Honda Fit Part 1

The Honda Fit Engine arrived last week -- which was very exciting!  Two other large boxes were supposed to arrive with the engine but the shipping company missplaced those but delivered them the next day.   Here is a pic of the engine in the back of the pick-up.  The engine is totally stock and a lot of the stuff comes off of it and is replaced with performance parts. 

The other two boxes hold the performance parts plus a bunch of other stuff.  Here is what I saw when I opened the first of the two boxes.

Honda Performance Development (HPD) really did a great job packaging everything and providing instructions.  It is a pleasure to deal with them!

Ok, time to start pulling stuff off of the motor!  The first things to come off were the oxygen sensor and the catalytic converter.

I also removed the EGR pipe which is the curvy pipe that went from the engine to the converter.  Once those were removed, I covered the holes with tape just to keep any unwanted stuff out of the engine.






The throttle body was next to come off. 

Next was the EGR Valve, the intake manifold chamber, and the intake runner.



 Now its time for the wiring harness.

 

And then the water outlet.

Everything up to this point was pretty easy to remove.  However, it is now time for the harmonic balancer which is secured with an extreme amount of torque on the nut. 

Several have had major problems getting this off.  I tried the my impact gun but to no avail.  I then put a breaker bar on it and hit it with a 5 pound hammer but I realized that the crankshaft was turning so that wasn't going to work.  So, I needed to keep the crankshaft from moving.  Honda has a special tool for this but I realized that I had a tool that I used with my FV to keep the flywheel (and thus the crankshaft) from moving.  Here is a pic of that tool installed.

So, I went back to hitting the breaker bar with the 5 lb hammer and sure enough it loosened up enough so that I could get it off with the impact gun.  I forgot to take a pic of it removed though. 

Next, I needed to prepare the engine for an engine stand so that I could turn the engine upside down and get the oil pan off.  The manual didn't mention this but I learned from Sean Maisey's blog that the starter, clutch, and flywheel needed to come off so they were next.

Finally time for the engine stand!  I didn't have one so I borrowed one from a friend of mine.  I first hoisted the engine up with my engine hoist.  You can see the engine stand in the background.



And here it is on the stand -- looks pretty good!

And finally it is time to remove the oil pan.  The oil pan doesn't have a gasket and is sealed with silicone.  The manual gave good instructions to hit it front and back with a rubber mallet until the tone changed.  It was then pretty easy to pry off at the pry points.



The oil pump pickup and the studs were also removed.  I don't have pictures of it but there are locating dowls in the oil pan.  One stayed with the block but the other one came off with the pan.  It was not easy to remove with out damaging it but a friend came over and he heated the area around the dowel with a torch while I pulled up on it with needle nose pliers until it just released. 

There was also a water outlet nipple that needed to be removed which required a lot of heat.  It was screwed into the head but was secured with a high strength thread sealent.  Once the around the nipple was hot enough I was able to unscrew it.  A plug that came in the kit was then installed.

Since a race engine does not need an Exhaust Gas Regulaator (EGR) valve or the EGR piple, plates are provided to block off those holes.  The one shown below if for the EGR pipe.

Now for one of the most challenging tasks.  The race engine also doesn't need a PCV valve so the PCV nipple installed in the intake runner is not necessary.  I used a punch to tap the PCV nipple out of the intake runner but the hole then needed to be plugged.  A plug is provided and then the intake runner needed to be heated to 248 degrees so that the metal would expand enough to accept the plug -- easier said than done!  It took a while to get the temperature of the runner up to 248 degrees.  I also didn't want to set my workbench, or any of the stuff on it, on fire so I did it on the concrete floor.

After it was hot enough, I was able to get the plug started but eventually it would only move about a millimeter even after I reaheated it back up to temperature after it cooled down.  I never did get it absolutely flush like the instructions said but I got it very close -- I don't think it is going to come out!!

And that is it for now!!  More complicated engine stuff to come in the next installment!