Dox

Hey guys, long time lurker, decided that I had to post here to ask for opinions...

So here's the thing

My father sold me his 98 Civic Si (Canadian version, so it's an EX / EJ8) but the problem is, it has an autotragic transmission. The car drives great, has low mileage (167 000km - 103 000miles) paint is okay (clear is chipping on the trunk, some dents on the front of the hood, few scratches here and there, but overall it looks clean) and the interior is mint (save for some rust on the driver side seat bracket - Quebec car, driven all year round)

So technically, it's a great base car, commutes well, not THAT great on gas (like 350-400km on a full tank of gas) but it does the job.

But I've become incredibly frustrated with the fact that it's an autotragic. Some guy in my area is selling his damaged SIR (em1) for 2 grand including pretty much everything (engine, trans, brakes, suspension, etc) and probably I can negotiate some other parts he is trying to sell (his SIR cluster mostly)

This car is my daily driver, I work 50-70 hours a week in a paper mill during the summer and attend university in psychology the rest of the year and I was wondering if the swap would be worth the cash. I don't have a whole lot of experience with cars (I'm slowly rebuilding a 91 Firebird Formula on the weekends, learning as I go) and I've been told the auto->stick swap is a huge pain in the *** and would take a lot of time to do. A friend of mine said he would do the swap, but he's unsure how much he would charge me and my usual mechanic basically told me to just sell my Si and take that money + the money I'd invest to find something else.

TL:DR -> Should I just stick it with the autotragic D16Y8, Swap to the SIR engine / trans / disc brake or sell the Si and get something else (that might not be in such good condition - molested). The market in Quebec is a sellers market, cars are expensive out here, EM1s are pricy as hell. If I do keep the EJ8, I'd probably put wheels on it, and idk which ones I'd get haha.. so many to pick from =/

that's her, thanks in advance for any advice

canadaek

auto to Manual isn't hard worst part is the pedal assembly . i dd mine and i swapped it on a weekend by myself .

Dox

can I take the pedal aseembly from the SIR ? It comes in a complete car (it's been accidented) so I could take most of the stuff for the swap (engine, trans, shifter, pedals, ecu, etc)

Is it plug and play or do I have to get special stuff like engine mounts / stuff like that to make it all fit ?

canadaek

you can use everything from the sir but the harness is different between 96-98 and 99-00 obd2a and obd2b you can mod your harness and get a jumper harness for the ecu

Former User

Thread titles MUST summarize the tech problem so that members browsing titles can easily understand the problem without reading the post -- Title edited.

94EG8

Being as you have the whole car I'd just swap both the engine and cabin harnesses from the SiR.

'96 - '00 Civics are very easy to do auto to manual swaps on, everything is a bolt in affair, no cutting and welding, the hole is already in the firewall for the clutch pedal.

Dox

Thanks for the very fast replies guys and sorry for unproperly naming my thread.

I made an offer on the SIR, 900$ for everything (minus what he wants to sell) including engine, trans, shafts, exhaust, and hopefully rear disc brakes, SIR cluster, the debadged grill and the trunk.

It has 250 000km though, which is a lot more than my 167 000 on my D16Y8, should that worry me ?

Alright so he replied to me, disc brakes are gone, suspension is gone, SIR cluster gone, trunk gone as well as one of the 2 drive shafts. I suppose I could source the missing shaft from the junk yard, would any civic 5speed shaft work or should I be asking specifically for a SIR one ?

94EG8

The axle needs to be from an SiR/'94 - '01 Integra. It would make more sense to just buy a new one from a parts store for the price.

250,000kms is getting up there, but the biggest thing is, does it burn oil? And does the transmission shift properly?

santii7

It's a easy thing to do. Like said before the hardest part is swapping the pedals. And it not hard swapping the pedals its just tight in there so it's tricky

Dox

How much is an axle ?

Is there a way to verify that it doesn't burn oil / the transmission shifting properly with the car being in the state it is atm ? (car doesn't move, no suspension / rear brake assembly)

at 900$ should I attempt to negotiate or just walk away and attempt to find something else ?

appreciate the help so far guys <3

94EG8

Should be in the $90 - $120 range. Being as you're in Quebec you could also check one of many importers in Montreal for used one if you so choose.

Not really, you can do a compression test on the engine and make sure it seems healthy. A good easy and free way to look at an engine is to remove the oil cap and shine a flashlight down inside the valve cover, if it's full of old sooty black baked on burnt oil chances are it's burning oil or its rarely been changed, if it looks clean 9 times out of 10 it's a good engine.

