GameBoyeas

Hello everyone!

I've decided to try and catalog the details of my build so strap in and get ready for lots of pictures!

Details about me:
Age: 25 years old
Car: 1990 Honda Civic STD (First car/Bought when I was 15 on a Florida vacation)
Location: Cleveland, OH
Profession: Senior Mechanical Engineering student working various different internships (Mostly with Parker-Hannifin); I graduate Spring 2018
Ethnicity: Greek, Austrian, Ukrainian

I picked up my first Honda back in 2007 when I was a Sophomore in highschool on a Florida vacation for $1000 from a crippled mid-20 year old man. The poor thing had a brick thrown through the window and was sitting on these God-awful 22" chrome wheels...those were thrown in the trash then and there. I didn't even know how to drive stick yet so my father had to drive it all the way back to Ohio for me (Cringing face), that wasn't an easy drive for a car with no AC in the hot Florida Summer heat. In short, within a couple days of actually owning the car the D15B2 engine began running on 3 cylinders so I was in the market for another engine. Poor and without really any automotive knowledge my brother began to help me pick-out an engine with some more power and bolt-in capability. Enter the DOHC ZC. This engine was shipped over from Japan and was easily swapped into the EF over that Winter. I HIGHLY recommend that engine for anyone looking a good bang/buck ratio

Years later after driving the car for awhile I decided to sell that Honda to my brother in hopes of picking up a Mazda Rx-7. I ended up scooping a 2nd Gen FC3S Turbo II Rx-7 from a small town in Virgina, but that's a whole story of building that car in itself! Just check the picture I attach!

Onto the EF project now!

I repurchased the Honda EF back from my brother and the throw out bearing went bad! (For crying out loud, I can't catch a break!) I decided I didn't really want to use the ZC anymore entirely as I had ideas of running the Honda in the SCCA ITA class which requires the use of the standard Honda EF Si engine. I pulled the ZC and sold it to a good friend, the car he put it in actually met it's demise recently so God only knows where that engine is now.

Enter D16A6:

I purchased this engine with an oil leak and 200k miles on it for stupid cheap! A rebuild was going to be needed for my race engine, which is exactly what I undertook. All Honda OEM components were used where possible. An SI transmission was purchased by some random Honda dude in PA (Hopefully the damn thing doesn't grind when I actually get around to driving the car). I'll let you judge my progress from the pictures...

GameBoyeas

ENGINE BUILDING

GameBoyeas

ENGINE BUILDING CONTINUED

GameBoyeas

Now we're getting into cleaning up the chassis and getting prepped for the engine to be installed

GameBoyeas

Hauling her off for her SCCA Legal Cage! All done by Darren Rick (Diamond Fabrication)

GameBoyeas

More cage photos!

GameBoyeas

And my completed cage

GameBoyeas

Picked up my SI transmission, refreshed all the components with a respray, all broken electronics were replaced

GameBoyeas

Picked up some Sparco seats from Summit Racing, 15x7 Rpf1's, overhauled the suspension and all bushings with PIC colovers/bushings. Here's pretty much where I'm at now. I'll upload a parts list here soon.

0c00l

Real nice work man, in for the fin!

bsteward

Nice Suspension upgrades..

I like the GOLD knuckles for sure.. !

Marcos Barrios

this scca build is perfect ^_^
cars turning out great man

good job on bringing a ef back to work

ssmrico

badass!

GameBoyeas

Thank you very much for the kind words!

bbarbulo

nicely done, this is my kinda build

GameBoyeas

There's really so much for me to update on, but I guess I'll just chip away at it little by little in my free time. I actually leave for my Florida vacation here on the 8th so I won't be putting up any updates for a couple weeks.

From the picture below you can see I invested in a new header. This is a 1320 Performance 4 to 1 header which was packaged extremely well. An aftermarket traction bar is needed to run this type of header which also gave me a reason to invest in the aftermarket Innovative Traction Bar, I'll try to remark more on that upon its install. I'll be pairing this header with the Buddy Club Spec II exhaust system which should be arriving sometime late July when I return from vacation. It's on back order from all dealers at the moment as they're building some fresh ones in Japan.

