Warning! Lots to read!
I ran into so many unknowns, when swapping my JDM B16A SiR2 that i'd thought i'd share my experiences so that someone else might benefit and make it easier for them. I didn't get into the technical step-by-step, but more so the things to expect and avoid:
The JDM B16A SiR II Swap Story...
Some things they’ll tell you, and some things they won’t:
I thought I’d share my experiences with swapping a B16A SiR II (obd1) into a 95 Civic Si Coupe (that would be an EX for you U.S. peeps) cuz I ran into issues that took forever to find the answer. "Oh it's all plug and go!" Well, no not really.
First off, it started with me driving my Civic Coupe at about 1am in the morning sporting the D16Z6 SOHC engine on the highway, shifting around 7500rpm when all of sudden the engine lost all power and trails of thick black smoke coming out from the rear. I pull over to the side of the road. What the heck happened? An 86 Corolla Hatch pulls up next to me. “Hey man, you ok? You need to phone someone?” “I’m good, I got a phone” I reply. He continues: “That was so cool! Flames and black smoke coming out the back like that!” Well after making sure I was alright he took off and I call a tow truck. While waiting for the truck, I push my car a little ways to get it near the street light, to get a better view under the hood. My fears were confirmed: I had thrown a rod through the block. (later inspection revealed there were signs of long term oil starvation, probably from the previous owner neglecting oil changes)
My feelings were neutral. For a while I had been thinking about doing a B-Series swap, but I didn’t think these were the circumstances in which I would be doing it sooner rather than later. So time to take the bus to work, and the money i’d save in gas/insurance would help fund the swap. While I was gathering the cash together, I took the opportunity to study as much about swapping the B-series as possible. Having a limited budget, yet wanting something that I can extract generous amounts of horsepower down the road, I decided on the Second Generation JDM B16A. It also appealed to me because of the high redline and optimum rod/stroke ratio which would let me rev the hell out of it (with proper modification of course!). As you can tell from my previous bad experience, I like my engines to rev high.
The time came to buy the motor. I sourced one out from a local shop that imported JDM Engines. Because I worked at a dealership, I struck a little bit of a wholesale deal and got my motor for a reasonable price with the optional Viscous LSD and a header (as my d-series header would no longer fit).
So the engine arrives at my work, and there it was sitting right next to my hoist (I’m an Auto Tech Apprentice by trade), taunting me to swap it NOW! It took large amounts of self control to actually work on OTHER peoples vehicles while the engine sat there looking at me. But I did spend every break, lunch hour, evening and weekend on the thing until it was done.
So it turns out the complete swap is not really a COMPLETE swap. Things that I needed that it did not have were:
-Both driver side mounts. It turns out the mount on the timing cover on the Si/EX is similar to a GSR mount and will not fit the B16 (I was given one free of charge thankfully – make sure you get the 2 mounting nuts with it too!). The CX/DX/VX all have the correct mount as far as I know.
-Rear Transmission mount bracket. (again I was given one free of charge)
-Axles – Any axle from a 94-00 Integra without ABS will work.
-Half Shaft/Intermediate Shaft – So you know that longer axle on the driver side? Well the Integra uses 2 short axles and to pick up the rest of the length on the driver side, a half-shaft is mounted between the CV-Axle and the tranny. Sourcing one was fun (not really). No one had one except for one place that wanted $200 for the half-shaft. So I got one sent overnight shipping from a mail order auto wrecker for about half that. BUT! I didn’t get the mounting bolts for it. Again luckily, the shop that sold me the motor gave them to me free of charge.
-Shift Linkage – They say you need a shift linkage from a 94-00 Integra, which is true, but they don’t tell you that the fork is too wide to fit on your current shifter. My solve was to add 2 thick washers on either side in between the fork and shifter. It seems to work well, but I would like to get a longer bolt as the nut just fits on the end. The other option is to cut your linkage and weld the old for on your integra bar. OR simply lengthen your old linkage. I didn’t choose to do that cuz I suck at welding.
The Little Things:
-Upper/Lower radiator hoses. Ah there’s a few ways to do this. You can use rad hoses from a 94-00 Integra or from a DelSol DOHC Vtec. If you keep the radiator which you have, the outlets are smaller than the rad hose diameter. To correct this, you can cut a piece of your old hose and use it as a bushing between the new hose and the rad outlet. I did that on the top one, but on the bottom, I just used a worm clamp and tightened the hell out of it. It works fine. The proper fix would be to get a delsol DOHC Vtec dual core radiator which will have slightly larger outlets and bolt in perfectly. For all the other coolant hoses you can transfer them from your SOHC motor. They’ll fit fine.
-Clutch Cylinder. There’s 2 ways to do this too. Either transfer you clutch cylinder (which I would recommend) or swap the line and hose (may be easier, but you could risk pinching the steel line)
-Fuel lines. Use the connector from the B16 to the fuel rail, but use your original fuel line from the filter. Is the fuel line on your B16 cut? If it is, make note of this. And I’ll tell you why later.
-Throttle Cable. You’re throttle cable is going to be too short. You’ll need a longer one. Most people will recommend a Type-R throttle cable. You don’t need to pay eleventy billion dollars for one of those, because a 90-93 Integra throttle cable will work beautifully! And it will probably cost you well under $30!
-O2 Sensor. I’m afraid I don’t have that much information on this one. I didn’t have to lengthen or rewire my O2 Sensor because I had bought one before with a longer wire to reach my previous header so it reached fine and plugged in fine.
Physically swapping the motor:
-Pulling out the old motor and putting in the new one requires 2 people to go smoothly. I’m grateful for having access to a vehicle hoist and an engine hoist. It made things very easy.
