afx31

Nice updates! Suggestion for the gauge wiring, you can piggy back 2 of the gauges power and ground to the next gauge,so in the end only 1 gauge has a power and ground running to the block. If you dont understand and need a drawing lemme know

Highly suggest atleast even fish oil over that rust its very bad haha

cybersec

Haha thanks a bunch!

Ooh, not a bad idea! I'll probably end up doing that. And true, that rust shouldn't be ignored any longer...

On to today's update!

I haven't done much with the car recently - I've been super busy with work and friends, and haven't had much time to wrench.

I was thinking about my oil burning issue and the fact that I'd probably need to replace the valve stem seals. And the fact that I wanted to go MPFI. And that got me thinking... mini-me swap?

I posted on Facebook asking if anyone had anything available, and it turns out someone I know through another friend has some old EF stuff left over!

He's currently building a sweet drift AE86 so he doesn't need any of the Honda goodies. I happened to have a pack of collectible AE86 trading cards that I imported from Japan a few months back (Thanks, Pero-tan! AE86 god! @perotan86) and he was interested in them! He asked if I wanted to trade the trading cards for a Y8 head and fuel rail... uhhh, YES?!


The trading cards in question...


And the head I got in return!

It's not the greatest looking (valve cover paint was obviously a pretty amateur job...) but I dig it!



Fuel rail was a total unknown - he didn't know what it was off of, whether it was upgraded or not, or anything about it really. I'll have to take the paint off and do some research!


This was the most unexpected part! He said "Oh yeah, the guy that sold me this head also gave me this with it. Said it's like the best ECU for a mini-me swap or something..."

I checked the side...


P28 ECU! I got a Y8 head, fuel rail, and P28 ECU for a pack of trading cards!


I'm super hyped, and I bet you he is too since he sold his Honda and this **** was just taking up garage space haha.

Now I'm not sure where to go from here.

I still need an intake manifold, wiring harness, head gasket, etc etc etc... lots of work if I want to mini-me swap it.

I guess I'll have to start collecting the parts one-by-one and build the whole thing in my garage before I put it on the car haha. This would probably be a good excuse to get an aftermarket header if I already have the whole head off.

But yeah, that's about it for the past little while! New parts, woo!

Will update more as I go through the build process. I haven't gotten to drive the car recently since it REALLY needs new front brakes and rotors (and possibly a brake hose, since it pulls to one side when braking hard... but that could also be alignment.) and I really don't feel like spending a few hundred bucks on everything.

Hopefully I can get it up and going soon. Every time the car sits for a number of weeks, I start looking at drift cars online and checking my bank account, and thinking of listing the Civic on Craigslist... but then once I drive it, I remember why I bought it and all of those thoughts go away.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, decisions decisions.

2x0

​​​​​​​

That's a lot of winning!

LankorDie

Now you need to find a distributor. Not an easy task these days, but this is a nice start to a mini me build.

afx31

Very nice score! Yeah when I first got mine I had those drifting thoughts, but once I got money, did all the suspension and a B swap and hit the track, it was the best. Did some drift school days and prefer the circuit more!

You should defs try and do those brakes as you need them to stop, and get a wheel alignment too or else your chewing your tyres away!

Just try sand back the loose rust and put some fish oil on it

Christian Freed

Keep up the good work man!! I just got mine on the 31st and it needs a lot already, aka bad head for starters. I got mine for $300.

NAS_OCSICNARF

Respect for the tackling a tough job too!

cybersec

Yeah! :D

I have even more good news! Will come in a sliiightly future post - I haven't updated here in a while and I have a lot of stuff to catch up on!

Yeah the rust is a huuuge issue. Also good news, brakes are done! All shall be revealed in the new update.

Wow man, car looks great! Can't wait to see what you do with it, you should start a thread!

Thanks a bunch!

Now on to today's update!

It's been a while since I've last posted, and I've been both productive and busy at the same time! Juuust enough time to work on the car a bit, but too busy to have time to post about it!


Got to use the stripped-out Civic as a mini Kei-truck while taking tires to the tire shop! Ford Fusion wheels make the car look so small

A little while later, I was browsing around on eBay looking for deals. Give it a week and this mysterious box showed up to my house!

