My apologies.. its a long one. If you want just the spec’s and pics, scroll down to the 2nd post.

After having my AP1 for about 6 months and putting 15k miles on it, the engine started knocking one day going down the highway. #4 rod bearing was toast, the crank was shot and the motor was other wise pretty worn out.

I picked up an ap2 crank and rods from a member and orignally planned on reusing my ap1 pistons with the ap2 crank, which would give a nice bump in compression. But after looking over it all i decided the old ap1 pistons were not in good enough shape to reuse.

Since I worked with Mahle to bring the FRM friendly h22 pistons to market (I tested them in 2 different motors during the design stages) I called up the guy I worked with before to see what they had for F20c pistons. Turns out they didnt have anything, so once I tore the motor down i sent them the complete rotating assembly and cylinder head so they could design the new line.

I wanted to do something a little different so I ordered up some custom pistons with the pin raised so that i could use AP1 rods with the ap2 crank. A little longer rod never hurt anyone, plus shorter pistons are lighter and back when we started this aftermarket ap1 rods were easier to come by.

This is the result



And a few months later




Meanwhile, BradZ at RLZ hooked up the cylinder head with his mack daddy valve job.. and i installed some supertech springs and retainers. BradZ's valve job is usually good for around 15hp on a stock ap2. Sorry no pics of the head.

Along the way I picked up a set of Innovative 85a mounts, an invidia 70mm test pipe, a pair of rear ap1 wheels to go on the front, painted them gunmetal and got a set of gunmetal rays lugnuts to match all from members here. I also found a good deal on a 4.77 rear end... more on that later.

From ebay, I got a $80 header some 5mm wheel spacers and from King Motorsports some Mugen bushings, mine were all siezed up.

Also my buddy Daryl at Ultimate Racing hooked me up with one of their 3inch dual exhausts that use stock tips. This is a kick ass exhaust, it’s very quiet and looks stock.

The rest of the rotating assembly consisted of an Ap2 crank, ACL race bearings, and brian crower ap1 rods.

Gaskets and other misc parts came from ebay.

Finally got the motor together




10 mintues of run time and then I had this





I guess I was asleep when i put it together.. found the pin clips in the exhaust of all places.

All that bent the crap out of the rod, smashed up an intake valve and trashed the block.

So 10 hours of driving later, i had a new block and BradZ fixed up my head for me all quick like.

Then I found out BC rods are on back order and couldnt get just one. So, the guys at Real Street Performance overnighted me some Carillo A-beams as soon as they came out of back order (last thursday) and a new set of ACL rod bearings. They really came through for me. Big thumbs up to those guys.

And here are Rod pics



Turns out Carillo’s are much nicer than BC’s and they are 40 grams lighter








Tossed it all back together and she sounds awesome... I think, I cant hear shit over the rear end, this thing is trashed.. I borrowed a stocker from Deathslead.. it’ll be going in tonight.

The innovative mounts are awesome, minimal vibration and the car is super tight. They took all the slop out of the drive train.

these helped a little with that also..




I’m taking this thing to the car wash tonight and ill get pics of the car. Dyno will probably have to wait until I get back from vacation.

 

Specs are as follows

AEM EMS
Stock sleeves
Custom Mahle pistons
Stock AP2 crank
Carillo Pro-A rods ap1 length
Acl Race bearings
Supertech springs/retainers
stock valves
Stock head with RLZ Valve job
Spec 6 puck clutch disk with stock pressure plate
Ebay header
Ultimate racing 3 inch dual exhaust
Invidia 70mm Test pipe
RDX 440cc injectors
4inch cold air intake

Stock cams and intake manifold for now. I'll be testing headers and cams soon.

And a pic of the car



Update 7-12

took it to the dyno today

the peak power was disappointing, but the curve is nice and shows alot of room for improvement.

Red is the new motor, blue is the old setup (stock engine with aem ems and cold air intake, stock everything else.)



Vtec is at 4000 rpms, and as you can see it levels off at 7700 rpms..

This thing needs cams and intake BAD

Though nearly 30 ft/lbs in the midrange isnt bad at all.

Update 7-25

Tested some brian crower stage 3 cams



Red is stage 3, blue is stock cams, green is the old stock motor.

Nice gains up top, no gains or losses in the midrange. These cams need a BIG motor to work well i think.


Update 9-7

Tested some brian crower stage 2 cams. They picked up a good amount of midrange vs the stage 3's



Update 10-5

Hit 10k miles on the motor this week!!!

I picked up a PLM header and did a quick test, there was no change vs the stock header. I'll have the 06+ intake manifold/70mm throttle body on in the next day or 2, the next test will be stock throttle body vs 70mm throttle body and i'll test all 3 headers i have. The big tube ebay that was originally on it, stock and PLM. I want to see what effect opening up the intake has on which header the car likes. with the current setup it "likes" the big tube ebay header the best.

Update 10-15

06+ intake with 70mm tb installed... Ass dyno says its a win. Real dyno to come shorly

 

Nice work!

 

Looks good, yea I probably wouldn't of gotten any BC products to being with....all I hear is problems with them.

 

soudns good so far jason lmk when you plan to dyno wouldnt mind spectating.

 

Volk lugs with oem wheels? The seats are different, no?

 

Holy cow! S2000 owners have no luck what so ever!

Keep us up to date! I'm thinking about doing the same thing but with an overbore (if I Mahle will make that size piston).

-Rob

 

add me to the list for the overbore pistons.
Great documentation, Jason.
The Carrillos look different than mine. Are these Pro-A rods? They are also lighter than mine (552grams).
How much clearance is recommended for the Mahle piston?
And what exactly went wrong with the pin clips? I'm not sure if I understand that failure. You put in these clips, right? But why did they failed?

 

Do you have any pictures of the cap thickness of the Carillo rods. The rod bodies look very nice but I'm surprised how thin the back of caps look.

 

Keep up the good work.....