nahnah05

hey guys this is my virgin post post. lol. i got a 92 dx with d15b7 and currently the clutch is out on it. I have been planning on an engine swap and am wondering about what would be best. i will be doing all the work my self. I found a 94 civic ex with the d16z6 that is in a salvage yard a couple miles away. Its a small town and i know the yard owner and can get it for cheap. would it be best to opt for he sohc or wait until i find a b series. im looking for a fair amount of power and wanted your thoughts.

AGENT_47

If it's really cheap go for it, what's the asking price for the D?

If you do get it , might as well replace the internals if you're planning to boost it.

nahnah05

i can get it for about 150 for just the engine, a little more for all the electronics and everything. yeah i was planning on stripping it all down and replacing all the internals. What works the best if i am planning on doing some boost as far as pistons and rods go?
and what kind of head work pays off the most.

AGENT_47

"TEXT" from another forum ( I would give the link but it might be against TOS)

-Great write up on d-series turbo builds-

Ok it seems to be that there is alot of people trying to go turbo and wanting big power and an ever growing more that dont know how to search nor have the capacity to do so. Or are just having a hard time deciphering between what is fact and not. So I will give a short synopsis of my take on the process and hopefully help some of you guys out in your quest for big power. Im gonna go piece by piece and hit on some of the finer points of this process.

Lets start off with a goal your gonna need this from the beginning before you even start to do anything. Know what you want and keep your eyes on the prize.

Now this next step is a budget some of us are balling out of control some of us not so much. So realize that when you embark on this endeavor know that cheaping out is not gonna be an option and if you think it is stop reading right now and go to EBAY and dont take head to anything else that I have to say. Be realistic with your money and buy things that are with in your budget, and that will get you on the road asap.

Now that you have a budget lets map out a plan for said goal. What I found works great is getting a spiral notebook to put all your info in and keep it close. Your best bet is to go hunting for the best deal that you can there are alot of good sites out there and we have some very good sponsors here on this site that can get you almost anything you could need. Then there is always the classifieds on this site and others. So take your time this is not a race to finish line yet.

Now when turbocharging one of our cars (D-SERIES) realize that almost every aspect of the car needs to be changed in some way or another. Suspension,motor mounts,ecu, fuel delivery,tires,the motor are just the main ones. Also you should plan on the car being down for periods of time so having a beater to get you around might be a good idea while this process is being done.

Im gonna hit on most of the big main points that will get you on the right path.

Motor:
The motor Im gonna split this into head and block and keeping it simple. I will start with the block as this is gonna be where your weakest link is and thats the connecting rods their pencil thin and only good for about 250 hp with a good tune. So logically this will be the time to make a decision to build the block that you have in the car or buy another block and build that. What ever you choose will work fine. Now there are many combos that will work fine and if this is more of a budget build the old tried and true eagle/vitara scat/vitara FJR/vitara custom lengthFJR/vitara TT/vitara will work well. Being that these pistons will take the beating but there is a trade off with these pistons. They yield ultra low compression unless mated with the custom length FJR rods. This low compression is not that big of a deal to me and have made some nice power for people over the years.

Head:
Im gonna break the head done into a few sections the actual head, cam then springs retainers and valves. Any of the honda heads will get you to where you need to for the most part. (there are some exceptions out there but that is where you can do more research into the actual head your using) Either VTEC or non Vtec is once again a personal preference A6,Z6,Y7,Y8 etc etc they all work and pretty well. Even with a stock cam it will take you to about 400hp and there is where you for the most part hit a wall.

So if budget allows maybe spring for some head work a decent port 3angle valve job and cleaning up the bowls will do very well and allow you to obtain your goal with a little less boost. This is not a must but is always nice to make things easy on yourself of course if budget allows.

Now comes the cam there are many choices of cam Bisi, zex/comp, delta, crower, exospeed and so forth. Typically for a build like this you want a cam that will shift your power band but still be street-able. So keep that in mind when picking one of these out and talk to the people that you are buying these parts from if they dont want to talk to you and answer your questions than more than likely you dont need to do business with them. Again this is not a must but is always nice to have as well mated to an adjustable cam gear. I have heard of people freeing up 25hp with a cam and gear adjusting there cam timing.

