D16Z6T-EH...Or turbo'd civic

In late 2009 I made the decision to start shopping for hatchback Civic for autocross. After shopping around I settle on this: 1994 Civic CX with a D15B8 (70 hp) and over 200K miles. The interior was super clean and it was unmolested besides the previous owner installing an EX cluster for the tach. All maintenance had been taken care of at a local dealership where it was purchased from.

Few weeks later picked up a set of Konigs

Dropped it on Ground Controls and did this for a while

Added a few things like an Apex'i exhaust and intake. Beat the crap out of it until I killed the motor at an autocross. Lost all kinds of power, nursed it an hour and a half home and parked it.

Found a single cam swap for 200 bucks in late 2011 and got to work.

Rebuild it with forged 10.5:1 CP pistons and Eagle rods.

Bolted this little guy to the front of it: GT2871R

Also had a limited slip installed in the baby D series transmission

Went from this

To this

With this inside

Then I put it all together and dropped it in!

Added a custom 3 inch exhaust

Had it dyno tuned

http://youtu.be/06nyX19Dn6s

And got this!

I must say I'm very happy with the way it all turned out. I'll update with photos as I do more work to the car.

Very cool. Makes me sad to think that your turbo 4 makes more power than my V8 ever will. (145 HP from the factory)

Wow, nice set up.

IMPRESSIVE!

Is this really as easy as it seems to be?

Stock ECU? Stock Fuel system? Ignition?

mazdeuce wrote: Is this really as easy as it seems to be?

Yep. There ain't much easier than a turbo D-series. Tons of room to work, tons of options, everything bolts up because they're so well supported, and you have about a bajillion options on how to tune it.

Clean EG makes me miss my EF and yes it really is that easy to build a high HP d series lol there kinda the small block chevy of the import world lots of parts quality parts that everyone sells lol

ECU has been chipped and is running Neptune. 650cc injectors with a Walbro 255 lph pump. Stock ignition system. 93 octane.

Cool project!

Thanks for all the comments and complements!

What else did you do to the block during the rebuild? Could you tell us about that a bit more? Thanks.

midknight wrote: What else did you do to the block during the rebuild? Could you tell us about that a bit more? Thanks.

To the block? Bored .020 over. It was also decked for straightness as was the head. Between the two the combustion chamber lost about .010 of height. Because of the Eagle rods i notched the bottoms of the cylinder walls as well. ACL Race bearings for a bit more clearance for better oiling.

Did you wanna know anything else?

red5_02 wrote:

midknight wrote: What else did you do to the block during the rebuild? Could you tell us about that a bit more? Thanks.

To the block? Bored .020 over. It was also decked for straightness as was the head. Between the two the combustion chamber lost about .010 of height. Because of the Eagle rods i notched the bottoms of the cylinder walls as well. ACL Race bearings for a bit more clearance for better oiling. Did you wanna know anything else?

Yeah, if I drop a D-series Civic off at your house, can I pick it up a few weeks later fully-built and turbo'd?

Sky_Render wrote: Yeah, if I drop a D-series Civic off at your house, can I pick it up a few weeks later fully-built and turbo'd?

Haha, go for it. I'd love to build another one on someone else's dime

red5_02 wrote:

Sky_Render wrote: Yeah, if I drop a D-series Civic off at your house, can I pick it up a few weeks later fully-built and turbo'd?

Haha, go for it. I'd love to build another one on someone else's dime

HAHA! Email me if you want need help wrenching.

I may take you up on that one day. BTW you brought your car in for service the wrong week. There's a 2012 Boss 302 on the lot right now. I made sure there was gas in it after I took pics for the website.

Picked up some seats tonight. $140 bucks for the pair with sliders. I'd call that a success.

i'm impressed you're able to make such high-comp pistons work so well for you in this application, although i really don't know what the hot ticket is with hondas these days. i bet with those in place the response makes it pretty fun to drive and economical when you're off boost!

i may have missed it, but did you ever figure out what killed the original engine? oil starvation or overheating maybe?

ScottyB wrote: i'm impressed you're able to make such high-comp pistons work so well for you in this application, although i really don't know what the hot ticket is with hondas these days. i bet with those in place the response makes it pretty fun to drive and economical when you're off boost! i may have missed it, but did you ever figure out what killed the original engine? oil starvation or overheating maybe?

Using high comp with boost is actually pretty common. If you turbocharge a stock B18C I'm pretty sure you're already close to 11:1. The trick is to have a tuner who knows what they're doing. If you can get a good combination of octane, timing and relatively "low" boost pressures you'll make plenty of power. A small, quick turbo helps as well.

Driving off boost is just so much fun. A friend of mine had 8.5:1 pistons paired with a T3/T4 and while it did make power it only made it after 6500 RPM.

I never did figure out what killed that motor. It had a crazy hesitation and then all of a sudden it would just kick in. It was also using oil. My guess is it had to do something with having over 200k miles and having the snot wrung out of it during autocrosses.

I ran 10 psi on top of 11.7:1 compression. It was fun. :)

DILYSI Dave wrote: I ran 10 psi on top of 11.7:1 compression. It was fun. :)

The torque curve on that car is impressive.

What head gasket did you use on reassembly? ARP studs? What's the cost of putting something like this together, including the machine work, but with me doing the reassembly.? I have a d16y7 that blew a head gasket. Almost finished putting in a d16z6 to replace it. I'd like to rebuid the y7 in turbo form, or if the z6 a better motor to turbo, I'd like to have a go at doing this to it. Thanks.

Any way to do this and still keep the A/C?

The Z6 is a much better motor due to the oiling capabilities. Use a stock head gasket from Honda. ARPs are a must if you're running high compression to prevent head lift. You're looking at about $5000 to replicate what you see here. Probably more it you want to have it tuned and want a decent exhaust. As far as A/C goes, I could hook mine back up in an hour if I wanted to. You just have to get creative with some things. In that case the inlet of the turbo has to face the passenger side and you need a downpipe that will clear the compressor