I was talking to one of my friends and I told him I wanted a b16a for my 91 crx. I told him after I saved up money I wanted to turbo it. He said I should go with what he's going with in his del sol. He is droppin in a b16b ls engine. He says the engine is way better for turbo because it has good torque and it dosent have vtec to slow the turbo down. I know the engine has good torque but is it true that vtec engines make the turbo work harder?

 

Not really. The issue here is that the LS engine has a lower compression ratio to begin with, so you can push a bit more boost safely. As for VTEC, the issue a lot of people worry about is the cam overlap once you're in VTEC, which doesn't make the turbo work harder, but also doesn't let the engine make full use of the higher pressures. You can correct this issue with turbo cams, going with VTEC killer cams [which just means your VTEC head is no longer VTEC], or even just adjusting your stock cams with cam gears.

Personally if you're worried about not making as much power as you could in VTEC, I'd go with some dedicated turbo cams with or without VTEC in a VTEC head just because the port designs are a bit nicer for air flow.

Bottom line is that you can make tons of power no matter what b-series head you use with a turbo, after that it all depends on how much displacement you want to force feed.

 

Yeah, i'd go B18

 

One thing that also concerns me with the B18b is parts. I know there are alot of parts for it but the b16 seems to have more and cheaper parts. My local performance shop has a ton of new and used pars in stock for a b16. Right now im about to be a junior in highschool and money is an issue, so would a b16 be cheaper to get and mod than a b18b or are they about the same.

 

build a D-series motor up and kill B-series people!