The clear cover was on eBay they are like 15-16 bucks shipped and look really nice. I did have to use a flap wheel to fit it because it was a bit too thick in the top part that slides into the valve cover. Also I am gonna use the cbr 1000rr injectors in the y8 manifold. They are 12 hole denso injectors and should be right about 295-310cc depending on where you read.

 

Bottom end is mostly assembled, I still need to machine the timing belt cog to fit with the ls crank pulley. Also need to order a 76mm headgasket. I was just test fitting the head to make sure the header and oil pan didn't have any clearance issues.

 

That header is just screaming no power It will be interesting to see how it does.

 

From everything I understand with header design it does but the motor it was on felt really good. I wanna do a comparison with it vs the dc sports 4-2-1 header and see which is best.

 

K7-1Ktrevor I just finished reading through you thread. I have also seen your post on D-series.org. I am currently working on a similar build for my 95 civic coupe ex. that I'm restoring. It's a single owner low mileage car that i got from a friend in pinch. It was disassembled when i bought it and has collecting dust in my garage for a number a years. I have finally decided what I am going to do with it. It has always been around to replace my current daily which is exactly the same car except that it has over 500k mile on the chassis and has been in a few small accidents and repaired. I have owned my Current daily since 2006 and it has been the best 500 dollars I have ever spent but its showing the times and I have been wanting something new but don't want a car payment. So my thought is why buy something newer when I have the car,I obviously love to drive, clone to build it into something much better. I al have similar goals to you. I want comfort and 40+ mpg but still have Performance and handling. My current daily has been through all different kinds of Changes thought the years so I'm not new to working on or building Cars. Here is a few major ones. My original z6 died at 300K somewhere there bouts it was all stock beside intake pipe and dc sports header. After it died I swapped in a d15y7 mini me ( d15b7 bottom end Y7 head), The mini me had lots of different setups from stock to CBR ITBs, with an aluminum flywheel. When i pull the ITB's off I installed a custom turbo set up. The turbo was a ebay a T3/T4 57trim / 63Ar into custom 3" exhaust to the back of the car . The little 1.5 made 175HP and 150ft/lb of TQ at 7.5psi to the tires till the day I pulled the engine out of the car. It failed do to a loose rotor button. The screw that secures it some how came loose causing the rotor button to changing the timing. It made me hunt a misfire while lean and cruising forever, but It also caused blown head gasket after a time that when i went to repair found an ARP head stud had pulled the treads out of the block. That engine had 3+ years of abuse from autox to Dragstrips It bounce off the 7200 rev limiter frequently. I put about 80k miles on it with just the turbo set up alone. Very Fun I want this back but better because even tho my current daily runs fantastic it still only makes maybe 100hp tops. It's just another D15B7 I had as back up.

My car is heavy like 2600+ or - 100 lbs depending so I figure I am going to need loads of low end TQ to get 40 mpg Goal. My target numbers are these. 150 ft/lb of TQ by 2500 rpm and 200 to 250 hp before 7000 rpm. Do you think this is possible??

This is the set up I am thinking to reach my goal.

Block: D17z6 Stroker D16A6 Block with stock 1.7L guts with ARP hardware.

Head:JDM D15B Vtec head ported and matched to a SK2 intake Manifold with a 60mm LS Tb, New upgraded valves and springs with Ti retainers. I may upgrade cam later but stock to start with.

My Turbo Choice is a T28 DBB with billet intake wheel .63 A/R Ex (should be capable of 320Hp easily ) into 2.5" yokohana Exhaust. (I have the 3" still if I find it to restrictive. both sound good but the 2.5" is quieter). I have the supporting mods as well like intercooler, larger injectors and fuel pump, Chipped ECU. Ask if you need to know more.

The Trans is going to be building is a Hybrid of a ex&Hx. I'm going to put the Ex gear set in with a HX final of 3.722 with MFactory LSD. Its simple but I have all the parts so cost effective as well. My thought is closer Gear set then the HX for better shift points but Still tall final for hwy driving. Which i do a lot of.

I have most of these part already from years of gathering. I'm only currently missing the New Valves and the T28 Turbo along with the time to put all of this together.

Keep Posting I would like to know how your build turns out and maybe some more Ideas to help my own. I would talk to you about tuning my car but you are on the other side of the Country. lol


P.S I will post some pictures of my ITB's and Turbo Set up once I figure out how again.

 

I think your on the right track with the smaller turbo and large stroke. I would say the one thing I would change personally would be selling the skunk2 mani and sticking with a y8 or z6 intake manifold. It won't hold the power up as well up top but the skunk2 will sacrifice more bottom end then you would want in my opinion. I got the bottom end assembled but I decided to hold off on doing the swap till after summer most likely. It will give me plenty of time to build a new shortblock for my awd crx that's in need and I can enjoy the car for some fun road trips this summer with the killer gas milage it gets. Since its been warmer out I've be able to pull 80-90mpg cursing on the freeway at about 60 with no cars in front of me. That's up around 20+ mpg or so from when it was colder out.

 

Decided to swap the insight this summer. Bought a new bike that I've been riding since it's been sunny here so I don't need it for a daily for the time being. Working on the engine harness right now, also still need to get a water pump and time the engine as well as fit the b series crank pulley on the engine and add new timing marks to match the z6 lower timing cover.

Once I get everything ready to drop in I'll pull the 3 cylinder out and post a bunch of pics of the mounts I make and how the shift linkage sits.

