Hello all.

I have an interesting swap that I am contemplating. In an attempt to be thurough I will give you a bit of background on why because there are alot of flamers that would like to rape my Idea.

I have a girfriend who lives in Pittsburgh PA and I live in Springfield MO, now that is about 900miles each way. I drive there each weekend or she drives down. That is why I bought my Del Sol, to get good gas mileage. My del sol 1.6 gets about 35mpg and her Civic gets about 35 as well ( 1997 dx 4dr). That really isnt bad. I also drive a turbo MR2 ( 22mpg) and a 2005 tahoe ( 12mpg). This summer I plan on visiting whenever possible and she wont be able to come down at all so here is my swap and please DO NOT FLAME.

I want to swap a 1992-1995 civic VX engine the D15z1 into the Del Sol. I like the VTEC-E and I do not mind the 20hp drop. I am aware that it will be slower and ect. I am okay with that. The del sol weighs in at only 100lbs more than the civic VX so I think the 54mpg that the VX engine can produce would be similar in the SOL. I want to run a 4-2-1 Header, 2.5 cat back, High flow cat, and strait through muffler. I want to also run a full Cold Air Intake, a Helix throttle body spacer. My aim is to hit 62mpg.

Flamers be ware: 2000mi round trip 2000/35*2.6 = $148.57
2000/62*2.6= $83.87 => Save $64.70 * 6 visits per month $388.62 * 3 months of summer = $1164.60 Saved by the swap!

Now this is uncharted territory. I am not wanting to race the damn thing but I have the following concerns.

The VTEC-E motor with the Stock Tranny?
Will gearing be way off for such a motor?
Power Loss noticeablility?
Achievable results?
Any input will be appriciated!

 

not worth time and effort to save a little money and have a very slow and loud car.

 

dude i absolutely do not agree with you. your better off buying a civic vx if you want the mpg. do you have any idea how long the vx gearing is. it will make you feel so slow youll want to get out and push the car. plus the del sol is heavy so you might actually LUGG the engine more than usual in economy mode which does waste more gas than it saves. you definately will save SOME gas but in my opinion there are better ways to do it. one is swaping a dx or cx tranny into your car. its longer than the del so si tranny but not ridiculously long. also the vtec-e is just as gas wasting while your crusing 75mph on the freeway. above 2k the vtec-e attaches so its 14valve just like any other motor. n if ur spend ur time up there all the time it wont be a great improvement. final word

dont do it unless u like to look in ur rearview mirror with fearing of ppl tailgaiting u since ur accelerating so slow and trying to save gas.

edit. d16z1 is weak therefore it came w/o PS and AC

add those on now ur motor is even weaker..= beating up a poor eco engine

 

I think it would take years just to recover the money spent on the transplant. Remember also the VX was damn near near stripped from the factory and how a more areodynamic shape

 

where do you get the 54mpg ?
i have a daily driver vx and im getting nowhere near that

 

I own a 92 VX hatch. They really aren't that slow with another tranny. I had just MSD wires, a cold air intake, and a DX tranny and it beat up on stock SI hatches with I/H/E. Go ahead and flame but it's true. They get great gas mileage with the VX tranny. The VX tranny will go almost 80 in 2nd gear...but 3rd gear is where it feels like you put the car in neutral. It was actually convenient for me to just put it in 2nd everytime I wanted to pass someone. You have to go atleast 70 to put the car in 5th and it's barely tacking 1,200. They do get great gas mileage. I don't know if it'd be worth swapping it into a Del Sol though. They're a few hundred pounds heavier than a VX not just 100lbs. You'd have to get either the VX harness or wire it for the 5 wire wide-band also. The throttle body spacer isn't really gonna do anything cause they have the smallest throttle body I've ever seen. And for the person who said that VX's don't have A/C you really need to check things out before saying that. Mine has factory A/C. I've also seen one with factory P/S. VX's have a rear diffuser, an oil heater/cooler, and light wheels...they aren't near stripped from the factory...they have most of the same options as any other hatch.

 

i dunno... why not do a bio-diesel conversion on a new-used diesel car...

you get yor fuel for free from restaurants, any place with used cooking oil...

filter the oil through a paper filter...

and fill your car up.

you save money over time....

more info: http://www.greasecar.com

 

I highly doubt your going to get 62 mpg unless your idling down a 62 mile long hill.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Mjh787 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> I want to run a 4-2-1 Header, 2.5 cat back, High flow cat, and strait through muffler. I want to also run a full Cold Air Intake, a Helix throttle body spacer. My aim is to hit 62mpg.

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Um, that is wayyyyy to much airflow on that engine.

The Vtec-E is supposed to run as lean as possible. With you adding those less restricvtive parts, you will have to add more fuel to not be on the Dangerously lean side, therefore you will be harming your gas mileage.

Also, the less restrive pieces will hurt your torque rating, ergo taking away from your non highway gas mileage.

The VTEC-E (as also in the CX d15) were not made to have that much air flow.

Now something like a Type R, it needs as much air flow as possible, because that's what its made for.

An engine is just a big air pump, and the vtec-e was only made to pump a certain amount of air.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by swifty4u &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I highly doubt your going to get 62 mpg unless your idling down a 62 mile long hill. </TD></TR></TABLE>

The CX (92-95) was rated at up to 65 mpg on the hwy by the EPA. I have a window sticker proving it in a thread I just made.

