F23 VTEC HEADSWAP ON TO F22A4 BLOCK With some extras!

[hon2984]

Hey whats up everybody! MAY 09 UPDATE Sorry to mislead, the F23 head for some reason would not work for me. #1 and #2 cylinders would not contribute at idle. After trying everything I could think of I removed the F23A1 cylinder head and put on a F22B1 head. I have started my build and swap! I just pulled the motor/ tranny, seperated them and stripped the block. It will be off to the machine shop for a bore and new bearings, rings and assembly. before i sent the block off i cleaned the deck and set the head on. Everything lined up perfect! I ran into some normal problems, a broken tranny mount, missing 33% of the rubber in my engine mount, horrible looking timing belt, and alot of carbon. Parts to be transfered from the F22: Coolant sensors and flange, EGR Valve, , Fuel Rail ( Optional ), Throttle body ( optional ) Parts needed: F22B1 Head , 94+ water intake tube, F23 intake manifold converted to OBDI, or a 94/95 IM, 94/95 ECU POA, 94/95 Timing belt, F22 balance shaft belt, Water pump, All the gaskets, F23 exhaust manifold, F23 downpipe, Throttle body(the F22 throttlebody can be modified to fit if neccessary), F23 plug wires, 94 civic D15 IACV I have been using the F22b1 head swap on to f22 block thread in the FAQ. Very Helpfull! Other Misc parts: Walbro 255, Adjustable FPR,OBX header(F23), custom made IACV ODB2 to OBD1 adapter. I'm using a Phearable.net P28. Here is some of my performance parts: Phantom Grip LSD F1 stage 3 clutch n lightened 1 piece flywheel 10:1 CR custom CP pistons Ported F23 IM I will do a more detailed right up as i get time. I have been at it for 12 hours already. Cylinderhead torque specs are vital. #6 was on there good, id say at least more than 130 lp feet of tq. we rounded the head off but got lucky with a bolt extracter that was 3/8 and had an 3/8 to 1/2 adapter on there, i'm suprised we didnt break the adapter. I would say this car had some work done before i got it and put 50,000 hard miles on it, because the head gasket was good and the clutch was still good. But who ever did the work hammered the head bolts on. I will have more pics and info up very soon. 9/8/08 I did a little more today. The phantom grip is installed in the tranny, and the new throw out bearing. The block is off to the machine shop and the balance shafts looked ok. The pistons look pretty bad as you can see. I ran into some issues that need attention. As said before in FAQ F22b1 head on F22A1 block there is a coolant passage on the front center of the head where the block there is not, we solved that problem by tapping the head and installing plug. it was tightened down and filed smooth. We also transferred over the EGR, both of the temp sensors. The F23 coolant flange doesnt have a temp sensor in it, but thats easliy solved by transfering over the coolant flange from the F22. The engine bay got a bath. The transmission also got a bath. Some brackets and mounts got cleaned and painted black. Sensors and coolant flange transferred over. The block before i sent it to the machine shop The top center water jacket before and bad pic of after Drilled tapped and a plug installed. A clean engine bay MORE TO COME! Modified by hon2984 at 5:51 PM 9/8/2008 Modified by hon2984 at 8:44 PM 9/9/2008 Modified by hon2984 at 10:11 PM 9/18/2008 Modified by hon2984 at 6:31 PM 9/19/2008

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[FNEG]

nice i have the f23aa1 head on the f22b1 block. yes the swap is going to be the same as the b1 head swap. but he f23 head vs the b1 head are different in many ways the cams are different, the rocker arms and the valves are different also. so make sure you do your homework if you are going to build it. and the as for the cams they are not inchangeable between the b1 and f23 so if you get a regrind go through bisi to get it done right on the f23 cam because other regrinders will give it a f22b1 gring which will hurt the power gains in the end and leave you sad

[FNEG]

forgot to mention that ports on f23a1 head are 2mm larger than the b1 so it is kinda like having a mild p and p b1 lol fo da lo lo

[hon2984]

I did some more today! I tackled the ECU prep, and wire harness prep. I installed the VTEC wiring into the harness, and switched A11 and A6. Made/modified the connectors for the pressure switch and the solenoid. we cut them down from other junk harnesses, luckly we came across a connector without a wire in it for the solenoid. The oil pan has a fresh coat of black.

