First off all thanks for having the largest viable pool of information that basically leads me to my first Honda project car.

Your site basically gave me the confidence that there is a large enough Honda community out there that I'm not taking this project on completely by myself. Help is just a friendly post away and my post count just rolled over to one.

So here is the storey.

I've had a project 97 Ford Ranger splash I've been pecking away at for about seven months now. I bought it for $600 put about $200 in it and lots tinkering time to bring it back to mechanical soundness and reliability. Last week mission accomplished. :wiggles:

On to the Honda talk.

I hire tech-school kids to work in my machine shop deburr, clean up, run parts etc. I noticed one of the kids was always popping his hood messing around and waiting awhile with the car running before he would take off after work.

Later some talk about this car I found it to be a 1989 civic hatchback dx with a supposed 1.6 swap. He bought the car from a shop seven months ago and was having problems with the car hesitating and overheating.

He isn’t very mechanically inclined and really was in over his head, so I brought up the idea of a trade. The truck is high mileage but 100% all the way to the A/C. After a few test drives by him and his family he was sold. The truck runs 100% the car needs work. No brainer right? Besides I often park my projects because they are not my main means of transportation.
So I decided to take on my first Honda vehicle project.

As of right now it runs but it needs a head gasket and possibly a head. I’ve racked by brain on this if it is truly a zc engine and if it really matters for the parts I’m looking for. The head is online for sale with this head number being for a 1.5 and the block clearly says d16a. Does this make a difference when buying a head gasket? What non-vtec sohc head will fit on my block? Idk maybe I’m in over my head with all these block/head combos around..

Here is what I think I have. I have a 1989 civic dx with a 1.6 bottom end from a 88-91 crx si an OBD0 ecu(unmodded) with the original 1.5 dx head. The car vins 1.5l.

I would love some responses on the block, head and ecu identification. It would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Here are some pics of the ecu, block, head and car.

 

welcome to the forum, reminds me of one of my first few builds
the d16a is pretty much the same as all d series aside from the pistons theyre the same as a z6. so if you were to get a head i'd go for the following, d16zc,d16z6 same with head gasket. zc or z6

 

I'd like to stick to a non-vtec, Minimal investment and than i can trade up to something dohc and or vtec.