austinkli
The Blackberry Dude
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.
(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.