snellm3

I have a 1997 EX Coupe 5 speed, this isn't my first honda and my 4th civic to be exact. I should actually be studying but I have the tax money to play with and my car feels like its going to crap out at any minute. Therefore, with my ADD I am typing to you guys and not reading for school. Hopefully you guys can point me in the right direction.

My budget is around $1500 for the clutch engine and transmission, I am staying with the D series.

This is what I am working with...

1997 EX Coupe 5-Speed

Stock D16Y8 that smokes and burns oil like there is no tomorrow, still delivers a solid combined 32mpg

Grinding y8 transmission, that I bought from a "friend" who immediately moved away after taking my money, the first trans was about in the same shape.

Body is decent, but the rust is an issue, and I do not want to invest a bunch of money in this car.


What my GOALS are:

I need to build my car to last 3 years without any major problems, trying to keep it as stock as possible. I live 100 miles away from home and travel there pretty often, my commute to school and my apartment is about 30 miles round trip, 29 miles being on the interstate. I put at least 150 on the car a week just going to school and 200 more if I head home for the weekend, not to mention the in-town driving I do when I get there. So I am mostly using interstate miles, if that is important.

I want everything to continue working like my AC and Cruise Control, reliability, great MPG, VTEC?, and something that doesn't shake like hell when I move from a dead stop (I have hellacious clutch chatter), and can keep all of its oil to itself.

If you made it this far, my questions to you:

1. Should I go OBD2 D15B VTEC, full swap? I know the biggest problem with this is that it needs a JDM ECU or something chipped to engage the vtec correctly.

2. Is my Y8 head any good still, I was under the impression the smoking was probably rings in the block? How could I test it? Could I save money getting a NON-VTEC swap like a NON-VTEC D15B to get the short geared transmission and bolting up my Y8 head so I could use the P2P ECU?

3. Should I just try to source something here at home and rebuild it like if my Y8 head is still good just a block rebuild? Like maybe I can do an OBD2 Mini-Me?



I was going to use one of those giant JDM import sites to get the swap from since they have a warranty, I have had a bad experience buying from craigslist and "friends".

In short, if you have $1500 and you needed a motor, transmission and clutch for a 96-00 EX Civic then what would you get?

snellm3

Thanks for all that helped out lol. After researching 10 hours deeply into the subject...I am going to do a compression test to see where I am at with the y8 and if its ok I plan to switch to a thicker oil and start using additives and see what happens. Hopefully it makes it tolerable. The weird thing is, when it burns oil it is not consistently doing it. It is kind of intermittent. I used that stop smoke stuff in the past, it does the trick for about 1k then it starts back up again. Anyone have any more ideas? Cant do this until after exams though.

civicjunkie17

iTrader: (1)

Don't get butt hurt if no one answers man. So basically you want it as stock as possible.. Why don't you diagnose why it's burning oil? List the symptoms, does it smoke on a cold start up? Does it smoke when warm and accelerating? Pull out a spark plug. Is the wire wet with oil? is the top of the plug wet? To really diagnose your problem, have a leak down test done on your car. It will really help you pin point where exactly the fault in the engine is.

grumblemarc

iTrader: (4)

Keep reading and figure out what to do with your own money.

snellm3

That is the worst part, I wish I had my old 96 EX Coupe. It would get a GSR end of story. This isn't my 96 though and I am super hesitant to invest a large amount of money in it. It just doesn't have the same charm. That 96 and I were boys.

We all have cars that somehow "got away" and it was for the best though I guess, that car got a b16 turbo last I heard. This particular civic is car 14 for me. I am really looking for a band-aid and not a permanent solution at this point. But you are right, I really need to test this motor to see what my next move is, thanks for the advice and putting it into perspective.