A valve cover! And I got it for super cheap! The total ended up being like $40 shipped! It's a guy who sells powder coated valve covers on eBay - I guess he was having trouble selling this D16 one! It will be a perfect match for my shiny new mini-me swap

Splitting up the updates into multiple posts - see you in the next one!

cybersec

Woohoo, new valve cover! But safety items should probably come first...


Driver-side brakes getting changed out first! Just look at that horrible rotor, it needs some love!


Doing some general looking-around while in here. Lots of bad things - cracked axle boots, rusty struts, rusty everything. That's annoying.


Shot pads! Horrible looking!


Cleaned the rust off of everything I could get my hands on, and it was finally time for new parts. Ooh, shiny!


Woot woot! New rotors and pads went on perfectly, and I ensured that every bolt was torqued to spec. (Don't make fun of my oldschool torque wrench!)

Now that I could stop and the grinding was fixed (or so I thought) it was time to take it to work!


Car performed great! But it also made me realize something - now that the driver's side brakes weren't grinding and sounding horrible, I could hear that the passenger side was! I'll need to pick up a rotor soon, but I'll be gone on vacation for the next two weeks! So the car will have to sit

[well, the car did sit - but my vacation was a month ago at this point, and these are updates from the past!]

cybersec

Finally back from vacation and I get to see my baby again!


Parked in the street the whole time, you poor thing <3 You're okay now, you have nothing to worry about.


I was so happy to be back in my car after 2 weeks that I decided to have a mini photoshoot in a local parking garage that night.






Need to take pictures from the rear end so you don't see the mis-aligned hood and dented bumper insert


Had a lot of fun, took some photos and made some nice brap noises on video haha.
Now for a few of the cars I saw while on vacation...





[Excuse the 1-second-freeze-frame taken from a snapchat video lmao]

One super unexpected thing was how many Civics there are in Cali! I'm from Michigan and finding EFs here is insanely rare. I was over in the bay area and EFs were everywhere! I saw Civics of every generation, both stock and modified cruising around! Totally unexpected thing when you're coming from snow-ville where everything rusts.

But yeah, that was my vacation! Now back to our regularly scheduled programming, Civic stuff! In my driveway!

cybersec

After coming home, I quickly realized the car still needed that passenger-side front brake changed out. Off to AutoZone to get another rotor, and it was brake job time!


Hooooooooley ****. Do you see that pile of rust? Or the scraps of metal to the right? That's part of one of the brake pads lol.




These brakes were NOT DOING GOOD. I don't even want to know how long it had been since someone changed them. I guess the previous owner didn't really keep up on the scheduled maintenance.


I kind of slacked on the photo-taking, but it's back together!

I actually missed out on most of the photo taking because I had a plan for a YouTube series. Rather than videos called "how to change Civic brakes" that are 40 minutes long and are filled with useless advice, these would be no-nonsense tutorials that assume you already have a fair bit of automotive knowledge, you just need to be reminded of the car's exact torque specs and how the assembly all fits together and what not. Short videos, anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute, for mechanics who know how to change brakes but maybe haven't worked on that particular brand of car in a while. So that video will be posted sometime... whenever I get around to sticking together all of the choppy 1-second clips!

After that, it was car wash time. And you know what that means, I had to do another photoshoot!






Now the next plan was to get rid of the rest of the interior! The current floor in the car looks horrible because of the sound deadening, rust, and dirt, and the carpet is ratty and gross and could definitely use a stripping.

I started piecing together the supplies needed. Chisels (long-handle flat-head screwdrivers...), dry ice, an unwilling victim to help me... muahaha

cybersec

The supplies had arrived, and it was time! I began removing my seat, ready to start pulling carpet. Then, an issue - the seat wont slide all the way forward!


I couldn't figure it out for the life of me, it had to be something stuck in the rails! The wire was actuating the levers on both rails that SHOULD allow it to move, there had to be something stuck in there that was blocking it.


Ended up getting a 12mm wrench because I couldn't push the seat up far enough to get a socket in there!


Almost... there...!

ITS OUT!


AAA FINALLY, I struggled with this stupid thing for like an hour. The bolts that hold in the seat are super long, especially when you can only get in a 1/8th turn every time you put the wrench on it!


