I have a 1988 civic sedan DX automatic in pretty good condition. The engine and trans are fine, but I got a prospect from a friend. He has a 94 civic EX manual trans that is pretty much a piece of crap. It's pretty much rusted through and thrashed and the manual trans in it grinds all the gears and 3rd is out. Now he said he would give me his good engine for free all I have to do is pull it. I was thinking about swapping the d16z6 into my car, possibly even getting a rebuild kit and rebuilding it before I put it in my car. My question is will it bolt up to the automatic that's in my car right now or will I have to source an automatic from a 92-95 civic EX or del sol Si? I realize I'll most likely have to get an auto ECU from an automatic civic EX. I realize I could source a different manual trans and swap my car over to 5 speed but that's more hassle than I want to get into and I have a lazy left foot anyway. I'm not trying to be a race car or anything like that so the auto will do me just fine.

Thanks in advance!

 

It will bolt up fine, but you're limited to reusing your existing intake manifold if you're not going to swap/convert anything else immediately. There will be a few small differences in the way certain parts mount and/or work but it's doable. The fan switch, distributor flange, and driver's side mount come to mind.

 

The PS9 ECU is the OBD0 EX that supports MPFI and the auto trans.
However, it won't be able to do vtec for the Z6 -AND- the auto trans at the same time.
Back in the day, there were ECU tunes and modifications that let you use the lock-up solenoid wire on the PS9 to control vtec in a manual trans car.
For a PS9 to do both auto trans and vtec activation, I'm guessing that you might need to go with a fuel pressure riser and an rpm activated switch to control vtec.

The auto P28 ECU would be best for the Z6 engine, but it has controls for a different type of auto trans.
EF has one lock-up solenoid where-as the EG has two.
you could likely run a P28 with the first lock-up wired into the EF auto trans and then simulate the second lock-up so you don't get a CEL.
Seems like it would work to get the second lock-up solenoid from a junk EG auto trans, hook it up, and leave it tucked away somewhere.

 

if your existing engine is fine, you should just keep it - the D16Z6 is an OBD1 MPFI VTEC engine - your car is OBD0 DPFI non-VTEC - without converting from DPFI to MPFI and further converting from OBD0 to OBD1 in order to properly run the Z6, you won't be gaining much - quite a bit of work for not much gain

 

Okay so what I'm getting out of this is I'm looking at some work on my hands. I would have to convert to MPFI, convert to ODB1, get an automatic p28 ECU, and it would be easier to get an auto trans from an EX. Doesn't sound too bad but I don't know if its worth the 30 horsepower increase.

Heres another kicker, a different buddy of mine has a full go autoworks turbo kit for an EF hatch (the cheap one, log manifold and such) where the turbo failed. He said he'd trade me for these janky civic VX wheels I have (I'm not going to use them) with bad tires, I'd just have to have the turbo rebuilt or buy a new one. Probably have to buy a fuel system too.

Well that brings me to another question. What sort of tuning options are there for the automatic ECUs? I know the autos really won't stand up to the power increase and from my research there doesn't seem to be much tuning options available for an auto. It would be pretty sweet to have a turbo, but like I said before I'm not trying to go all out race car. If I wanted to go all out I'd just swap something like a b16/18 in and do a 5 speed swap.

 

You can use your auto 88~91 DX trans. It's going to be the same thing as the 90~91 EX trans.
What is not a good option is trying to fit the newer 92+ auto trans in there.