I've also been chipping away at installing Power In Control's (PIC)/Suja One bushing kit. This is also a well packaged kit and pretty straight-forward to install (With a 12 Ton Harbor-Freight Press). However, after doing pressing out every old bushing and pressing in every new one I never want to do this again. Such a PITA! If you're going to do this I recommend picking up some type of press kit to make things easier on yourself, I've been looking around for various types of sockets that will just fit, which gets really old. As you can see I even fudged up one of the bushings doing this right near the end -__- .The customer service from this company is AWESOME I would like to add, if you message them during regular business hours they get back to you usually within the hour! I'm also using their coil-over set-up paired with a set of SWIFT Springs.

However, I'm getting around to installing the large rear LCA bushing and it's not a press fit, the bushing just slides in with the pressure of my hand which is worrisome. PIC insists that both of my LCA O.D. are possibly out of spec which I'm having a hard time believing. Luckily I have a spare set of rear LCA's that I'll be cross checking with to see if this is actually the case. Also, this seems to be the case with my compensator arms. I might have to end up tack welding all of the bushings in for a semi-permanent install (Sigh).

bbarbulo

rear LCAs came in Integra size and Civic size bushings. about a 2 mm difference in bushing sizes

yours seem to have sway bar holes tapped, meaning very likely Integra arms. did you buy a Civic kit?

I suppose there was some Civics with rear sway bars (90-91 Civic SI??), so my hunch could be wrong about being Integra arms, but it's worth checking.

GameBoyeas

Wow, I didn't know! Thank you for bringing that to my attention. I purchased these arms off of eBay because I own the original STD arms which don't have the hole for the rear sway bar. It listed these as Si arms, but I guess there's the possibility of them being integra arms. I sent PIC a message regarding this so maybe that'll save me some trouble!

kraquepype

I know my 89 Si had a rear sway bar as I just upgraded it last week, and it had the attachment points on the LCAs for it.

GameBoyeas

Back from vacation! I need to start getting to work on this car already -__-

Got some parts from Mishimoto including their radiator and their thermostatic sandwich plate to control at which temperature the oil begins to flow into the oil cooler. My lines and fittings are from Summit Racing and the Oil Cooler itself is a CXRacing piece.

GameBoyeas

Also invested in a Buddy Club Spec II exhaust and to be fair I'm not really blown away by the quality (sigh) honestly there doesn't seem to be anything special about it. I'm a little worried about getting kicked off the track with this as well. Anyone have any personal experiences with these exhausts? Was thinking about exchanging for a Thermal R&D

kraquepype

Just reading through the build now, this looks like a lot of fun. How far do you think you are from getting it on the track?

GameBoyeas

I'm shooting for a Mid-Ohio track day on September 7th so hopefully I make it! I have to get the rear suspension installed and all coordinated still. Start the engine and break in, and still have to deal with the interior.

LankorDie

Great build! Love the clean D rebuild.

GameBoyeas

Hello,

It's been a trying week mentally for me so getting back to work on this has been tough.

I went ahead and constructed my SS braided Oil Cooler and Catchcan lines using -10 SS Braided AS Hose and associated AN fittings. Not really a complicated process if you watch the video on Summit Racing on how to install their fittings. I highly suggest when cutting the hose that you TAPE the ends, so that when you cut the braided hose doesn't fray. I also suggest a braided hose cutter which Summit also sells (I think Harbor Freight sell them as well though). You can get away with taping the fittings up with a thick amount of tape, putting said fitting into the vice and threading the other fitting into that as well. It doesn't work as well as buying the designated clamp made for this sort've thing so you don't mar the fittings, but if you're careful you can do it without spending the money and marring your fittings. I'll try to get an engine bay picture up soon to show the routing within the engine bay.