Differences in engines and heads

[ve7kilohertz]

Getting both donor cars running now and have some questions as follow:

Now I need to decide which engine I am going to rob the head from. The 91 B20A with a head stamped PK2A, or the 90 B20A with head stamped PK2Y? My engine is the B20A5 and the head is stamped PK2.

Here is the breakdown and details on engines, heads, cc's and block casting #'s.

My original car S, 5 speed with toasted exhaust valves
1991 B20A5, head stamped PK2 and 1958 cc as listed on the hood sticker

Red donor car Si, ALB, automatic
1991 B20A, head stamped PK2A and 2056 cc listed on the hood sticker

White donor car Si, 5 speed
1990 B20A, head stamped PK2Y and listed as 2056 cc on the hood sticker

Yes, I'm confused... The WIKI database for engines, heads etc give conflicting data with the actual cars I have here.

My biggest concern is, are all 3 heads the same or are the chambers different sizes? Which head should I use?

I would like to keep the red car running so I can run it around the yard as I pull body parts from it over the period of 6 months or so, however, the white car is the 5 speed and the body is toast on it, including undercarriage etc. I just want to use the right head.

Cheers

Paul

[spiffyguido]

Hi Paul. Sorry for taking so long to get back to you.

First let me say that you should win an award for digging up strange engines. Where on earth did you find these things?

I'm seeing a lot of conflicting information, but I am very curious what you actually have. Let's do some detective work.

First of all, do you have any idea where these cars have lived? Are they from overseas? Have they ever been raced?

The first thing that gets me is that you are seeing a PK2 (A/Y) stamp on engines that are indicated to have 2056cc by the hood sticker. 2056cc is the displacement of B21 series engines. While PK2 always means B20 series engines. B21 engines have their heads stamped PK3.

My best guess it that you actually have cars that used to be B21A1 Preludes but have since had an engine swap done for a B20A. Your B20A may well be the JDM or european engine model that someone has brought over. This may be where the PK2A and PK2Y comes from, as I've never seen these designations on a local head. If you had indeed come to own two B20A engines without paying premium dollar for them, you may just be the luckiest fellow I've heard of this year.

It'd be great if you could dig a little bit deeper. I wouldn't trust the hood stickers. I'm going to guess that by some miracle you have real B20A engines, which is very fortunate.

I don't know about head compatibility between the B20A and the B20A5, but things should swap across. You should probably think about just ditching the B20A5 and swapping an entire B20A engine into your car since you likely have all the parts needed to do so. The B20A has 8 more horsepower and a higher compression ration than the B20A5.

I think I speak for all of us when I say that pictures would be really sweet to see in your case.

[ve7kilohertz]

Hi Spiffy,

First off, what is your name?

Now to the questions, in order. Thanks for the cudos on finding strange and unusual engines. Guess I just have horseshoes well placed down south.

Sorry, no idea where the cars lived or came from, except from my local area. The red donor car has had the VIN removed from every location on the car so I can't find any history in it. The white one has numbers but I haven't traced her yet. Both came from wreckers, not damaged in any way visible, one was abandoned, the other ???? The red one which has an automatic has a lock up problem which we will get to later...otherwise excellent condition. Nice mint black interior which is destined for my ride.

Ya, strange that I turned up 2 cars with B20A engines in them (all with PK2 stampings on block and heads) and both with 2056cc stickers. I found some info on another site re: JDM vs USDM engines and these 2 don't have the double O2 sensors in the ex manifold. They both have EGR, but also have double rows of Jap writing on the bottom of the throttle body assembly, where there would normally be European letters or numbers on USDM cars. One seems to have the stainless exhaust sheild, the other is hard to tell.

Pictures, seems my hands are always covered in grease these days but will try soon.

Now for some really awesome news!!!

I went back to one of my local wreckers today, as I really didn't want to rob a cam and valves from an otherwise perfectly good running engine. I went thru all 5 of the same cars that I have looked at before, 2 had missing heads, 2 were SOHC and one the engine was gone. I was realyy just looking for the exhaust cam as I have the valves on order from our local Lordco and I thought, hey, ya need to remove the cams to get the head bolts out so maybe the cams got thrown in the car in the ones that had missing heads. WoW!!! , I lifted a binch of junk and a door panel out of the back seat of one and there was the whole blooy head, all intact, complete with cams!!! Wooo hooo $25 later I was on my way home to start reassembling the engine. No need to part out the 2 B20A's YEah!

So, the new head looks like it was reworked a little while ago, so I cleaned it up and it's ready to go back in my car. Should finish tomorrow.

So, I still would like to knwo what engines I have in the other cars, as they both run perfectly, and then, I want to get the automatic fixed so I can drive that one around the yard.

more in a later post

Cheers and thanks

Paul