88 civic wagon project

[sorefeet]

Hi folks, I'm new here and I have a question for you guys. But first I will give you all the info I have on the vehicle.

Its an 88 civic wagon
Its a 1.5 liter with auto
It has a very straight body and a fairly clean interior I think it has a blown head gasket because there is water in the oil and the previous owner said it has a water leak and has ran hot several times. I bought the car for fifty bucks.

The questions are, what would you guys do here? I don't know anything about these cars and I would like to use it as a daily driver but I would also
like to have a little fun with it. If this engine can be salvaged, is it worth it? If not, is there a fairly easy and inexpensive replacement? I would like to keep the cost as low as possible but I am also wondering what engine and trans would give me a good after market. I don't plan on racing this car at all but if it goes faster than stock that would be nice. Thanks guys.

 

[88DX4ME]

sounds like you have a pretty decent project on your hands

if i remember corectly, the wagon was an awd?

in any case, it could be a blown head gasket. How many miles are on the car?

I also assume that it is a d15 block as well.

I just picked up an 88 hatchback project to work on myself.

First things first. Get the motor up and running. Depending on mileage, i would recommend head gasket, valve cover gasket, rear main seals, water pump, timing belt and tensioner, etc etc...

after you have all the basic maintenance taken care of... If it is a d series motor, check the pistons to see if you have the reliefs for the 16 valve vtec head swap. Also, if it is a dual point injection, swapping over to a multi port injection would help a little as well.

I am just starting to learn on the civic, ive had my car for about 4 days.. Im sure there are other people who say a motor swap is the way to go, but it depends on how much money you want to throw into the car.

 

[sorefeet]

There are 173,000 on the car, I don't know if it is AWD or not, I will have to check on that.

I have no idea if it is a D15 block, all I can tell you is that it is a four cylinder at this point.

When I get home tomorrow I plan to tear into it and see if the head gasket is blown.

 

[88DX4ME]

There are 173,000 on the car, I don't know if it is AWD or not, I will have to check on that.

I have no idea if it is a D15 block, all I can tell you is that it is a four cylinder at this point.

When I get home tomorrow I plan to tear into it and see if the head gasket is blown.

173 isnt bad.. mine has 276k on it, and it still runs. burns a little oil, but still runs without a stumble.

Yea, tear into it, post up some pictures if you can.

Sounds like you have a nice project on your hands

 

[sorefeet]

So I get home today about four thirty and got the car running, the good news is it ran great. The bad news is that within a few minutes the oil was nice and milky.

Best I could tell the car is only fwd, the only thing I saw going from the front to the back was the exhaust. The car is a 1.5 liter, I don't know what number.

Thinking that the head gasket is probably blown I pull the head off and unfortunately find a complete head gasket. By the time I get the gasket free of the head it has seperated into a couple of layers. But I could not find any thing that was an obvious cause of the problem. So tomorrow I am taking the head to be checked out.

So what do you guys think? If the head is bad should I try and replace it or just do an engine swap? If it is good I will replace the gasket under the assumption that it was bad and I was unable to detect it. If the water gets back in the oil, I would assume there is a crack in the block, right?

Feel free to throw in your two cents.

 

[sorefeet]

Oh and the car is dual point injection, it says programed fuel injection on top of the intake, if that tells you anything. And the pistons each have 4 "half moon" shaped indentions in them, are these the reliefs your you were asking about? The head that I pulled of has 16 valves already, is that the one your talking about?

 

[apekd]

its not an AWD sadly then. Unless somewhere on the car RT4WD is written. DPFI RT4WD would be TIGHT

 

[88DX4ME]

Oh and the car is dual point injection, it says programed fuel injection on top of the intake, if that tells you anything. And the pistons each have 4 "half moon" shaped indentions in them, are these the reliefs your you were asking about? The head that I pulled of has 16 valves already, is that the one your talking about?

yes those are the reliefs on the pistons. you should be able to do a mini me swap on that block then

 

[sorefeet]

Ok fellas, I checked the head and block today as best I could, I didn't see any cracks so I will buy a head gasket set in the next day or two. However while at the junk yard today in search of parts for another vehicle I asked about a honda four cylinder, the guy says he has a 1.6 liter out of a 98 civic with 100k miles for 500. He did say it is not a vtec. D16y7 106hp Is this an engine that can be swapped into my car? If so, how much money and trouble am I looking at? What exactly is the diffrence the vtec makes? If I put the vtec head and multi point fuel injection on my engine would it be just as good as the 98 model engine?

 

[JDMefHATCH7]

Ok fellas, I checked the head and block today as best I could, I didn't see any cracks so I will buy a head gasket set in the next day or two. However while at the junk yard today in search of parts for another vehicle I asked about a honda four cylinder, the guy says he has a 1.6 liter out of a 98 civic with 100k miles for 500. He did say it is not a vtec. D16y7 106hp Is this an engine that can be swapped into my car? If so, how much money and trouble am I looking at? What exactly is the diffrence the vtec makes? If I put the vtec head and multi point fuel injection on my engine would it be just as good as the 98 model engine?

y7 could do the trick it all depends on what you have planned for your car if youre looking for more performance and speed go B series OR if you just wanna get the car running easy end economic on the road with average power stay D series... i think that guys asking a lil too much for the engine unless it comes with tranny and more goodies if not try to pay 400 the most if not just rebuild your d15b or if you have a lil more time and money do a mpfi swap and do a mini me swap will come out cheaper

 

[88DX4ME]

Ok fellas, I checked the head and block today as best I could, I didn't see any cracks so I will buy a head gasket set in the next day or two. However while at the junk yard today in search of parts for another vehicle I asked about a honda four cylinder, the guy says he has a 1.6 liter out of a 98 civic with 100k miles for 500. He did say it is not a vtec. D16y7 106hp Is this an engine that can be swapped into my car? If so, how much money and trouble am I looking at? What exactly is the diffrence the vtec makes? If I put the vtec head and multi point fuel injection on my engine would it be just as good as the 98 model engine?

it depends on what you are looking to do. If you swap the y7 motor into your car, in the end you will gain about 30 or so hp, but figure out how much its going to cost you and compare the amount you will spend to the hp gains you will get

you might just be better off refreshing your current motor, new seals, timing belt, water pump, etc etc.. and then doing some bolt ons... cold air, exhaust manifold, exhaust, and either an orp or high flow cat, depending on what your emissions standards are there

also, going to the multi port will definitely help you out as well. That is a swap that i plan to do at some point as well

 

[sorefeet]

I would like a mild performance cruiser out of this car. For now I plan to fix the stock engine and driv e it. Eventually I would like to do a y7 and mini me with some NOS. And that will probably be all it ever gets.

 

[sorefeet]

Oh and a header and free flowing exhaust.

 

[Aaron.]

would still love some pictures

 

[sorefeet]

I will try and get some pics up in a day or two, right now I am without a pc and am useing a blackberry to do my communicating, if there is a way to post pics through it, let me know and I will get them up sooner.

I really appreciate all the help and advice I have gotten so far. Yall have been a big help.

 

[sorefeet]

I got the car running today, the head gasket fixed it. Man it ran great, I was really impressed. By the way I got some pics today if some one is willing to post them for me I can email them I think.