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Lean burn Honda Civic sedan: 93 Civic d15z1 swap into LX 4 door (VLX)
I haven't seen a build thread on this swap yet so I'm going to start one for mine. Keep in mind I have 4 or 5 projects going on so if I don't update every day don't worry I will post as much as I can. As well as with my other projects. Enjoy!!
Donor car- 94 civic Vx. Bought in va drove flawlessly. After I got it home I noticed the twisted frame. Bad inspection on my part :( my loss. Frame shop said if he pulled it the welds would come apart. Car is all stock except for the header and air tube. Engine was supposed to be rebuilt and has a new exedy clutch. Subject car- 93 lx 4 door. Owned for 2 years. Stock 285k on the odometer. Has rust. Already installed Vx wheels. I drove for a while and was able to achieve 47mpg average with eoc. However the engine recently started running funny. I've been planning this swap for some time and it's time to get started |
The Vx is one of the lightest hatches made in this generation due to manual operation of windows, mirrors, steering; as well as other weight saving techniques. The lx on the other hand would be one of the heavier models. 4 door sedan with power windows, mirrors, steering, locks; as well as a/c. I'm not worried about the power output of the z1 engine and I'm fairly confident the dfco will be fantastic. Ive noticed the heavier car coasts so much easier due to the increased weight. That paired with the tall Vx gears and the z1's love for low rpms/dfco will be a home run(im hoping)
Goals- 50 mpg average while maintaining the stock appearance. It will be the economy sedan Honda never made in this generation. A mesh of the 2 models. Basically what it would look like if someone special ordered it from the factory. Also while keeping the pros of both models ( fuel economy and power accessories) when the car gets painted VLX will be stenciled on the trunk lid. To follow are pics of both cars, Vx manifolds and ecus, rust free body parts, and quarter patch panels |
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Subscribed & watching with interest.
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engine will be out of the hatchback within 2 weeks. i spent the last 2 weekends finishing up the engine swap in my future stepsons car. (96 toyota corolla) i have head gaskets to do in a customers cougar on the side this week. then its time to yank the engine in the vx and start prepping it for the 4 door. it will be running before the snow falls because i dont want to drive my vx in the snow with the harsh salt (or whatever) they put on the roads. we have never done so many brake lines on customer's cars! its ridiculous
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http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1351008178.jpg
http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1351008321.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1351010747.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1351010835.jpg engine will be out saturday. i have most of it ready as you can see. i also cut the pigtails for the oxygen sensor,egr, and ecu to pinout the ecu externally from the harness instead of taking the dash apart to swap the cabin harness. also just got some extras in the mail. im slowly gathering parts for even another d15z1 swap. i took the vx instrument cluster apart and cleaned it. i also matched the mileage to the 4 door and buffed the clear lens it came out pretty good. last picture is with it all installed in the 4 door. note the shift indicater light |
I want to come play in your Honda garage and build Frankenstein gas milage cars. I found a nice 4 door chassis that I would like to do but I don't have a place
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Haha honestly I wish I could do this as my main profession. Sadly we work on junk all the time and personal projects as these get pushed to the weekend and lunch breaks. As promised I got the Vx engine out and started doing the wiring harness conversion. Pics to follow. We haven't had power at the garage since Sunday because of the hurricane:(http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1351476808.jpg
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Made Some good progress today with the wiring. I'm not going into great detail about the wiring. NOTE: not all 92-95 civics have the same color wires to different sensors so not every swap will not be the same. I can answer any questions if anybody has any. I will let the pics speak for themselves for the most part.
I got the wires pinned out from the Vx ecu plug and got them connected into the p07 ecu. Also plugged the ecu in to get it ready. I labeled all the wires. http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1351871933.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1351882412.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1351901398.jpg |
Next came the plug on the passenger side shock tower. Only one was different and it contained the map sensor wires and the vtec wires. I switched the pins from the Vx harness side and labeled them. I labeled everything so after the engine is in I can wire it up easily. Also I mounted the egr box on the firewall. Honda made it easy there were 2 holes with threads there. They have rubber plugs in them from the factory.
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Since I've seen this swap done on numerous vehicles anything from coupes to del sols to crxs and I'm sure someone has done one in a sedan; I want to bring somthing a little different to this one. A couple new ideas here and there that would be fun. Since the Vx shift indicator takes up the spot in the cluster for the cruise control I thought it would be cool to make a spot and add the cruise at another spot. Here are a couple pics I started. The spot on the left of the engine light is the one I cleared away. The light will be an amber color just like the engine light. It will require some custom fabrication and wiring but I think it's gona turn out cool. I'll have a shift indicator light and cruise control indicator all that looks factory
http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1351900935.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1351900774.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1351908713.jpg |
got that little project done. was very easy and took maybe a half hour. (once i found the cruise control letters i cut out and proceeded to lose) i already traced the wiring on the back of the cluster circuit board to where the connector pushes in and which terminal i need to install the pinout into. now all i have to do is switch the original lx cruise control wire into the new pinout i just made and wire the shift indicator light wire from the ecm to the plug for the corresponding connector on the cluster and voila it should work fine. the empty spot where i put the cruise bulb looks like it gets a key on power and the cruise control module grounds the light bulb when it sees that its working. ill test for power and ground and hook a ground up to the wire to make sure it works properly and to show everyone how it will look.
