austinkli

I don't know if this is the right section for this, cause I really don't have any questions, i'm just really proud that I finally did it and finished it.

(the quality on these pics will vary greatly as some were done with my phone, some with my sister's camera, and some with my camera)
Sooooo after faaaaaarrrrrrr to long of a time, my motor swap is finally done. As you may recall some months ago my motor blew up. Had a pretty bad oil leak and needed refilled every 4 days, but the valve cover came loose and it spilled oil way faster. So a couple months back here's my car


That was a very sad night.
So after a while of sitting in the driveway... I finally got my new motor ordered. Picked myself a D15B w/vtec up for $550 from homotorsonline. Very good experience with them, you can read about that here. Also got myself a new tranny, it's just the stock tranny that comes with a D15B, which sucks because my old si tranny was a little faster but it's ok because my old one was slipping and the synchros were going bad.
So I brought it home, opened up my hood and took a few cans of brake cleaner, engine cleaner, and some purple power to clean the whole motor down and scrub the majority of the engine bay down, as well as the underside of my hood.


Finally my new motor arrives:




So then we got to disconnecting everything on the old motor, pulling all the hoses out, disconnecting all the wires, etc.



So After we got all the wires and hoses labeled we got to pulling the old one out




It came out amazingly smooth.






My mom's car had been out of the garage quite a while so she was happy as well


So now it was time to get the wiring harness swapped over. So far we hadn't had any real problems. All of this has been accomplished in about 2 hours and that was because we had to stop for the rain for about 20 minutes.



So now it was time to stick the new motor in. Still our worst problem has only been trying to get the water pump out. The torque wrench just wouldn't do it, spent a good 20 minutes with 3 people trying to loosen it, we barely budged it and then suddenly we tried the torque wrench again and it comes right off. No pictures of that, we were too irritated to pick up the camera. But I got the old water pump pulled out, it looks to be in really good condition but i felt it was a better idea to just replace that at the same time.

Now it's time for the new motor.





So while I got to hooking everything back up I let my sister take the old motor apart so we could know for sure what exactly happened.



Turns out I was right, it had spun a bearing.

So now that everything is back in it was time for me to switch the ECU. What i can tell you is that it's hard as **** to tell what wire is for what when you have trouble distinguishing colors.




I got stuck for a little while wondering why something was already plugged up in both A4 and D6 which is where I wire the Vtec up at. I pondered this for what I am embarassed to say was quite a while... until I followed it up and realized that these wires had no counterparts going to the motor, turns out my DX was already wired up for vtec. AWESOME!


So I ran out to the junkyard, and my gf tagged along with me, I don't think she'll ever do that again, grabbed some wires, only 2 civics there but fortunately I found exactly what I needed and got the plugs pulled out so I could use the wires.

Got the wires pulled out

hooked them up to the vtec solenoid and the VTM

got them grounded and plugged into the wiring harness

And finally I'm done

Here's a video to go with it. I love the sound of the vtec. Though I just listened to the video and the quality is really horrible.


So I cleaned it all up, and washed and waxed it, though I think it already needs it again.

94civicturbo

nice work man, your next thing should be fixin the rash on the rims lol

austinkli

Thanks. Well I had to worry about the motor first, gotta be able to get to work ya know.

Anyway, are there any tips or tricks to repairing those?

I bought them off of somebody already painted, and when I got them 3 out of 4 of them looked great, the 4th had just a little bit of paint coming off. Must have been a crap paint job though because after just a few months it all started flaking right off. They look horrible.

I was thinking that when I paint the rims I'll just sand down on the curb rash a little and repaint the outside silver before painting the inside gold.

94civicturbo

yeah just sand them down real good, i wanna do mine but if i do them im gonna powder coat them with the kjit that summit sells but i need an extra oven too, maybe ill finally convince my parents to get a new one

rep if that helps at all thanks

D16SiHatch

good to see you got the wiring issue situated. and ya gotta love hmotors. that engine looks hella clean

Bobby17772

looks great! you gotta love when things are already wired up for you and you don't even know it

GlassHeadlights

I'd try to pressure wash the rims, or use a paint remover. Then clear coat.

Then loose the pinstripe, lower and you're done!

Really nice work BTW.

austinkli

I'm gonna loose the pinstripe when I repaint it.

I do want to repaint the rims, and lower it 2 inches in the rear, 2.25 in the front.

After that I do have a whole lot of work for the interior.


And thanks. It was my first motor swap so I was really impressed and excited.

95b16coupe

dude, ditch the camera phone. lol

car looks good.

austinkli

It was my blackberry and I had an otter box case on so it made it a little hard to take pics with a film over the camera. Normally my little 2 megapixel shots come out good.

Sometimes I was just too greasy and dirty to pick up the camera. That and the gf took it to sea world for a little while.