Hey all. This is my first post to HT and I'll just give a quick intro. I live in southwest Missouri and drive a '92 Civic DX 4-door with 5-speed transmission. It is basically bone stock right now except for the K&N drop-in filter in put in a few weeks ago (I've had the car for about 1-1/2 years so far).

So now for my question:

I have the 1.5 L engine (D15B7 if I'm not mistaken), and I'm trying to decide what to do with the car. I really want to get more power out of it, and I'm well aware of the different swap options that are out there. However, I'm also well aware of the cost of those swaps, and I have some friends who could just rebuild the engine that's already in my car (right now it has ~240k on it). My question then is what kind of power can I expect to get out of the D15 and with what mods? The reason I ask is because I know everyone always says that the D-series doesn't take well to bolt-ons. I'm trying to decide whether it would be more cost effective for me to keep the D15 or go ahead and swap the engine out.

Any help you guys can offer would really be appreciated.

 

Your not going to get much out of a d15, especially if your driving a 4 door. Unless if you go turbo, it's not even worth touching that engine. I would just go ahead and get a swap. you can get an LS swap for pretty cheap these days, and it'll have more power + potential.

 

d15

 

Were you kidding when you asked about power out of a d15?

For real though, you could go with a home-made turbo for cheap, or get something like an LS swap or LSvtec which both are not too expensive and both have far more potential than the d15. Especially in that heavy of a car.

-Shane

 

No I wasn't kidding. I figured there might have been some potential since people seem to like the D16's or whatever they use for the Mini Me swaps.

I've been doing a little more searching on the subject, and I'm assuming the LS vtec you are referring to is the B16A? I found a complete swap kit for that engine on ebay for $1800. That seems a little steep to me. Is that about how much I can expect to pay for a swap?

 

When I asked if you were kidding I was joking myself hence the

And to your other response, an LS vtec is a hybrid swap using a non-vtec 1.8 liter and mating it to a 1.6/1.8 liter head (mainly for cost reasons, but also the LS motor nets more torque at lower rpms).

Also, you can find other swaps for much cheaper than the one you found. You can try here or junkyards. You should be able to find a 1st gen B16 for around a grand, and it would be a good starter/inexpensive motor.

-Shane

 

*Edit* Apparently Hmotors is a little over a grand for a first gen B16, but they can be had for cheaper.

-Shane