This has been a long project, its not done yet. It was stalled for over 12 years. The car arrived in Oregon from Canada in very poor condition in 2006, at least half of the car went into the dumpster as it just was not safe or not repairable. I have made some progress in the last three months though. Mostly posting up because I am looking for parts and have some to get rid of. I don't need any stock parts, the stuff I buy are close ratio gear boxes, looking for a few camshaft cores, (the unground cast blanks), aluminum flywheels. I may buy an engine, but all comp engines I have got so far, including the one that came in the car have ended up being mostly garbage with only a few parts that are salvageable. King motorsports made some aluminum 4" crank pulleys, I cant find one for sale and I am just about to just give up and try to hack one out on my lathe myself. It will probably take a few tries with my skill level on the lathe. They slow the water pump and alternator.

The flickr album is here. Edit, I guess this place blocks links to flickr...

No use reposting it all.
This is my favorite photo of the first owner racing the car in Canada in the mid 80s and has been a big help in answering questions.



One of the projects I did recently is a header that does not run under the oil pan (Heat).. It was the first header I ever built so the welds are not perfect. No holes in the hood. I will route the pipe back under the car. There is room. I got the idea for making the merge collector from a youtube video. I 3d printed up some 1-3/8 header Legos and merge collector jig. I posted the files on Thingiverse if anyone wants them. You cant buy header mockup parts in 1-3/8 od.



Last thing I did was a fuel cell box.
The car ran from 1986 to early 2003 in Canada with a stock fuel tank!



Next project is a decent oil pan. The car had a few bad engine failures with the last owner. Hopefully after taking so long to finish. I can keep the car semi reliable. A custom oil pan with trap doors is a big part of that plan. Moving the header also allows for increased capacity.

 

Oh this is nice!

 

It looks nice!

 

Thanks! I hope to get some more progress done soon.

 

I've found plenty of parts for my '76 1200 Civic from ON-LINE junk yards. Most parts are small and light and postage is cheap.

 

Thanks but from the 1st post... I don't need any stock parts,

 

Thank you, its been a long project since 2006, it was stalled for about 13 years. Even pressing forward a few hours a week it will be lucky to be finished by next season. So I'm not making promises I cant keep.

 

I tried to make an underdrive crank pulley today. The plans came from a friend that purchased his pulley from King Motorsports in the 90s. Well I learned a lot about what NOT to do! Ha ha. The pulley kept spinning on the arbor and eventually oversized the hole. I have some questions posted on the machinist forums for the 2nd attempt. The soft aluminum kept just expanding if any sort of force was used to wedge on the expanding arbor. If I could could get at least 15 or more people that wanted them, there may be a chance of it being feasible for a CNC run. We did that last year with the adjustable cam gears for the EB engines. This though has limited demand because its mostly for track use only. So hacking one out at a time for myself on my Boxford lathe is my solution. I'm posting the drawing so maybe others can take a shot at it too, if they want one. I was not going to cut the area around the crank bolt so deep. The keyway is not shown but is required.

 

Mostly done with a new crank pulley to slow things down at higher rpm. I still have to figure out how to make a 4.4mm keyway cut.

 

I did not get a lot done in the past few weeks but I did get the pulleys made and a start on mounting the denso mini alternator. I have found 3d printing for mockups. Much faster and cheaper to hash out the design in plastic, then after its corrected use that to make the shape in aluminum. It saved me a lot of work and scrap aluminum so far.

 

Are you still running the stock carb?

 

No that would be stupid for this application. The stock carb does work very well for the 50hp street engine though.

 

What carb are you running? And how did you disable the cvcc system (assuming that you did)?

 

What I am doing is much different than what you need to do. The car is not CVCC powered at all. It used the smaller 1.2L and 1.3L engines. Its a 1500 Body but the engine blew up after a race and the owners went to the smaller engines for power and reliability. 1500 CVCC engines suck for performance use, they do OK for daily drivers and get great mileage when you are not disabling the CVCC system. The WORST thing you can do with a CVCC is swap on a store bought weber kit. Its worse mileage, and the DGV sucks, the adapter sucks worse. Better to find someone to fix the original carb for efficiency. If you are after performance, yank all that out and do a d16 with its EFI swap. I can not do that as vintage racing classes have rules.

 

Ah, sorry for my lack of knowledge. Im new to the old honda world as most of my knowledge is of the 80-88 toyota tercels.

I am working with the 1.8L cvcc motor in my prelude. I am about to attempt a carb rebuild as anytime I go past 1/2 throttle / 4000rpm it falls on its face. I wish I knew why it was doing this so Im not going into this rebuild blind. It idles beautifully though...good luck with your racing! I do a lot of autox and rallyx with my tercels--nice to see others using economy cars for their "true" purpose xD

 

I have a friend who did a 1.8L - Canadian head, cam headers, port and polish, side draft carb. Thousands spend on mods. Its still a dog compared to a stock FI d16. I have a chassis dyno so that helps sort out the BS some spout on the forums. The newer tech has a better foundation for power and you can get parts.

 

ive wanted to do a motor swap, but am concerned about custom mounts / trans+axle issues. Have you done a D swap before..?

 

I have had friends that did them with no problems. Its still the best way to go. If you are not good with the wiring and welding, that's stuff that can be hired or you can sell it start with another car that does meet your skill level. My 1988 Civic with a b series swap is pretty much plug and play. So much better to drive than any of the older stuff. Honda really did some huge progress technology wise from the 70s to the late 80s. Its not just the engines, the entire cars are a better package and much faster for the money.

 

I can do wiring and welding, its the "what axles, spindles, mounts, etc. do I need to use that worries me. I have heard that the prelude axles fit the B series trans, and possibly the D series as well...but thats all I know. Before I do a swap, I want to know what parts I need or what work needs to be done so I dont waste time pioneering an engine swap.

 

OK do me a favor start your own thread so this one doesn't get polluted with questions that have nothing to do with my project. Its a common swap. There are answers everywhere if you look. The first gen Civic page on Facebook may be of interest.

 

I have looked and seen no direct swaps / answers for the prelude/Accord family. But okay. Feel free to dm me if you want.

 

Back on topic... I started working on a cam driven distributor. The car came to me with an electromotive distributorless ignition. Vintage groups frown on that I guess. So doing an experiment. King Motorsports adapted a distributor to the cam in the 80s. I have a few crusty pictures of peoples attempts. If anyone has more info let me know.
This is a 1200 from a hydroplane built in the 80s. Note the distributor location.

 

 

A little more progress. The adapter is not pined yet. This is mockup with a core camshaft.

 

Not done but getting closer.