The fuel lines arent the same on the f23 fuel rail, the feed line would have to be extended but i that is easily fixed by transferring the f22 fuel rail over. We used a brake line bender and bent the line a bit to clear the throttle body. We also made custom mounts for the fuel rail. It may sound bad, but its on the tight, you can pick up the whole manifold by the rail and it will not move. I will get picks of that up soon! I had to work today so not a whole lot got done.
More to Come!

[jwicecold]

It looks like a fun little build.. Ill prolly def keep checkin this to see the progress. So are you switchin from no vtec to VTEC?? And what did you bore it out to??

[hon2984]

20 over nothing special, just want some fresh clean cylinder walls. Yes non VTEC to VTEC. It should be pretty close to f23 specs. The F22b1 has the same compression ratio(8.8:1), stroke and bore as the F22A4. The F23 has 2mm longer stroke, 2mm bigger bore and 9.5:1 compression.

[twkdCD595]

i take it the f22 fuel rail is not a direct bolt on for the f23 manifold?

looks like a great project, whats the goals for the end result?

[alterdcreations]

looks like fun. if you block off the egr port in the lower intake manifold you can use a gutted out h22/23 upper manifold. this allows you to run a much bigger throttle body. 65mm +

[hon2984]

Originally Posted by alterdcreations

looks like fun. if you block off the egr port in the lower intake manifold you can use a gutted out h22/23 upper manifold. this allows you to run a much bigger throttle body. 65mm +

Thanks i might try that out later! for now i have the F22 throttle body on there.
I'm just trying to get it finished for now, i havent had my car for five days now. this is my daily driver.

As far as a goal 190hp @ the crank.
After i get some money built up hondata and a 120 shot.

I did get some more done today the wire harness got re taped and inspected. I moved and extended the IACV wiring to the TPS area. The computer it installed in the car and bolted down. I had to work again today didnt get too much done.
Check out the F22 fuel rail on the F23 manifold, It may look rigged (which it is) but I assure you the rail will not move/flex. Like I said you can pick up the whole manifold by the rail and it wont move. The bracket in the back ( the one that bolts to the upper intake) gives the most stability, its pretty thick too, it took a while to grind down perfect.

[hon2984]

Well I had the day off today, went over to the machine shop. Looks like the rods were ok and the crank had to be turned .010 and .010. Its always something else! to anybody doing a project like this i would recommend having a nice little chunk of money extra. I ran into about 275$ of extra parts that needed replaced. such as Head bolts (which i could only find at the dealer, 90$), dry rotted motor mount 40$, 75$ for turning the crank, spark plug wires wont transfer over 40$, forgot the water pump, it just adds up way too quick. Now I have all my prepwork done and I'm waiting on the block. I should have it in 3or 4 days.


Modified by hon2984 at 10:12 PM 9/18/2008

[hon2984]

ALMOST DONE!

I got the block back today! The mains got a line bore as well as the crank getting turned. The clutch,flywheel, tranny, head, IM, wire harness,oil pan and everything else is installed. I have to put on the bracket for the rear motor mount and drop it in, put the drive axles in and the fuel pump and install the Adjustable FPR and bracket. Thanks to my good friend Rodney for modifing the power steering bracket(F22 PS Bracket)! I will have power steering.

check it out

fresh block!


IN PROGRESS


Stopping point for the Day!

I have the day off tomorrow to finish it!
MORE TO COME!

[michaelprice83]

very cool to see someone else making the F23 head work. I'm determined to do the same.

[jwicecold]

Damn its comin together!!! Specs will be nice when its finished! How many more days ya think??

