oldman9

Hello. I currently have a 1995 civic lx with a tired D15b7. (326K)
I bought a D15 block that had a y8 head, but was not done correctly. (wrong cam gear and still had the block oil jet)
Anyway. I got everything disassembled for a complete refresh. Doing a D15 with a spare B7 head and an A6 cam. Basic na without Vtec for a Basic daily driver.
I know someone has been in the bottom end as the bearings are not stock and someone coated everything (including the back of the bearings in molly lube.
What I dont know is if this is the crank or rods that came in this block. Is there a way to tell? I have bearings for stock, but did not know about Honda's color system.
Would it be better to use the non Honda bearings and check with plasta gauge?

JRCivic1

If you use the markings on both the block and the crankshaft for the mains and the markings for the crank and the connecting rods, this should get you in the game and you can verify with mics or plastigauge. The variable here is if the block main journals were honed or bored, the crank journals were micro-polished and/or the rods had been resized... the markings don't actually match the dimensions of the parts, so you may have to increase or decrease the thickness for your needs.

oldman9

That's what I was afraid of. I have an engine shop about an hour away, but I wanted to see how far I could get on my own. Thank you

oldman9

Had some time to screw around in the garage.
My manual has main bearing clearance #1 at 0.0007 - 0.0014
Service limit 0.002.
Plastigage has 0.002 on all 5 bearings. Is this spot on or am I incorrect?

JRCivic1

That is as LOOSE as the factory allows... as in if you get ANY bigger gap/clearance you have to replace parts... which will reduce the oil pressure throughout the engine. Maybe dangerously low. For a street driven or multi-purpose engine, I would set it up more in the middle of the target range... maybe plus two tenths. So in your example above with the posted specs, I would be working to get the #1 and 5 main journals in the 11-12 thousandths range (Wider than the white line at .0015" but slightly narrower than the green line at .0010") and 13-14 thousandths for the #2,3 and 4 journals.