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Finally getting around to a build thread for my third car It all started on a dull early may day. A Friend of mine messaged me, asking if I needed any parts from her MB4 before she scrapped it. It had been sitting on her drive since she her daughter had been born. I said to her, "let me know what the scrappy offers, and i'll chuck £50 on top and come grab it", knowing that the d16w4 powerplant in this could replace my lathargic D14 in my MB2 The next day me and a mate collected it, threw some trade plates on and ran up to my workshop. Even with the old 4 speed slush-box, and a years neglect, the MB4 walked away from my MB2 on a straight bit of road. Once we arrived, my friend parked the car up and then headed home. I then stood and had a smoke, looking at this car having a "Wangan midnight" esque moment, seeing the colour of the Sicilian Red paint for the first time. Plans had changed. (see attached image) Rust and engine work: First I got the car up on stands and made a list of everything wrong with it. The rear passenger sill and inner arch passed the good old screwdriver test, however the driver's side failed miserably, along with a few places around the front jacking point, and front inner arch. Out came the grinder, welder, and some conveniently shaped and cut sheet metal that I would be using to patch these big holes. This was a steep learning curve, as I have only ever done agricultural welding, and never thin bodywork. Once the rust was dealt with next came the auto box - I had never planned to keep this gearbox, so the hunt for an s20 close ratio box began. During this time, the auto box, torque converter and PRND lever were all disposed of in an appropriate fashion (Thrown into a skip as fast as humanly possible🤣), meanwhile, the engine was suspended by a ratchet strap around 2 on the gearbox bolts, and a random 2x4 i had laying about across the wings (See attached) Whilst the box was off, I decided to replace the rear main seal, sump gasket, and clean out the oil pickup tube. A few shiny parts were fitted during this time too, including an oil sandwich plate with senders for both oil pressure and temp, HKS oil filter, TTV flywheel and an exedy stage 1 clutch. Once I sourced a box, the new mounts were fitted up and after a copious amount of faffing around the engine and box were in. (I wish I had an engine crane!!) I altered the wiring on the PRND plug to disable the inhibitor switch, as well as the reverse lights. I finished under the bay by rebuilding the distributor, replacing the plugs and HT leads. I also added a bus bar to the firewall as my battery was going to be boot mounted. I am using a Janspeed 4-2-1 manifold, a smashed out OEM cat shell and a Skunk2 megapower exhaust system. I have a Whale pen15 air intake as well. Interior: This car had a creme interior, which I knew wouldn't survive me daily driving it. I quickly tore this out, installed a load of sound deadening and the various wires i'd be needing for my ICE setup, then fitted a black carpet and VTI "bus seat" interior. I mounted the battery and circuit breaker in the spare wheel well, as well as a power distribution block. this would be needed when I got around to building the boot and fitting my 3 amps. I finished the interior off with an oil pressure and temperature gauge set, a fire extinguisher, and an old school pioneer flipout headunit + DVD player. Exterior: The exterior is largely untouched, as it is the rare sicilian red pearl colour. This car was factory specced with a full VTIs kit and Jordan wheels. The jordan wheels went onto my other MB2, so that I could fit my 15" TSW imola wheels. I welded the rear wiper hole up, and the old spoiler holes. I then fitted an "auto spoiler", which had been preiovsly fitted to a friend's recently imported 200sx. This was an almost perfect colour match.

See attached, will be posting some more in the near future about rebuilding my engine haha

Smaller power steering pulley (hopefully it will clear the bonnet without hacking any big holes in it) and 10% underdrive alternator pulley fitted As we've deleted the AC the factory belt was much too long (think it was something like 7pk1735 from memory). Managed to find a belt that will fit (7PK1400) - it seems ok but apparently there is a mark on the tensioner that you can check - i'll do this next time im with the car to confirm but seems like the right size. Engine mounts ordered - I went for Innovative Mounts for a Civic EG as the price for Hasport mounts in the UK is insane (£700+!) and I wanted to avoid ebay china copied junk on this project...

