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Today on Iconic engines it's time for our first Honda engine, and it's only right to start with an engine that holds a very special place in Honda's lineage. The engine that brought vtec to the game, the engine that did for import tuning what the Chevy small block did for muscle cars. Today it time to see what makes the legendary b16 engine great.

The b16 hit the market in 1989 in the form of the first generation b16a, and the first car that had a b16 in it's engine bay was the Japanese market Honda Integra XSi. Very soon after the B16 found its way into the engine bays of many other Hondas, including the Honda CRX, the Civic, the Civic Del Sol and more Integras. When it came out the B16a engine had a power output of 160 hp. Having a displacement of 1.6 liters this meant that the b16 hit he magical figure of 100 hp per liter of engine displacement. At that time the competition wasn't even close to this power output. How did the b16 engine manage such a power output? The answer VTEC!

As you probably know VTEC stands for variable valve timing and lift electronic control. And what it essentially does is provide an engine with two camshaft profiles instead of one. In the case of an dual overhead camshaft engine like the b16 it provides the engine with four camshaft profile instead of two, two for the intake, and two for the exhaust. Honda's VTEC managed to eliminate one of the major constraints of engine design. Engineers were forced to compromise for decades and choose a camshaft that has good idle, torque and fuel efficiency in the low and mid-range and decent performance in the high rpm range. VTEC changed the game by allowing large camshaft lift and duration in the high rpm range and good idle and driveability in the low rpm range.

Honda's VTEC technology actually started with a motorcycle. The first mass produced variable valve timing from Honda was called REV and was found on the 1983 Honda CBR 400. It operated two valves below 9000 rpm and four valves above 9000 rpm. It proved that variable valve timing could be mass produced and that it had actual benefits for economy and performance.

When you look at the specs list of the b16 engine and remember that it hit the market in 1989 things become really impressive. It also reveals another fact, the fact that Honda was kicking ass in Formula 1 in the late 80s, and many of those racing spec technologies trickled down to the b16. Great attention to detail was given to everything by the man behind VTEC in cars and his team of engineers. This man was Ikuo Kajitani, and he recalls that developing a 100 hp per liter engine at the time seemed like a dream. The dream was eventually made possible with incredible dedication and hard work that gave birth to the b16 engine, a legendary small displacement high performance engine that not only had 100 hp per liter, but was reliable and became legendary for the abuse it could handle. The wild cam on the b16a has 10.7 mm of lift on the intake. The wild cam on the b16b has 11.5 mm on the intake. This was a race only spec at the time. Even the BMW S14 which was a homologation engine has only 10 mm of lift on the intake cam. The b16a also had dual valve springs, a special alloy and surface and heat treatment of the camshafts, a very high compression of 10.2-10.2 (10.8 on the b16b) and much much more. By the way, the different version of the b16a, the b16a2, b16a3, b16a5, and b16a6 are pretty much the same engine. The differences are minor and are down to camshaft profiles, ecu tunes, compression and the different markets where they were exported to.

When it comes to tuning, the b16 is one of the most tuned engines in history. Countless builds have been done, turbo, twin turbo, supercharging, twin charging, nitrous, all motor, everything has been done. Every b16 tuning guide imaginable has been written. The b16 aftermarket is still very much alive and these engines are still being built today, despite being 30 years old. If that is not a testament to the greatness of the b16 engine design, than nothing is. By far the most popular thing to do nowadays is to turbo the b16. Despite it having an open deck aluminum block the b16's weakest link is the b16 owner. Many people crank up the bosst of the b16, rely on a weak tune and hope for big power. The result is most often a blown engine and a loud angry owner trying to convince everyone how weak the b16 is and how it shouldn't be boosted without block guards, sleeves and every possible overkill mod. Of course this is wrong. People have pushed the stock b16 block with nothing but forged pistons and a turbo to 450-500 hp.

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