1998 Civic LX to HX D16y5 conversion has begun!

[Xist]

My black Civic gets so hot I wish it were white!

[firehawk618]

Originally Posted by figit090

Ironically, there's a car I want 44 minutes away from where you are...but 550 miles from where I am. WTF?

OMG.

can't wait until one comes up near me...

Thanks for the info on the swap...I will probably not get the chance to do that like you did but i'll keep my eye out for a blown-engine 'mechanics special' haha.

550 Miles is nothing. Just over a tank of fuel. Could be a fun day IF the car was as clean as envisioned.


The supposed VX transmission I picked up the other day is NOT a VX trans. It's got Si gearing At least I thought to check it BEFORE installing it. I personally saw the VX engine it was attached to when I was there picking it up. Oh well.

All is not lost though, the trans I ended up with is the closest gearing, lowest final drive ratio they made. Should be a good one for my future turbo D-series build.

The bright side is, I looked at our local pick a part online *two locations* and searched 92-95 civic. There was ONE CX there. I figured the drivetrain would be gone or swapped out but said to heck with it, packed up tools and drove out there this am.

I anxiously head to the car. Before I even get close to it I can see the drivetrain is gone.

I go up to inspect the car and see if the trans is laying in the hatch or seat or something but nope, it's all long gone..........

Until I look on the seat of the car NEXT to it. Boom, there a d series trans sitting right there.....could it be?

I anxiously stick it in 4th, mark the differential and input shaft.

One, two, two and 3/4 revolutions of the inputshaft made one revolution of the differential! YES! And I didn't even have to pull the damned thing!

Grab input shaft and firmly wiggle it around, it's TIGHT!

Get home with it, pressure wash the he!! out of it, boy was it greasy.

Yank out the DX trans, slap in the VX trans.

All went nice. Fire up the car ***WHIRRRRRRRRRR***

Crap I know that sound. Main shaft and or input shaft bearing noise. UGN......

Drove it around, yep it's noisy. Ordered a bearing kit to fix this seemingly hard to find trans which I will do next weekend.

At least they're damned easy to pull out and fairly simple to split open.


I can tell already the super high final drive is going to get me great economy.

Cruising at 60mph my gauge, on flat steady ground sits low 60's easy. Before in the same situation I was VERY lucky to see 50 in lean burn or not.

I was showing low 60's and NO leanburn yet as my RPM's were too low!

I like the taller gearing, the Y5 I think is a good match with all the VERY low end torque it produces *relatively speaking*

I can say with 100% confidence that gearing trumps leanburn for economy on the D16y5 no matter what.

[California98Civic]

Nice. I spent half the day in the salvage yard today too. Lots of civics, all picked over for what I needed. I bet your find today was pulled by someone hoping for the EX or Si gearing. When they did the test you did they cursd like sailors I bet!

Also, I have that CX tranny, a 1993. Bought it from a San Diego yard via carpart.com. i found that 4th in the 1993 CX tranny is almost the same ratio as 5th on the 1998 DX tranny. With 13" vx wheels and 175/70 tires, gauge shows about 2050 rpms at about 60mph in 5th. Get that kit, get it in order, enjoy.

[firehawk618]

Originally Posted by California98Civic

Nice. I spent half the day in the salvage yard today too. Lots of civics, all picked over for what I needed. I bet your find today was pulled by someone hoping for the EX or Si gearing. When they did the test you did they cursd like sailors I bet!

Also, I have that CX tranny, a 1993. Bought it from a San Diego yard via carpart.com. i found that 4th in the 1993 CX tranny is almost the same ratio as 5th on the 1998 DX tranny. With 13" vx wheels and 175/70 tires, gauge shows about 2050 rpms at about 60mph in 5th. Get that kit, get it in order, enjoy.

You are absolutely right. 4th now is like my 5th used to be.

It's very nice basically having another gear now.

The funny thing is the whole engine was GONE from the CX. Whoever pulled it must not have had any idea as to what that motor was.