Veece

No offence but you made your car to sound like its a big pile. After your tests, determine how bad it is and do what ever with that. Otherwise, $1500 could buy you a whole new car...

snellm3

Ha ha, yeah sorry for being dramatic. I had bad luck with my last car and lost money when it developed some issues so I traded for this. I have to say though, this car is way easier to work on and I have had it for over 10k miles now and it hasn't left me anywhere yet. The Audi left me stranded like every 2,500 miles lol. I actually just read up on a forum about oil burning and the consensus was VTEC burns oil (duh) and 1qt of oil per 1k isn't that alarming to Honda. That was from an 06+ Si owner who inquired about warranty work, and was told that was the policy. The most I put in the car was about 3.5 qts top keep it topped off between an oil change that I let run 4,000. Most of the time I am putting in 2-3qts to keep it topped off and changing the oil around 3,500 miles. I have to go home to do it, and If I can't get home on the weekend it runs a little long sometimes. This is more then I put in my 96 EX, and I drove that car way harder. It used about a qt between changes, but I changed it religiously at 3,000 miles. So I guess it sort of evens out? Long story short, I guess I was freaking out over nothing. Still going to test it but it sounds like this is typical.

0SimpleTire

If you want to keep it stock but running clean I would suggest doing a full tune up. Changing spark plugs, spark plug wires, fuel filter, and belts. Also I would change the head gasket, cam, valves and valve springs. For the transmission I would just take to a transmission shop were they can rebuild your transmission which is inexpensive for the d series transmissions. Just get quotes form different transmission shops in your area. Hope this helps.

Happy Tuning!

axis11

If I were to travel those distances every week with an engine and trans that is having some issues, Id rather change all of them with low milage JDM engine and trans. I dont know how much it would cost in where you are. Here it would cost 700$ for motor and trans including install.

snellm3

Sorry to bring this back, will be posting pics shortly. I have put almost 20k on the car since I got it in October and I did end up investing a bunch of money into it......

Bought an obd2 d15b transmission from tiger,
F1 maybe? Stage 1 Clutch
7lb flywheel
Raceland Coilover Setup
Front UCA's
Rear Camber kit
Got some nice wheels for it too.
Full exhaust (mine was hacked up and pieced together and rusting)
Short Shifter

Never had a car from up north, hopefully this will be my last. 1 hour projects turn into full day affairs when bolts break...never again.

Have several other things that were replaced but not really upgrades, I think I am in it at about 3k with replacement parts and upgrades right now.

As for the motor, it seemed to do great after a full tune up. The fuel system is still a little weird and all my bushings are trashed. But it is running great.

Right now I am in the process of replacing the oil pan, have to do that when I get home, then do a valve adjustment!

Former User

Do you have technical question or are you planning a build thread?

redm3turbo

Im confused in the original post it said the 97 civic burned oil like no tomorrow, then 5 months later...a tuneup fixed the burning oil?

Ive never seen a tune-up fix an engine that was burning oil. Mis-diag perhaps, but not a tuneup to fix

snellm3

There was going to be a build, but then too many things broke on it before the build could happen and I really needed a DD. Then I realized I needed to buy built cars then build them. I live in the south and I have never had such a rusty car before, so bolts break and blah blah blah it ends up taking more time and money then I wanted to spend on that project.

I gave it full tune up which was a new distributor, plugs, wires, new belts, some engine additives between oil changes. And Seafoamed the hell out of it one day. Its working way better now. A huge difference was switching to a high mileage syn-blend oil, that cut way down on the oil consumption. My belts were not-adjusted properly before and got ate up around the edges, once they were replaced there was a noticeable difference in smoothness and a small mpg gain. Still not pulling factory mpg numbers though.

Actually that no smoke stuff helps too, especially when you run it for an extended period of driving at a low rpm and let it set properly when you first add it. I put it in right before I make the 100 mile interstate trip home. It didn't 100% fix the problem but I got a noticeable increase in performance back and less oil being burned between changes

My intention was to run a stronger clutch, lightweight flywheel and run a high flowing built y8 head on a built z6 block, bump the revs to around 9k then run nitrous or turbo. I have never messed around with nitrous but I wanted to learn from it.

Dc4LsTeG

iTrader: (7)

No