Thanks for the update on the fogs - I managed to get a set of good condition blanking plates so i've removed the fairly rotten big fogs for now but I may reinstate them later. Left the connectors tied up behind. A bit more progress on the K-swap side of things: Drilled a couple of holes in the firewall just under the heater outlet to allow for the shifter cables to pass through (no photo, oops) Got hold of a billet shifter plate designed for an EG but it was sitting too proud of the tunnel so drilled out the fasteners for the shifter base plate and removed it DC5 shifter mocked up - was worried that it would be too close to the dashboard but it seems to just about be ok - the shifter box came with a short shifter already fitted which should help things Clutch and flywheel test fit - just waiting for various missing bolts to arrive from Japan before buttoning it all up. Toyed with the idea of getting an uprated clutch but we've gone with Exedy OEM EP3 clutch for now as it's many times cheaper than an uprated one (£126 vs ~£400) and I reckon it'll be OK for NA power levels. Any future plans to boost the car would require an LSD as well as a clutch upgrade anyway! Flywheel is a Competition Clutch 3.9kg

Hi Ben, The calipers in the photo are for the 260mm front brakes, not the larger 280mm front brakes. Manufacturer caliper numbers for the larger calipers are LCA333 & RCA333. You can use eBay to get the oem numbers from them. Basically the calipers are the same for the mg zs180, mg zr160 & accord of that era, but the carriers differ i believe (ive not checked any fit on an mb other than a zs). I can confirm that the calipers and carriers from the zs180 will fit onto a mb2 4x100 as thats what I'm currently running! If youre upgrading the brakes you'll need to change the master cylinder and prop valve if you don't have abs for it to work properly. My setup is: Honda Civic MB6 brake master cylinder Honda Civic MB6 brake servo Honda 40/40 brake prop valve (46210-S5A-912) Wezmoto Braided front and rear brake lines (700mm front / 560mm rear) MG ZS 180 Front & Rear brake calipers MG ZS 180 Front & Rear brake discs Cheers, Dan

Happy Christmas everyone! Hope that you're all having a great festive break! 🎄🎄🎄🎄

You are technically right about not needing the whole trailing arms, but good luck with both finding the spindles by themselves in usable condition and taking the old ones off. Finding parts like that is getting progressively hard as our cars start to turn into oldtimers, and most of these super specific upgrade parts have already been grabbed about a decade ago. We're kinda late to the party in that regard. The spindles are also secured to the trailing arms with extremely strong threadlocker, which oftentimes are pretty old and corroded on top, which makes removing them near impossible without drilling them out. Stripped a bolt attempting to remove the disc brake ones, even with applying heat and using rust remover beforehand. No chance. So, yes - you technically don't need them, but realistically you will. Except if you're fine with drilling all of the bolts out and dealing with that headache. And the part about bleeding the brakes is also generally correct. Most cars have their brake systems set up like that so you can still come to a stop if a brake line fails. Otherwise if you combine FR with RR / FL with RL you will only have working brakes on one side of your car, which I don't have to explain why that would be very bad.

Hey all, already done a load of restoration as getting it back to full N/A Glory before I consider ITBs. Just wanted to make a meal of this that arrived the other day, so happy! 🥰

ok, its been some time... but i want to share few photos from a civic photoshoot i made recently. This is how it currently looks like.

Amazing reply from SirPaperbag! Just to add ive done this swap on my (non abs) mb2, but also upgraded a few things. My setup is as follows and works sweet: Disc trailing arms off a mc1 aerodeck MB6 brake booster MB6 1" master cylinder Mgzs 180 282mm front calipers (interesting the caliper is the same as from a 97-03 accord, not sure on the carrier) Mgzs 180 262mm rear calipers 46210-S5A-912 40-40 prop valve Regarding the rear arb - the rear brace that SirPaperbag mentions won't fit without modification. DeLaSoul mentions it in his build thread - if I remember correctly the mounting points where the LCAs mount to the chassis are about 8mm narrower on our MBs to EKs

Small update on the whole brake prop valve situation: Apparently, EG6 prop valves could also work, as they don't have ABS and 262/242mm rotors in the front and rear, just like our M-chassis Civics. So, if that's true, you could get a brand new valve for less than $200 from Japan. Part number for these bad boys is 46210-SR3-013 And you should be fine sticking with your original brake master cylinder + booster! But if you've got 242mm discs all around instead you'd need a "1725" valve (46210-1725-XXX) off a Del Sol, not off an EE/ED/EF Civic! (Different f/r rotor sizes)

Got some from Climair installed rn, and they fit very well. They're still available brand new. Only thing I had to do is grind off a bit of the holding tab in the front (was a bit too long) but that's completely normal with these things. And you can even choose between clear, tinted, and dark, which I find quite nice.

Good shout mate, I'll se about getting this added to FAQ. And thank you, cracking info there!

