314 replies to this topic

[PuddleSkipper]

After much debating I have decided to post my swap on RPR. Initially I wanted to have it all done and figured out and post a very nice an orderly DIY instructions, everything would be perfect and orderly with no mistakes, but after reading other builds I realize that is part of the process and having you guys follow along might help out alot cause this is my first "build". Let me also declare while I have lots of experience with cars I have never rebuilt a tranny or motor. I have helped on several projects but it is something that I am hoping to work up to............I am just not in the mood to make expensive mistakes right now. I have also never done a swap before, this is my first. Currently I consider myself more of an ecomodder than a hotrodder/tunner but I did see something that did kill two birds with one stone!
1994 Honda Civic D15 3-STAGE VTEC TURBO 55+ MPG
I have owned Hondas for 5 years now and absolutely love them, especially the 84-87, preferably fuel injected though, to me it is easier to work on. I also am a huge fan of the D series, it is extremely reliable, easy to work on, and very fuel efficient. I read on Wikipedia that the D series motor can handle up to 600 hp! Honda engineers really knew what they were doing! I have also been a member of this site for a few years. It feels good to finally be contributing something. I want to thank all who have contributed to RPR, for without their "laying down the groundwork" at I was able to start this project. Also want to that Strudel and Rampage for getting right back to me when I asked questions. Also HUGE Thanks to Strudel for his wiring diagram which seems to be the most accurate and complete for my swap. I apologize if I have asked questions that seemed obvious...........I try to read carefully but am thinking more and more I might have ADD or something? Its irritating (for me as well)! Anyway I have mostly all the parts except for the axle. I am hoping to get this done soon because I am currently home taking care of the kid, I go back to work in Jan, and I am trying to go back to school at the end of March. When I am done with this I want to start a new post that is well organized with pics and step by step instruction on how to install a D series motor. Also fair warning, I edit my posts so if I forgot to post a pic or didn't fully add everything I wanted so this thread may actually change quite a bit without new post being added.

Edited by PuddleSkipper, 13 December 2011 - 02:56 AM.

[PuddleSkipper]

I have an 87 Civic Si, it has been sitting in storage for 2-2 1/2 years now. I bought it for $200 with moss growing on the carpet, mold on the headliner, and wasps nest all over it. I originally bought it to swap over all the fuel injection stuff to my 1984 1500 S. Man I loved that car (the 84), but she had 4 major breakdowns over the summer and threw in the towel when the headgasket went out this fall. This was actually a good thing, because it has constantly distracted me from working on the 87, and although I loved the 84, the 87 will actually get alot of parts from the 84 like the actual dash, I am going to mix the dark gray si stuff with the light gray 1500 s stuff, the new exhaust, firewall insulation, steering column, pedal assembly, battery, and possibly the AC but I haven't completely done enough research on that yet. Although the 87 had no major dents it was in poor shape. Everytime it rained water would leak into the car. Because the ECU was placed on the floor, everytime it rained the ECU shorted out. I ripped up the carpet to find minor rust, really not bad at all. Anything painted was fine, any bare steel was really rusty. After tearing out the dash it looks like I am going to be replacing a lot of the 87's parts with the 84's. This car had also sat out in the sun which warped the dash and all the bare steel components beneath the dash like the steering column and pedal assembly. This car also had a fire which burned part of the headlight wires on the Driver's side, a burnt ground wire from the block to the radiator core support, and a burnt hood release cable. The previous owner said something about the fuel pump running for a while then he tried to start it which resulted in a big explosion. I did get the motor to run. It would rev high and low and wouldn't settle for a constant rpm unless the idle was high. It also had a tic which I assume was coming from the bottom end, it wasn't though, it was coming from the head. This is a pic of the camshaft pedastal where the timing belt cam gear sits. Notice the grooves and the lack of oil passage.

I pulled the engine this summer and scrapped it cause I needed to make room for the JDM D15 and D15z1 motor and get ready for the swap. All in All this the rest of the car really isn't in too bad of shape as far as paint and body. I'll have to get pics the next time I am up at the shop when it is daylight. It has been getting dark here around 4:30 and I ussually dont get up there till 5 pm.

Edited by PuddleSkipper, 13 December 2011 - 01:23 AM.

[hondaguy72]

I'm sure you'll enjoy the car with the completed swap. Performance won't be mind blowing if you are running a vx transmission. Mileage should be close or just a tad bit better than a vx. These older cara just don't have the aerodynamics of the eg cars, but they more than make up for that in character and low weight. Looking forward to seeing the full build!

