Hey guys first time post and I was looking for some help here. You see we have this 86 Civic Si car that we race in the 24hr of Lemons Race and the car is excellent in the corners but what you make up in the corners you lose on the straight because it is too DAMN SLOW LOL. We have raced this car 3 times already and it has been flawless. I call it the little engine that keeps on going. We beat the crap out of it and it purrs like a kitten. Well I want it to roar like a lion LOL. The thing is that you are not supposed to spend over $500 on the car not including your safety equipment. So we only have I think $300 into the car but I don't know how to make more horsepower out of a little 1.5 motor. Does anybody have any ideas? I have attached a few pictures of the car

 

Delta 272 cam and Civic DX valve springs. Best bang for the buck.

 

At first I though you had some rare accord rims but further investigating I found they are VW rims but they still look good. Go with the delta regrind other than that, IDK.

 

Nos?

 

LOL NOS would be good if we could use it but I don't think it is allowed. Thanks for the reply

 

Yea the rims were given to us and we actually have 2 sets of them.

 

Do you know where we can buy a cam and about how much power will it give us? I found a header for it but that is at 200 bucks so not sure if the guys want to go with this one or not. At least with the cam when we get it tech'd they wont be able to see it LOL.

 

what are you talkin bout? cam was in the engine when you bought it... :D

 

LOL yea I know there is one in the car but they are talking about this special cam that I cant seem to find for such an old car.

I wonder if we are able to do a frankenstein and put a double-overhead cam head on the car. Does anybody know

 

LMAO at your paint job and decoration. That is one of the funniest I've seen so props to you guys.

I'm not sure if Lemons rules has any limitations on mods but the easiest path to more power is to swap in the complete drivetrain from a 1g Integra. It's a bolt in swap so no big hassles. Stock 3g Civic Si D15A3 = 91hp, 86-87 Integra D16A1 = 113hp, stock 88-89 Integra D16A3 = 118hp, and you would have to do a fair amount of work to your 1.5 to get that much power (and Touque!). Actually, you can swap one of those D16 heads onto your D15A3 block but it takes a lot of work. If you want to explore that route then search for "hydra" at redpepperracing. If you are going to keep the 1.5 then your best bang-for-the-buck mods will probably be...

1) to richen the mixture. Adjustable fpr? Crush the stock fpr? Bigger injectors? Trick the MAP sensor or ecu somehow? I'm not sure what the best way to do that is or how you would get around the closed-loop O2 sensor issues.

2)iIf you don't mind spending some effort and money you could raise the compression about 0.5 by using a Canadiastan DX head (carbed, but NON-CVCC) on your Si block. Just something to keep in mind.

3) like others have said, replace your mild economy car cam with something hotter. Search rpr for recommendations.

4) use a bigger throttle body. Ours is a dinky weird 2-butterfly tb that doesn't breathe particularly well. Either mill it larger or use a larger single butterfly tb from a later Civic/Integra. Not sure what fits but again rpr is probably your best source for that info.

That's all I got for now. Good luck and keep us updated on your progress.

 

I also heard through the grapevine that I could use a 86 integra ECU and the injectors from it. Does anybody know anything about this. I found both just have to check the ecu pins to see if it would work. Race is just a couple months away

 

Be careful with the tune. I don't do Lemons (moslty because I don't want to take the chance of my car being crushed after all the hard work), but a guy was disqualified in ChumpCar yesterday for an ECU tune.

I don't know specifics, but there were three cars in impound, and a friend's team was in 4th. They pulled the ECU out of the car, pulled it apart, and ran it in a computer. My buddies got third place. This is a question you might want to ask on a Lemons forum if they have one. They guys in ChumpCar are always willing to help out.

 

Love the paint scheme... Improve the aerodynamics, remove the prop, put some lexan / clear plastic in front of the headlights holes, lowering the car by adjusting the front torsion bar... Remove all the unnecessary weights such as rear seat, headliner...

 

Nice car!

 

you can use the integra ecu, but it will just make it run more rich.. the power curve changes, but not a huge benefit without engine work

 

LOL Mike did you look at the back of the car. It is completely stripped so no back seat nothing. I agree about trying to make it areo dynamic as possible that is why we put the lexan shield in front of the rat to try that.

 

Well the ECU is installed along with integra injectors. We also found a used header that we are going to install and see what happens. Should be interesting to say the least. Going to keep the old stuff just in case the high speed takes a toll on the integra ECU.

 

Call John at Delta Cams in Seattle WA. He does custom cams for these, I use a 272 he ground for me, drops right in, you'll just need to up the fuel pressure to 40+ psi, I dynoed with a header and full 2-1/4 piping at 153 rwp

 

Good Evening .... I am an old technician from the 1970's - 1990's era. Do you have the CVCC engine/carb set up or the Canadian nornally aspirated engine? I used to fine tune these carbs to get some better snap out of them and give you some extra boost down the straight line. . let me know. ... thanks .,................. Ed

 

Junkyard turbo...do it! Do it!