In theory the open deck would be better for cooling, and the closed would be stronger. But from what I've seen, it doesn't make that much of a difference. I've never heard of anyone with GE sleeves complain that their sleeves were weak. I'd personally go with open, based on the fact that it was Honda engineers that decieded it was worth switching to.
i thought honda switched to open deck because it was cheaper to produce...
in general people believe closed deck to be more solid (no need for block guards, etc) and open deck has better cooling.
Darton makes an open->closed deck conversion kit that gives the sleeves the stability of a closed deck block by machining the top together with the block, yet keeping the advantages of open-deck cooling.
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1999 Prelude 2.2 VTi 4WS
I speak fluent typo
I have an H22a1 in my 99 lude. It had this motor in the car when I bought it so I can't tell you an exact reason why. The one thing I can think of is it was either a really good deal, or it was what they had laying around.
The sleeving will cost you around $1200. The pistons and rods will run around $1000. Machine shop and bearings will be around $300. The labor for the install will be around $600. If you replace all the parts when you do a full build (timing belt, water pump, oil pump, gaskets, head studs, etc) will run another $900 or so. Obviously this can go up or down by a couple hundred depending on parts used (like your own block and crank) and labor charge rates.
If you check the HCi mag that had the 725 HP H22, they recomended the H22A4 because the crank journals are larger than the H22A1's. But then again, that engine is fully built for the application.
unless you do a LOT of the labor yourself, a full rebuild with internals will easily be in the 5k range.
everyone has already made the salient points regarding open and closed deck, but it's somewhat moot if you are sleeving the block. i believe the golden eagle design is superior from a coolant flow point of view to the darton design - both in terms of the ability of coolant to flow to and from the head, which is minor since that's limited by the orifices in the head and headgasket, but also in the surface area of the cylinder wall braces that are exposed to the coolant. the GE deck tabs should have a pretty good radiator effect imo. in terms of strength... you're not gonna have a problem with lateral sleeve stability in either one if it's built properly. those things are strong as hell.
if i were NOT resleeving, i'd still go with an open deck block, simply because i believe cooling is more important and i don't believe the cylinder walls themselves to the be weak point here. if you're running lots of boost on stock internals, you are going to lose your pistons long before you vibrate your cylinders out of plane!
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