Hello all. New to the forum here, figured I'd introduce myself and let some people with more experience with these cars pick apart my half-assed plan so I can see what I'm really dealing with.

I just bought a 91 Civic hatch. According to the underhood sticker, the engine is 1500cc which makes it the D15 92-odd hp model. Four speed. Oh well, at least the wishbones are there...

I never really liked Hondas before. They were...I don't know...foreign. I started out into muslecars - unlike a lot of kids in the 80s, my driveway was home to my dad's 64 Nova (built 350, AT, typical hardcore musclecar animal), my mom's 65 Nova SS, 69 Chevy Van w/ 327 (Mystery Mobile!). Needless to say, I had a good laugh when the kid down the street said his dad's 87 Ford Probe was faster than my dad's badly-in-need-of-paint Nova. I would have had some laughs at the Hondas around at the time, for the most part rightly so.

Eventually I realized that I wanted to go fast in more than a straight line, and that gas is ****ing expensive, so all of a sudden a Z28 didn't seem like the hot ride for me anymore. Living on Long Island at the time, my monthly insurance payment was 225 a month for get-you-there liability. Two cars was out of the question. I could go on and on about how I was dragged, kicking and screaming, from lusting after street rods to being geniunely excited about owning a Civic. Let's just say it involved some lessons learned, two years of Gran Turismo 3 under my belt (I honestly think that for all of the reading I've done since the age of five on performance and racing, that game's ability to see how it all works in a controlled environment has taught me more about how cars work in a race setting than anything else to date. Can't wait for GT4!), and some Euro boxes, namely a turbo Volvo wagon and three VWs: a 72 Super Beetle (cool car, crippled by AutoStick tranny), 87 Jetta GL (quick, fun, loved corners, huge trunk) and my current ride (the Civic comes home this weekend), an 83 Rabbit Diesel (50+ mph highway, cheap, got me here from NY, worst shifter EVER, automotive enthusiast purgatory). Even once I accepted the virtues of imports, my anti-Honda ways continued: I liked (and still like) Nissans and Mazdas mostly, just because they're more my style. I like Toyotas also - I had an all-too-brief affair with a Celica Supra (thanks, gramps), and I'm jonesing for a first-gen MR2 now. Mmmmm....mid-engine. Not to mention probably the best-sounding 'banger ever, the 4A-GE (go watch the street racing vid at www.racingstrong.com and see if you'd disagree). But Hondas? Everyone builds Hondas. Then I bit the bullet, accepted that being 'cooler and more original' means more fabrication and money than going with a ready-made solution. Maybe Hondas and Chevys aren't so different after all... Anyway, enough about all that for now, here's where I see myself going with this car:

I don't think it's going to take much to get the car to handle - springs, shocks, bars, 15" Flik wheels with Falken Azensis, go from there. The car actually handles quite well for being stock, the tires are reasonably wide for OE spec 13s, and the wishbones help keep it all together under reasonable circumstances. I drove the ***** off of my Jetta with stock hardware, I don't see how less curb weight, more tire, and the all-important suspension design could add up to less stable car, but we shall see.

Mostly, my plan revolves around the engine bay, where these cars are lacking the most. I'm going to check the engine code as soon as I know how, or run the VIN, or however I can identify whether or not a D16 might have been put in it's place, because the car feels much faster than my Jetta 8v did, and supposedly the difference between that 8v and the D15 is about 3hp. The hatch probably weighs less than the Jetta (2250lbs) by some hundred pounds or so, so that might be the difference there. While it's pleasing, especially compared to the 52hp worth of diesel fury I'm man-handling about town right now, it's not going to be enough for me, and since engine swaps and mods are just part of the package of owning a Honda, that's where I'm heading. I just don't know which direction to go to yet.

There's the CRX Si ZC motor, putting out 130 hp, DOHC head. Haven't heard much about it, but it seems like a good motor and that's roughly equivalent to a 2.0l 16v GTi motor, and those cars are fairly quick stock. There's also the B18A, stock 130-140hp Integra motor. More displacement is always better, but I haven't seen how much these go for yet as a full swap. The ZC motor could be ok, but I haven't seen jack offered for upgrades so far, while the B18 is a B-series after all. Then there is the D16 SOHC VTEC motor, but I'm not quite sold on it yet. I imagine that the head could be swapped onto the motor I have, along with the manifolds, ECU and other required stuff.

