Dry sleeving a 3.0l???

Hi, after a timing belt mess with 4 exhaust bent valves... car was finally running again for a week, without a hitch. Then the curse fall on me again, getting back home after a good spirited drive cylinder #3 gave up the ghost. Apparently injector failed and leaned the mix so the piston melted and damaged both the head and the cylinder wall. Head can be fixed, but the scores on the wall are quite deep for reboring to less than 92mm. Sleeving will be necessary and a I will prefer to stay within factory specs.

The question is, can a dry sleeve be installed on the cylinder and rebored to standard size??? Iam in Puerto Rico and so far havent heard anything good about local installation of Darton sleeves, and shipping the block to Darton or Benson in the mainland can be quite difficult... will do it if there is no other alternative. Please advice about the dry sleeve, or if anybody has been able to bore the factory sleeves to 92mm succesfully.

92mm on factory deck won't be possible,
Honda recommends 90,5 as maximum overbore.
Whilst discussing with Chris on sleeving stock blocks he noted that 90,75 is possible and can be run safely on a C30A.

I assume you have a C30A 3.0l? (as 3.2's are 93mm bore) the 3.2's have a different cylinder wall

Wow bad news for me, will have to pull the block and ship to mainland USA for sleeving, the guys who do the sleeving here for the s2000 are a fifty fifty change as many sleeves drop down, what will be better Darton or Benson?? or get a used longblock and ship to Puerto Rico....

Sorry to hear about your luck.

I had a dry sleeve installed in my C30. See the picture on this page what the bottom of it looks like installed:
http://www.nsxprime.com/forum/showthread.php/154927-Semi-DIY-Mild-Engine-Build-for-FI/page15

You can't tell from the top which cylinder was dry-sleeved.

The quality of the sleeve is important, and the interference fit has to be just right - not too little and not too much. Mine has not been tested yet since the engine is still apart. I don't see how it can drop down - mine was machined with a lip on the bottom of the old cylinder wall so it is physically impossible for the sleeve to drop. But, if the shop is iffy about doing it, then I would be hesitant to tell them to do it. Is there anyone else in Puerto Rico to do a dry sleeve? Seems to be pretty common.

My cylinder was sleeved since there appeared to be a flaw in the factory cylinder casting. It was being bored 0.5mm over for a standard rebuild when the machinist saw little void pockets in this particular cylinder from the OEM casting defect. It would have torn up piston rings, so we had to get it out. I didn't want to resleeve the whole engine for this.

Good luck.

Dave

Yep, I dont want to do a complete resleving will like to bore .050 and go with forged pistons.....BTW compared to afull resleeve that goes around 2k, was it cost effective???

I don't think the total cost of the sleeve and labor was more than $150.

What brand of pistons are you using, are they floaters or interference fit to the con rods??....if doing the rebuilt will want to do a bulletproof bottom end.... dont want another melted piston.

Mac Attack said:

Sorry to hear about your luck.

I had a dry sleeve installed in my C30. See the picture on this page what the bottom of it looks like installed:
http://www.nsxprime.com/forum/showthread.php/154927-Semi-DIY-Mild-Engine-Build-for-FI/page15

You can't tell from the top which cylinder was dry-sleeved.

The quality of the sleeve is important, and the interference fit has to be just right - not too little and not too much. Mine has not been tested yet since the engine is still apart. I don't see how it can drop down - mine was machined with a lip on the bottom of the old cylinder wall so it is physically impossible for the sleeve to drop. But, if the shop is iffy about doing it, then I would be hesitant to tell them to do it. Is there anyone else in Puerto Rico to do a dry sleeve? Seems to be pretty common.

My cylinder was sleeved since there appeared to be a flaw in the factory cylinder casting. It was being bored 0.5mm over for a standard rebuild when the machinist saw little void pockets in this particular cylinder from the OEM casting defect. It would have torn up piston rings, so we had to get it out. I didn't want to resleeve the whole engine for this.

Good luck.

Dave

Click to expand...

Do you have pics from the top? Didn't know there were sleeves available to solve an issue like you had, how did your machinist find/choose them? Brand and P/N? I'd generally go the full sleeve route, but always good to know all options available for different budgets/choices people make.

PS172 said:

Hi, after a timing belt mess with 4 exhaust bent valves... car was finally running again for a week, without a hitch. Then the curse fall on me again, getting back home after a good spirited drive cylinder #3 gave up the ghost. Apparently injector failed and leaned the mix so the piston melted and damaged both the head and the cylinder wall. Head can be fixed, but the scores on the wall are quite deep for reboring to less than 92mm. Sleeving will be necessary and a I will prefer to stay within factory specs.