If the swap is in good shape $900 is a good buy.

Dox

Thanks alot for the very insightful info, I'll be going to see the car this afternoon and I will bring back pictures and as much details as I possibly can so you guys can help me with the diagnostic.

I'll try to get someone that can do a compression test to test it out and hopefully everything will be in order. Good idea about the flashlight to check the oil

For the transmission I presume I can just "dry" test the shifting action by just pushing the clutch and shifting through the gears while the car is off ? if so should be simple enough.

I haven't driven a stick shift car in a little while so I'm kinda hoping the clutch / syncros will work well.

Maybe I should take the time to change the head gasket on the engine before sticking it into my Si ?

The guy has another buyer that's coming to get it tomorrow, so this will be going fast haha Boy am I glad to have you guys helping me out, I really appreciate it

94EG8

You really can't check a transmission other than by either driving the car or taking it apart. A grind wont show up unless the car is running, even then if it's not bad it may only show up at high RPM.

I won't bother changing the headgasket unless it's blown, I would however consider replacing the clutch if it's original.

Dox

Alright so I just got back, the car was cannibalized pretty hard but everything for the swap seems to be there (at least to my knowledge)

The starter was dead, apparently a previous buyer tried to check the compression but someone had stolen the GPS security on the car so it wouldn't turn over and they plugged the power directly to the starter, frying the solenoid.

He's letting me have everything for 900 but can't guarantee anything, it's been for sale as a whole car for about 6 months and people have been buying things bit by bit on it. The guy selling it wasn't very knowledgeable about cars as they cut the axle in half to try and get the engine out, he was a little befuddled when I told him I wanted the entire car.

As the car couldn't be tested for compression, I checked the spark plugs. They seemed fine, with a little bit of carbon but nothing that seemed to affect them and the inside of the valve cover was drained of oil but the insides were a neat golden / bronze look so I presume that's a good sign. He did say that every oil change it was missing about a quarter of a pint of oil, possibly through the cam seal according to him.

He is letting me have the entire exhaust, new front brakes (discs are rusted, but pads are supposedly new) engine / trans, 1 axle, radiator, A/C radiator, the side skirts, a freshly painted (black tho) a bunch of stuff really. for some reason people left with all the fuses, he hacked the radiator mount to try and get the engine out, the gas tank and pump are gone sadly.

Overall I'm thinking about it, he says 1000$ and he'll include the AEM cold air, which is something I would've bought anyways (call me ricer, I just like the look of it). I will have to pay the towing though, as CAA quebec doesn't tow if wheels are missing (that part pisses me off really, 100$ for a tow) I really wished I had gotten to the car earlier before people started hacking away at it. but w/e

What do you guys think ?

Dox

Here are all the pics I took

94EG8

That engine looks ok for the mileage, or about what it should look like for the mileage I guess, it's not great, but it's not horrible either. You can see a little burnt on oil, but nothing unexpected for a B16A with 250,000kms on it. See that gear style hose clamp on the lower rad hose? That tells you something, it might mean the car had a new rad at some point, or it may have had cooling problems and needed a headgasket, or it may have just been hooked up to a power flush machine to flush the coolant. When I see stuff like that it causes me to look a little harder, may or may not be bad, but some definitely had the rad hoses off for something at some point.

It looks like someone really didn't know what they were doing when they started hacking at this. I really hate to tell someone yes you should buy this, or no you shouldn't buy this. $900 is a reasonable price, especially when you realize that if you bought say just a swap from an importer you still need to source other things like the shift linkage, rear T-bracket and power steering pump which can at times be both hard to find and expensive. Just as a point of reference a friend of mine bought a JDM B16A swap a few years back, found it on Kijiji. $1000 got us an OBD1 B16A with unknown mileage, an OBD0 B16A exhaust manifold (wack!) the shift linkage, a chipped P28 with some unknown maps for who knows what engine, a very hacked up automatic harness converted to a 5 speed. OBD2A to OBD1 conversion harness. B16A trans with worn out clutch (we actually never looked at it since the engine and trans were still bolted together, we just threw the whole thing in a '93 CX and drove it, it grabbed fine, but we were took it apart later due to a blown trans the disc was smooth) and a couple of disassembled B-series axles. I remember at the time we thought it was a great deal.

Dox

I decided against it, I was too scared that I couldn't test the engine or transmission to buy it based solely on some guy's word that had it all taken apart very badly. They drained the oil from the engine too, which was a bad sign to me.

I'll just keep the civic as is and save for something a little more... adult like, if you will. Thank you all for the great advice on such short notice, I honestly appreciate it