Oh, that stock motor...seems it has a blown valve seal and is blowing a bit of smoke when I rev it. While it's cool to imitate a two-stroke sometimes, I'm going to have to correct this before doing much else. How much of a job is this (I still haven't looked at the manaul - it's with the car), and is the above D16Z6 scenario possible, a huge pain in the ***, or what? I'm thinking that pulling the head is going to be necessary to keep the stock motor going for a while so I can get the funds together for a better engine. Pulling the head is a lot of work to do to retain stock power levels... how about a D15Z6?

The stock motor *could* still work for what I want to do, because I'm going against the standard Honda formula of VTEC and sky-high revs for something I like better, namely forced induction. If you imagine the chaos inside a B16A's intake manifold at 9000rpm naturally aspirated, then picture the airflow under pressure, it's not hard to see why forced induction motors make the power they do. But turbo manifolds are expensive, as are intercoolers, mounting it and running everything is a big pain in the ***. I usually avoid going turbo on any car without a factory turbo model for these reasons.

However, then came the idea of remote mounting the turbo: you can go to www.ststurbo.com to see how it's done and why it works. It's a lot simpler to turbocharge a car than many think, and there are many benefits from running a system this way. I'd really like a B18A with a KKK K03 turbo from a 1.8t VW motor: I'd basically do the same thing as the 1.8t, running lower boost on a higher compression engine to have a fat, useable powerband. Picture an 04 GTi engine in a 2100lb Civic, and you see where I'm going.

Anyway, got to cut this short. Feel free to point out some pertinant threads to me, shoot some holes in this plan as much as you like...it's necessary to develop the idea until it holds water.

Thanks!

 

For the money, a DOHC ZC is about as good as it gets. My current Civic has one, but it ain't stock no more, and I've done approximately 6 ZC swaps in various 4G's. I picked mine up for $560 shipped. In case you didn't already know, ZC's are DIRECT bolt-ins for 4G Civics, and they don't affect front end weight at all. The only modifications that are required are an ECU swap (of course; you can use the ZC ECU if you want, but a better/faster/cheaper/more common solution is a PG7 from an 88-89 Integra 5-speed), and possibly some wiring mods, depending on what fuel system you were running previously. In a 2000 lb. car, you better believe it makes a huge difference. I've also done a couple SOHC VTEC ZC swaps, but IMO, they aren't as good as the DOHC's, and they cost more. Also, you can just use any D16 Turbo kit on a ZC, and its compression isn't nearly as high as its B16A/B brethren.

A B-series engine is going to run you more money (expect to pay an extra $200-300 over the cost of a ZC for a B18A/B LS motor) and involves much more involved work, including serious wiring harness modification (or just swapping it all out), motor mount replacement (probably another $200), and even some minor frame modification. I've done B16A, B18C5 and B18C1 swaps in 4G hatches, and the end result is almost unbelievable, but you have to be prepared to shell out for it. The B18C1 and C5 (GSR and Type R motors, respectively) will run at least $4000 for engine/tranny/ecu(/possibly a harness), and you can expect to pay at least $1500 for a B16A/A1. However, seeing as how you are planning on forced induction, you can immediately remove the B16A from the picture (and the C5 too, if you plan to keep your house). When people swap B18(A's) into 4G's, the most common trend is to do the LS-VTEC build, which involves swapping a head from a B16A or B18C onto the B18(A) block, then re-routing oil hoses to provide significant oil pressure to the cams to activate the VTEC. This can lead to reliability problems if not done correctly, resulting from lack of oil pressure, and (you guessed it) can involve the loss of at least one or two kidneys to pay for it. Besides the above mentionings, a B-series will change the weight distribution of the car, though not as much as an H22 or CR-VTEC.

Well, I'll try to give you some more info, but right now, I'm out of time and I have to get back to work.

 

Hey guys, you see, I ain't the only one with this idea!!!

 

Nor should you be! I really think this is both a simpler and superior way of doing a turbo upgrade. Not only are you eliminating the cost and unwanted attention of a front-mount intercooler, you're not really losing much in the process. I'm busy trying to find reasons that this shouldn't work excellently (it's actually almost the exact way that I pictured a turbo setup when the concept was introduced to me), but they're few and far between. I wouldn't be surprised to see a major make step up to this solution soon - it would be easy to route everything and create a small cavity in the underbelly of the car for a turbo. On my hatch, from what I've seen so far the 'tranny tunnel' behind the shift linkage would be ideal.

