I'll start this off by saying that I'm a true believer in the d series motors. Mine is supercharged with nitrous & I haven't had any motor issues. It has taken me a lot of work, time, and money to make it work but if you really want to have fun with a sohc it can be done. Check out www.cardomain.com/id/the_civic to find out more about what it will take to keep a sohc Honda motor running strong with lots of extra power.
There's a lot of options when it comes to tuning the d series motors. The big downside however is that the stock parts inside of it aren't as durable as the b series. That's one of the reasons a lot of people don't like to build the sohc's. If done right though you can get some serious power gains out of them. If your looking to build a very fast Honda on a budget, going with a b series is the best bet. If you want to build a quick little street car without breaking the bank a d series can definately do it too. The one thing to really ask yourself though is "how fast do I want to go". If you know that your going to keep wanting more power all of the time, you should definately go with the b series swap. In the long run they hold up better and have more potential.
A mini-me swap is a great way to get a few more hp without having to pay too much for it. Others in here have pretty much covered what you need to get so I'll leave that alone, but I would like to add that the d16y8 has got better airflow characteristics than the d16z6. The only reasons I see to go with a z6 head would be if you are working on a limited budget (it's cheaper but not by much) or you're going to get a bunch of headwork done anyways. If your looking for more serious power I HIGHLY recommend supercharging. If you look around hard enough you can find a used Jackson Racing SC for your car in the $1000-1500 range. Just bolting it on will significantly raise your hp without tearing your motor to shreds.
Any time you do any power adder goodies you'll have to also add the safety measures too though (especially with the d series motors). For instance: if you put on a supercharger or turbo youd better make sure your giving that motor enough fuel. A higher flowing fuel pump is almost a must with an adjustable FMU right behind it in importance. Also any time your adding power your adding heat so make sure the cooling system can deal with the extra load. For a while I had to have the heat on in my car at all times otherwide the engine would overheat & stall out, not fun.
I'm not going to go further into building the motor unless you want me to, but at least this will giv you an idea on how much it takes to make a Honda single cam reliable. Most of this stuff applies to all motors too. So here's my price breakdown for power in your car:
- OBD1 b16 swap into your car. Very reliable 160hp with no major hassles in the long run. $2000
- Single cam built to have 160hp with a supercharger, intake/header/exhaust, extra fuel parts, extra ignition parts, and slight cooling mods. Mostly reliable with occasional hassles & problems. $3000-$4000
Unless you are hell bent on building your single cam I highly suggest saving your money up for a dohc swap. The first generation b16's can be found for $1500 for the whole swap in good condition. If I seem like an annoying know at all I'm sorry about it but I've put a lot of time into researching all of this & hope that some of what I've learned can be of use to everyone else.
Till L8er,
Ken