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Got the engine out of the 4 door today. Also got the wiring hooked up to the computer. I'm going to wait til the engine is in and hooked up to finish the wire looms and taping to make it look pretty. I drilled a hole in the firewall to run the wires through and installed a rubber grommet. Next is to clean the engine bay up and get the z1 ready to install
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Engine bay after pic. Its not perfect but it's much more presentable. After all it's going to be a driver. Took the ac c
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Ompressor out and cleaned it. Also started switching brackets over. I noticed the Vx ac mount/ lower engine mount is aluminum as the lx one is steel. One little difference that I did not know about the Vx.
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Woohoo - she's in!
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Yup!! I'm pretty anxious to get it going. I have the intake off to clean the egr ports. I'll slowly start putting it back together on my lunch breaks. Everything was pretty straight forward the mounts were used from the Vx. The power steering bracket bolted right on. I'm hoping to have it running by next Saturday. Stay tuned
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Yup. I've been lurking, reading & watching.
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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! |
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 http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353009595.jpg |
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
http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353088652.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353090927.jpg 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 http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353088951.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353090640.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353091261.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353090437.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353090290.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353090046.jpg |
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 http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353347039.jpg 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. |
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.
http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353343133.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353346160.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353346827.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353346474.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353347838.jpg 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 http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353343472.jpg |
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 |
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wow! that is an awesome deal!!!!
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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.
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Nice find!
I like how you call it a "VX swap kit". Sort of like how I was calling electric forklifts "EV conversion kits" when we were converting the ForkenSwift. |
Haha it's still not as challenging or rewarding as a forklift swap. I'm impressed there are a lot of really smart DIY guys on this site
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Well I planned on getting her running today but I started feeling bad last night and I woke up with the flu. So while I was laying in bed I figured I might research a little notion that I had a while ago for the d15z1. It's pretty circumstantial on whether a cheap roller or complete car could be aquired. The complete/ nice ones can be had for 5-6k in driver condition and there's one on eBay right now at 1600 that needs work. It would be worth the swap if a vehicle was readily available for cheap. 1959-2001 mini cooper. Not sure if anyone has seen this before. Check out the link
Classic Mini Cooper - Vtec D Series Honda Engine Conversion Kit For Mini |
Top end is assembled. The smaller diameter Vx air tube still has the same size end that attaches to the airbox so it slid right on. I finished installing all new coolant hoses, thermostat and fan.
http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353967857.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353967520.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1353967256.jpg Next is to finish the bottom end ( axles, exhaust, shifter,etc.) look for it to be running in the next post. |
She runs. SOunds good too!! No check engine light. Shift light comes on with key on and goes off as it should. I ran out of time I have some loose ends to tie up with the exhaust and brakes before I can drive it. Pics to come Monday. And hopefully mpg results next week!!! :)
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Congrats!
Are you planning to keep this as a daily driver? |
thanks!! yes i commute almost 700 miles a week so its going right into daily duty. i dont want to drive my 93 vx in the winter so ill substitute it with this 93 vlx til next spring.
I must have done somthing right. This morning i let it get up to operating temperature and it idled fine. I took it up the road and it ran fine. no problem with power output pulling out from a stop. no check engine lights. shift light worked as did my custom cruise control indicator. i have pics but i want to capture both the cruise and shift light coming on at the same time. i also tucked the wires underneath the dash in conduit. i took the downpipe from the new vx i picked up and it worked perfectly and even bolted up to the lx converter. im very pleased so far. before i can drive it long distance i have to install front calipers, brake master cylinder, and inspect it. look for pics by the end of the day. |
I also am including a pic of the power side of the egr box. I captured both lights working but it's a little fuzzy my cameras out of focus. On my second test drive it wasn't even that warm yet and I already was feeling lean burn :)
http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1354552885.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1354553229.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1354554545.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1354554793.jpg http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/...1354556374.jpg I'm using my old 02 sensor which has a noticeable stumble. It's brand new but when I get a new one I will explain the difference. Both have the same part number. |
Wow, looks awesome. I am very jealous of this car! Expect me to do something similar in a 99 – 00 sedan. I have been looking FOREVER for a clean 99-00 EX 4 door manual trans for a good price, but keep turning up empty handed. One of these days the right deal will pop up locally…
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yea somthing will pop up and it might even be when you arent looking or after you give up looking haha. thats how it usually works. dont be too jealous the body on the car still looks terrible :( and it needs some interior work to be perfect but oh well.
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