of my throttle body. I think without hoses the tubes look tacky.

Before:




After:




I tried to get the fittings out by those suckers are in there! I was prying the crap out of one and it was just rounding the aluminum around it. I decided to cut them off. I then filed them until I created a shape that I was satisfied with. When I get my Devcon I plan to fill in both of the open passages.

KMS sells a nice FITV block off plate for $20. I'm ordering one on Friday. Looks like a nice piece.



I'm toying with the idea of sending this 60mm throttle body to Polar Bear Tuning. I've read that he does a killer taper bore. I want to have this throttle body taper bored from 65mm to 60mm. I need to contact him to get a quote.

Whether I get the throttle body bored or not, I will definitely take it my favorite machine shop, Lee's Machine to get bead blasted. I love the bead blasted aluminum look.


I picked up a Vortech fuel pressure regulator this past weekend. It looks good on my fuel rail.



I look forward to upping my fuel pressure from a low 32 psi up to a much more adequate pressure for the injectors I plan to run.

The intake manifold and it's components are shaping up nicely :)



I haven't had the extra money to order my die grinder, shanks and a Jeg's porting kit. Once I can finally get those tools I can get to work finishing my intake manifold.

My local track this year, Pueblo Motorsports Park has a test and tune session on March 16th and March 30th. Their Friday Nite Drags program with a time only slot starts on April 4th and runs until September. I cannot wait to get out there to test this new parts and to have some fun!

As I mentioned, their has been a lot of snow fall in my region over the last few weeks. I've been stuck inside. I like to draw and paint along with building my Honda. I found a couple of Civic EF Hot Wheels at Fartmart a few weeks back. I had to modify them :)




I also have a dream of one day building my own header. I got creative and made this bad boy....



....out of toilet paper and paper towel tubes. I had to share. Thanks for reading!

Mission Locking VTEC- Complete!

Hello to the few of you that read my blog. I finished locking my rocker arms this evening. First off I want to say that my Dad and I had a blast working on this together! Nothing better than a little father son bonding even though I am 34 ha. Kudos to him for doing most of the work this evening. Thanks Dad!

Now to the tech. We had to reem out the rocker arms that had the spring loaded pin. The reason being is that those particular rocker arms had a step within it's orifice for the vtec pin. Once reemed, our new vtec pins slid into the orifice with ease.

Random pictures from the evening:







The machining process:




My Dad and I's vtec pin:




And the end result:




BAMMMMMMMMMMMM and my rockers are ready for some RM massive intake lobe action. More updates soon, thanks for reading :)

More Rocker Arm Fun

Hello there! I hope that 2014 is treating you well so far.

Yesterday I received my new 10mm x 40mm hardened steel vtec pins. The site that I ordered them from had a general picture of the pins. The pins I received are a bit different. I thought that both ends would be identical but they are not.



At least the pins fit although they are definitely on the too tight side. I had to press these together. As you can see, the new vtec pins are too long. It also looks like my measurements were off. Dammit! I even measured twice haha.



Thankfully my Dad has a nice lathe. I haven't learned to machine with his lathe yet. Together he and I are going to cut the pins to the proper length as well as taking a thou or two off from the diameter so the vtec pins aren't such a tight fit.

More updates soon! Thanks for reading.

No More VTEC ;)

I haven't had much time for Project '88 lately. I have a couple a of kids and during the holidays I try to focus on them and family stuff. Now that the Holidays are practically over, it's time for me to get back on the ball and to get some work done.

Since I have my RM cam in my possession, I need to finish up modifying my rockers and locking vtec. In previous posts I notated how I had discovered that I was in need for some longer vtec pins. I also needed to remove the spring loaded pin in the last vtec rocker to eliminate a bind that I felt when the rocker arms are locked together.

Yesterday I got to work. My Dad and I started with removing the spring loaded pin. After closer investigation we found that the spring loaded pins were held in by tiny circlips. The little clips were such a pain in the ass to get to, even with the pin pushed down. I ended up having to break the pins which took very little effort. Once the tops of the pins were off, I could get in there and remove the circlips and the rest of the pin. It took forever.









Looks like the oem vtec pins are 10mm in diameter. I need some 10mm in diameter / 40mm in length hardened steel pins to replace the oem vtec pins. Luckily I found some on eBay in just that size and diameter. I ordered those today.



HAPPY early NEW YEAR! Track opens in 5 months. ;)

Time for More Air

I received a very special package from Rocket Motorsports yesterday.









Here are the cam specs:

Intake...   .480" / 254* duration @ .050"
Exhaust...   .440"/ 252* duration @ .050"

I took some pictures comparing my RM cam versus a stock y8 cam.









Random cam pictures...





And my absolute favorite part about this cam....








Looks like some grinding will be needed so the massive intake lobe can clear the head casting. So awesome. My plans are to build a z6 head in the next month and will use my RM cam in this head. Be on the look out for updates. Thanks for reading!

Rocker Arm Mania

Good evening. Recently I have been working on locking vtec within a set of z6 rocker arms. 

I read on a few forums that people would swap the long and short pins to lock vtec. That might work well for a B series but it does not for a single jingle.

I used a .25" thick nut to space out the vtec pins so they penetrate into each rocker arm equally. 

This seemed to work okay. 

The only problem is this:

The third rocker has a spring loaded pin. With my spacer pushing the vtec pin completely down into the third rocker, the trio assembly seems to bind. Not like a complete bind, just enough to notice a difference. Without vtec locked, the rocker arms move up and down freely on the rocker shafts. Once locked the rocker arms don't move as freely; as if something is misaligned making it harder to move up and down. I think that either the rockers need align bored or the spring loaded pin is somehow putting pressure on the assembly making it appear binding by feel. I have a hunch that the spring loaded pin is the culprit. 

I don't like the bind at all. In fact I am going to make modifications to eliminate this bind. How so you may ask? By removing the spring loaded pin and having one long vtec pin custom machined. Stay tuned!

Something Special is Coming my Way...

I will share the details when I receive my package from Rocket Motorsports. I can say this: this is camshaft has no non vtec primaries. The only sohc vtec cam that's not vtec. And it's big as fudge, puts the you know who's level X to shame. Stay tuned.

I had to post an extra large picture :)