THE CULPRIT. This nickle fell out of the seat rail when I picked up the seat to get it out of the car. And what do you know? Now the seat slides back and forth perfectly. (I picked up the nickle and threw it as far as I could )


The interior could finally start coming out! I originally tried to get it all out in one piece, but it ended up being too much of a headache. A razor blade made short work of it!


Pulled out the padding and fought with the truck/fuel cap releases for a minute, but it turns out the black levers just pop right off and then the casing can slide off, meaning they won't get in the way at all!


The full interior was out!


Now it was time to start working on the sound deadening. I called a friend of mine to help, and we worked late into the night...


By the time I remembered to take a picture, it was already 10pm. We had been hammering away at the sound deadening, taking it off in chunks. Thanks for the help J!


As our dry ice continued to melt and we started cleaning out the chunks of sound deadening, it was looking good! I wish we could've just vacuumed it all up instead of taking 20 minutes to collect all of the little pieces, but it was almost 11:30pm and we were already SEVERELY pissing off our neighbors.


As you can tell, we started working on the driver's side footwell as our final spot for the front half of the car, which was when I made this discovery...


Eyyyup, a rust hole straight through the floor/rocker panel on the driver's side. Passenger side is clean, but this is definitely going to require some welding. Another spot to add to the list lol.

Because I have to buy another $40 worth of dry ice to finish up the driver's foot well and back of the car I haven't made that jump yet, but I'm planning on it soon! After the full interior strip I'll have to go over it with something to help remove the last few tar remains, maybe a grinder to get everything looking nicer, and then some white spraypaint to actually make the interior look proper!

On a related note: While stripping, my friend and I kept running into sections we'd call "tar spots" - does anyone know what these are, or why its so hard to get the glue/tar/whatever off of these locations? They were symmetrical across each side of the car, I've circled them in this picture

Thanks to anyone that can help! Much appreciated

cybersec

A few nights ago, out cruising on the weekend and racing some pretty quick turbo Mazda 3s (getting my butt kicked! this car isn't made for drag haha) and just messing around on the highway, driving quickly because its fun.

Stopped by the gym later that night, had to take a picture as always. But when I was backing out of the gym, I heard a weird noise - kind of sounded like a plastic shield rubbing on a tire, so I went to check.


Oof. That's at full lock, so the tear is a bit exaggerated, but still... Lets check the driver's side.


Hmm. That's problematic. Looks like I need new axle boots! Or possibly even new axles...?

I've been meaning to swap a 5-speed transmission into this car ever since I got it. It's sounding to me like this might be the perfect excuse - if I have failing axles, I might as well replace the trans and then put shiny new manual transmission axles on!

(oh, and then it rained the next day, so here are some rainy mood pics because my car is in need of so many things )



This sticker says "Lets drive slowly!" in Japanese. Probably good advice for me with how many different parts this car needs.

cybersec

And one last update for all of you, since you're such a good audience!

I HAVE A SURPRISE FOR YOU!!!


BUT I WONT REVEAL THE SURPRISE UNTIL THE END OF THE POST, MUAHAHA

You have to read the boring posts about my DPFI air restrictor plates first!

So, I was talking to someone on Facebook, and they casually mentioned that there's an air restrictor plate you can remove in DPFI intake manifolds! I was immediately curious - free horsepower? All I have to do is take out a bolt-in plate? Count me in!

I tried to look up some information online, but everyone had conflicting opinions - some said it was the first V-shaped plate. Others said it was the mesh screen. Some said you should remove both. Then, some even said that the DPFI cars have some weird dual-butterfly-valve system where one of the valves can be removed! Too much conflicting info!

I decided to just crack open my engine and see what I could see, then send the pictures to the person on Facebook directly to ask them which plate it was!


All cracked open and everything was looking oily. While I wanted for the to reply, I decided to start cleaning some stuff!


If you remove the two bolts in the mesh screen and two vacuum lines, the entire assembly will pull off! A bit of degreaser, soap, and water and it was looking 100x better!


At this point, my contact finally got back to me. The v-shaped plate is the air restrictor! Off it came, held in by a single phillips screw.


Was about to put the assembly back on, but yuck, that looks gross.


Sprayed a little carb cleaner on a rag and went around the entire inlet and the butterfly valve that was showing. Not exactly a full intake manifold cleaning, but it's much better looking! (After taking this image, I popped the mesh screen back on - I heard it's just to block debris, so there's no point in taking it out because it barely stops airflow.)