[hon2984]

lol, well i planned to take it for a test drive today but I ran into some more problems (which were taken care of) and they took up a good chunk of time. The motor/tranny is in, drive axles are in, adjust able FPR is in, the harness and vacuum lines are connected/capped off, AC was removed. The exhaust is open header right now untill i get it to the exhaust shop. The exhaust needs to be extended about a foot and I want to knock the cat out so i dont clog it when i run race gas.
I bled the slave cylinder for the clutch and noticed the tranny wouldnt go into gear. One of the shift forks, (the one on the top of the tranny) wasnt working correctly because it wasnt aligned right, fixed. When we primed the fuel system we had leaks! the FPR flange on the fuel rail was leaking, well it wasnt perfectly flat so it was filed flat, but that didnt work either. It was drilled, tapped and has a new fuel fitting in it. Fuel leak fixed. Well then we put the plug wires on and were almost ready to fire. With the coil unpugged i cranked it over to get some oil circulating before i fired it. It fired up quick, but didnt run to great because ignition timing isnt correct. It was quickly shut off because of a oil leak coming from the front cover. I was at it for 8 hours today and that was the stopping point. There was alot done today, hope fully will drive it to the exhaust shop tomorrow after the whole front cover is pulled off and fixed, there probably wasnt enough silicone used on the front cover/oil pump.

No top front cover and the Cam gear.

Bad pic of bad ass micro switch for the nitrous engagement.

modified F22 PS bracket

Stopping point for the day!

MORE TO COME!




Modified by hon2984 at 8:15 PM 9/19/2008

[hon2984]

Very close to having it out of the shop!
The oil leak was dumb. When the head was assembled there was no cam seal, I got my new cam gear slapped it on there and forgot about it, because the head was assembled and "ready to go". It ran smoother after some idle adjustments and now idles on its own. The catalytic converter was cut off and knocked out, bolted up to the down pipe and now I need about 16"s of pipe. It went through a couple of warm up cycles and idling, bled the cooling system, set ignition timing. And it ran ok, still pretty shakey at idle and a CEL right away. It was 22(VTEC pressure switch), loose connection at ECU , fixed. I decided to take it for another quick drive down the street, and slowly climbed to 5000, i wasnt in it hard at all and it fell on its face and sets a CEL. It set #21 ( VTEC solenoid ) that bug hasnt been worked out yet. due to the modified connectors used to make it look correct there has to be a loose connection some where else. The piston rings definatly are not seated yet.
Compression test showed #1 175 #2 160 #3 155 #4 170 , after been running 30 min and 2 short drives about 1/2 mile total. Suprisingly enough the civic IACV and the adapter plate works!
everything installed, dont mind the hideous yellow filter, will be gone soon.


what do you guys think sleeper material? lol

MORE TO COME!

[AFAccord]

Originally Posted by hon2984

Suprisingly enough the civic IACV and the adapter plate works!

what do you guys think sleeper material? lol

Why's it surprising that the IACV and adapter works?

I look forward to seeing some dyno numbers and track times once the rings have seated and she's broken in. I'm not a fan of nitrous, but hopefully she'll do well with the compression bump. A nice cam regrind would compliment the setup very well. Good luck.

[hon2984]

UPDATE I have the exhaust taken care of. It Idles rough, #1 and #2 are not contributing (atleast not at idle Idle). Spark is there, and It is not the injectors, I switched them to test them but no help , still #1 and #2 not contributing. The plugs on #1 and #2 seemed a little wet, but not fouled. I switched them out with brand new NGK plugs. 93 octane fuel. We did a cylinder balance test with the injectors, #1 and #2 not contibuting. But you go drive it out of the shop and it doesnt run to bad. NO CHECK ENGINE LIGHTS. Compression is getting better average of 170 +/- 10psi. 12 miles on it! Ignition timing is set as the F23A1 is 12 degrees BTDC. We have tried switching the plug wires around but no help. I still havent brought it up around 5000, since yesterday. the locations of the plug wires are different on the F23A1 compared to the F22A4. No temp problems. I havent figured it out yet. Its something ignition related i believe, wrong cam signal or something maybe?