 

I can honestly say I've never been excited about a D series swap until seeing this lol.

 

I feel the same way. I think the chassis is perfect for it. If the car didn't handle as great as it does I would have just stuck a k series in it and had a nasty freeway/ drag car but I really want to Auto-x this car. It's super fun on the back roads just needs more power to pull through corners

 

Yeah. Sometimes it's all about finding the right balance. Have you seen that turbo K20 Insight all over youtube? That thing is a bit silly. The power isn't even remotely usable lol.

 

Yeah I've seen it, even allot of the all motor k20 insight still spin till 4th. If you wanna see a really sweet one look up the light speed performance awd turbo k20 insight or ksight. That car moves really well.

 

 

I was able to time the motor today, made custom timing marks on a b20 crank pulley for the mechanical and ignition timing as well. Also last night I ordered some 185/55/14 federal 595 tires for the insight to run on the white wheels and I'll swap the re92 potenzas back onto the stock insight wheels then paint them satin black since they have some pretty bad oxidation and look like poo. Just need to finish up the wiring harness and I'll be ready to pull the insight 3 cylinder out to drop this motor in. I want to build the mounts to sit the motor up as high as possible for ground clearance.

 

So after allot of apprehension about pulling out a perfectly good running 55whp engine I finally pulled the trigger and yanked out the inline 3 out of the insight today. To tell the truth the hardest part was figuring out how to disconnect the ima cables. The insight axles are almost identical to crx hf axles like I had hoped, the hf's are a bit beefier lol and the long axle has a bit longer splined end that goes in the tranny side. I also removed the D.C.-D.C. Converter from the trunk and plan on building somewhat of a tool storage area for my tuning tool box because I use this car allot when I travel to go tune cars. The inline 3 is almost the same height as the 1.7 stroker motor and it had allot of headroom left in the bay before it was pulled.

 

Made some solid progress on the wiring harness earlier today. Just need to do the distributor plugs on the engine side and finish the harness that goes in the cab. The insight shares the same 2 bolt flange for the wiring harness so it will bolt up just like the oem harness did. I have all the gauge cluster wiring figured out besides the coolant temp, the insight doesn't have a single wire coolant temp plug on the engine so I'm assuming that it gets coolant temp from the ecu so I just need to find a pinout for that and I should be able to wire that part up.

 

No surprise it fits quite well. I have the flanges made up for the mounts and they will bolt up to the stock insight engine mounts. Tomorrow I'm going to click the axles in to the tranny and hubs and double check clearance and alignment then start cutting the pieces I need for the mounts to weld to the ek trans bracket and ek post mount. Ground clearance is perfect nothing is below the suspension and the shift linkage looks to be about 1/2" too long but that may change if I can tilt the engine a little more to sit how it does in a civic. It's sitting a little funny because it's just on the cherry picker

 

Looks like it belongs in there. I love oddball stuff like this. Did you get some before videos with the 3 cylinder so we can see a direct comparison to the D series?

 

My phone doesn't have enough memory left to take a video long enough to cover a first and second gear pull with the stock 3 cylinder lol. Not even lying. I got the tranny mount done today besides clean up and paint. Driver side mount shouldn't be too hard either and once those are done I'll mod the d series t bracket to bolt up to the stock insight rear mount. Shift linkage is super close to bolting it up but I'll have to add a bend to the stabilizer bar for clearance. Once the mounts are finished the rest should go pretty smooth. Not much different then doing a swap in a civic really. The hf axles fit beautifully, I put them in before welding up the trans mount to insure the swap was centered and cv angles were acceptable. Ground clearance is killer, just as good as the 3 cylinder.

 

Both side mounts are done. Driver side mount uses an ek engine mount for y8/b16 so if I want to go b series down the road I would just need to build a b series t bracket, shift linkage and change the hubs to run b series size axles. Motor should be in tonight for good and start getting stuff hooked up.

 

 

Cool deal. Very close. Need to jig those mounts up and sell them.

 

Thanks man! My buddy said the same thing and I thought about it for like 30 seconds and then was like na **** em. I like having something unique because I built it myself. Also what I've learned over the years is you can bust your *** to create a product that's the best you can make and someone will come in hating no matter what, if it's not the quality they will try to pick apart the engineering, if it's not that it will be the price. Everyone is an expert so besides sharing my stuff on the forum and to my buddy's I really just keep to myself. If someone wanted to build their own mounts I would be happy to help them with dimensions and pictures of my mounts though.

 

I don't blame ya. It may be more hassle than it's worth.

On a side note. J series insight would be a blast. I've seen one 90% done but never one driving yet.

 

I was just thinking about a j series insight and how horrible it would be to have to work on lol. The single cam fits fairly snug in here, especially with the core support back in place for the hood latch.

 

Trunk is cleared out of the D.C. To D.C. Converter and ima stuff that isn't needed. I'm gonna reorganize it for better space and move the battery closer to the seats behind me. Also finished the t bracket so all mounts are done and it feels very solid. Wiring is 99% done besides coolant temp, check engine light works and is checkable just like a obd1 car. Fuel pump primes from the ecu and everything works as it should. I had to order a mk1 vw radiator because neither an isight radiator relocated to passenger side nor a eg radiator fit at all. Exhaust is next and I need to install the drivers side axle and finish up welding the shift linkage and put fluids in it.