WonderBart

Friday morning driving to work it was so warm and sunny I decided that I would do my wheel swap some time this weekend. When I swapped the steel wheels on my car last fall, I did it to save my 15" mags and tires from winter carnage of salt and grime. So yesterday after work I pulled out the 15" mags and swapped them over. I didn't touch my rear coil over height but I did adjust the front ones about 1 turn. This should lower it down a bit but still give it enough ground clearance for uneven roads. The swap went really well with no hickups but I did notice that my passenger drive shaft was spitting grease  on the inside of my steel wheel. The CV boot is not broken but I guess the clip holding the CV boot to the drive shaft is not really tight and grease slings out at high speeds. Looking at the steel wheel it looks like it hasn't happened for a while because the grease is really dry. When I get a chance I will swap that drive shaft for a spare one or replace the clip holding the boot. Once the swap was done I was really impressed by ... Read More

   Thursday I had a day off and did my long awaited oil change on my new engine, and this time it was with Pennzoil full synthetic motor oil. I used a regular oil filter because from what i've read it won't make a difference on my engine being a daily driver, if I was racing an INDY car then that's a whole other ball game. Synthetic oil is known for staying a consistant viscosity even in extreme cold and hot conditions, thats why it lubricats so well. It does the best job during cold engine starts and high reving, just as my 6500rpm VTEC engine. ... Read More

It's been 2 months since I did the engine swap on my car and I love it every bit. It's got more power, better response, less oil usage and looks good too. The D16 engine and the Si tranny works really good together in my little hatch. The Power to Weight ratio is really nice, its got lots of GO when you need it. Anyone out there wondering if they should do this swap or any other to add more power to their ride I say go for it, its worth every penny! The fuel economey is almost similar, I might of lost 50km per tank but it all depends how hungry you get for VTECH at 5000rpms. ... Read More

I passed aircare this morning with really good results and it didn't take to much work. Yesterday I used up the last of the gas that I had in the tank and filled up with Mohawk 94 octane with 10% methanol, added some fuel injector cleaner and took it for a good boot at lunchtime. Then this morning I retarded the timing 8 degrees and put about 200ml of Menthyl Hydrate into the tank and drove it to aircare just before going to work but I made sure I drove it with high rpm's to keep the catalyic converter really hot which would keep the emissions low. Wednesdays Reading Todays Reading HC 0.5221                 0.3468 CO 6.7286                 4.1013 NOx 0.4531               0.1945 As you can see from the results it did a lot better in all 3 categories and one big thing I noticed is that with the super blend of gas I gained some horsepower with less emissions. The methyl hydrate is suppose to run your engine hotter and leaner and has a tendency to dry out rubber seals so do not use it to often. ... Read More

My insurance is coming up this month so I went to aircare for lunch today but unfortunetly failed on one test. It failed Hydrocarbons(HC) but not by much.            Max Allowable                  My Reading               Average Reading              Result HC          0.5000                         0.5221                        0.2072                       Fail CO          9.3200                         6.7286                        5.2242                       Pass NOx        1.2400                         0.4531                        0.6225                       Pass I am gonna try running some Mohawk Gas with Ethanel, retard the timing a bit and dump some Menthyl Hydrate in the tank to see if that helps it out since I know I already did the basic tuneup when I did the engine swap. ... Read More

I was on eBay a few weeks back and stumbled upon a really cool looking oil cap, so I bought it and been waiting for it to arrive ever since. Well yesterday it arrived in the mail and soon as I got it I put it on and snapped some pictures for my blog. It will look really cool once I get my turbo as they will both compliment each other. In the next few months I will try to get my current valve cover sand blasted and painted or find a power coated one on eBay and really make my engine look nice. ... Read More

Well it was a cold but sunny day today so I decided to do my valve adjustment as i've heard it's suppose to snow for the next few days. I pulled out the spark plugs, wires and the distributor cap first, then pulled the valve cover off and finally pulled off the timing belt cover. I set the engine to TOP DEAD CENTER (TDC) on #1 cylinder and adjusted both the intake and exhaust valves. While the cylinder was at TDC, I inserted a plastic rod down the spark plug hole and marked it. Then I rotated the cam 90 degree's and inserted the plastic rod down the #3 cylinder plug whole to make sure I was at TDC and adjusted the intake and exhaust valves. Then I rotated the cam another 90 degree's and did cyclinder #4 and finally did the same thing for #2. Once it was all done I double checked all valves for each cyclinder at the proper cam position. One thing I forgot to mention is that while turning the cam 90 degree's I checked to make sure I was on the right cylinder by looking at the distributor rotor postion with the distributor cap. ... Read More

