[godruler]

hey guys, i finally put in my b18 Ls swap today. Few things, its a '91 Crx Hf, its a b18a block, b18b head, b16 S1 tranny, running Obd0. I did the swap, etc. etc. started her up for the first time, fired right up, let it idle for a minute and it sounded great so i shut her down and put the rest of the swap together. I started it again in a bit, fired right up again, this time i let it run up to temp but i noticed it started getting hot pretty quick, lots of air bubbles coming out of the radiator and my fan did'nt want to turn on for some reason, which sensor controls the fan switch?? any how it got about 3/4 up the temp gauge so i shut her down for a while. i started it up again a bit later after it cool to adjust the clutch, it ran fine, adjusted the clutch but it got hot again so i shut it down again, still getting lots of bubbles out of radiator, not constant bubbles like a compression leak, just air bubbles in the system, more irregular. so i let it cool for about an hour or so. my buddy stops by to check it out, i fire it up, hit the gas to rev it and wham, it boggs, no power, it would idle but as soon as i go to hit the gas it would bogg, then it would just clean up and i could rev it fine all the sudden and it would have full power, then out of no where just bogg again and try to stall unless i let off the gas. Now i can't get it to run straight, it starts up fine and idles fine and i'll get a rev or two when i first start it that has full power and revs up fine but then it will just start bogging whenever i hit the gas again and actually stall out sometimes. i also noticed that when it starts bogging the tach gets a little twitchy, and expecially right before it stalls out. this leads me to believe bad dizzy off the top of my head but this dizzy seem to work fine in the car i took the motor out of, but i dunno, i never really ran the other car much. What do you guys think here, i'm really dissapointed that i could'nt get this thing perfect in 1 day, i need it to be perfect by tomorrow as its my daily driver and i need it for work monday.

i was also wondering, i have a perfectly good OBD0 d-series dizzy on my SOHC that i pulled in favor of the b18, whats the chance that the guts of the dizzy are interchangeable, basically can i take the ignitor and such from the Sohc dizzy and put it into the DOHC dizzy?

Also as for the car getting hot, i noticed that the lower radiator hose never gets hot, its cold even after the motor starts getting too hot, i have a new radiator, hoses, water pump, Thermostat, all new parts, think this could be caused by a massive air pocket in the system or maybe a faulty thermostat not openening, or is there any wrong way to instal a thermostat on these honda's???

Any help is appreciated, i really wanna get this thing running right tomorrow, i'm so pumped about it, but feeling a little let down right now so somebody help this situation please. thanx.

oh yeah and the car is showing no codes. i used the harness off my single cam obviously. the only wiring i changed was i extended the map sensor wires so they'd reach the TB mounted MAP, and extended the O2 sensor wire (did'nt have shielded wire so this is ok i believe). Also on the bad of the b18a block next to the oil filter there are 3 sensors, 1 is a regular looking plug i think maybe temp sensor, another 1 is a 1 prong sensor, don't know what it is but i plugged it in, but then there is another sensor that has the same type of male leads sticking off of it but has 2 instead of 1, there was nothing to plug into this, what is it, some sort of a knock sensor maybe?? thanx.

 

[downest]

Sounds like a combination of thermostat not working and timing off... give me an IM or something if you're still stuck on Sunday afternoon, I'm close enough I could come down with some spare parts and see what we can do.

 

[djhankb]

I would also guess thermostat. worse case, you can take thermostat completely out and see what it does there.
is it possible you installed it backwards? I dunno if that would hurt, or not...

As for your distributor question. Things like the ignitor, and coil are interchangeable.

-Henry

 

[godruler]

as for the timing thing, i'm pretty sure that the cam timing is correct because it will run perfect breifly, and when i first started it she ran perfectly for a good 20 minutes until it got too hot to keep running and i shut it down. it seems to start bogging/dying if i start it up and rev it hard once or twice with decent amount of throttle. then it won't run good again until i shut it down and wait a while, or if i'm very light on the gas i can slowly rev it up without it bogging.

as for the thermostat, yeah i think i might take it out to see if its not working even though its new, i mean the bottom hose never even gets warm.

i also believe i'm going to sand down all of my grounds and make sure they have good contact, i just bolted them down quick and in a rush.

Thanx guys! i love this forum. Downest i appreciate your offer greatly, i do have a spare OBD0 D-Dizzy i'm gonna pull the ignitor and coil from first, if i that don't work and need something i'll definately call if i think i need something. thanx

 

[djhankb]

Yeah, it sounds like it's not even opening up at all.
The bottom hose runs right to the thermostat, and if it ain't warm than it's completely closed.
That would totally explain the overheating, the coolant inside your water jacket is being pumped to nowhere and is just getting hot as hell in there.

The Fan is controlled by the big ass 2-pole heat sensor on the back of the block near the oil filter. if that thing's messed up, it will never make contact enough to kick the fan on.

As for the bogging, it may be heat related, however cam timing could explain it too. You may want to just line it all up and make sure your not a tooth or 2 off. Put your crank at TDC, and line up all of your pulley marks with their respective markers and just check it all out.