Continued...
I ran into so many unknowns, when swapping my JDM B16A SiR2 that i'd thought i'd share my experiences so that someone else might benefit and make it easier for them. I didn't get into the technical step-by-step, but more so the things to expect and avoid:
The JDM B16A SiR II Swap Story...
Some things they’ll tell you, and some things they won’t:
I thought I’d share my experiences with swapping a B16A SiR II (obd1) into a 95 Civic Si Coupe (that would be an EX for you U.S. peeps) cuz I ran into issues that took forever to find the answer. "Oh it's all plug and go!" Well, no not really.
First off, it started with me driving my Civic Coupe at about 1am in the morning sporting the D16Z6 SOHC engine on the highway, shifting around 7500rpm when all of sudden the engine lost all power and trails of thick black smoke coming out from the rear. I pull over to the side of the road. What the heck happened? An 86 Corolla Hatch pulls up next to me. “Hey man, you ok? You need to phone someone?” “I’m good, I got a phone” I reply. He continues: “That was so cool! Flames and black smoke coming out the back like that!” Well after making sure I was alright he took off and I call a tow truck. While waiting for the truck, I push my car a little ways to get it near the street light, to get a better view under the hood. My fears were confirmed: I had thrown a rod through the block. (later inspection revealed there were signs of long term oil starvation, probably from the previous owner neglecting oil changes)
My feelings were neutral. For a while I had been thinking about doing a B-Series swap, but I didn’t think these were the circumstances in which I would be doing it sooner rather than later. So time to take the bus to work, and the money i’d save in gas/insurance would help fund the swap. While I was gathering the cash together, I took the opportunity to study as much about swapping the B-series as possible. Having a limited budget, yet wanting something that I can extract generous amounts of horsepower down the road, I decided on the Second Generation JDM B16A. It also appealed to me because of the high redline and optimum rod/stroke ratio which would let me rev the hell out of it (with proper modification of course!). As you can tell from my previous bad experience, I like my engines to rev high.
The time came to buy the motor. I sourced one out from a local shop that imported JDM Engines. Because I worked at a dealership, I struck a little bit of a wholesale deal and got my motor for a reasonable price with the optional Viscous LSD and a header (as my d-series header would no longer fit).
So the engine arrives at my work, and there it was sitting right next to my hoist (I’m an Auto Tech Apprentice by trade), taunting me to swap it NOW! It took large amounts of self control to actually work on OTHER peoples vehicles while the engine sat there looking at me. But I did spend every break, lunch hour, evening and weekend on the thing until it was done.
So it turns out the complete swap is not really a COMPLETE swap. Things that I needed that it did not have were:
-Both driver side mounts. It turns out the mount on the timing cover on the Si/EX is similar to a GSR mount and will not fit the B16 (I was given one free of charge thankfully – make sure you get the 2 mounting nuts with it too!). The CX/DX/VX all have the correct mount as far as I know.
-Rear Transmission mount bracket. (again I was given one free of charge)
-Axles – Any axle from a 94-00 Integra without ABS will work.
-Half Shaft/Intermediate Shaft – So you know that longer axle on the driver side? Well the Integra uses 2 short axles and to pick up the rest of the length on the driver side, a half-shaft is mounted between the CV-Axle and the tranny. Sourcing one was fun (not really). No one had one except for one place that wanted $200 for the half-shaft. So I got one sent overnight shipping from a mail order auto wrecker for about half that. BUT! I didn’t get the mounting bolts for it. Again luckily, the shop that sold me the motor gave them to me free of charge.
-Shift Linkage – They say you need a shift linkage from a 94-00 Integra, which is true, but they don’t tell you that the fork is too wide to fit on your current shifter. My solve was to add 2 thick washers on either side in between the fork and shifter. It seems to work well, but I would like to get a longer bolt as the nut just fits on the end. The other option is to cut your linkage and weld the old for on your integra bar. OR simply lengthen your old linkage. I didn’t choose to do that cuz I suck at welding.
The Little Things:
-Upper/Lower radiator hoses. Ah there’s a few ways to do this. You can use rad hoses from a 94-00 Integra or from a DelSol DOHC Vtec. If you keep the radiator which you have, the outlets are smaller than the rad hose diameter. To correct this, you can cut a piece of your old hose and use it as a bushing between the new hose and the rad outlet. I did that on the top one, but on the bottom, I just used a worm clamp and tightened the hell out of it. It works fine. The proper fix would be to get a delsol DOHC Vtec dual core radiator which will have slightly larger outlets and bolt in perfectly. For all the other coolant hoses you can transfer them from your SOHC motor. They’ll fit fine.
-Clutch Cylinder. There’s 2 ways to do this too. Either transfer you clutch cylinder (which I would recommend) or swap the line and hose (may be easier, but you could risk pinching the steel line)
-Fuel lines. Use the connector from the B16 to the fuel rail, but use your original fuel line from the filter. Is the fuel line on your B16 cut? If it is, make note of this. And I’ll tell you why later.
-Throttle Cable. You’re throttle cable is going to be too short. You’ll need a longer one. Most people will recommend a Type-R throttle cable. You don’t need to pay eleventy billion dollars for one of those, because a 90-93 Integra throttle cable will work beautifully! And it will probably cost you well under $30!
-O2 Sensor. I’m afraid I don’t have that much information on this one. I didn’t have to lengthen or rewire my O2 Sensor because I had bought one before with a longer wire to reach my previous header so it reached fine and plugged in fine.
Physically swapping the motor:
-Pulling out the old motor and putting in the new one requires 2 people to go smoothly. I’m grateful for having access to a vehicle hoist and an engine hoist. It made things very easy.
Continued...