I installed a B&M fuel pressure gauge last night and now I have a better understanding how my fuel pump and fuel pressure regulator are working together. When the vacuum hose is connected between my fuel pressure regulator and my intake manifold I get 31PSI at idle and 40PSI at full throttle and when I disconnect the vacuum hose it jumps to about 40PSI. From what I have read on the honda forums this seems to be a normal reading for a stock system like mine. Once I add bigger injectors and and turbo I will have to get an adjustable fuel pressure regulator and bump that up to 45-50 PSI with out the vaccuum line connected. Below is a picture with my gauge showing 31PSI at idle. ... Read More

The car has been running good since this morning so I decided to wireup the VTEC tonight. I soldered all the wires to make sure I was getting good connections and used some zapstraps to keep the wires tidy. Overall it was an easy thing to do and now I don't have the engine light any more. I took it for a couple rips down the street and man when that VTEC  engages it pulls hard. The D16A with my intake, header and exhaust should be putting out about 145HP so getting up to 200-220HP with a turbo should be a realistic goal with some additional addons. ... Read More

The engine still had issues running rough the last few days and I didn't have time to do the valve adjustment to see if that would help so I messed around with the sensors last night and added some fuel injector cleaner into the tank and this morning it seems to be good. I also had a fuel odour coming out of the engine compartment but couldn't see anything leaking badly but with a closer inpection and a sniff test I narrowed it down to an injector. I pull that injector out and I guess when I swapped the injectors last week i must of kinky the seal on this one, so in the future I will spray some WD-40 on the seal so it goes easier into the fuel rail. This morning there was no more fuel odour and engine ran better after adding the fuel injector cleaner and messing around with the sensors. ... Read More

After all that work yesterday I knew I would find a solution soon because I was running out of things to check. Today I went to the parts store and picked up some new NGK spark plugs, NGK ignition wires, distributor cap and rotor, fuel filter and a radiator cap since my old one disintegrated yesterday. I started by changing the plugs and then started the engine and guess what to my surprise BAAM! engine runs fine, so it was a fauled up plug that was causing all these issues. I still changed the fuel filter, iginition wires and distributor cap and rotor as it had to be done in the near future anyways. The spark plugs I got are the NGK ZFR5J-11 which seem to work really well with this engine. It runs smoth now and has lots of power and I'm not even activating the VTEC yet! The only thing I have left is to wire up the VTEC and bolt up the front bottom engine cover but thats not even an issue. Old D15B7 Engine and the new D16A VTEC Engine All my replacement parts and a picture of the new NGK wires on my valve cover. ... Read More

The car still stumbled today at WOT so I swapped the throttle body which included the MAP Sensor and the Throttle Position Sensor but unfortunetly it still stumbled after that. Just to be sure there was no difference in the IACV I also swapped the IACV(Idle Air Control Valve) from my D15B7 to be sure that had nothing to do with the issue. I checked my timing and it was ok so I swapped the fuel injectors and the fuel pressure regulator but no success. Tommorrow I am gonna do a tuneup on it and change the spark plugs and wires, distributor cap and rotor and finally the fuel filter. I got a compression tester today so I can check the compression of all the pistons tommorrow too.    ... Read More

It's been a few days since my last post but I have been researching information about my ECU, VTEC and why my engine surges while giving it gas. My first ECU was giving me code 19 which was an auto tranny sensor, so today I went to the wrecker and picked up a proper 5 Speed ECU and a VTEC Pressure switch. My first ECU was P28-C50(auto) the new one is a P28-C02(5 Speed), to identify your ECU go to Rywire.com, as they have a write up page on how to identify your ECU. They sell wiring harnesses for VTEC D16Z6 Swap, B, H and other Wiring harnesses that you might need for a custom swap and they also have a great writeup on how to wire up your VTEC to your ECU. My VTEC should be operational soon as I got the pressure switch today so it's just a matter of feeding the cables from the plugs to my ECU. My car has been idling kinda funny and stumbling when given light throttle; I did some research about this and found out that it could be a case air pockets in my coolant or a bad or dirty IACV ... Read More

Saturday - Final assembly, fluids and startup Today I started with hooking up the gear shift linkage and mounted the exhaust. Then I mounted the drive shafts and put the suspension back together. I hooked up the remainder of the heater hoses and mounted the radiator and then filled it with antifreeze and water mix. I drained the old oil from the engine and transmission and then added 10W30 to both. I pulled the old P06 ECU out and then mounted the P28(VTEC) ECU in it's place. Then the moment of truth came and it was time to start the engine, I turned the key to the start position 2 times shortly to prime the engine with gas and pump some oil into the top end of the engine. Then I turned the key to the full start position and BAAM! it started right away. Only problem was the ECU was throwing out some error codes. I read in the Haynes Manual that you have to put a jumper into the 2 wire plug that is just below the glove box on the passenger side of the car so I did that and got 2 error codes. Code 22 and Code ... Read More