-Henry

 

[godruler]

yeah i'm gonna take out the thermostat and put the one from my old SOHC in it because i know that one works. hopefully that'll solve my cooling problems

as for the fan switch, are you talking about that weird looking sensor next to the oil filter with the two big male prongs sticking off of it?? if so i did'nt hook anything up to that, there was nothing on my harness to hook to that and my old D-series did'nt have that sensor. there were two other sensors next to that one, a regular plug in type and another one of them weird ones with only 1 male prong sticking off it though, i hooked both of these sensors up, i thought one of these was for the fan.

i'm almost 100% positive its not cam timing. when it runs good i mean it runs good, no missing, no stumbling, sounds perfect, and when i put the timing belt on everything line up great, i rotated the crank like 10 times just to make sure before i put the covers on and every time all 3 marks lined right up.

if i don't once it starts acting up, (bogging) if i don't touch the gas, it' will idle straight and keep running forever (high idle at 2500 but still) until it gets too hot and i gotta kill it. its not until i give decent throttle that it chokes, i can go light on the gas and it will rev i just can't go too fast. the tach was very sputtery though when while it runs bad which is making me think its dizzy or ground related. i never had any tach issues at all with the old motor.

 

[godruler]

hmm, i was just thinking and i think i may have answered my own question regarding the fan switch on the back of the block and not having a plug for it on the harness. my previous SOHC that was in there was an obd1 d15b7 motor with and plug in type fan switch on the thermostat housing, if i remember correctly i had to get this plug from a junk yard harness and extend it to fit there which would mean that i cut off the lead ends that plug onto the OBD0 two prong fan switch that is on my B18 motor, Does this make sense??

right now though i have that plug that used to be plugged into the fan swith on the old motor plugged into a sensor that i thought was the fan switch on my b18, right next to the actual fan switch. Question is what is this that i have it plugged into now??

 

[djhankb]

Yeah, OBD1 cars have a plug for the fan switch on the actual Thermostat Housing itself, you are correct on that one.
Now, as for the 1 prong sensor on the back... It has been a long time, I had to look this one up, but it is the Engine Oil Pressure sensor. That is what trips the light in the cluster for oil.
As for the fan switch, I don't think it matters which wire goes where, as long as they are there.
I was looking through my Helms to see if it stated wire color also, but I couldn't find that.

HTH..

As for the stumbling problem, do you have any codes for anything? Is your TPS set ok? (I don't know if you even messed with the TPS or not)

-Henry

 

[godruler]

cool, good to know about the fan switch, as soon as i can get to work where my car is (hopefully by boss opens for me today) i'm getting so damn anxious i'm stuck at home right now. i can fix that, and use my old thermostat, so cooling issues should be done.

ok, i kinda thought it might be a oil pressure sender being its only a 1 wire switch, cool.

for the stumbling, this is still my big issue i gotta figure out, once this goes away i'm cherry and can drive her home. No i have no codes at all, never did from the start. And no i did'nt move the Tps at all, its still factory installed onto the TB and only has 50k so it "should" be ok, i'll take a reading on it anyhow, .5 at idle 4.5 at wot, right.

oh does anyone know base ignition timing on an obd0 B18 LS, something like 18 degrees advanced right, or is it 16??

you guys are awsome i appreciate you sticking with the thread!!

i can't seem to get any help ever at ef-honda for some reason :?

 

[djhankb]

I always just use a timing light, and line up the markers.

-H

 

[godruler]

good point, i'll bust out some whiteout to make the 3 little markers more viseable.

Looks like i'm shot for the day to get this thing running right, its 6:20 pm and my boss has yet to call me to say he's gonna open the shop for me so i don't think i'm gonna be able to work on it until tomorrow oh well.

thanx for the great help so far though and i'll keep you guys posted how it turns out tomorrow.

 

[godruler]

update on the swap, i drove her home tonite!! motor runs like a top and is strong as hell, man b18b and b16 tranny rips in a little Crx, i'm super exicited about it.

the motor issues with it falling on its face ended being a corroded thermostat ground, sanded down all grounds and it runs awsome, no sloppy idle, no surging, perfect

Overheating issues were because of a faulty brand new thermostat not opening just as i suspected, put the one from my dirty d in it and its mint, cooling fan not working was because i hooked it to the wrong plug on the back of the block. Fix those up and now it runs at perfect temp.

the tranny is smooth, no grinds, motor is strong, only thing is when i'm slowing down in 2nd or 3rd, like coming to a stop i here this knock knock knock that follows wheel speed coming from the passenger area. sounds like a bad Cv joint but it does it when going straight, i'm hoping to god there is not a bad diff pin about to walk its way out in the tranny. i really don't wanna pull the tranny back out, i'll check into this tomorrow.

thanx guys and i can't wait to break this clutch in, its killing me not being able to flog it, i ripped it a couple times but i did'nt bang gears or rip out of the hole, i waited until 2nd to hit it.

 

[djhankb]

Kick-Ass dude!
congrats on your swap!

 

[ComposiMo]

only thing is when i'm slowing down in 2nd or 3rd, like coming to a stop i here this knock knock knock that follows wheel speed coming from the passenger area.

Dumb thought, but may want to re-tighten your lug nuts, just to check... even if you think you got them tight the first time.

I've seen this be the cause of something similar a couple of times (even once personally).

 

[godruler]

the clunking i believe can be blamed on a failed inner hub on the passenger side Cv shaft, i jacked it up and turned the wheel back and forth to simulate the clunking noise i'm hearing while driving, it sounds like it comes from inside the tranny but if i hold the inner hub of the axle with my left hand while i rock the wheel back and forth with my other hand i can feel that the axle has about 1/2" or play back and forth and seems to be where my noise is coming from. Needless to say i'm thrilled that this is just an axle issue and not something wrong with my differential.

 

[Reckone]

Would that happen to be the B18 head you bought off me? Just picked up a B18B1 motor with 60k on it. Looking to have that in my crx by mid summer. Glad to hear you got the car running good!

 

[godruler]

yeah thats the head, seems to be running great other than the fact that she burns alot of oil, it smokes constantly, i'm thinking maybe the valve seals got dry rotted from sitting around, i dunno, i gotta look into it