Sleeves are the tubes that the pistons travel up and down in. Almost all commercial engines have a sleeve with a water jacket between the sleeve and the block so coolant can flow around the sleeves, taking heat away.
This is the best picture I could find of the stock sleeves on the H22a4, 5th Gen Prelude Engine. It's a picture of a trashed engine that a guy here downshifted on, when he should have upshifted. You can see the sleeves and the space aruond the sleeves where the coolant flows.
The H22a1 engine (4th Gen) is closed deck, meaning the top of the sleeves have been connected to the block in order to prevent the sleeves from floating or being pushed around. You can see in this picture of my friends H22a1 block how it's all closed up except for the holes in the top that let coolant flow into the head.
http://www.higginstribe.com/gallery/...h22a1_deck.jpg
If you are pushing alot of boost you'll get thicker heavier sleeves put in that can take the increased pressure of the extra power. Also you are supposed to replace the sleeves on the H22a if you are putting in forged pistons. My understanding is that the cylinders are fiber reinforced (FRM). Some people say there's a nikasil coating on the sleeves. I tend to beleive we have FRM sleeves seeing as I've heard of other cars made with FRM sleeves, but I've never heard of a commercial North American Car with Nikasil coating. I've never heard any certainty of either of these things, but JE does tell you that you need to resleeve H22a before putting in their pistons.
I got my engine sleeved by Leitner and Bush a Toronto machine shop. They originaly designed the T-Top sleeves. They look like this before dropping in:
The old sleeves are machined out and the new ones are sealed in. Then water passages are drilled in the deck. My finished engine looks like this:
Darton makes sleeves like this now, as well. They produce a kit with everything needed for a machine shop to put them in.
If I lived in the US, I would have gotten the Golden Eagle sleeves. There's a group buy going on right now for them. Unfortunetly you are going to have to send off your block to them where they install the sleeves. When you get it back you'll have to get the sleeves cut and honed for your pistons. I don't remember who I stole this picture off of. You can see they leave the deck open, but they leave tabs that keep the sleeves from shifting or moving.
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