Hey guys, i'll let you know right off the bat im a Toyota guy at heart but am open minded and like to tinker with everything and anything. I did just buy a bone stock (other then a ****ty intake) 1991 Honda Civic SI with a friend as a "project car" strictly for the track. The vehicle was a total loss. (fireworks + cheetos + time = yellow/orange coated interior with a broken hatch window and lots of mold from rain) Great for us because we were planning on gutting it anyways. Compression checked out good, 140psi across all 4 cylinders, 180,000kms (112,000 miles). We towed it home from the salvage yard , new hatch, spray painted the car (i will post pictures later) , changed the oil and spark plugs and drove straight to the track. Interior is still there. gross. Our goal is to make this the best track car we can on a REALLY TIGHT BUDGET.

From what i can tell it has the factory 1.6 motor. She drives solid and engine runs great. I am actually really impressed on how it did on the track today. (were talking AutoX, not drag racing). This is going to be a fun track car.

We started poking around the motor a little and found this.






Seeing how they had to cut the mounting brackets , im going to assume thats not the factory distributor. CAN SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT IT IS OFF OF? (from the numbers on the tag?). It runs good so i wont touch it, i just kinda want an explanation for this hack job. Has anyone ever see this done before?

This is also hooked up to the distributor.




When we were looking at it at the salvage yard we thought "Rev Limiter". Nope, doesnt affect that. What is it , and what does it do? We never really had the chance to play around with it. We set it at 6800 and just drove it like that at the track.

Other the that, everything looks to be in order. We need new ball joints and tie rods (lots of play).

We will try to stiffen up the body a little with these:


http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?...id=p2759.l1259

We will be lowering it with some type of adjustable coilover springs like these:


http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?...2BSI%26otn%3D4

did we say we were on a really tight budget? haha.

future :

some type of r compound tires.

something like this... (does anyone know a manufacture that ...um... makes it cheaper ? , or used, or somewhere to look. )
http://www.horsepowerfreaks.com/perf.../Camber_Plates

hopefully then our traction issues will be solved. Turbo charging this engine will be our final goal. I dont know if we will ever actually get to that point or not. Both my car and truck have turbos, but my track car doesnt. Go figure. Before we raced today i thought power would be out biggest downfall. Traction and handling is what i really want to work on before we do anything else.

So is this 1.6 engine any good? How about the manual transmission? Solid? Anything i should look out for, or avoid? Any pointers? Does the 1.6 like forced induction? What kind of boost am i looking at (reliably)?

I am really excited for this car just because it is something new and unknown to me. Looking forward to your guys help.

 

the msd box, is it affecting ignition timing?
hmm, i think i spy an unplugged vtec solenoid... (the little green plug next to the distrubutor) but it seems the other vtec wireharness going to the ecu (green with yellow stripe wire) is still plugged in. I'm not exactly what the function of the unplugged harness is.
EDIT: i looked it up, the unplugged harness is the oil pressure switch.

 

I'm pretty sure the msd box IS a "rev limiter" of sorts, or it is at least to turn something on or off at a certain rpm. My guess is that whoever had it thought it would allow them to change the stock rev limit, but without messing with the ECU it didn't actually change the rev limit of the engine

 

looked its model number up, it's the rpm selector for a shift light or any other MSD rpm related accessory, including rev limiters
on the last page of this link (.pdf file) you will find the model number as the rpm selector module for any MSD rpm related accessory, including rev limiters and shift lights, tachs with shift lights, etc.
my guess is that the one you have is currently wired for a shift light since when you mess with it the switch it doesn't do anything.

http://www.msdignition.com/pdf/8952_frm23756%20.pdf

here is one for sale and it has a description
http://store.summitracing.com/partde...5&autoview=sku

does your distributor have an external coil?

 

no external coil

 

Easy way to find out if its the stock motor look to the left of the exhaust manifold. There will be a letter followed by numbers. Could be something like this D16 followed by sommore ****. Tell us what those say and we'll help you out.

 

he was asking if the distributor was stock.

 

ya but if we want to help him know what to do on his car it might help to know what motor he has.

 

oh yea, that's true.

i'm concerned about his unplugged oil pressure switch. i remember that i forgot to plug that back in on my car at first after i replaced my VTEC solenoid gasket. The CEL came on.

With that unplugged, you should be throwing a CEL.

 

no check engine light.