OEM 4.058 FD, MFactory 1.000 5th gear.

 

The more I've been thinking about it the more I'd like to build a close ratio trans for the car. I was thinking about doing the cx 3rd gear as a 4th but not sure what to do for the rest of them. I still need to read up more and do calculations.

 

Still waiting on the block to get finished at the machine shop so today I polished the crankshaft in some downtime I had. Used 2000 grit wet sand paper, sold spray lubricant and a shoe string wrapped around the paper. The crank originally looked pretty good but now it's nice clean and shiny. I don't know how much this will help but I feel like it gave me a good chance to fully inspect the crank and make sure there wasn't any dings, scratches or things that could cause potential issues once it's assembled. Also all my parts for the itbs will be here Monday so I'm pretty excited about that.

 

Got to spend some more time on this z6 head. I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out so far. The intake side is getting close to finished just need to clean up a few things with flap wheels and make it pretty. I think I'm going to save this head for the itbs and use epoxy to fil the injector recessed area on the head and have my buddy tig weld up the injector holes in the intake manifold base and fill it in so the head port opening and intake manifold base will both have a nice oval shape to them to help keep velocity up.

 

Looks good, as always. Keep posting

 

So since I got into hondas around 2008 I've always heard about the d15b head with two vtec solenoids on it. I believe I've seen them twice in person in the past 11 years I've been honda'ing. I found one on offerup in nj that I saw for a decent price $100 but after shipping it ended up costing about double that. Oh well. It showed up today and it was the first time I've been able to check one out with the valve cover off. Pretty sweet. The guy told me it had a cam in it, not sure if he was full of it or not but I will take it apart and thoroughly clean it and see what's up. I plan on tearing it down, doing a mild port job on it and installing new valve stem seals in it and just keeping it because I think it's cool. I may run it on the d17z6 motor I'm building but I'm not sure yet. The kind of odd thing about it is the ports look just like the y8 ports. Pretty interesting to me.

Also im coming along on porting the z6 head I have and I got my 06-07 cbr 1000rr throttle bodies today as well (eBay $30 shipped) the itbs are spaced about perfect for the z6 manifold base im using. I plan on running the cbr injectors but running the itbs upside down so the injectors are spraying up and the only part showing will be the throttle linkage. I want to weld the itb housings to the runners but I know we will have to be very careful not to warp them from the heat. The 1.75" runners I'm making line up almost perfect with the outlet on the throttle bodies.


Also I've devised a plan for the car that I think will give me the most enjoyment out of the build. I'm putting the ported y8 head and intake manifold on the d17z6 bottom end and will run it with a stock cam and cx transmission to start with. This will probably be the slowest version of the swap but it will be easy to get the swap in and only have to worry about building the mounts so it sits right and building the exhaust, hooking up shiftlinkage and wiring. Once I get it all tuned it I will have the option to swap the ported z6 head on with an aftermarket cam and itbs. It will be fun for me to see what each change does to the car and how it responds. I also want to build a close ratio trans out of the y8 using a cx 3rd as 4th gear and possibly get a m factory close ratio 3rd gear set if I can find just that as I don't want the 3rd and 5th combo. More pics to follow soon

 

Took the cam cap assembly off and the base part of the head looks just like a y8 from what I can see besides on the two bolts close to the distributor mount there are through holes unlike the y8. The cam only has one lobe for intake side then the big lobe for vtec. I'm curious if I can modify my y8 head to use this rocker setup and cam. I think it would definitely pick up allot of fuel economy in lower rpms with only one intake valve opening.

 

DUDE. YOUR CAT.

 

Thats harvey, he's a bengal. We also have a Scottish fold/ munchkin kitty as well as a chunky 90lb pit bull I've had for about 7 years now.

So for some reason this d15b head really intrigues me. After tearing it apart I've learned it's essentially a d16y8 head with the oil passage drilled through near the distributor cam cap. The ports are identical. The combustion chambers are the same. The only difference I can really find between the y8 head and d15b head are the passage for oil and the cam caps/ rocker/ cam assembly. I think I'm going to drill out the oil passage and run the d15b stuff on my ported y8 head. I plan on using neptune to tune this setup so I can use an auxiliary output to engage the first vtec change then have the high lift cam controlled normally.

 

If keeping OEM gears you could do DOHC ZC 1.346 3rd, CX/VX 1.066 3rd as 4th (closer than DOHC ZC 1.033 and requires less machine work), DOHC ZC .878 5th.

If you want to keep OEM gears without the expense of DOHC ZC there isn't anything to write home about (1.250/.259 into 1.172 is useless). Just toss the 1.066 in (be sure to modify it for use as 4th gear) and an L3 .771 5th. You're not very likely to find a 1.250/1.2593rd gear in good shape by itself so if you want a shorter 3rd I'd just get an EX trans.

 

Thanks for the info. I've been looking for the zc 3rd but haven't found any yet. I do have the 98 y8 ex trans I was planning on doing the cx 3rd in as fourth. Also I got a wild hair today after getting the 3 stage vtec head and was able to easily modify my y8 head to run the d15b dual vtec solenoid and cam cap/ rocker/ cam. I just drilled out the hole that was plugged that the d15b had a through hole for the oil passage. It was quite simple and I'm really surprised it worked. The vtec solenoids bolt right up and everything is swapping over just fine. I decided to pull the brian crower single valve springs out to use them in the z6 head if I end up swapping that on later but for right now I'm super stoked about making my y8 head work as a d15z7 or d15b vtec head would. I did notice that the d15b springs seem to be thicker and stronger then the stock y8 springs. They feel like they are somewhere in between the y8 springs and the brian crowers.

