h22accord

I have a 99 civic coupe DX that i recently purchased. I bought a jdm B16A had it bored .020, with 11.5:1 CR wiseco pistons GSR cams and standard valves and springs. I also have a 7.5 lb flywheel with stage 2 clutch disk and pressure plate. I broke it in and now im quite concerned about the lack of power that the engine produces. I havnt taken it to a dyno, but the car just feels slow. Or at least slower than I thought it would be. Then I got my ass handed to me by my cousin's stock H23A prelude which kinda confirmed my suspicions. Both have 160hp stock(i think the JDM B16A may have 168hp i don’t know for sure though), so with the extra bore, compression, and more aggressive cam mine should have about 170-180hp to the crank. Not only that but my car weighs almost 600 lbs less than his. But still he walked me pretty bad(at least 4 or 5 cars before he just stopped). The timing is all correct and the car runs fine. The only thing i can maybe think of is that i am still running the stock b16 exhaust manifold and full stock DX exhaust including the stock DX muffler. Could the exhaust slow it down that much? Im a little angry that i put that much time and money into that engine and its still THAT slow. This isnt the first civic i have owned but it is the first one i have modified. Im may just be used to my h22a accord, h22a prelude(both have all the regular bolt ons)and s2000 which are much faster than my cousins prelude. So I guess my question is, in general are lightly moded civic si’s (which is basically what mine is but w/out power anything or a sunroof) really that slow? Or could my exhaust really be holding back that much of the power?

cobbcustomz

B series usually dyno around 140 Whp and usually run high 15's from what i have noticed

Omniscient

Something doesn't sound right there. No offense intended but either it's your driving, or something is wrong with the motor.

bambbrose

have you replaced your distributor? If you can, I would try and get one from another vehicle to try. Sounds like you aren't getting the ignition on the top end.

You say it feels fine, which makes me think your low end it probably good, but high rpm the distributor can cause issues, I've seen it a lot on jdm motors. It probably just feels like vtec isn't working even though you can hear it correct?

set up a time to get it tuned also

Omniscient

Aslo make sure your throttle cable is tensioned correctly. I left mine saggy not on a bracket cuz my 95 foor door throttle cable didnt meet the b16 manifold bracket right. So for like 4 months i didnt even have wide open throttle. The low end felt good then id hear vtec and it wouldnt do anything just get louder.

Nelson

Under powered for the EK? I don't feel so. As certain EK Civic's come standard B16's from the factory.

The reason why you lost is because the torque-less wonder B16 vs. the H23.

Yes I have one too

h22accord

If I was that bad of a driver I would probably get beat by anything that I raced no matter what I was driving. Unfortunately (i say that because this doesnt help solve my issue) im quite a proficient weekend bracket racer so I highly doubt that my driving skills are the reason for the lack of power. However your second comment and bambbrose's comment may be of some help. The car acts exactly like both of you describe. Low end feels fine and I can hear vtec switch on. But the car just isn’t much faster once vtec does switch over. When the vtec switches on it feels almost the same as when the D16Y8 in my previous civic ex switched over, makes a lot of noise but doesn’t go much faster. I will check the throttle cable in a few minutes, but if that’s not it then I will defiantly need to have it tuned.

Also could my exhaust be holding back a lot of the power? Or is it just minimal gains on that engine?