With everything assembled and back together, I was off to the races! (Figuratively, because I still have damaged axle boots, rust holes you could fit a screwdriver through, no rear bumper support, water leaks everywhere, half-removed sound deadening, no passenger seat, an automatic transmission, etc. My to-do list is insane.) This was the D15B2 DPFI air restrictor plate in question, if anyone was wondering. Hopefully this post will rank high enough in search results that people can figure out what others mean when they say "remove your DPFI air restrictor"!

But anyways, that's the end of my updates! that's what I've been up to for the last few months!

Oh, whats that? A surprise? Oh yeah, I forgot! Guess what I got


"Another D16Y8 head? Who cares! You already bought one of those!"

Oh ho ho, but it's not just ANY D16Y8 head! It's a D16Y8 head with BENT VALVES! And a snapped off distributor mount! Woo! (Jk, it has more goodies than that)


It has full Crower valve springs and retainers, and a Crower "Stage 2" Y8 camshaft!


Not to mention the Skunk2 adjustable timing gear!

And the price I paid?? $100!!!

A bit more background info:
The guy I bought it from was super cool. His friend was building a mini-me swap 8 YEARS AGO and had this head on his engine. He kept trying to advance the timing, and eventually ran the valves into the piston, bending (at least) two of them! The guy then sold the head to his friend (the guy I bought it from) to build, and he had it sitting in his garage for eight years, untouched except for an occasional lubing to keep the rust away. And that's the story of how I got a super awesome Y8 head for $100!

Now, he could've been lying to get money out of me - I'm not going to lie, I have no idea how to tell the difference between aftermarket/stock valve springs or retainers, and I haven't double-checked the markings on the end of the camshaft yet - but I was planning on buying a Skunk2 Cam Gear for my Y8 mini-me build anyways, and those alone cost $109.99! So even if this head is a total flunk, I've still got the cam gear haha. (Anyone know how I can check to see that the valve springs and everything are legit? I'm not sure if there's any major differences or if its just a color/material thing)


So the current plan is to transfer all of the nice parts from this built head over to the Y8 head that you guys saw me trade a deck of AE86 playing cards for in a previous post haha. One of the biggest things I still need for that build is a Y8 intake manifold though they're apparently made of gold or something - every single one I'm finding on eBay is $100+, when I've seen entire Y8 swaps sell for $200 near me! I need to keep searching, because I don't want to fill my garage with excess Y8 parts haha.

Thank you to everyone who keeps up with this thread - you guys have insane amounts of passion for Hondas and the Honda community, and it's super inspiring and makes me want to post here even more. Every time its raining outside, too hot, or I feel lazy and I don't want to work on my car, I just think of all the crazy builds here and the stuff I've seen people build in a period of months! You all keep me striving to be the best I can be

2x0

Glad you got those brakes taken care of, holy cats!! They were disintegrated


Crower does make single spring kits for the D series, but the retainers don't look right. They should be smooth and shiny, and would have some kind of markings on them for identification

As for the cam itself, identification may be more difficult. You could measure the lift?

cybersec

Yeah, the brakes were pretty far gone haha.

I checked the cam and it does have markings on the end that show it being a Crower Stage 2 cam (Crower 63441ZT), but I had a realization when looking that up... This is a Z6 cam, and a Z6 head! (Head code P08-5, from a 1994 Si)

Now, I'm not super mad because the Z6 is allegedly even better than the Y8 for mini-me swaps (I'd have to find the forum posts I read that said this, I don't remember the exact reasoning) but it was definitely a surprise. Now, that leads me to a few issues:

1.) If I want to use the Z6 stage 2 cam and various Z6 parts, I'll have to use the Z6 head.

Doing a bit of research it looks like Crower's Z6 and Y8 stage 2 cams both have the exact same specs(!!!) but apparently aren't compatible. I emailed their support, who responded with:

(I asked if the 63441ZT would fit in a Y8 head, or if the 63441YT would fit in a Z6 head, since both cams have the exact same specs AFAIK)

2.) Crower's Stage 2 cam is specifically made for forced-induction engines. If I want to use this in my Mini-Me swap and have everything run correctly, it would have to be a turbo mini-me.

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. I want to use the car as a track car, and I don't know of the turbo lag life is for me. But at the same time, if I'm looking for more power, it's probably more reliable than a crazily-tuned N/A car...