The question is, can a dry sleeve be installed on the cylinder and rebored to standard size??? Iam in Puerto Rico and so far havent heard anything good about local installation of Darton sleeves, and shipping the block to Darton or Benson in the mainland can be quite difficult... will do it if there is no other alternative. Please advice about the dry sleeve, or if anybody has been able to bore the factory sleeves to 92mm succesfully.

Click to expand...

Darton, Benson, or SOS will be good options if you ship to the US. But from the looks of it, if you can get the right info, looks like Dave/Mac Attack may have the option you wanted in the first place. Good luck.

Wiseco pistons. They are semi-floating, pressed-in rod.

The link above is my engine build thread. Batmans also did his engine build thread there too. It has some pictures, videos and discussion of the choices we were faced with when rebuilding our engines.

Dave

The problem is not cost but the hassle of shipping the block overseas, so will try the option of dry sleeving the cylinder and then rehone with new pistons, and new bearings, get a used rear head, if not posible will repair mine... if anybody knows of good used rear head let me know.

Elite said:

Do you have pics from the top? Didn't know there were sleeves available to solve an issue like you had, how did your machinist find/choose them? Brand and P/N? I'd generally go the full sleeve route, but always good to know all options available for different budgets/choices people make.

Click to expand...

Hi Momin,

I don't have a picture from the top, but you cannot see ANY difference between the dry-sleeved cylinder and the other ones.

I don't have a brand or P/N. I tried to do a lot of searching on the internet when the machinist told me what was going on with that cylinder but there wasn't much available. I spoke with a friend who is an ex-NASCAR crew chief and he said not to worry about the dry sleeve. It's just critical to ensure the right interference fit so as to not overstress the sleeve while ensuring good uniform contact. I'm not exactly sure if a lubricant or anaerobic sealant was used when the sleeve was inserted, but I remember he said he used dry ice to contract the sleeve and then also checked the adjacent bore to ensure there was no deformation after he inserted the sleeve.

If I were shooting for more than 500HP on this engine, I wouldn't have gone this route. Due to other engine rebuild considerations I've limited myself to (i.e. reusing OEM main caps, OEM rod bolts, etc), I definitely don't want to exceed 500WHP. I've lived with 255WHP for the past 9 years so I think I can hold myself back from wanting more in this car!

If this engine holds together for 50k miles at 500WHP I'll be happy!

Dave

Got a freshly rebuilt engine, still unused 9.5:1 with lots of SOS goodies inside coming my way:smile:, ready for FI. Then will look forward to rebuilt mine during the next few months.

Pedro.

Nice. Congrats. Glad you found a good solution for you.

Did you get the one from Las Vegas that was on the forums and on here for sale as well? I saw it sold and wondered who bought it.

Yes, got a sweet deal on it..... after doing the math of rebuilding mine taking in account the cost of the SOS pistons, TODA bearings, SOS billet oil pump, SOS tensioner, ARP studs already on said engine, and the required machine shop labor, plus a used rear head the total was much more than the cost of that engine shipped to Puerto Rico. Had the opportunity to inquire about it with the shop who did the the build. They were quite cooperative and share with me all the details. Only problem is they lowered the compression to 9.5:1, will have to live with that until I get a supercharger later in the year. Maybe will loose 5-10% of the HP. Will make up some with the headers and intake meanwhile.

Glad it worked out for you PS172. Sounds like a good deal!

Elite said:

Do you have pics from the top? Didn't know there were sleeves available to solve an issue like you had, how did your machinist find/choose them? Brand and P/N? I'd generally go the full sleeve route, but always good to know all options available for different budgets/choices people make.

Click to expand...

Just wanted to follow up... I did a stupid thing and was looking at the receipts for my build (I should know better than to look how much has been spent). Anyways, I noticed the machinist put a part number in for the sleeve: CSL182.

A google search showed this to be a Melling sleeve, sold at Summit Racing for ~$25:
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/mel-csl182

He charged me $75 for installation.

More info on Melling:
http://www.melling.com/

Sleeve catalog with a lot of good info:
http://www.melling.com/Aftermarket/CatalogPDFLibrary.aspx

My friend (ex-NASCAR crew chief) told me it would be fine. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Dave