Honda guys-2.2l H22A4 mods?

[stephen4785]

A friend of mine wanst me to help him rebuild his engine in his 01 prelude(H22A4 4cyl). He doesnt want to spend a huge chunk rebuilding it but he'd like to do any cheaper mods to it while it's apart. The only mods to the car are a cai and header back exhaust system. I was thinking about polishing the intake/head, and running higher compression pistons. The kits Im looking at have a 11.5:1(stock is 10:1 from Iv read). Does anyone know about the reliability of that motor with higher compression and is there anything else I should do to it while it's apart? He'd like to get some cams but he cant afford to drop $500+ on cams. Im also wondering if there are any mods I should do as far as the engine itself other than new parts?
Thanks for any advice.

[Snatch Napkin]

It has been about 16 years since I looked into this shit, so I might be off. However, IIRC those motors had weak bottom ends and didn't fare too well with higher compression. It seems like I had an H22 and was going to put an H23 head on it for some gains, but was told that the lower end would lose a lot of longevity.

[Snatch Napkin]

I think I was off on that last post and it was an H23 that I had and was going to put a later model head on it.

Anyhow, Matt does the Honda thing. He'll be able to give you better answers.

[stephen4785]

From what Iv read you cant just stick any higher compression pistons in and go thanks to some sort of special coating on the pistons for the stock cylinder sleeves. It looks like pistons would cost $500 which is insane for 4 pistons and no happy ending.

[Sleeper]

It would prob be cheaper just to ebay turbo it.

[stephen4785]

It would prob be cheaper just to ebay turbo it.

It has 240,000 miles on the engine and is burning oil. He´s pretty set on rebuilding it.

[Sleeper]

Im saying cheaper than doing all the new pistons and such. Re rings, bearings, roll out.

[stephen4785]

Im saying cheaper than doing all the new pistons and such. Re rings, bearings, roll out.

My bad.

[matts5.0]

12.1 pistons, some cams, intake manifold.. get on Honda tech they have an h22 section. there are guys making 300+ na!

[stephen4785]

12.1 pistons, some cams, intake manifold.. get on Honda tech they have an h22 section. there are guys making 300+ na!

Can you just pop in some 12:1 or do you have to sleeve it? I read some stuff on honda tech but a lot of the guys that give advice seem like douche bags.

[matts5.0]

Can you just pop in some 12:1 or do you have to sleeve it? I read some stuff on honda tech but a lot of the guys that give advice seem like douche bags.

no you don't have to sleeve it. and you can find an accord type r intake or blox and a few other companies make intake manifolds and cams.. you can actually make some decent power and trq for a 4 banger. the tranny starts to become an issue. a lot of guys are running B series transmissions with an H2B adapter. that way you can get shorter gearing and an lsd. the B series trannies handle more power and actually make more power on the dyno.

[NoClassic]

I would just go grab a lower mileage stock longblock and call it good.

[00pooterSS]

I know a whole lot more about B series than I do H, but what I know about all Hondas is that if you want to make power, even moderate, it costs A LOT. If he doesn't want to spend $500 then he should stick with his bolt on's and just drive it.

Going higher compression will give it a little bump in power. And I don't know where you read you can stick in higher compression pistons and go because they are coated. Coating on pistons has absolutely nothing to do with it being able to handle the compression increase. The coating is to help reduce friction and wear.

And like matt said, no you don't have to sleeve it for higher compression, you just have to sleeve them if you want to considerably bore it or run really high amounts of boost.

You asked about reliability at higher compression, as long as it doesn't detonate it will hold up perfectly fine to beating the piss out of it all day every day.

If it were mine I would put in a good used motor and spray a 50-75 shot. I ran a NOS plate kit on my Integra before I went boost. The nitrous was so fun on that tiny motor. But it also jumped 100 ft lbs on the bottle (it only made 115 off the bottle lol).

[stephen4785]

I know a whole lot more about B series than I do H, but what I know about all Hondas is that if you want to make power, even moderate, it costs A LOT. If he doesn't want to spend $500 then he should stick with his bolt on's and just drive it.

Going higher compression will give it a little bump in power. And I don't know where you read you can stick in higher compression pistons and go because they are coated. Coating on pistons has absolutely nothing to do with it being able to handle the compression increase. The coating is to help reduce friction and wear.

And like matt said, no you don't have to sleeve it for higher compression, you just have to sleeve them if you want to considerably bore it or run really high amounts of boost.

You asked about reliability at higher compression, as long as it doesn't detonate it will hold up perfectly fine to beating the piss out of it all day every day.

If it were mine I would put in a good used motor and spray a 50-75 shot. I ran a NOS plate kit on my Integra before I went boost. The nitrous was so fun on that tiny motor. But it also jumped 100 ft lbs on the bottle (it only made 115 off the bottle lol).

I read this thread on honda-tech http://honda-tech.com/showthread.php?t=2223835
I also read the same thing on a few other threads. I dont know why you would have to have some special coating to replace pistons. Seemed like bs to me but I'v only spent about 20 minutes researching honda performance.
He's interetsed in rebuilding the engine so he can learn how to do it more than anything. If we swap in another engine he doesnt get to tear it down. The rebuild kit we found has an option for 11.5:1 pistons so I told him we should get those. It's such a small engine I dont think it'll give any driveability problems. He also wants to know how to port and polish heads/intakes. I told him Id show him how to gasket match and polish but I leave the port work to someone who knows what they're doing.

[A_A_G]

Dump that h22 and get a k24