I'm sorry if this is in the FAQs but I couldn't find it. I have a 93 civic del sol with the 1.5 sohc motor. The only upgrade so far is a canon muffler, I'm wondering if I can find a better cam shaft other than stock. Does anyone have any suggestions

 

The 1.5L 92-95 should be the D15B7 yes?

Let me ask you this.... Do you understand what is required if you upgrade your camshaft?

I would like to see if you understand just changing the cam is not going to benefit you, there is more required.

I would like you to tell me what that "more" is.

 

Well I would think it would need a new timing chain and valves and springs, and stuff like advance the timing and soaking the lifters and dropping the oil pan other than that I don't know but I got a friend who's a mechanic

 

Well, I got you to thinking so that is good.

What I was looking for is you will need to tune the motor. Just advancing the timing is not really the solution, it's only a small part in it.

But yeah, the parts list is typically cam, new springs and retainers. You don't necessarily have to go with new valves but many do.

So, you will need to be able to chip your ECU and then take it to the tuner once you have the parts installed.

Now, if you have the D15B7 like I mentioned you can goto crower.com and get a stage 2 upgrade Naturally Aspirate cam. If you could get the valve springs from either a D16A6 or from a 1995 D15B7 (they ran out of B7 springs so used the stiffer D16A6 springs) you wouldn't need to buy springs and retainers and would be okay.

Then a nice tune and you would see a bit more top end power.

Or... if you can find a D16A6 head to pull apart, you could use that cam and it's springs and turn your D15B7 into the D15Beast7 found on d-series.org

Either way, you are going to have to spend at least 500 bucks on a tune over and above the cost of parts, and chipping the ECU.

 

**** I didn't even think of the ecu. Thanks for the advice. And one more question, you mentioned the N/A cam but I want to put in a turbo eventually so would I need a different cam for that

 

Yes, the profiles differ between an NA car and a Turbo car.

If you spend some time researching at crower.com you will see there are different cams depending on the setup and desired goal.

You can see the same thing with a smaller selection at briancrower.com

crower.com I believe still makes cams for the D15B7 motor. briancrower only does the D16Y8 motor for the SOHC, but you can see the difference between FI and NA.

Actually, looks like crower no longer supports the d15b7. The only option is bisimoto.com with the level 2 d15b7 cam for 400 bucks. if you plan on staying NA.

 

Okay thanks for the input, I haven't fully decided on a turbo yet. I had a friend who had a civic si hatch that had a Integra motor and transmission and I talked to his brother who said that the major points of the engine were the camshaft, ignition system and final drive gear, and I just want my sol to be comparable.