 

Got all the d15b stuff swapped onto my y8 head successfully. Pretty excited for that for sure. Also started mocking up the itb setup for the z6 head. The runners aren't for sure gonna be this length, I will have to wait and see how long I'll be able to get them in the insight engine bay, ideally I want them as long as possible but I think this will be close to the limit even though they are fairly short

 

So you are essentially doing a gas sipper build (D15 w/ p29's, y8/d15b 3 stage vtec head, Long runner ITB, CX trans) and then a stroker/z6 build (D17 crank rods, pistons, in z6 block, z6 ported head and y8/hybrid geared trans) for performance down the road? Got confused with the back and forth decisions.

The D15B vtec, ZC vtec will show P08 (d16z6) casting number for earlier before 95'-96' cylinder heads and P2J (d16y8) casting for later heads (95'+).

 

The gas sipper build I'm currently doing will be d17z7 (3 stage vtec head, d17 stroker z6 bottom end 76mm bore) ported y8 intake manifold, b series throttle body, cx trans. This engine should make a good wide torque band, have long gears and low ve when in 12v mode.

Think of this as like a stage 1 engine.

stage 2 of the engine would be finish the z6 head with a nice big cam and itbs and a shorter geared y8 trans with close ratio setup. I wanted to get the gas sipper setup in and running to see how it feels in the car as well as see what kind of fuel economy is possibly with an engine 1.7 times the stock engine lol.

I never really got anywhere with the d15 bottom end and I won't likely end up using it to be honest. I'd rather build another 1.7 stroker motor since I picked up another d17 crank from pick a part for cheap. For a daily driver I think torque really takes the win over high rpm power.

 

Copy that and I'm on board now. Sounds like a plan.

 

I'm really curious what kind of power output it will make from the setup I'm building. It should have some decent results I think for the stock cam being the limiting factor. Looking over the stock y8 ports again in the d15 b head it kind of blows my mind that those ports can make over 100hp lol. The right side intake port is straight garbage. I know honda designed it that way for the swirl effect but it's just so bad in stock form. Also I updated my first post so the whole thread won't be as confusing. I have a way of working my way through my build by writing it down to figure out which path is best for me.

 

Today I relocated the battery to the trunk. It was pretty straight forward. I unbolted the aluminum battery trey and reused it. Bolted it through the sheetmetal in the trunk and ran wire back to the positive terminal. Cleared up allot of room in the engine bay. I was able to keep the original shock tower brace and just cut the front section off of it that the battery tray sat in.

 

It's ready for the D

 

Lol. I can't wait. Still trying to picture how I'm gonna go about building the mounts. I think the two biggest challenges will be the rear t bracket since the insight has a lower rear mount kind of like a k series and the driver side mount since I don't know if I will have to trim the currnent mount bracket for clearance or not yet. I found this picture of the trans mount that was done in a b16 swapped insight. I have a few different oem mounts that I can cut up and use for baseplates to weld onto. My goal is to use the oem Insight rubber mounts and basically make a bolt in set of brackets that connects them to my D swap. I am super excited for this new engine setup. I think it's gonna be a nice compromise between power and fuel economy in this car and even if it makes Low power like 120whp that's still over double what it is making right now.

 

It's possible the engine may have a gangsta lean like the H2B and the K series Lean mounts. No issues with that besides oil changes. Just weld another bung to the oil pan and be done. Main concern would be straight axles with no binding and using oem used parts where possible.

 

My main focus when building the mounts will be axle alignment and ground clearance. Those take top priority over everything else. Luckily the single cams
are small lol.

 

Yeah, even lighter if you have a blowed, gutted D-series shortblock and gutted trans casing to use during mock up.

 

That's actually a really good idea. I have like 3 transmissions right now and I could go pickup a z6 with a hole in it from my buddy for free. I might just down that.

 

Stopped by the machine shop, he said my block should be ready by next week. I fit my adjustable cam gear and clear cam gear cover onto the d16y8 now 3 stage vtec head. I will probably end up going with wrinkle black on the valve cover, the wrinkle red was the only working can of wrinkle paint I had for the time being. For some reason those cans can be used once then they clog up no matter what. Been thinking allot about what to do for the intake tube that would make the most sense for the sized motor. I think I will probably try to run a longer tube 3" pipe with v stack and filter sitting behind the front bumper cover. I've also been thinking about running a full size Integra radiator just because I have one in good shape in my attic and I should have room to fit it. Once the bottom end is assembled I can put the head/ clutch/ trans on and lay out the wiring harness and make sure it will have everything I need on it. I also started on making some mount plates to bolt up to the engine bracket and go back toward the driver side engine mount the insight has. I'll have to see if I have enough room to go that route as I'm unsure if I'll have to trim the bottom of the engine mount bracket or not for clearance.

 

Where did you get the clear cover? I agree, wrinkle black on the valve cover.