Lean burn Honda Civic sedan: 93 Civic d15z1 swap into LX 4 door (VLX)

[MetroMPG]

Yup. I've been lurking, reading & watching.

[turbovr41991]

Awesome progress! You are doing some amazing stuff with the wiring of the two cars.

I am still wondering if I should bother pulling out the harnesses and swapping the power windows over in my CX to HX swap. I have read up on how to just wire them in with a few fused power lines and grounds to get everything functional, but still lean towards having the OEM HX plugs being functional. Unfortunately is cold outside and I am limited to working out in my driveway right now, which probably put the project off another few months.

If I had not come across such a great deal on an HX, I would have been shopping for a 4 door car to do this exact swap in. I still have not ruled out doing it either, just slowed me down a bit. To many projects and not enough time.

Keep up the great work!

[slownugly]

Thanks for the kind words. I have followed your swap as well. It kind of had me thinking about doing the 96-00 swap like yours but I have the makings of building another Vx engine so maybe after that one is done. I saw you pulled some excellent numbers with yours and I was impressed. Would be cool to use the factory harness for the power windows.

For the wiring on mine I just wanted it to look factory. I'll include a pic of all the engine bay connectors plugged in. It's clearer now how I back pinned the lx harness and just added wires where I needed them to match the Vx engine harness. The shield wire is still there too on the o2 sensor harness. I'm going to wire that to a ground and conceal it in the tubing that will go to the egr. I never use butt or crimp connectors I always solder and shrink wrap. Even if I'm using a crimp eyelets I crimp it then cut the plastic off and solder it then Shrink tube the entire end up til the eye. Makes it look very professional

[slownugly]

wires are hooked up to the driver and passenger side strut towers. the right picture is hard to see but its the same as the lx harness just wanted to show that the vx engine harness hooked right up to the lx harness on the driver side



next i looked toward the egr side of the harness and finishing the rest of the harness to make it look pretty. the lx map sensor was bolted to the firewall and had conduit and clips holding it against the firewall(see 1st pic below this paragraph). since the new one is bolted to the throttle body on the vx i removed the sensor( i already rewired the vx map sensor externally through my main harness), cut off the wires, and pulled them through the conduit to make it an open conduit. i then ran the yellow egr wire and a black wire from the 02 sensor shield wire through the existing map conduit and clipped it to the firewall like the factory did and grounded the o2 shield on one of the bolts for the egr box. then ran more conduit to finish up the egr signal wire. all i have to do is wire the black/yellow wire for the egr box to a key on power. finished the engine bay up by putting conduit on my harness i made and taping it up like the factory did. came out very nice and professional

[slownugly]

i started doing some stuff on the intake manifold today, i figured i would clean the egr passages and fix the pcv valve. im slowly starting to realize this thread will include almost every aspect of the vx (d15z1) that makes it special as well as regular maintenance procedures that may be specific to the vx. hopefully this whole thread can help anyone out in the future. anyway here we go

most vx owners may know this but honda made the pcv valve on the vx OPEN from the factory. not many mechanics would know the difference so when they used the old "shake the pcv valve to see if its insides were still loose" and they heard nothing they ordered a pcv valve as part of a tune up. well this is my second vx one i am fixing and it is quite easy to do. i believe there is a write up already but ill show a pic of it. all you have to do is use a saw/seraded knife/grinder/dremel to cut away the lower nipple until the raised section is gone and the inside guts will fall right out. very simple


Edit: I found out vxs do have a pcv valve. The questions only where it's at. Some have the valve at the breather and some have it at the intake.

[slownugly]

next i looked toward the egr passages. this one has 7 or 8 egr plugs over the holes at different locations the first pic will show them. you might have to look closesly but in the second pic you can see i already drilled out the ends that are verical and the one directly between the 2nd and 3rd runner. by doing this you can take a light and look directly through the egr passage and if you see light clearly there isnt a block and it should be simple.i lucked out even with having 240k on this intake and they were extremely clean. you can see the other side of the intake in the 2nd picture and how i set up the parts washer to run through the passages. the pictures after that you can see the fluid going through the passages and coming out of the top hole i drilled and the other side one.






last picture is a throttle body comparison. the smaller one is the vx throttle body the larger one is the d15b7 throttle body from the lx

[slownugly]

couple updates. im sending the pictures to my photobucket and they will be there by the time i get home from work so i can post them after this thread. i tapped threads in the egr holes i drilled and installed bolts with white thread sealer (same stuff used for head bolts, vaccum nipples etc.) further note i looked up the intake runners to the egr ports in each indiviual cylinder and put parts washer throught to make sure they were open all the way. if they were clogged i would have to drill out the remaining egr plugs. i installed the intake manifold, exhaust manifold and converter. also got the power steering pump on. i started replacing all the heater hoses and radiator hoses. i have to do the thermostat as well.

special update is i just picked up a "vx swap kit" im very pleased with my find on craigslist and it was only 15 miles away. body is beat and thrown together. but its a 94 vx everything is stock and everything is there. i drove it home. still has the a/c condensor plastic block off, partial grill block, and factory d15z1 from the air box to the cat converter. even the wheels are the factory 13's and in decent shape. all for $450!!
im thinking of swapping it into a 92-95 coupe or an earlier crx next. any suggestions? pictures coming later tonight

[slownugly]

[turbovr41991]

wow! that is an awesome deal!!!!

[slownugly]

Heck yea it is. I'm so glad I saved it. I can only imagine the tuners and scrap guys that were trying to get ahold of it. Im harvesting all of the Vx specific parts for another swap. It needs a lot of work. Rad support/hood/ bumper/ both entire rear quarters and that's without even taking it up on the lift yet. I'll probly sell it as a shell for scrap price after its stripped.