Hey there,
This is my girlfriends hot little Honda ED Civic Hatch. It was been her first car and she owned it for 3 years. Originally, it was fitted with a dual carb 1.5L D15B4 engine but late last year after it began using oil faster than we put it in, we decided it was time to fit a new engine.
Tired of the standard engines lack of power & miserable fuel economy, we began looking at other options... So it was time for an engine conversion!
Engine prior to fitment
The motor in its new home
Wanting something different and easier to fit, we chose a JDM(Japanese Domestic Market) D15B SOHC VTEC motor with 37,000Km's compared to rather expensive B16B(Civic Type R Motor) that we were looking at. With the D15B VTEC engine making 130Hp(96Kw) from the factory, it was also a much simpler swap and much cheaper on parts. We had the old engine out and the new motor in the engine bay waiting to start up in a week.
With the new engine bolting up to the factory mounts & gearbox making it a very simple swap. The hurdle was the Carb to EFI fuel system & making a wiring harness to join the two generations of Civic. This was involved but quite an easy task.
An external 400Hp fuel pump supplies the fuel with the powerful new motor controlled by the engines original ECU. Using this ECU allows the car to idle, perform and retain the fuel economy of a factory vehicle. The engine is limited to 7800rpm using the factory ECU, although aftermarket chips can allow the engine to safely rev to 9200rpm!!
Using VTEC technology, the car is very nice to drive around town being quite responsive and economical. However, when driven hard, it performs well enough to be mistaken for a much larger capacity engine.
Finally got around to sprucing up the engine bay with some paint. Notice the new Distributor, intake pipe and pod filter.