Friday - Ready engine and mount up in engine bay Today I got the engine ready for mounting and decided to use my original D15B7 engine mount and bracket. The power steering bracket on the other hand is one that I got from the wrecker from a D16Z6 engine. Installing the engine back into the car took a lot of patience I had a friend of mine work the hoist while I moved the engine around and started bolting up the mounts. Before lowering the engine into the engine bay I attached the rear engine bracket to the engine, then got my friend to lower the engine into place while I worked the bolt to catch some thread. After that I worked the tranny mount and got a bolt thru that and finally had to use a floor jack to help align the drivers side mount and stuck a bolt thru that. Once the main mounts were done I installed the left and right torque mounts, power steering pump and some hoses. Tommorrow the plan is to finish her up and get her running. D16A chained up and ready installation D16A in the process of being installed D16A almost installed D16A ... Read More

Thursday - D16A Maintenance and external assembly So far out of the 4 days, today was the funnest till the end but I'll get into that later. Putting something together is always more fun because you start seeing a little glimps of your final product and you get more existed. Today I started by taking the JDM exhaust manifold off as it is different from mine so I can't use it. Then I mounted the flywheel and new clutch, and finally bolted up the transmission. I did some maintenance on the engine too and replaced the thermostat, PCV Valve and new oil filter. After that I mounted my old wire harness including fuel injectors with the fuel rail, alternator and starter. Most of the plugs were easy but one thing I noticed was that I did not have a Purge Valve on this engine so I will have to reuse my old one from my D15B7 and just add it to my vacuum lines. I cleaned off the old throttle body gasket from the intake and then bolted on the throttle body and and connected all the appropriate hoses. Toward the end of the day I started screwing back all the ... Read More

Wednesday - Old engine extraction and engine bay cleanup Today started early at 9am, I picked up my flywheel from the Lordco machine shop and pressure plate bolts and throttle body gaskets from Honda. The bonus for today was I had a friend help me out to extract the engine out with was a great benefit while using the host cuz 2 people are always better then one. Unbolting the mounts was pretty easy but finding a place to hook up the chain was a bit tricky but by lunch time the motor was out. Soon after I sprayed the Engine compartment down with Simple Green a biodegradeable degresser and then hosed it down a couple of times. I made sure my fuel lines with wrapped up and after I used compressed air to blow out any of the electrical plugs and around any place water shouldn't be. Engine being lifted out by hoist Almost high enough to be pulled out On the left is engine bay before cleaning and right is after cleaning Full shot of clean engine bay, and on the right is another shot of old greasy D15B7  For The Previous Step Click Here > D16A Engine Swap - Day 2 For ... Read More

Tuesday - Ready old engine for extraction First thing in the morning I dropped off the Flywheel for machining and headed to Princess Auto for some oil drain pans and some other items. To start the engine removal process I jacked up the car and put it on stands ready for drive shaft removal. Taking both the axle nuts off was actually pretty easy but when I got to the lower ball joints is when the trouble started. I worked on those for a couple of hours but had no success so I decided to do something different. I took the top of the suspension off including the struts and managed to get both the axles off. The drivers side CV boot was already cracked so grease was everywhere but I am glad it broke on my stock wheels and not my new mags. After that I drained the coolant from the engine and took the radiator out and started to work on the electrical plugs and hoses. I found out that to separate the main plugs on both the left and right side I had to take them off the mounting brackets. Toward the end of the night I managed ... Read More

Monday - Get parts and prep the new engine I started the day by calling around for parts, organizing my tools and figuring what I had to do first. Then I went to MOPAC and picked up a Centerforce Dual Friction Clutch and Coquitlam AutoParts for the water pump, timing belt and pilot bearing. By the time I got started it was already 3pm so there was no time to waste. While changing the water pump and timing belt I ran into a problem taking off the main crankshaft bolt even with my heavy duty impact wrench. So I sprayed the bolt with lube and went onto unbolting the transmission. Pulling the tranny was pretty easy with the engine out, so in no time at all I had the whole clutch assembly apart. I went back to the front of the engine and this time I heated up the crankshaft pulley bolt and managed to get it off. The rest of the water pump and timing belt was a snap just bolt everything back on. After that I noticed that the throttle plate was really dirty so I pulled the whole throttle body of the intake and cleaned it up with ... Read More

It's a great start to 2008 as I have acquired a JDM D16A VTEC Engine with only 80,000KM's. It came with an Si tranny, Distributor and the P28 ECU. The plan is to change the timming belt, water pump and to replace the stock clutch with a Center Force 2 Clutch, Bearing and Pressure plate to get a better grip on the newly added horsepower. With this new engine, Short Ram Intake and my 2.5" exhaust I should be putting out 135-140HP now so laying rubber should be easy to do, and maybe get 2nd gear chirps. I took a picture of the engine with my cell phone but the lighting wasn't the best so the picture is a bit grainy but here it is the D16A VTEC. As you'll notice the valve cover is silver but down the road I will pull it off and get it powder coated cherry apple red to match the car. ... Read More