Any 96+ B-series oil pump will work or older vtec pumps
Conversion Dowls are not neccesary, you can easily drill the head and just the stock dowls
Dont forget you do have to block off a oil passage in the head, by either welding it, or tapping it and putting a plug in it.
A b18c timing belt wont work unless you use a GSR water pump, no real advantage with one. Just use the LS pump and the LS timing belt.

Head studs and ARP rod studs do help but are not neccesary.

 

arp's are the ----

 

well I have done about 4 or 5 ls/vtec's in the last year and half or so. I have found a few things a must and a few a nice thing to have. here is my list of things I would get to do it hmt style and still last.


ls timing belt and water pump
like abaz said either a 96+ oil pump or any vtec motor oil pump
stealth mode ls/vtec oil line and plug kit. best deal and best quality I have seen for the price yet: )
drill the dowl pin holes out and reuse the dowels
ls head gasket
arp rod bolts
I have used king bearings in my last setup and they have prefromed good but if I had the extra $$ I would probably go acl.
thats the cheap way

list of stuff I run

ls timing belt and water pump
ls head gasket
arp rod bolts in my book are a must, I have spun rod bearings on being cheap and not getting arp's
arp head studs
gsr oil pump
sleathmode ls/vtec conversion kit
king bearings main's and rods

as far as balancing frick I never do lol I shift many times daily at 8500 and have seen 9500+ and still held together. except when I had the stock rod bolts. I spung a rod bearing in like 3 months with those

 

I was planning on getting the GE conversion anyway. I was mostly worried about honing the cylinder walls and balancing the rotating assembly. I'll probably skip messing with the water pump and just replace the timing belt with a regular LS. Since I was planning on upgrading to forged pistons and rods anyway I'm not too worried about ARP bolts on the rods since they'll probably come with ARP anyway. I'll use the money I saved from not ------- with the water pump on a set of ARP's for the head.

Good info guys

 

normaly you replce the water pump with the timing belt.... if you dont need to replace the water pump theres nothing wrong with just doing a fresh LS belt though.

and also why would you want to drill your head when they make adapter dowels that are like less than 20 bux on ebay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/HONDA...spagenameZWDVW

god dam you probably dont own the right size drill bit anyway and youd have to buy it and it would be like 15 bux or you could get a set of dowels made for what your doing for under 20... hmmmm

anyway overbore if your cyl walls are out of round otherwise rehone and get your piston to wall clearance set for forged pistons (since its different than stock). certainly dont need to balance though, i mean its nice but i doubt youd be revving to the moon so... anyway gl

oh yeah and a full set of acls will set ya back maybe 100 bux (about half what stock runs) and are BETTER bearings than oem LS bearings. unless you plan on runnin vtec bearings your better off with ACL despite what the OEM bearing ***** say

 

Normally if its leaking or for people who have a hard time doing a timing belt and dont ever wanna take it off again.

Or you can buy a cheap drill bit or borrow someone elses and drill it out and save 20 bucks, and not wait 5 days to get the dowls. I've drilled out about 6 ls/vtec heads, its pretty easy.

I'm not a oem bearing **** by any means.. But Factory bearings are by far better than ACL's.. ACL's are one size fits all made in austrailia, and everyone knows honda bottom ends are not all identicle. Example 88dx's 5min ls/vtec used all ACL bearings, Why didnt it last?

 

its so worth it to plastiguage each bearing

 

exactly!

 

I understand teh recommendation is to use the VTEC oil pump. There have been some threads about using the gsr pickup, girdle, and pan... Is this an absolute necessity?

I have a gsr oil pump already but dont feel like spending another $150 or so on gsr oil parts if I can use the LS oil pumps, etc and especially if they work just as well. Any thoughts?

 

i think those items are just for using a gsr girdle.