1993 Honda Civic del Sol Si - previous NA d16z6 build and current JDM GSR build

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Curlybandit

Well-Known Member
Hey everyone.

I had been asked by another member on here to provide details of my previous build when I put up a "For Sale" thread for all my d-series parts.

I have a 1993 Honda Civic del Sol Si. I bought it in 2012 off my brother-in-law. He was the second owner and almost never drove it. The car had only 150,000km and had never seen rain. At the time it had a bone-stock d16z6, automatic transmission and lowering springs. It's gone through quite a few changes since then. It looks like an otherwise stock del Sol on the outside and only has 168,000km on it.

Lets start with this:

Suspension:
- Skunk2 Pro-S V2 coil-overs: 10K front, 8K rear springs
- Buddy Club extended ball joints
- Skunk2 Pro-Series camber adjusters
- Skunk2 Black Series lower control arms with red polyurethane bushings
- Black BWR sub-frame brace
- BEAKS 22mm Integra Type-R sway bar
- unknown manufacturer upper strut bar

Rims/Tires (track):
- 15" bronze Rota Circuit 10
- BF Goodrich g-force Rival S 205/50/15 front and back

Brakes:
- DC2 front knuckles/spindles
- Re-drilled Brembo blank 11.1" Prelude SR-V rotors
- Integra Type-R calipers
- Hawk HP+ pads front
- Hawk HPS rear
- Russell braided stainless-steel brake lines
- 1" Integra Type-R master cylinder and booster

Exhaust:
- Vibrant Metal Core catalytic converter (2.5")
- Vibrant Ultra Quiet resonator 2.5"
- Vibrant Ultra Quiet resonator 2.5" as muffler
- Trubendz pre-fabricated 2.5" stainless steel mandrel bent exhaust

Miscellaneous:
- Mishimoto aluminum radiator
- B&M fuel pressure regulator
- B&M fuel pressure gauge
- chipped P06 tuned on Neptune
- Walbro 255lph fuel pump

All of the above are still on the car.

Here's what the previous motor and transmission build was like:

Exhaust:
- 1320 4-1 RMF header (2.5" collector)
- remaining exhaust as above

d16z6 block:
- resurfaced 0.004", rebuilt: Top Line gasket kit
- bored to 75.5mm
- P29 pistons (Nippon Racing) - 75.5mm
- NPR piston rings
- ACL race bearings
- ARP rod bolts
- crank journals resurfaced
- Innovative Mounts AT-MT passenger side mount 60A (red) Polyurethane
- Innovative Mounts rear side mount 75A (black) Polyurethane
- Innovative Mounts driver's side mount 75A (black) Polyurethane
- 11.4lbs Competition Clutch flywheel
- miscellaneous parts (i.e. water pump, belts, etc) all Honda OEM

d16z6 head:
- ported and polished
- resurfaced 0.004" (IIRC)
- Rocket Motorsports stage 4 camshaft (re-grind of stock d16z6)
- Rocket Motorsports valve springs
- Rocket Motorsports titanium spring retainers
- AEM Tru-Time camshaft gear
- ARP head studs
- Cometic 75.5mm head gasket
- Denso spark plugs gapped and supplied by Rocket Motorsports
- Skunk2 intake manifold with 70mm inlet
- OBX plastic intake manifold gasket cut to match head intake ports
- 60mm b18b throttle body with KMS FITV block-off plate
- generic short-ram intake
- Skunk2 air filter with velocity stack

This was the best part: the transmission. It was built specifically to keep the revs high and in VTEC. Perfect for the technical short tracks.

Transmission:
- S40 B000 5-speed (Japan)
- Quaife LSD
- Exedy Pro Kit clutch
- 11.4lbs Competition Clutch flywheel
- ARP flywheel bolts
- Innovative Mounts Auto-Manual transmission mount (red 60A polyurethan)
- Synchrotech Carbon Synchro Rebuild Kit

Gearing:
1. 3.250 (stock)
2. 1.909 (stock)
3. 1.565 (MFactory)
4. 1.250 (stock 3rd)
5. 0.878 (ZC)
FD. 4.25 (stock)

Compared to stock:
1. 3.250
2. 1.909
3. 1.250
4. 0.909
5. 0.702
FD. 4.25

The motor made 158whp and 116wtrq on a Mustang Dyno. For those that aren't aware, the Mustang Dyno is known to produce some of the lowest output when compared with other dynos like the DynoJet. The motor conceivably made around 180-185 crank HP.

I've attached a pic of the dyno chart. You can see the previous setup that I had with a different intake/header/exhaust and where the most signficant power increases are.
Screen Shot 2018-09-10 at 11.29.48 PM.png


Here a video of the dyno run where it made 158whp and 116wtrq at the end of April in 2017.


Here's a video of me chasing down an Acura RSX Type-S (badged as a Honda Integra) at the track. You can really hear the VTEC crossover in the little 1600cc single-cam as well as the short gear ratios between 2-3-4.


