Piston and Rod combo

[hondafreak513]

I am building me a street car to play with. Does anyone know which pistons and rods you can mix in the 1.6? Like any honda parts or escort parts?

[turbo16]

The Honda B16A rods have same big end width and are 5.390'' long. They seem to be the best fit . The stock rod is about 4.75'' long with a rod ratio of 1.64 to one. The Honda rods with a stock stroke will net 1.82/1 . This rod angle will be great for a high RPM engine but will give up a bit on the low end due to less early piston speed. With the Honda rod you must by custom pistons. mine were $740 with rings and pins. The cranks rod pins must be turned down about .037'' from stock.

[turbo16]

If you are using the longer rods and a late swirl-port head you wont be happy. No matter what you do that head will NOT flow good numbers. It has great low lift characteristics but cant work fast at high RPMs where the long rods can help. Since the swirl-port has great low lift response the a short rod works best due to faster early piston speed. A long rod /swirl-port head combination would be horrible. The stock rods are pretty strong but remarkably heavy. If you build a stock engine and lighten the rods (remove most of the balance pads) use low friction rings,lighten the flywheel and balance everything you will be good for over 125 Hp.

[turbo16]

125-150 hp depending on your head cam combo. I believe after flow testing the swirl port head that the most HP you can achieve with an unported head is 80-90. I took a swirl port heads to a very well respected head porter in MD and asked him what he could do to maximize it,s potential. He told me to put them on a tractor because they have no potential.

[turbo16]

I was wrong about the rod length of the B16A rod. It is 5.290 not 5.390 and the rod ratio on a stock stroke engine with the B16A rod is 1.78/1 .