Hi! I recently bought a 1989 Honda Civic GL sedan with the D14A1 dual carb engine, and I’m looking into potential upgrades. I’m especially interested in improving performance or reduce fuel economy — either by upgrading the carburetors or possibly swapping them out entirely.

Does anyone have experience with performance upgrades for this engine? If so, what carburetors would be a good upgrade or swap for better power and reliability? I’d love to hear your recommendations and any tips for getting the most out of this old-school setup.

 

1.4l is small enough to consider a single or twin weber dcoe or dellorto carb. Ive also had a project where i fitted a set of honda motorcycle carbs on a b16 intake manifold which had been cut and built up with weld. With all the people prototyping parts now, it shouldnt be too hard to find an adapter manifold for any engine/ carb combination. For that you would probably just send them a pdf of the gaskets for the carb and the intake on the cylinderhead.
However, if you really want the best of both worlds (performance and fuel economy), a fuel injection setup is not much more expensive. With stand alone fuel injection being much more available and affordable than in the past. I got my basic micro-squirt (megasquirt) electronic fuel injection set up for 300, plus another 300 for a stand alone ignition coil and driver unit. I'd direct you to diyautotune dot com for more info and support with that stuff. I have a corolla that i have webers on and i can say from experience that the weber dcoe set up cost more, but retains its value as everything is quite bullet proof and rebuildable by anyone with a flat head screwdriver and a tape measure. My microsquirt set up was cheaper, but there is a lot of stuff to learn when designing an efi set up from scratch. Its quite rewarding either way you go.
Finally, i would be remiss not to mention that if swapping carbs in an option, might i suggest swapping out the whole motor for a modern unit like a d16y8? Or a b20? Then all of ebay and amazon are available to play in and access to cheap everything from rebuild kits and pistons to cams and intakes. There is alomst certainly standalone swap harnesses that would make a swap quite simple. If you're willing to spend 1k, you can do alot if you plan correctly. Get the best bang for your buck! This is an excellect site to sorce that info from. Good luck!