Unfortunately the party ended when I went to the track on May 22, 2017 and an exhaust valve broke and destroyed the motor. I barely had a chance to enjoy my creation before extremely limited tolerances in a highly overbuilt NA made it give up its ghost.... Here's a video of when the valve dropped and ended up shredding the underside of the head and put a hole in the piston:


Current Setup:

After this disaster I considered building another d16 but I chose instead to go another route. Reliable Honda OEM performance. I picked up a OBD1 JDM GSR motor and a '96-'97 spec Integra Type-R S80 LSD 5-speed (4.4FD).

The modifications are as follows:
- Skunk2 intake filter with velocity stack
- Generic 3" aluminum short-ram intake
- 68mm throttle body
- Skunk2 Pro Series intake manifold for GSR
- Integra Type-R intake camshaft
- GReddy 4-2-1 header
- same catalytic converter and cat-back exhaust as above
- Exedy clutch
- Competition Clutch 12.3lbs flywheel

It's tuned on Neptune and made 197.8whp and 138.3wtrq on the same Mustang Dyno with the same tuner.

Here's the dyno video. The dyno chart is at the end of the video. It's overlaid on top of the previous d16z6 motor. You can see the difference in power between the two setups.


Here's a video of me being passed by a BMW M2 while I was doing a warm-up lap and then chasing it down and passing it:


I don't plan on going crazy with this one. I'm very happy with the current setup and have tons of fun at the track. The only mods I'll be looking to do are to replaced the Loss Motion Assembly components because the motor has that annoying ticking when not in VTEC and rebuild the transmission using another Synchrotech Carbon Synchro rebuild kit. I may consider getting a 4.7, 4.9 or 5.1 final drive....

I hope you guys enjoy this thread! I have another thread on here if you want to see pics. If you wanted to watch more video or subscribe to my channel, look for dstavs on YouTube or go to this link:
https://www.youtube.com/user/dstavs

Thanks!
 
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Thank you for this blessing to HS with a quality thread and sweet Del Sol , its a pleasant read compared to my shit doesnt run whst should I do
 
This is awesome. Thanks so much! I didn't realize that I had already read about your build on Honda-Tech- but the information was spread over quite a few places, and I think not all the pictures worked. Now it's all in one place. That's a pretty sweet build! What do you think could have been done differently to save the engine? Different retainers/keepers? Valves?
 
This is awesome. Thanks so much! I didn't realize that I had already read about your build on Honda-Tech- but the information was spread over quite a few places, and I think not all the pictures worked. Now it's all in one place. That's a pretty sweet build! What do you think could have been done differently to save the engine? Different retainers/keepers? Valves?

Thank you! I was thinking the same as you. Everything is all together on one thread now. Maybe I'll put it up on Honda-tech as well.

I think what lead to the destruction of the motor was a single degree of advanced timing.... The year prior I had a different intake/header/exhaust setup. When we did the Dyno tuning I chose not to adjust the timing. I knew that the tolerances were really small. It was a 13:1 compression engine with an aggressive cam. I wasn't concerned about valve float because the springs are exceptional pieces from Rocket Motorsports. The following year however, when we were Dyno tuning with the new I/H/E I felt a little more ballzy and chose to advance the timing a single degree. It didn't blow up the motor so I figured I it was safe. I think that there must have been the tiniest amount of contact between the pistons and valves that was made worse with repeated high RPMs. Here's the take-home lesson. CLAY YOUR ENGINE IF YOU'RE BUILDING FOR HIGH COMPRESSION. I didn't.
 
Those are some nice dyno numbers out of the GS-R! Sweet! Car looks great!
 
Thank you! I was thinking the same as you. Everything is all together on one thread now. Maybe I'll put it up on Honda-tech as well.

I think what lead to the destruction of the motor was a single degree of advanced timing.... The year prior I had a different intake/header/exhaust setup. When we did the Dyno tuning I chose not to adjust the timing. I knew that the tolerances were really small. It was a 13:1 compression engine with an aggressive cam. I wasn't concerned about valve float because the springs are exceptional pieces from Rocket Motorsports. The following year however, when we were Dyno tuning with the new I/H/E I felt a little more ballzy and chose to advance the timing a single degree. It didn't blow up the motor so I figured I it was safe. I think that there must have been the tiniest amount of contact between the pistons and valves that was made worse with repeated high RPMs. Here's the take-home lesson. CLAY YOUR ENGINE IF YOU'RE BUILDING FOR HIGH COMPRESSION. I didn't.

Ohhh CAM timing. Got it. Thought you were talking ignition timing. And yeah, a single thread on honda-tech would probably be good too- lots of people want to go fast on the cheap with the SOHC D.
 
Thanks! I was surprised when we got the final numbers in. I was hoping at least 180whp. This is much better!
I was hoping for 250-260whp all motor on the B, but I never finished building the head. Aggressive tuners and weird parts selection kept blowing things apart. :(
 
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