The springs retainers and valves in stock form and good working condition will make good power so long as your revving to stock or near stock rev limit. If you think that you will have a need to rev way past stock rev limit then valve springs will do you well. I dont really see a need in Ti retainers nor valves be it oversized or stock for these kind of power goals.You can spend that money else where in the build and really put it to good use.

We have the block squared away lets talk about some supporting mods to make this block pump some air. A turbo kit be it your piecing it together yourself or buying a off the shelf kit it is still a kit and thats how Im going to consider it. Piecing a kit together will save you some money but you will have to make sure you have all aspects covered so you can bolt the kit on and insure proper fitment. If your going to buy a off the shelf kit make sure that it will meet your goals. Once again talk to the company that your buying the kit from they should be willing to help you with any "stupid" question that you have. There are a few sponsors on this site as well that can get you these kits Go-Autoworks being one and Rc-Autoworks being another there not the only ones but they are the two that stick out in my mind right now.Im going to break this up into a few sections as well I will hit on the turbo, manifold,piping,intercooler,oil feed,oil return,couplers,wastegate,manual boost controller,electronic boost controller,bov and vacuum lines.

Lets start with probably the most important part of this whole project the actual power adder the turbo itself. By now you must know that for big power there are gonna be trade off's. You trade off a more usable powerband for some really sick top end neck snapping power. A little bit of background on turbo chargers and the parts I will be referring to.(this will be a very simple break down) There is an exhaust this hooks to the exhaust manifold and is what turns the impellers, and then there is a compressor housing which pumps the air to the motor. That being said my personal opinion is that a T3/T4 50trim or 57trim turbo can get you where you want to be. I know there are other turbo's but I can only speak for myself on this and this is what I suggest. You have Borg Warner,Garrett,turbonetics and some other name brand turbos that are very nice to choose from. Why do you ask choose from a name brand turbo when you can get a cheap ebay one for 1/3 the price; the quality. A little piece of mind will go a long way. If you spend the extra money now then you dont have to worry about down time and headaches later. As stated this is just a brief go over there are still many other options as far as exhaust and compressor a/r go that need to be thought of. I would not go over a .63 A/R exhaust housing anything bigger and your looking at a rather "laggy" turbo and you will be shooting for well over the 400hp mark.

Just as the turbo is a very important part the manifold what you mate it too is equally important! The manifold you run is really going to be a budget buster. You have the cast logs that are good for 400hp and will run you around 100-200 dollars to the ever so baller top mount which is almost 1k by itself.

The log mani good mani durable as hell and cheap will make good power but is not pretty by any means. This mani is for the budget minded that dont care about looks or engine bay bling. As previously stated these are a very good manifold and will make the power your looking for. But wait lets say your not into the whole idea of cast and like some shiny SS manifold. Ill stick to the main 3 mini ram, full ram and top mount. The mini and the full ram will be the ticket they will still give you decent spool and will give you a very nice topend. The topmount is well for those guys shooting for over 400hp and tend to be a tad bit laggy on our "little" motors.


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Lets put our focus on the rest of the kit we have the intercooler,piping,couplers,oil feed,oil return,bov,boost controllers and vacuum lines. First is the intercooler you want to make sure that your intercooler is going to be efficient its just a air to air heat exchange. Air flows over the tubes and fins and cools the charge before it reaches the motor. Go for something bigger than what you think you need you dont want to put all your piping together only to find out down the road that your intercooler is a choke point and is holding you back. Then you will have the fun of redoing it all to make a bigger one fit. 2.5in inlets is usually pretty good. Coupler piping and Tbolts all go hand and hand you need the piping to carry the charged air through the system and the couplers mate the charge pipes up and the Tbolts hold them on. Dont cheap out on these items they will give you utter hell on dyno or street tune day. Nothing like paying someone an outrageous amount of money to fix your cheap *** couplers and worm clamps because you thought they would work out fine.

