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

I found a 1993 Honda Civic that has an S2000 engine and tranny making it rear wheel drive. The whole interior has be redone with an S2000 dash and a super loud stereo system. Click Here for link. ... Read More

The most common cause of Honda engines getting rebuilt is the infamous timing belt breaking. When your engine is running, the bottom half (block, crankshaft, and pistons) and top half (cylinder head, Valves, springs and retainers) are synchronized to make sure that the valves don't hit the pistons. When the timing belt breaks the top half (valve train) stops working and some valves maybe left in such a position that when the pistons comes back up to TDC (TOP DEAD CENTER) they make contact. The piston is much stronger then the valves so usually what happens is that the valves get bent in the valve guides and you may have a good mark left in the top of the piston from the valve head. If you would like to know more about this subject I found a great post at D-Series forums today that describes everything in detail. Click Here for link. ... Read More

Today during lunch at work I was really keen on buying a 6″ tuna sub and some chocolate chip cookies. I was on my way to my car when a good friend of mine insisted that I take his car and test it out for him. I wasn’t gonna take it at first but he insisted that I take it and let him know what I think of it since I am a honda guy.  He drives a green EG Civic Si Coupe that’s dropped about 1″ all the way around and looks nice with tint on the back windows. I drove it up to subway and back and noticed big differences between his car and mine. My D16 with VTEC defineatly excelleraties way faster and has more kick to it. My Si tranny is way easier to drive, because as long as I am rolling the car in traffic I can engage 2nd gear and start driving. Before with my old DX tranny I had to always start in 1st gear and I be around 60KM’s to engage 5th gear. His 5th gear revs around 1500RPM in 5th gear at 60KM where as mine revs about 1800RPM so it’s easier to shift into 5th at a lower speed. Besides that both our cars drive nice except on bumps, his 1″ drop springs are way ... Read More

I went out for a luncheon today in Richmond with my brother and a friend to meet some fellow bloggers. I met a bunch of interesting people including famous blogger John Chow and Yaro Starak. Once I came back home it was only 4pm and the weather wasn't to bad so I had a friend come over and help me out on the '95 civic project. Last week I found out that I had oil in the spark plug holes so today I decided I was going to clean them out. I pulled the spark plug wires out and used a syringe with a fish air hose at the end to suck out all the oil, then used bounty paper towels to soak up any excess oil at the bottom. You can see in the left picture the oil is almost covering the spark plug and in the middle picutre it shows one of the bad seals that caused this whole issue. The last picture shows the spark plug soaked with oil on the threads. Once I pulled the spark plugs out I let the small amount of excess oil at the botttom drip into the cylinder. I ... Read More

Saturday I opened up the hood of the D15 Civic and pressure washed the engine bay, but being careful not to spray water on the distributor. I covered the distributor with a rag and plastic bag to protect it. When I was done spraying it off I got my air compressor out and used compressed air to blow off any water around all electrical plugs and air hoses. I had a friend of mine helping me out so it went really fast and once I was done she asked what those black plugs on top of the valve cover were. I told her they were spark plug wires and that she could pull one out and look at the plug down below. She tried but was scared not to break anything so I pulled one out and then something caught me of guard. When I pulled the plug wire out of the valve cover hole it was full of oil! I said crap how did that get in there. From what I know the only way oil could be in there is from bad plug hole seals. I checked all the plug wires for all cylinders and they ... 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

I've been really busy with other hobbies so I havn't had much time to devote to my car project in April but 2 days ago I aquired another civic. It's a 1995 red civic hatch like mine, it needs some work but I have most of the parts already so now I just have to put some labour into fixing it. I don't know what i'm gonna do with it yet but I might fix it so i can drive it, then park my project car and finally get around to doing the body work this summer and paint it.   ... 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 found another thread on an engine swap but this one has a lot of detail on what was done to the engine and how things were done so it will be a great reference point when I start to build up my turbo engine. Sonny 1st Gen CRX ... Read More

I was jumping on the web again today and found a red civic hatch just like mine that has already been fixed up, although he has a bigger engine then mine it still looks good with the body kit and tint. 94 Civic Hatch ... Read More

Found an older EK (88-91) Civic that is boosted on a D16Z6 motor with SRP pistons, eagle rods, block gaurd, turbo tronics turbo charger, edelbrock intake and more, very nice 1/4 mile times too. EK Civic ... Read More

I found a nice EG(92-95) Red Civic Hatch just like mine that has a B16A with a Turbonetics turbo and a nice intercooler on turbocivic.com. Check it out. EGBoost ... Read More

Found a great forum post on a D16 turbo build with lots of details. D16 Boosted ... Read More

First snow fall was today 2cm in the high parts of the city and man am I happy I took off my 15" low profile tires and mags and put back my 13" steel wheels. I did it last saturday after work and at the same time I raised the front coilovers 3 turns and the back 2 turns. So now it sits a little bit high but gives it more clearance when the real snow start falling in January. I took another picture, she looks a bit plain jane again but who cares atleast my mags and tires are gonna be all clean and ready to go come spring time.           ... Read More

I found an article of a K20A2 engine from a 2001-2006 Acura RSX engine being swapped into a 1978 Honda Civic. The K20A2 is a DOHC VTEC engine with 11:1 compression ratio and 200HP / 142ft/lbs. So adding this powerful engine into a car from 1978 of such less weight would be it fly. 1978 CIVIC Swap ... Read More

I stumbled on this video of a 1st Generation Civic being driven by Hightower in Police Academy. ... Read More

So get this, everyone always thinks that small cars are crap cuz they can't transport long things that vans and station wagaons can. Well I had a project that needed 8 foot long 2x4's and didn't have a van but I knew I could fold down the seats and just leave my rear hatch open for anything that sticks out. So I went down to Home Depot bought some 8 foot long 2x4's and started loading them into my car but what I didn't realize is that I could completely fit 8 foot long 2x4's in my hatch and have the rear hatch closed. I load them on the passenger side of the car all the way down to the foot level and up toward the bench seats in the rear. While loading my car I even got a comment from another Home Depot customer that said "wow I didn't realize you can fit 8 foot long pieces of lumber in your civic, thats great". It maybe small but sure does a great job at packing long loads ... Read More

I finally got around to painting the front calipers and rotors red so now the car looks good all the way around. I was wondering if I should paint the rotors too but did them anyways cuz the rust was bugging me. If I don't like it down the line I can easily wire wheel the paint off. My next big task will be the paint job but i'm still looking for a front bumper so gotta wait till then. Once I get the custom bumper I can do a dry fit and then start preping the car for paint. ... Read More

Bouncing around some forums I found a website about a chick that races a Honda CRX with a 1/4 mile time of 11.7sec at 129 mph. She has a B16B block and B16A head plus a wack of other crazy mods including a Turbonetics turbo. It's called staciescrx and for a chick she does pretty good down the track. ... Read More