2.) If I want to use this Z6 head, I'll need to either have someone weld a tab onto the end where the distributor mount broke off, or run the distributor with two bolts

2.) From my initial research, I believe that Z6 heads and Y8 heads have the same valves. So this means I should, in theory, be able to transfer over the valves from the Y8 head to the Z6 head.

I'm not sure whether I'd stick with stock valves though, or go with some upgraded/aftermarket ones. I'll have to do some research and see if they're a common failure point.

3.) I'll have to check if the valve springs and retainers are really Crower or not. If they aren't, they should be upgraded to something nice/satisfactory first.

4.) Z6 and Y8 heads both use the same valve cover, so luckily my shiny nice purple one will still be usable for this.

5.) I'll have to get my hands on a Z6 intake manifold and distributor, spark plugs and wires, and a timing belt and head gasket.

Considering I didn't have any of this for the Y8 yet this shouldn't be a big issue, it just means I'll have to get different parts.

All in all, a lot of spending that I don't have money for at the moment. Not to mention the possibility of rebuilding the bottom end...

Current tempting plan: Get a storage unit for the shell for the winter to keep it out of the snow, but pull out the engine and keep that in my garage all winter. An engine takes up much less space and could be re-built without taking up the entire garage.

2x0

"Turbo" and "lag" don't necessarily have to go hand in hand, as long as you aren't looking to make big power. Put a little t25 turbo on it and it'll be a torquey mid-range beast that is very responsive. Ask how I know.

Marcos Barrios

oh 2x0 how do you know? haha

LankorDie

The build keeps plugging along! That mini-me swap will give you a little extra power.

Have you ever thought of cutting out those rusty quarters, and getting a generic fender flare then running a wide low offset rim? That has always been my plan if I end up working on anther rusty chassis in the future.

Also, you can get 3M generic bodyside moldings to cut, then put on the side to cover those hole so water doesn't get in everything.

Hope this helps, keep up the good work. Nice brake upgrade!

crx121ci

nice work

cybersec

I'm not gonna lie, it's tempting... Do you know how much your setup cost? I've looked at eBay turbos in the past, but mainly as a joke - is there a reliable and semi-low-cost option I could go for? I suppose the "Search" function on the forum would probably be best, actually...

You know what, I've been putting off working on the rusty quarters until I can get a welder. But in reality, there's no excuse to wait so long! I can just cut them up for now and then figure out a patching solution afterwards, I'll just have to put some sort of rust preventative on the bare metal so nothing happens after cutting. There's already rust holes that go all the way through to the interior, so cutting them back further wont be that bad

And thanks for the advice on the bodyside moldings! I'll have to look into that, I've been neglecting those door molding holes as well. I should probably pull the door panels off sometime soon and assess the damage there. I actually kind of like the no molding look though, so maybe I'll look at covering them from the inside or filling them somehow... hmm, seems like another thing that would require welding haha.

Thanks!

2x0

I spent $1500 on all the mechanical parts buying used from a forum friend. That included a t25 turbo with blown seals from an S13, cast manifold, adapter plate, downpipe, intercooler, BOV, and piping.... I ended up being in it around $3000 once I added injectors, chipped ecu (tuned myself), wideband, clutch, oil lines, and other miscellaneous items.

chappys4life

can you link the seller?

afx31

Looking good man! Good to see some updates. The head looks like a good score. I know you can get eBay turbo kits from the states sent to Australia for just over 1k AUD, so it should be cheap as chips over there. With those turbo kits, you can run between 5-7psi on the OEM ecu without any problems, had a friend do it on his daily EK and never had any problems!

Happy you fixed the brakes, they looked horrible.

I agree with the others, you should definitely look into this rust as it will only get worse. A lot of people over look it. The idea LankorDie brought up with the over flare is actually a good idea for a 'cheap' fix. For now as you'll be storing it, cut out the rust and spray some weld through primer on it to protect it, or even fish oil/WD40 works as well. For the hole on the drivers side, proper way would be to weld the hole up dependent on how big it is. Another 'cheap' solution I could imagine would be remove all the rust and pump some silicone in like SikaFlex (if you guys have that, I'm sure there would be some similar product). I'd go for the welding option, but as your on budget then this may work!

Coddfish