Modified by hon2984 at 6:58 PM 9/22/2008

[hon2984]

UPDATE: Possible cam problem? Untill today i had the F22A4 distributor on the car. I now have a F22B1 distributor on there, which is really odd considering it now has been converted from external coil to internal. It was 180 degrees out of time(at least the rotor was). It now runs alot better. As of the other day there was no check engine lights, i guess it was because there wasnt enough drive cycles for the ECU to recognize that there was a problem. Tuesday morning it popped 4 codes, Ignition output signal, EGR,O2, Vtec solenoid ( 12,15,40,21 ). It still isnt perfect, but doesnt spark knock, and it will pull a hill no problem.

As of today a few drive cycles later I have two codes, Crank position sensor, and #1 cylinder position sensor. I'm hoping to figure it out soon, It might be a problem with the cam being different between F22B1 and F23A1,(enough to set these codes)?

Can a tune modify signals such as these to fix a problem, or is the wiring wrong?
Any suggestions?

More to come!




Modified by hon2984 at 10:07 PM 9/24/2008

[hon2984]

Well guys, it looks like the projest is a failure, the F23 cylinder head will not work with this setup, something with the cam is different , maybe valve overlap? It still sets (#4,#9,#12) its getting exaust gas in the cylinders is my guess. I am going to be pulling it back apart to replace the F23 head with a F22B1 head. Kinda sucks considering I had that head proffesionally ported n polished.

[Turbowa]

What ecu are you running? Also the dist. has to match the ecu. The F23 uses a seperate crank pos. sensor and instead of a cam sensor it uses a top dead center sensor. On the F22b1 there is a cam sensor in the dist. and on the OBD-I it's in the dist as well. If its OBD-II there is a sepereat crank pos. sensor thats on the block by the crank sprocket.

Also if I saw the pic's right you still have the oil control orifice installed in the block. This needs to be taken out. That oil control orifice is in the F23 had. With that left in the block you won't get enough oil psi to the head. I'm doing a F23 block and F22 head. This orifice is not present in my F23 block. I'm also leaving it out to allow extra oil to the head, due to how high I will be reving the motor. Hope this helps you out.

[hon2984]

I'm using a POA(94/95 Accord Ex MT). I have the F22b1 distributor on there, brand new, all the wiring correct. The CYP, CKP,TDC are in different locations in the distributors but by looking at the pickups and reluctor wheels, in comparison to the F22A4 distributor everything is still correct as far as wiring!

You are saying the oil restrictor is built into the cylinder head somewhere?

I recently adjusted ignition timing, and it is not throwing a CKP code any more.

It does throw #9 CYP, #12 EGR and #43 fuel supply.

I know there is some differences in the heads F22B1/F23A1, valves (which shouldnt matter) rockers, and the cam. I'm pretty sure with the EGR code i'm getting Exhaust in the cylinders because the cam is different.


Modified by hon2984 at 9:28 AM 9/28/2008

[AFAccord]

I'm no expert, but I would try using the F23A dizzy and ECU, just to eliminate all the hybrid issues.

Originally Posted by hon2984

I'm pretty sure with the EGR code i'm getting Exhaust in the cylinders because the cam is different.

I'm not sure what you mean here. What does the cam have to do with getting exhaust in the cylinders?? The EGR code has nothing to do with measuring how much exhaust gets back into the combustion chamber, it's dependent upon whether the valve is operating or not.

[hon2984]

Or elimante hybrid possibilites with putting a F22B1 head on it?

Cant use F23 dizzy or computer. because the F23 has a crank sensor in the block, my engine does not, its in the dizzy.

I was also talking about valve overlap ( the time when both exhaust and intake valves are open) being different. If exaust gas is getting into the cylinders and the EGR wasnt operating it would throw a code i would think.

[AFAccord]

Originally Posted by hon2984

Or elimante hybrid possibilites with putting a F22B1 head on it?

Cant use F23 dizzy or computer. because the F23 has a crank sensor in the block, my engine does not, its in the dizzy.

Ah, gotcha

Originally Posted by hon2984

I was also talking about valve overlap ( the time when both exhaust and intake valves are open) being different. If exaust gas is getting into the cylinders and the EGR wasnt operating it would throw a code i would think.

We are talking about a stock cam here, right?

[hon2984]

yes stock cam.