Today at Atelier Kaz - ex-Honda R&D, F1, Indy/CART engineer

Ah…. The intake manifold…. It meant to be in silver colour….

Won’t be surprised if you look at the state of the TH body.
Although, once again, I was indeed quite surprised that the idle rpm was fairly stable.
I made the comment of slight hesitation in my recent blog but I don’t think it’s related to this.








Wanted to show how much oil was trapped inside the bottom tray of the VVIS chamber but couldn’t get the camera at the right angle.
Fair amount of oil high/deep enough to be seen from this side so at some point, needs cleaning.




All VVIS butterfly screws were still there with none of them showing any gaps at the base of screw head so at least,
you don’t need worrying about the famous issue of screw jumping into the engine.







By the way, the existing thermostat was of the old spec and very likely to be the one from the factory.
Part of the rubber gasket were gone and already not making any seal.
Will replace with the later spec one.










Despite the original WP from the factory showed no sign of rust, the usual corrosion was observed at the pipe core assy.
One of them has really deep corrosion but not too bad compared to some of the engines that I dealt with before.









When I removed the Rear bank VTEC spool valve, I found curled aluminum debris and blond human hair at the filter.

From the service history, this engine had its camshaft black disc/cap seal replaced in the past and in order to replace them,
one must remove the cam holder plate as well as the #4 cam holder.

From the shape of the debris and the oil passage route, very likely that these metal and hair were dropped when someone tried removing the old liquid gasket.

Fortunately, due to the oil passage route and fine filter, they couldn’t go anywhere else and no damages were done.



The importance of attention to detail and the requirement for the delicate touch.








Cleaned the area and removed the crank seal.
Will re-install the old one without the metal ring and the lip spring to prevent dust/moisture getting inside until ready to install the new one.










Lots and lots of black oil came out from the oil pressure sender unit.
Despite the area being fairly dry and clean, the base of the sensor body was wet so will give it a good wash.
I hope it’s not punctured like it happened to another owner in the past.




According to the weather forecast, it’s going to be high humidity for a while.
Instead of eng oil, I’ll be forced to use that smelly blue assembly lube. I hate the smell of MTF and this blue stuff….
That’s going to be interesting when dealing with 36 rocker arms, shafts and cam lobes…..

More to follow if I’m still breathing….



Kaz