What do we have left the bov boost controller oil feed and return, vacuum lines and wastegate. The BOV(blow off valve) is simple it relives pressure and keeps the turbo from surging (spinning or trying to spin backwards) when you left off the gas. There are many out there Turbo XS, HKS,Tial,DSM,Turbonetics to name a few. Pick one and make sure that the flange on your piping is what it goes to or you will catch hell. But more than likely if you bought the kit you get to choose which one you want. Now this is where it gets a little tricky and I will tell you that some of the knock off ones will work ok this is the only time that I can say the knock off cheap **** is ok if this is where you want to skimp on but buyer beware. The oil feed and return are simple you have one of 2 popular choices to tap from. The first will be remove the oil pressure sensor on the back on the block and run your oil inlet from that which is a BSPT fitting they are sold all over the place. Or two get a oil sandwich adapter that fits between your oil filter and the motor and you can get your oil from that as well as run what ever sensors that you need to. Then we have the external wastegate these control boost and keep you from throwing rods like frisbees out the block. These connect to the manifold and have springs in them that control the psi level and range from 3psi to 25 or more psi. If you have a internally gated turbo same concept there is just a flapper with an actuator that controls psi. If you have a need to control psi beyond what the spring will yield then you will want a boost controller. There are fro the most part 2 types manual and electronic they both do the same thing trick the waste gate to allow you to run more psi. Rule of thumb is that you can double the psi of the spring with a boost controller.The vacuum lines now everything runs off of these your BOV, wastegate ,turbo boost controller and boost gauge.

The next area of attention is gonna be the exhaust. To small and your choking your new turbo setup and to big what the hell is that its a turbo setup lol. Lets start with the downpipe this comes right off the turbo. 3in is always ideal but not always practical for those with space constraints. Best bet is to get your downpipe to 3in as soon as you possibly can after exiting the turbo. Just remember less back pressure the more HP for the most part. Now we could talk exhaust all day we have many different taste but for me if your budget minded getting a piping kit will do you nice then opt for some kind of muffler. VRS exhaust has a nice pipe kits for a very nice price and you can get that in 3in and as well in other diameter's. Now if you dont want to do the 3in but still want most bang for your buck then get a smaller exhaust and run a ecutout. Which allows you to run open DP and a regular exhaust at the same time best of both worlds.

Ok so we have the kit motor and exhaust taken care of now its time to figure what we are gonna do for engine management. The stock Honda fuel injectors and pump will not hold up to the requirements that your gonna need. Your best bet is to get a chipped and socketed stock ecu which will allow you to control fuel and timing. Honda has a few different OBD motors obd0 obd1 and obd2A and B. Obd1 as of right now has all the support and has the best programs and features that they can offer. As well as very stable programs that will run you car like it is stock from the factory. Your choices are Hondata,Ectune,Chrome,Neptune there are others but these are the main ones.

Injectors
Your stock injectors flow 190cc that will not get you to 400hp plain and simple. I will suggest atleast 880cc injectors buy once and be done with it. You have 2 type saturated and peak and hold. You need a resistor box for peak and hold and you dont need one for saturated.

Fuel pump
If Im not mistaken stock is ~130lph a 190lph or 255lph will be able to keep up the added demand of the fuel system.Most people just opt out for the 255 lph walboro, xenocron, bosch,aeromotive etc.

These things are gong to be a must in order to keep it all together. After you have taken care of chipping the ECU getting injectors and a new fuel pump. You need to think about a tuner. Find a reputable one that has an idea of what they are doing as has not had many timebombs. Because a poorly tuned car will not last what so ever.

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Budget and goals can be very closely tied together. Working from your budget can even help with goals. There's a couple of ways to boost your Civic. You can boost a stock block or you can boost a built block. Stock block D16 in good condition (good compression test, etc) is good until about 250WHP as already mentioned. A D15 has even weaker rods than a D16 for the most part, so adjust accordingly. For the sake of your stock motor's health, we could even say for 200-220WHp the stock motor is OK. Please note, that any motors survival is closely linked to having the fuel and ignition maps properly tuned!

Stock motor builds will need a smaller turbo set up and can often be done using a Home Made Turbo setup. A lot of the stock DSM parts can be used to create a very reasonably priced turbo kit. There's also plenty of other turbos that are easily adopted to use with a stock block build. The site for more info is: http://www.*****************.com/forum/index.php This is obviously the least expensive way to get a boosted Honda. You still need all the same external parts and system upgrades for your turbo setup, but you aren't going into the motor.

