at best it's a non-off-the-shelf piston, but there's literally no history of that coated CP being reliable. they ****ed up with that for sure. mahle is the only make that has known street miles on honda FRM with somewhat predictable behavior. for us s2ki guys, a dude named wadzii laid out the recipe for him that works. he goes 0.002-0.003" piston-to-wall clearance IIRC. i also have a BNIB set that i bought years ago for 100$.

also 87.5mm is beyond the bore limit of the stock sleeve. it should work fine (there's plenty of FRM material) but i think 87.25 was max and beyond that was experimental at best.

 

no wonder they specialize in making swap kits for s2000's. way to go john, rod knocked it outta the park!

 

So, with all this being said... what are my options? i could go OEM long block of course.

Do I have any reliable rebuild options with my current parts?

 

I think if you contact IP and let them build you the engine with new sleeves, you won't have any more issues. I believe the whole problem is stemming from the FRM cylinder walls and the CP pistons not working together properly.

 

Agree 100%. FRM sleeved re-built motors are not known for reliability. With well done sleeves, you mitigate that problem and add the potential to support a lot more power.

 

crank is toast and also given your leakdown numbers, i would guess piston and cylinders are donezo. at that point, i would think the only option would be to sleeve and go with forged piston. if you choose to talk to inlinepro about it, make 100% sure the crank is not reused. at that point, you might as well go with stronger rods as well. personally for me, i would have them prepare one of their off-the-shelf race shortblocks if it's on the house. if not, i would take my money elsewhere for shortblock work. namely, jeremy allen, mike laskey and dan benson using the components they like. I personally like OEM main and rod bearings, but engine builders get quite peeved about it because fitting them is a pain in the ass and keeping the bearings in stock is a problem. the biggest advantage is that you can get uniform tolerances if you fit the bearings properly for it whereas ACL/KING bearings last i checked were "one size fits all".

then clean everything to make sure bearing material doesn't contaminate the new engine. also i would opt for a known-good oil pump. bearing material will likely not hurt the f20 oil pump, but for the 3-400$ it's easy insurance to get a new one.

 

That statement is pretty ridiculous. CP offers a coating that is added to custom or off the shelf pistons. Its pretty obvious the coating isn't the issue, in this case anyway. If it were, you would see a lot of galling on the cylinder wall and piston skirt.

 

Lol @ people telling him to go back to Inline pro. The only reason I would go back is if they honer the mistake they made and fix his motor free of labor the right way.

 

Regardless youndont really see reliable setups with stock sleeves and aftermarket pistons. Thats why no one really does it and I think everyone including me is wondering why they advised him to go this route. Besides they know damn well a stock motor is stout at anything under 600whp.

 

I think the bigger question is .5mm over. I didn't think the FRM lining was that thick to allow a .5mm over bore..?

Aftermarket sleeves add another failure point (sleeve sinking, shifting, leaking, etc). I'm not saying it doesn't work, but I can understand the desire to stick with stock sleeves. I've seen plenty of problems with sleeved motors to know I'd avoid a sleeved block if at all possible.