Skives

I have an 96 ek hatch and the d series is miss firing and can't find problem. Been wanting to b series swap it anyways. What i am wanting to know is my friend has a b18a block that he would sell me for 200$ and im curious if it would be cheaper to buy that and like buy a vtec head or to buy a motor as a whole. if i bought a motor as a whole probably would look for a b20 or b18c.

scottp11

If he's only selling a B18A block, (which is OBD-1) you're going to need a lot more things for it to work in your 96 hatch. If you can find a B-series VTEC head, you'll need an LS-VTEC kit of some sort to make it work properly and be reliable. Once you've done that, you're going to need new motor mounts, a B-series transmission, B-series axles, and shift linkage because none of the D-series stuff is compatible. For all of these parts to work together, you'll need either an OBD-2A Integra ECU or you'll need some sort of jumper harness to make it either OBD-2B (Civic Si ECU) or OBD-1.

I mentioned that the B18A block was OBD-1 because you're CKF sensor is located on the oil pump on OBD-2 cars. Therefore, to use the B18A block, you'll have to replace the oil pump with an OBD-2 unit if you plan to use an OBD-2 ECU.

If you went with a B20, you'd still need a B-series transmission, axles, and shift linkage, unless you bought the entire swap from someone who has already acquired all of this.

If you want my opinion; if you want a reliable B-series engine in your car, you should just buy the entire swap as a whole, and upgrade from there. Parting one together will take a lot of time and money.