[PuddleSkipper]

Yeah should be alot of fun, I will definately be learning alot about wiring! Was looking down the road too at a better job and the possibility of a 600 hp D16y8 but that is OBD2, we'll see.

Edited by PuddleSkipper, 13 December 2011 - 02:52 AM.

[PuddleSkipper]

So I picked up a JDM D15Z1, or at least a USDM D15Z1 replacement. It is actually just marked D15 and according to one post I read it is rated for 125 hp. I believe this is true because when I measured the throttle bodies between the two motors the D15 had a much bigger throttle body than the D15Z1 I picked up later. I have yet to measure the ports on the head to see if they are the same size. The D15Z1 I found came with the whole swap and only cost $500. It included the ECU, engine wire harness, the intake with everything, the exhaust manifold, cat converter, header pipe, all the brackets, and the little emissions control box that sits on the firewall. The only thing it was missing was the distributor which I sourced from Ebay. I also order the Hasport AFD2 mounts. I plan on swapping the wiring to OBD0 and running it a little while till I swap it to OBD1 on OBD0 stuff I have collected for my wife's 89 civic. I have since then collected and stripped two 88-91 civic dash harnesses, pulling only the wires I would need to convert from pre OBD to OBD0. I also collected one OBD0 Integra harness and one Civic EX harness from the ECU plugs to the distributor, I needed the white wire and the orange wire, both are sheilded, to go from B10 and B12 to the Distributor.

to be continued in a couple hours...............

[PuddleSkipper]

Pulling wires in my apt!

This is the left over after pulling what I needed. My plan was only to add the wires that I needed to the ECU. Screech did some amazing stuff in his OBD2 build were he used the entire harness to wire up his vehicle. The same could be done here, one could take an OBD1 harness, which is my intended goal, but simply don't have the time. When you use a whole harness like that you can do power windows, power door locks, ect..... but there is way more to it than Screech probably posted in his thread with multiple decisions along the way. My method is much more simple. If you look at pre OBD plugs to OBD0 plugs they are the same plugs. The only difference is that OBD0 has more wires in the empty spots. Seems to me as the On Board Diagnostics (OBD) progresses is simply just adds more wire to the system which ties in more sensors to the computer. I plan on getting pics of this but I am not at my "shop" aka hole in wall, to get a pic of the comparisons. So my method is simply this: add the pins/wires to the empty spots on the ECU plug to build up the wiring to the level of OBD0. From OBD0 I can do two things, I can either use an OBD0 to OBD1 jumper to get to OBD1 or I can simply move the pins around, solder wires together, and solder wires in to get my OBD1.

Wires to the distributor are sheilded. This means that they are positive wire that are wrapped with a kinda wire mesh. This mesh is soldered into ground wires, this occurs with B10, B12, C1, C2, C3, C4, and C16. In this pic they are tied into the wire that goes to B20. The sheilding is soldered to a ground on both the strand that goes from the ECU to the dash harness/engine harness plug and then the engine harness strand itself.

These next two pics are the small amount of wires that are actually needed and I may not even need all of those. I used to 88-91 DPFI civic dash harnesses. This provided me with most of the wires to get to OBDO, I used two harnesses because I wanted to use the stock ECU location which is located under the passenger's side seat vs the 88-91 location of up under the dash on the floor board.

Edited by PuddleSkipper, 13 December 2011 - 12:21 PM.

[PuddleSkipper]

Here is the first tool I use to track wire. It sends a signal through the wire and you can track it with the wand. Doesn't work great for ground wires though, send signal through the whole car body.


Here is the other tool I use besides a circuit tester. It is a cheap OBD jumper that I cut the end off and soldered the wires so they would fray or corrode. I call it my ECU Jumper Tracing tool. From these I can trace from the ECU pins forward or back to the ECU pins.

Here are a couple of pics of me using the OBD jumper tracing tool to trace through my Integra harness for my B10 and B12 wires. I cut all the wires that branched off and just pulled what ran from directly from the ECU to the Distributor. When I did this I wasn't exactly sure that they weren't routed differently. I ran 12 volts through the wires to make sure I was getting juice from the ECU to the distributor.



I recently soldered small aligator clips on long lengths of wire to 1 1/2 copper tubes, I probably should have used 2" but the copper pipe fits into the jaw of my battery booster box and I connect one of the alligator clips to my ECU Jumper Tracing tool and the other to my circuit tester. I will edit and insert a pic when I snap one.

Edited by PuddleSkipper, 13 December 2011 - 12:48 AM.

