The big question, fix or sell?

[Reedy17]

A couple months ago my 99 civic ex put a rod through the block(main bearing) this being my every day driver nothing fancy or modded, in my area engines are $800 on a low end $1300 on a high end from a junkyard, the big question is, is it worth taking another risk on a junkyard engine or should I cut my losses and sell it as is and start looking again? The body, underside, and interior on my current car is in pretty amazing shape everything is stock, but if I decided to fix I'd have to find help as I don't have the tools on hand to put an engine in.. Any tips/suggestions?

1999 civic ex 1.6L vtec "8" 6th digit in vin AT

 

[mymmeryloss]

I say check out hmotors and put a b series in it and keep it forever...

 

[AlaskaB16]

How much do you have in the car already? Money wise I mean. I would vote to keep it as well, but would look to avoid using a motor from a junk yard unless you can hear it run first. Honda motors are so common you should have no trouble finding one at a good (in your opinion) price if you search local sale sections (craigs, ebay, local car forums). Good luck man!

KEEP IT and post pics

 

[JohnS.]

Depends on what you want and what you can afford. Do you want to keep the civic? Do you have a family and need a bigger car? Do you want something faster? Are you happy with how fast/slow your Honda is? How much do you want to spend? How much do you know about motor swaps? How much are you going to need to spend paying someone if you can't do it alone?

You have to ask yourself a lot of questions before you can make a decision and ask us what we think.

 

[Reedy17]

Alright ill answer the questions thus far:
1. I have about $3500 into the car(cost of the car) and only owned it a month or two before it blew, bad luck..
2. I'd rather keep it, because my current budget wouldn't get me anything close to as nice, but have a few worries, ill explain at the end
3. I don't need anything bigger of a car as I also have a truck(which I'm forced to drive at the moment) but the gas sucks in this thing.
4/5. The speed of the car was fine with me didn't really matter being an everyday driver/gas saver (reason I wanted an auto, just easier)
6. With Christmas coming around the corner that's the problem, I've probably got about 1200 I can spend, so I'd only be left around 300-400 after purchasing a motor(that could always blow right back up, who knows!)
7. I know next to nothing about swapping in a different motor and very highly doubt my budget would allow it.
8. This is where my worries come in(from a previous question) I have a family friend who say they would help me do this, but my fear is ill buy an engine and either they will not have time for months/years and the engine will just sit and rot, or it won't end up getting fixed at all, I can't say that for sure they may be available right away, but for someone offering to help me I wouldn't press the issue like they owe me the favor.

 

[mymmeryloss]

It may be best for you to part it out or sell it and scrap the rest from what u have said and look for another economy vehicle.

 

[JohnS.]

It may be best for you to part it out or sell it and scrap the rest from what u have said and look for another economy vehicle.

Unfortunately, I MAY agree with this... It depends on how bad the situation is with trying to get someone to help you swap it in. If, like you say, the engine just sits for months, obviously you're losing out on money both with truck gas mileage and money spent on an engine that's not getting swapped in. Do you want to risk it?

But then again, would you be willing to tackle this on your own if the engine will sit for months anyways? There are a lot of threads online that are useful / helpful. Honda's are very easy to work on as well.

 

[504scene]

im sure if u chek out craigslist or sumthin your sure to find something good id hate to see a legit clean car die off like that to scavengers..id wait and see first for a bit

 

[504scene]

Assuming your car is a manual, this would be much easier.

If you're on a budget and don't want to spend more than $2,500 , I'd go with a Eagle/Vitara D-series turbo build. Source out a local D-series block , assuming your head and transmission are still fine. Maybe get a d16z6 or d16y7/y8 engine (whole engine+transmission if you want) or just block alone for under $100-$200 I don't know what the price is in your area. All you'd probably need is a good block.

Honda-tech marketplace forced induction section will be amazing for the following unless you can find parts locally, then next to that for information on furthering a turbo-d-series build, refer to www.d-series.org.

Buy vitara pistons, eagle rods, acl bearings, ARP studs, machining/measuring done a machine shop *you want the right micrometer measured specs) torque everything down and you got a low-compression block that should have cost you under $600 parts and labor I believe.

Fuel management upgrade would be
Walbro 255 Fuel pump $100 new
440cc DSM injectors $60-$100

Piece together a turbo kit, ebay kits will run you maybe $800-$1,000 but those ebay exhaust manifolds and turbo internals aren't the most reliable. If you can do it right, you can get a nice kit of used/reliable parts for $700-$1200. That includes, but is not limited to. Turbo manifold, turbo itself, oil lines, wastegate. bov, intercooler + piping, etc; I'm not too sure of all this as I did my research and ended up putting this plan aside.

Then there's the little things that you'll need along the way like paying for shipping, engine rebuild gasket, tune-up parts like spark plugs/wires/dizzy/coolant/oil, etc;.

The good thing about Honda's is that:
1) Their aftermarket support is HUGE
2) There are thousands of tutorials online for almost any setup you want.
3) They can have great power from 200-500hp turbocharged and still be making 25-35mpg. Take that STI!

did u even attempt to read the title HOLY F*CK lol

 

[mymmeryloss]

 

[CO671]

Shitttttttttt i'm done, i'm done.

 

[R3dline]

Assuming your car is a manual, this would be much easier.
The following information is just what i've collected over a few months of reading thousands of threads/info/talking to people who've experienced this. I have no first hand experience with this myself so my info may be wrong on some points.

If you're on a budget and don't want to spend more than $2,500 , I'd go with a Eagle/Vitara D-series turbo build. Source out a local D-series block , assuming your head and transmission are still fine. Maybe get a d16z6 or d16y7/y8 engine (whole engine+transmission if you want) or just block alone for under $100-$200 I don't know what the price is in your area. All you'd probably need is a good block.

Honda-tech marketplace forced induction section will be amazing for the following unless you can find parts locally, then next to that for information on a turbo-d-series build, refer to www.d-series.org.

Buy vitara pistons, eagle rods, acl bearings, ARP studs, machining/measuring done at a machine shop *you want the right micrometer measured specs) torque everything down and you got a low-compression block that should have cost you under $600 parts and labor I believe.

Fuel management upgrade would be
Walbro 255 Fuel pump $100 new
440cc DSM injectors $60-$100

Piece together a turbo kit, ebay kits will run you maybe $800-$1,000 but those ebay exhaust manifolds and turbo internals aren't the most reliable. If you can do it right, you can get a nice kit of used/reliable parts for $700-$1200. That includes, but is not limited to. Turbo manifold, turbo itself, oil lines, wastegate. bov, intercooler + piping, etc; I'm not too sure of all this as I did my research and ended up putting this plan aside.

Then you'll need a obd2-obd1 conversion harness $50-$80 or you can DIY
OBD1 ecu,i'd go with a vtec one from pherable that already comes with a basemap, should be $100-$160

Then there's tuning, which is quite costly, but you can do it yourself with a wideband o2 sensor, a chipper, and a free program called Crome. There's a bit more to this however.

Then there's the little things that you'll need along the way like paying for shipping, engine rebuild gasket, tune-up parts like spark plugs/wires/dizzy/coolant/oil, etc;.

The good thing about Honda's is that:
1) Their aftermarket support is HUGE
2) There are thousands of tutorials online for almost any setup you want.
3) They can have great power from 200-500hp turbocharged and still be making 25-35mpg. Take that STI!

 

[TigBitties]

800 low end for a single cam. holy s**t! sold my entire swap for 250 lol

 

[mymmeryloss]

I sold a built b16 for $500...

 

[McMahon]

Fix then sell