88 CRX Mini me

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fox body guy

fox body guy

New Member
Hello nice people. My son has a 1988 crx Si which he is trying to make faster. He has a friend who has a head that supposedly will work for this "mini me" swap. I can tell that this head is V-tech however how can I tell exactly what head it is or what it may have come off of? Furthermore I have no clue what to do with this procedure, does anyone have any info that can help? Please if your just going to insult my lack of Honda knowledge please save it, positive feedback only please.. Thank you people.
 
There's 2 main heads that generally get used, the 92-95 obd1 d16z6 and the 96-00 d16y8 obd2. There should be casting marks on the front of the head by the distributor/exhaust manifold corner. They won't match the block codes.

Your son's car is obd0, and you're going to need an odb1 ecu with a conversion harness to plug in a p28 (the d16z6's matching ecu) in order to actually activate the vtec portion of the profile. then the wiring needs to happen form the ecu out to the vtec, vtec pressure sensors. you may need to get those from a 92-95 ex/si harness or otherwise fab up your own connectors. You'll also need the matching head gasket, timing belt, and head studs for the head, 4-wire o2 sensor, ecu-matching distributor,etc etc.... it's not just bolting the head on and calling it a day.

There's a lot of info around the site.... have a read: https://www.google.com/webhp?source...&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=site:hondaswap.com mini me
 
Briansol said:
There's 2 main heads that generally get used, the 92-95 obd1 d16z6 and the 96-00 d16y8 obd2. There should be casting marks on the front of the head by the distributor/exhaust manifold corner. They won't match the block codes.

Your son's car is obd0, and you're going to need an odb1 ecu with a conversion harness to plug in a p28 (the d16z6's matching ecu) in order to actually activate the vtec portion of the profile. then the wiring needs to happen form the ecu out to the vtec, vtec pressure sensors. you may need to get those from a 92-95 ex/si harness or otherwise fab up your own connectors. You'll also need the matching head gasket, timing belt, and head studs for the head, 4-wire o2 sensor, ecu-matching distributor,etc etc.... it's not just bolting the head on and calling it a day.

There's a lot of info around the site.... have a read: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=site:hondaswap.com mini me
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I appreciate your response im in the woods on this. he purchased the head with no distributor or bolts or timing belt. he has the cam that came with it but nothing else. if I were to go to the salvage yards what would I look for to get these parts from. we did try his distributor and of course doesn't even line up correctly. My apologies for maybe asking dumb questions but as I said I am so green when it comes to these little cars.
 
the electronics all need to match up by obd... so if you are going to go with the p28 obd1 ecu, you need a z6 distributor, which translates to https://hondaswap.com/threads/honda-distributor-code-list.24364/ to the TD42U. It should be noted that this WONT fit on the y8 head, the feet are different. So, it really depends what you actually have as to what you need. PO8-X is the z6, P2J-X/P23-X is the y8.
 
thanks for the help. I have not looked at the head as of yet for markings. you did say these markings would clearly tell me which head this is, correct? whether it be a y8 or z6.
 
you stated that his original 88 Si distributor won't bolt onto the head, correct? - to me this would mean that the head is from a 92-95 D16Z6 or could be from 92-95 D15Z1 (not a good choice for a mini-me) - his Si distributor would bolt onto a D16Y8 head - wouldn't work for OBD1, but would bolt on - make sure that it isn't a D15Z1 head - some people think that because it is a VTEC head, it will make more power - it won't - the D15Z1 is a VTEC-E engine (E for economy) and operates as a 12 valve engine until VTEC kicks in - the head code for the D15Z1 is P07-1
 
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fox body guy said:
Ihe purchased the head with no distributor or bolts or timing belt. he has the cam that came with it but nothing else. if I were to go to the salvage yards what would I look for to get these parts from.
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do you have the rocker arms, rocker arm shafts, lost motion assemblies, valves, springs, timing belt gear, etc. or just a head and camshaft? - if all you have is the head and cam, finding just the other parts would be difficult - you would be better off just purchasing another complete head

you will also need a VTEC valve cover
 
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we have rocker arms, valves and springs are there. gear is there. not sure what lost motion assemblies are. and we have the v tech valve cover. I guess we are only lacking the distributor as far as the head is concerned. we were going to use the non vetch intake, is that ok to do?
 
and that is correct the distributor will not fit. the feet do not align. we are checking the code now to see what it is. the seller said it is a z6 head. the code we saw is po8-2, any idea what that means?
 
It's a d16z6.
LMA's https://hondaswap.com/threads/what-where-are-lost-motion-assemblies.47134/
And VTEC doesn't have an h on it....

so, pick your self up a TD42U dist. from a 92-95 civic ex/si or aftermarket from a place like distributor king, a p28 to run it, and an obd0 to obd1 conversion harness to plug the ecu in from a place like rywire.com. you'll need the head gasket, head studs, and timing belt, 4-wire o2 sensor and the wire runs to complete it along with running the vtec sensor and vtec pressure sensors direct to the ecu as your engine bay harness will not have those wires.
 
ok cool im going to start getting this together I really appreciate the help and Im sure ill be back with more questions hope you all will oblige. oh by the way this vtec is hot that why I added the H..lol thanks man..
 
My Internet search shows the head is out of a 5-speed EX. So I think that it's a D16Z6 head.

Wiring will be the toughest part. But jump harness will make some of it easier (just run VTEC wiring to the harness and plug harness into ECU).

VTECH is a phone lol
 
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