[PuddleSkipper]

Pics of motor mounts - Hasport AFD2




I also have the Hasport CMA - Clutch Master Adapter for use with Hydraulic Transmissions which I need to get a pic of with the clutch master cylinder. I am planning on welding it to the bracket the battery ground bolts to. This should place my clutch cable approximately to the stock mounting position of the EW4 that used to be in there.

Edited by PuddleSkipper, 13 December 2011 - 02:07 AM.

[PuddleSkipper]

Pics of motor...........need to get some better pics of my motor as well.


This third pic shows the oil cooler that comes on the D15Z1 USDM version. This did not come on the JDM version.

Edited by PuddleSkipper, 15 December 2011 - 05:57 PM.

[PuddleSkipper]

Here is a remarkable gem!!!!!!!!!!!! I scored an 85 CRX SI cluster!!!!!!!!!!!!


Probably a couple years ago, this is the Denso version. This is a remarkable find because they only made these clusters for one year and "Aside from the fact that only an '88-'91 Civic VSS will drip right into the '85 SI speedometer, the main reason this cluster is unique is because of the 140 MPH speedometer face. The 140 MPH speedo has the same 225 degree sweep of the needle as the standard CRX 120 MPH speedometer, however the the markings are closer together on the 140 MPH speedo."
VSS in '85 CRX SI speedometer
This solves my VSS problem. I can run my B16 ECU wire directly to the 88-91 Denso VSS speedo that resides in my 85 CRX SI cluster.
Another solution I was looking at for tackling this same problem was swapping in a 90-91 civic cluster because it has the same number of pins, they just need to be rearranged a bit
Ef Guage Cluster Swap, Easy VSS Solution for Blacktop Swap
This also put the same VSS speedo on my dash and into my ECU but wasnt keen on making brackets to secure it inside the instrument cluster hood (I am not doing the rag thing! ) or having to fill the gaps in the corners.

Edited by PuddleSkipper, 13 December 2011 - 02:16 AM.

[PuddleSkipper]

What are these pieces called? Its the part on the transmission that the speedometer cable plugs into. I have heard them called VSS's but I thought that was the thing that sent the magnetic pulse to the computer which may or may not be the case. Guess I will just call them VSS's.
This is the 92-95 P20/A000 tranny with it's stock VSS

This is the 88-91 L3 tranny with it's stock VSS

This is the L3 VSS (on Left) compared to the P20/A000 VSS (on Right). The P20 is almost the same as the L3 the real difference is the electronic head located on the top of it.

Another comparison

When I compared diameter of the gear the P20's gear was a hair larger

After counting teeth I knew why: the L3 had a 20 tooth speedo gear while the P20 had a 21 tooth gear

This is me testing to making sure that the L3 VSS does fit on the end of the speedo cable. I pulled the cable out from its sheath and inserted it into the VSS turning the VSS gear making sure it spun the cable. I already knew that the speedo cable would be fine on the other end because of the work done by lxndr on the 85 CRX SI speedo/VSS swap. I need to remember to shove the cable back in, twisting it to see if it is lined up and inserted to the back of the speedometer.

This is the 20 tooth L3 VSS relocated into the P20. At a later date I would like to make a longer hold down tab. This works for now, but it doesn't butt up to the backside of the groove that the tab sits in.

Edited by PuddleSkipper, 13 December 2011 - 12:34 PM.

[PuddleSkipper]

Right now I have replaced the timing belt on the JDM D15 and am awaiting my gasket set from ebay. Once that arrives I will swap out gaskets. Then I can install the intake, the flywheel, the clutch, mate the tranny, and bolt on the motor mounts. I also need to also trace more wiring making sure I can replicate the 88-91 civic design into the 87. During this process I plan or removing the black vacuum box up front in the engine compartment.

Edited by PuddleSkipper, 15 December 2011 - 05:58 PM.

[PuddleSkipper]

Yeah got my gasket set! Hoping to work on replacing gaskets this weekend...........

[PuddleSkipper]

Sorry to backtrack .....this is a pic of the GW VSS (84-87 crx/civic), the L3 VSS, and the P20 VSS (from left to right). The GW and L3 are exactly the same with the same number of teeth - 20.

Edited by PuddleSkipper, 15 December 2011 - 06:04 PM.

[PuddleSkipper]

Here is a comparison of two steering sectors, the top one is out of the 87 Civic SI which has been replace by the way less rusty 84 1500 S (bottom pic) steering sector.


The pedals pretty much look the same. The bolt on supports and brackets under the dash I plan on derusting and painting with POR 15. If I have time I might POR 15 the pedal assembly. I might be moding the pedal assembly with the 88-91 civic gas pedal. I am hoping this is bolt in proceedure to speed things along.