I've got a friend with a 79 civic and we want to throw a new engine in it. Its got a 1.2 in it right now but i was wondering what engines would fit in this car with little to no modifications. Am i stuck with only the 1.2 and 1.5L that came stock or could i use a 1.5L from a bit new civic like an 84 or 85 seeing as they are a lot easier to find
Any help would be greatly aprreciated.
Thanks
Derek

 

Wouldn't that be changing from a carb to a fuel injection sysem?

 

BEST thing to do in my opinion

d16a6
cam
find axles that fit


it wouldnt be that hard, youd just need to know what you are doing or find a friend who does.

a DOHC motor would be too big in my opinion


You would have to wire everything up, a harness wouldnt be toooo big of a problem i woulndt think

plus that motor would be OBD-O, the least complicated.

 

dude, dont listen to these people man. ive seen a mini cooper with a b16. if your friend has the money, it CAN be done

 

ive seen a beetle with a b16 too

 

Not hating, but why in the hell would you do that???

 

D16A6 with a cam, and webers sidedraft. no need for FI and wiring and the engine with some nice high compression, a cam and carbs will sing..
damn it now i want a CVCC Civic...
stan

 

SBC Small Block Chevy v8....its carb..no wiring except for a distributor. Lots of power...now how to make it rwd???

 

With the rite amount of money ANYTHING is possible.

Personally, I'd go for a B series.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SloVXHatch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Not hating, but why in the hell would you do that??? </TD></TR></TABLE>

It's quite simple. The old-school Bug is in many ways the ideal platform for drag racing. The reasons? It is very light stock. And I mean light compared even to a CRX. Furthermore, it can be stripped down to practically nothing. And unlike any light Honda, it is rear wheel drive. The downfall? Simply put, the archaic, air-cooled motor. Although it is possible to bump displacement up quite a bit on those motors (for a four cylinder, anyway), the air-cooled, two valve, pushrod setup severaly limits power output. Even a 2.3 liter Vedub motor is lucky to put out 150HP (crankshaft!) allmotor. Now with the light weight and RWD, 150HP certainly makes for a very quick car (possibly 11-12 seconds, but with a low trap speed). But imagine how much faster such a car could be with, say, 200HP or 250HP. A B-series, H-series, or K-series swap could easily give this kind of HP in a very mild, streetable manner. Not to mention that it would not have that nasty tendency to break down and overheat that air-cooled Vedub motors have. You could actually have a 10 second (or quicker) Bug that could be driven to the track, run several times, and driven home with no worries of a breakdown (which even bone-stock Bugs tend to do from time to time). Now I am not saying such a swap would be easy. It wouldn't. But it would sure kick ***.

As for the 1979 Civic, B-series swaps have been done. So this is possible. I should note that D-series swaps are not really going to be much, if any easier, as any swap is going to be a custom fabbed affair. So you might as well go with the strongest motor you can get. A K-series motor might even be a possibility if you have the cash.

As for swapping in something like a 1984-1987 Civic motor, I don't know if this can be done. I would take a trip to a salvage yard and see how similar the mounting is between the two. This would give you a better idea.

 

I agree with the carb d16 setup.


You can mill the head about 20 -30 thousanths, and use a 2 layer head gasket.

with some weber carbs and a cam, nice header and mandrel exaust, you could be makeing about 150 hp.

 

I would imagine if you got the room for the motor any motor would be rather simple. Biggest problem would be wiring and axels right? Mounts are rather easy to fab, but some things that need to be on the firewall will take up room. Such as master cylinder and stuff. And the axels would need to be refab'd to length. But aside from those issues, there's not much to it. Also, did you ever consider the possibility of building that 1.2? Sleeve it to a 2.0 and go with a sick dual carb set-up with a nitrous to carb injection system. Get that block O-ring'd and maybe find some pistons to lower the compression and a good tranny. I'm sure that in a tiny *** CVCC Civic stripped could put down 13 second slips daily. There's no limit to your imagination, only your budget. - Darrell

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by DOHCZCCRXSi &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Mounts are rather easy to fab, but some things that need to be on the firewall will take up room. Such as master cylinder and stuff. - Darrell</TD></TR></TABLE>

pedal box owns j00. no more firewall crap.

http://www.apracing.com/car/pedalbox/pboxp2.htm

 

Holy shizzam! Thanks for the link Lude. Been looking for something like that for a while for a side project. - Darrell

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by DOHCZCCRXSi &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Also, did you ever consider the possibility of building that 1.2? Sleeve it to a 2.0 and go with a sick dual carb set-up with a nitrous to carb injection system.


There's no limit to your imagination, only your budget. - Darrell</TD></TR></TABLE>

There may be no limitations to imagination. But there certainly are limits to how big you can make a motor. And I am sure that going from 1.2 liters to 2.0 liters is well beyond those limits. After all, this would be like turning a B18C into a 3.0 liter motor or a D16A6 into a 2.7 liter motor. It is just not going to happen. But even if you get the engine to its maximum size, there is the issue of the head. The old CVCC motor was not made at a time when four valve heads were the norm. And put quite bluntly, two valve heads just don't flow too well. This issue is a BIG concern on a motor that is so tiny that you need as much HP/liter as you can muster. I should also note that two valve engines are paricularly bad when trying to make maximum streetable power. This is why all automakers have abandoned two-valve designs on anything that is not big enough to make decent power depite low specific output.

Also consider this: it would be MUCH easier to get a K20 into a 1979 Civic than it would be to make even 90HP from a stock CVCC motor. And, of course, you would have more than twice the power (and probably torque) in the end.


Modified by StorminMatt at 8:53 AM 9/19/2004

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by StorminMatt &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

As for the 1979 Civic, B-series swaps have been done.

</TD></TR></TABLE>

I love the '79 hatches...kinda like Honda's own Austin Mini. It would be nice to see pics of a B-series in a '79 hatch

 

Couple of links for the early guys:
http://www26.brinkster.com/drz...e.htm
http://www.1stgencivic.com/
enjoy,
chris