I know this horse has been beat to death, but I've got a 98 Civic with the y7 engine. The cylinder head is bad. The car itself is in really nice condition, and it's been in the family for the last 100k+ miles. It has 280k miles. Manual transmission was just rebuilt, new clutch, etc.
I got it from my sister, in partial trade for building a Mazda 3 for her.
Anyway. I've had way too many projects, and haven't gotten around to working on the civic, but, we towed in a 94 civic with the b7 engine. It ran and drove into a tree. I was able to get the head for a good deal from my boss and I'm getting ready to swap the head. I'm planning to do a mild port and polish, and check all the valves and maybe deck the head to get a little bit higher compression, since from my research, I'll lose a little bit.
So, anyway, my questions are in regards to what parts I'll need. I'm a diesel mechanic, and experienced in mechanics in general, as well as being fairly equipped, I've done quite a bit of work on Hondas, but mostly on CR-Vs. I did do the timing belt on this car and on another civic, but not much more, mostly my brother did the work on this one.

I would like to know, which head bolts do I need. I should use the y8 head gasket, correct? Which timing belt kit should I use, or do I have to piece together with different components? Should I use the y7 or b7 cam and sprocket?

I'm not trying to make a lot of power, it's going to be going to my 16 year old brother in law as his first car, so it may be good for it not to be too fast, lol.
Any help would be appreciated!

 

I suspect you will need the B7 cam gear but expect the timing marks to be off by half a tooth. The gear should line up to the teeth belt properly but is indexed for 16 degrees btdc and the Y7 is designed at 12 degrees btdc.

I'm not sure which timing belt. I don't know how many teeth the Y7 belt has, I'm only familiar with 5th gen belts. I suspect you will need a Y7 belt or a belt with 1 less tooth as the water pump is staying the same and the only loss in height is the head and decking the head.

As for head bolts, I'm only familiar with going the other way, a Y8 head on a B7/B2 block. I don't know the length of the head bolts on a Y8/Y7. I do know that one bolt is different when using the Y8 head that won't be on the B7 head. So you may need a shorter bolt for one of the corners.

You will need to do some research and/or comparisons as you seem to be going the opposite everyone else has gone in the past.

 

Thanks for the help. Thankfully I actually found a compete engine for my civic. I was talking with a guy at O'Reilly's and he mentioned he had a d16y7 that had only 100 miles on a rebuild, and the car got totaled. For $400 I got a reman engine. I think that beats Jerry rigging a head. 😂

 

I am so glad you found that replacement engine... the B7 head swap was a REALLY BAD idea... as in "shame on you" for even considering it !!! LOL