You were right on them pulling it and figuring out the ratio sucked for what they wanted. The whole thing was covered in muck EXCEPT the sticker that said S20 was wiped clean lol.

[MPGomatic]

Originally Posted by Xist

My black Civic gets so hot I wish it were white!

Dip it!

I covered Slambo's original silver paint with Eastwood's Elastiwrap (their version of Plastidip). You'll need at least a gallon of the stuff, at a minimum, for the thinnest coverage. I'd recommend a 50% more than that, and a topcoat. (Slambo's Blueberry Haze experiment is mostly a gallon of white, with a wee bit of black and blue.)

Elastiwrap is in the $100 per gallon range, but Eastwood runs specials on it from time to time. The sprayer is similar to a Wagner Power Painter.

http://pic.twitter.com/h502BwputL

ElastiWrap - Paints & Coatings

[Xist]

VX engine and SI transmission? How was that a good combination?

[figit090]

It's all relative, my current situation makes traveling that far to look at a car risky and too expensive. I can't just road-trip for every nice looking car that might be gone by that afternoon. I don't trust random people to hold a car in good faith if someone offers a few hundred more. :/

Also, our cars get roughly 23mpg tops, so that's about $150 just in gas, nevermind food and a hotel stay (because I'd rather not drive 1100 miles in a day AND deal with buying a car. 550 is fun, 1k miles wouldn't be (unless I was alone and in my new car, lol).

Anyway, glad you got a good result! All that is over my time constraints and willpower I think but if I find the right combo, maybe!

All the transmission types and gear ratio options confuse me at the moment, haha. Too bad you can't get a good ratio AND lean-burn.

Originally Posted by firehawk618

550 Miles is nothing. Just over a tank of fuel. Could be a fun day IF the car was as clean as envisioned.


The supposed VX transmission I picked up the other day is NOT a VX trans. It's got Si gearing At least I thought to check it BEFORE installing it. I personally saw the VX engine it was attached to when I was there picking it up. Oh well.
...

...
I can say with 100% confidence that gearing trumps leanburn for economy on the D16y5 no matter what.

[Chrysler kid]

Originally Posted by firehawk618

550 Miles is nothing. Just over a tank of fuel. Could be a fun day IF the car was as clean as envisioned.

I like the taller gearing, the Y5 I think is a good match with all the VERY low end torque it produces *relatively speaking*

I can say with 100% confidence that gearing trumps leanburn for economy on the D16y5 no matter what.

Get a few more tanks of gas under your belt and some pictures of all this work you're doing would be great too, I enjoy documenting and seeing pictures of builds.

Id like to find a Dyno sheet showing a stock y5 curve in 12v operation it is probably a more torque than a b series

To agree and contradict you; I would lose mileage switching back to a long geared trans just because I spend most of my longer sections of commute at 50-55mph. Sometimes the extra throttle to stay in lean burn would hurt my tank average.

[Chrysler kid]

Originally Posted by Xist

My black Civic gets so hot I wish it were white!

Get some of the window vent visors off of amazon, and a good sun shade. Really helps in Texas but I'm sure the Arizona dry heat is a lot harder than here in Texas

[Chrysler kid]

Originally Posted by figit090

It's all relative, my current situation makes traveling that far to look at a car risky and too expensive. I can't just road-trip for every nice looking car that might be gone by that afternoon. I don't trust random people to hold a car in good faith if someone offers a few hundred more. :/

Also, our cars get roughly 23mpg tops, so that's about $150 just in gas, nevermind food and a hotel stay (because I'd rather not drive 1100 miles in a day AND deal with buying a car. 550 is fun, 1k miles wouldn't be (unless I was alone and in my new car, lol).

Anyway, glad you got a good result! All that is over my time constraints and willpower I think but if I find the right combo, maybe!

All the transmission types and gear ratio options confuse me at the moment, haha. Too bad you can't get a good ratio AND lean-burn.

You do realize that everyone responding in this thread knows WAY too much about Honda civics right? If you asked nicely I'm sure any of us could try to broker a deal for you and you can fly out to pick the car up and drive it back home