I didn't go much into my goals for this car, nor my style: I hate rice. Very, very much. To this day I get annoyed when I see a Prelude or 300ZX with some annoying, stupid body kit. The aluminum wings are always good for a laugh on the way to work, however. As are the vinyl kits that scream for attention from cops and thieves: I'm a firm believer in low-key mods, mostly because I drive my car daily, I don't have access to a garage and I believe that the money I'd spend on citations and replacing stolen parts could be better spent, oh I don't know, making my car faster. My current favorite mags are Sport Compact Car, Grassroots Motorsport, Turbo & High Tech Performance, and now Honda Tuning: all are long on cars and short on 'tuner lifestyle' bull****: if I want tasteless people telling me what cds, movies, and concert tickets to buy, I'll pick up a Maxim, thanks. Super Street and Import Racer make nice kindling, but not much else. As a matter of fact, a fairly recent SCC Technobabble column solidified the direction I'm going in: it was the one with the 500+hp Hasport Civic on the cover. Dave Coleman basically tore it down like this: sure, you can have the ridiculously overpowered, hell-to-drive dick-swinging car that people on the net will think you're a god for, or you can make smart mods that actually make your car more fun to drive and **** what your numbers are. Maybe it's just more realistic for me - I simply won't devote my life to building a car for a magazine because no matter how much I love cars they're not the only thing in my life. Maybe it's because I chuckle at the idea of someone trying to drive some ridiculous 500hp Civic to and from work everyday. I probably feel the same way any one of you would when passing some goofball with a vapor-locked Pro Street musclecar that gets 2 gallons per mile.

That said, since I've just paid the car off a week and a half ago and just moved, my 'mods' have been pretty limited: I've basically just done some cosmetic mods: some flat black on the wheels, leaving the center caps and lug nuts stock for a nice contrast. Went to the body shop supply house for some good black trim paint (I spent a while doing detail work in a body shop, and this stuff always comes out awesome looking) and did the door trim, wipers, and back panel in factory-look satin black. It looks nice: light blue with nice new black trim. Blacked out the front and rear H emblems as well. I just might smoke the tail lights: I think it would look cool with the whole package as it is now. I like how the rear panel came out - if you look, you can just see the 'Civic' logo raised above the plain slightly.

Another thing I've done is modified the center column from a first gen VW Golf Cabrio to fit under the stock peice: the bottom of the stock peice comes apart like it was made for this mod, and then you just trim the stock VW peice to fit. I'm going to get some interior vinyl paint in black for this and my leftover stock center column: add a stock VW shift boot, and bam! Three free VDO gauges - coolant temp, volts, and oil pressure. You'll lose your ash tray, but relocate the cigarette lighter socket (I need it for my cell) and it's easy to live with. Now all I need is a tach...

As for doing anything to the stock motor, after driving it for a week and a half and looking at it more closely, I'll just say that a 180k mile D15 with TBI injection and a blown valve seal doesn't make for much of a reliable performance motor, so scratch that. I think that giving the costs involved, swapping in a ZC and modding it via bits and peices would be an easier financial pill to swallow than the B16 swap, or a B18a unless I got it cheap enough to ignore the added costs of mounts and such. I figure that it wouldn't take much boost to equal the 160hp in the B16, and no amount of VTEC is going to make up for the lack of torque. I must say it's different from my Rabbit, for sure: the motors have an almost photonegative power curve when compared to one another. The 1.6l 'naturally asthmatic' diesel I was driving had a good share of torque available at any and all times, but had nothing for top end, whereas the D15 needs to be revved higher to see any decent torque. I figure that for the $900 difference in price between a B16 and ZC swap, not including mounts and such, a turbo situation could be fabbed up that would leave me with a richer powerband, and quite possibly more power overall, for that $1500+ investment.

Anyway, keep the comments coming! I'm here to learn after all: if I knew everything about Hondas, I'd be busy building the car instead of typing!

Thanks,

 

this has got to be the thread with the longest posts ever....someone make some sparknotes

 

Haha... yeah, I'm a bit long-winded on the posts. Can't help it .

 

Just break it up into 4 or 5 smaller chunks before you post it... easier on the eyes.

 

if i read a couple paragraphs a day, i should be able to respond in about a week.