If you want much more than 250WHp reliably, you are going to have to invest in a built block as noted. These kinds of power levels will also require a bigger turbo, etc. The good news is most of your stock motor's parts are actually good for 400WHP+. The stock sleeves and crank are fine at those power levels. Connecting rods, pistons, and head studs are the weak points that need to be replaced.

I'll throw a couple of links in here. We have some great sponsors on D-series. Many of them post regularly on this board and are very accessible for questions. Not to slight anyone, but the following group of guys can get you most anything you'll need to boost a Honda:

Turbo kits and parts:

http://www.go-autoworks.com/ User name: GO-AUTOWORKS

http://www.rcautoworks.com/ User name: RCautoworks

Vitara Pistons, Customs rods, rebuild kits, and parts:

http://www.fjdistributors.com/ User name: fjt

Engine management, tuning, and parts:

http://www.xenocron.com/ User name: ghettoturbo

Be sure and check out the D-series.org Affiliates Forum specials from them and all the other great sponsors here!

"It's all in the tune" has been posted so many times on D-series, that it should be burned into your brain. Proper fuel and ignition maps customized by a tuner for your setup are essential to making you motor live!!! Skip all the FMUs, Missing links, and piggyback units. You want a chipped ECU which has had it's stock settings changed by one of the various tuning programs mentioned. We are very lucky as Honda owners because we can do things with a socketed or chipped ECU that rival some stand alone engine management systems. Both already chipped ECUs or DIY chipping kits are available.

The real reason for all this is http://forum.pgmfi.org/index.php. They basically reverse engineered Honda's original ECU programming so we can change it to suit our needs and engine setup. Their PGMFI Library is well worth a look.

'88-'91 cars are OBD0 (On Board Diagnostics), '92-'95 are OBD1, '96-'98 are OBD2a, and '99-'00 are OBD2b. You can chip an OBD0 Ecu and use several programs, including Open TuboEdit to tune with. You can even add VTEC control to a OBD0 ecu. The real problem here is that many tuners do not work with the OBD0 software.

OBD1 is where all the real development is going on. There must be a half dozen different choices for tuning software you can use. They range from free to fairly expensive. Your setup can be anything from a custom chip burned just for your application, to real time programming software that lets you adjust your setup on the fly. There's also plenty of additional features available with some of these programs including things like boost by gear and anti-lag for the turbo, etc.

Obd2 can't be chipped. You can run a piggyback (something like Greddy's e-Manage Ultimate or AEM's F/IC) or you have to do an OBD conversion. You can get a conversion harnesses to convert OBD2-OBD1, as well OBD0-OBD1. This will allow you to take advantage of all the development works that's been done with the OBD1 stuff.

As a side note, many tuners only work with the OBD1 stuff, so you may need to convert to get your car properly tuned. Before deciding what software or OBD you want to run, you may want to see what your local tuner uses. A lot of places still only use Hondata. They are the big name in tuning. They are also probably the most expensive option as well. There are a lot of reasons I say this, but look into some of the other things available before you jump on the Hondata bandwagon.

nahnah05

awesome that helped a lot.

rogue420

If you're going to swap to the z6 make sure that you do the full swap including the tranny. If you use that dx tranny with a z6 it's going to be an absolute dog and negate many of the advantages of doing the swap in the first place.

nahnah05

that was gonna be my next question. cause i had hear from several different people that you can bolt on any d series trans. to a d series engine. as long as it stays withing series you should be ok. the trans that is bolted onto the engine is an auto and i would like a 5spd. if i am going to be looking for a trans. what ones seem to be better. i know a lot of it depends on the gear ratios at different gears.

rogue420

That is right. All d-series tranny's will bolt up to d-series motors up to 2000. The internals of the tranny's ARE different though. You will want a tranny off of a d16z6 or d16y8 if you are going the vtec route. all others(correct me if I'm wrong here fellas) are long as hell and will most likely run you out of vtec when you shift. If you are doing a single cam vtec swap you must swap the tranny's as well to see a benefit of the work you've done on the swap.

WeakSauce92

....lol I have my original b7 tranny in now because my si was grinding hard in third...