 

Yet in a heavier car, and different gearing? Also, they can stretch those numbers quite a bit.

What year cx came with vtec-e? This is something new to me. You sure you aren't confusing with the vx.

 

HA 62 MPG.. i have a vx motor in my cx running chipped p28.. 4 wire o2 .. i get about 21 mpg. i have the dc 421 header y8 intake manifold zc tb fpr no cat exhaust eg6 sir muffler.. good gas mileage my ***... it gets worse then my dohc zc but better than my last z6.. that got 18mpg.. heres a pic

 

^ your p28 is the problem your only getting 21.

65 is just ridiculous, i've never heard of that before. but show me and i'll believe...but until then thats hybrid talk.

 

my vx gest 35mpg and get 103mph speeding tickets...i hate cops they are dicks!!

 

you dont want a throttle body spacer. the size of the throttle body on that thing is hilarious. its really about 42mm

 

not worth all the trouble to do all of that. and another thing is you cant drop a 1.5 L motor into your car if it is originally equipped with a 1.6L. i dont know the smog laws where your at, but in cali it would be illegal

 

I would reccomend just getting a different car or deal with the cost to run your current sol. If your looking for good gas mileage get a CRX HF or civic CX (92-95) those both average 40 (I was close to 50 if I drove all highway with my CX a few times but never hit 65 like someone else said) and you can gut them entirely to get even better gas mileage. it will definatley not be worth the time/money involved on a swap IMO.

 

oh ya.. btw.. my friend has a del sol.. he gets 410 to the tank... d16z6 stock intake box exhaust with silencer in it.. stock p28.. he shifts at 2300-2700 410 to a 12 gallon tank.. or i mean 11.75 i should say.. hes getting around 37-42 mpg..

hes also using a dx transmission

 

swap a motor from a new civic hybrid

 

i say put a cx transmission on the z6 in the sol. i just pulled a y7/cx tranny combo out of my hatch, and i was getting 42-45 mpg with it. i drive 63 miles one way to work and i am all about saving that $1100 you were talking about.

and lets just say the b16 i just swapped in doesnt do too bad either, but nowhere near 40's

 

Can you not just swap the VTEC-E head from the vx on to the del sol bottom end?

Then you could add just the wires you need for the 5 wire o2 sensor and whatever else...
No doubt he VX transmission helps for fuel economy, the cx tranny is not quite as long hence less mpg..

VTEC-E head swap, some wiring, and the vx tranny. Id leave off the aftermarket "performance" items since they will just help airflow which means more fuel.
Good luck with the swap

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PyroProblem &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">No doubt he VX transmission helps for fuel economy, the cx tranny is not quite as long hence less mpg..</TD></TR></TABLE>

the cx transmission and the vx transmission are the same thing

 

so much randomly thrown out there info on the VX. No wonder people beleive it's a strange car and are confused about what it really is.

I have a 92 VX, I drove it in it's stock for for 4 years. I was in and out of every system and every part of it before I did my swap for more power. But I still like to learn things about the VX.
Right after a major tune up, I saw a peak of 62mpg. But normally I saw high 40s with combination driving.

The VX uses a L1H1 wideband and it's specially created P07 ECU to control the lean burn mode when under low load and high way speeds. If the O2 is even semi-flakey the ECU will not use lean burn mode and your mpg will drop noticably.

The VX has an EGR setup which allows the engine to warm up quicker, thus better mpg.

The VX VTEC engauges at 2500 with your foot planted to the floor, 3200 if you run it through the revs with light throttle.

90% of the people that get less than 35mpg with a properly running VX drive with their foot on the firewall, that kills mpg with any car.

the 92-95 CX and the 92-95 VX use the same tranny.

There is a community on yahoo dedicated to the VX. People on there drive their VXs like they should using the shift indicator and not pushing it hard and get high 50mpg regularly.

The D15Z1 has seriously dome pistons and almost no room in the head to increase swirling and help with the lean burn mode. swapping on the head from a VX onto another engine will result in super high compression. Too much to handle without internal mods and serious engine managment.

 

If you need any swap swap help, check the link in my signature. The owner of that site is swapping this engine into his civic presently, so woot woot, plus there's a guy on there making 65 mpg out of his del sol S, so, you might find some neat tricks, cuz that's one helluva drive.

PS: The del sol has terrible drag so don't expect it to compare well with the vx.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by drewbie &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Um, that is wayyyyy to much airflow on that engine.

The Vtec-E is supposed to run as lean as possible. With you adding those less restricvtive parts, you will have to add more fuel to not be on the Dangerously lean side, therefore you will be harming your gas mileage.

Also, the less restrive pieces will hurt your torque rating, ergo taking away from your non highway gas mileage.
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Where in the world did you get this idea? A CAI and a retarded throttle body spacer causing the engine to run lean? WTF? That's not even close to being right, he didn't say he was soldering resistors to his sensors, or reprogramming any ECU's.

Further, his free flowing exhaust if he ever gets up to speed wouldn't be that bad of an idea. While yes, after a couple miles he'll realize he needs a muffler, your explanation concerning torque isn't really right. He'll hurt low end, but it'll help up high up, where if you would have read, all he wants is highway anyway.

Heck, Sol's aren't that much heavier than civics, and if the guy wants to, I'm sure can lighten his up a bit.