A reply this detailed deserves to be in the FAQ section of this site! It really seems a more difficult job than a cam swap and a tune haha If I ever manage to stumble upon the main parts for a cheap enough price (Hondas in general were very expensive relative to other cars here in Italy so not many sales...) to justify all the work I'll definitely try. Thanks for all the info!

Great post there mate

The part about needing new trailing arms is 100% correct, as the drum brake ones lack the proper mounting points for a disc brake system. But you've got to be careful with which arms you choose, as the wrong ones could end up increasing your rear trackwidth and that's gonna end badly for your handling. As our M-chassis have borrowed a lot of suspension components from 5th gen Civics (EG), I'd recommend searching for EG5/EG6/etc. trailing arms, as they should keep everything in spec. I for one got a pair of EG5 arms to go with my non-ABS system. But that's only part of the problem. If you've somehow managed to get yourself the right trailing arms then you still have to find a matching brake proportioning valve (or prop valve) that splits the pressure correctly between front and rear. Otherwise your rear brakes might either not bite enough, or bite too much and cause the rear to kick out while braking (very dangerous). This is especially important if you've got something like an MOT or TÜV here in Germany, where your car gets an inspection every X years and they check your brake performance. M-chassis Civics also use an old style of prop valve, which makes it EVEN HARDER to find the correct ones. What you generally want to get is called a "4040" valve, which is just the model number, nothing more (some dumbasses online claimed those valves split 40/40, but where the hell would the remaining 20% go?) I also found a nifty table somewhere on an obscure forum, and I don't know where exactly I got it from, so I sadly can't attribute the original poster, but here it is: And depending on the caliper sizing, you might even have to upgrade your master cylinder, but that's getting really technical. So, in short, get the correct trailing arms, a somewhat correct prop valve and maybe upgrade your master cylinder. If you want to do it properly, it's a whole lot more work than just doing enough for it to work. Pro Tip: You can also fine-tune your front/rear balance by using more or less aggressive pads. And regarding rear ARBs, you've got a choice between either buying some used EG6 brackets, using aftermarket ones, and reinforcement braces with mounts included. I went with a used EG6 ARB, plus mounting hardware, because I wanted to try out how much difference just that dingy little thing would make (a lot). Here are a few pics of it both installed, and some pics of the used mounting hardware. You also need fitting lower control arms with mounting holes for the endlinks. And I'd recommend buying new endlinks while you're at it. And maybe a few harder rubber bushings on top. I also had to fabricate some small metal standoffs for the mounting bracket to properly fit to the rear frame (top right picture, the screw just above the yellow marking). This would be the alternative, a rear brace with mounts included: But some places also carry aftermarket versions of the OG hardware that I mentioned and shower earlier, so that's an option, as well. All in all, it's a s**t job with tons of little hang-ups, researching, browsing marketplaces and painful installation, but the handling difference is night and day.

thanks Simon 👍 yes looking at the rubber parts, found the parts for the top e.g. Items 9 & 6 , struggling with the bump stop ATM, Item 11, PN 51722-st3-e01.

Quick photo from last night. Looking forward to the suspension refresh and getting this thing slammed. Other news - carpet and some dash trim is out ready for welding.

Shifter mounted properly in car and cables routed. Some hacking up of the console will obviously be required but I should be able to have all the dashboard etc back in Shifter cable plate in place - still needs a bit of work to get the other two bolts mounted and enlarge the hole in the grommet slightly. It's sitting at a less than ideal angle but it was the best placing we could come up with - the DC5 shifter cables we're using are on the shorter side Air con delete block off plate fitted so no huge hole directly into the cabin!

You can't really tell from the pics how grotty the interior is/was, but it's starting to come up nice. Used some leather cleaner on the seats yesterday and the filth that came off them was amazing. Still need another go and conditioning, but well impressed with how well they've come up. Not sure what to do about the bumper yet, as it's pretty bad with a big section missing... Tempted to go dial it back a bit with the bumper, but it does look cool on the import photos

Haven't had much time recently myself to work on the MB but my father in law has been cracking on with some jobs in my absence K24 mounted up to the engine stand to begin work K20 oil pump cut and fitted. There is a lot of dried up oil "varnish" within the engine so we may run some engine flush and change the oil again once it's running. RBC cam gear fitted (50 degree VTC) - Chains and guides refitted, timing checked. As the eagle eyed may be able to spot - unfortunately one of the oil pump guide bolts rounded off on removal... so after one trip to the local Honda dealer and £7.25 lighter i'm the proud owner of a new guide bolt! (It's crazy how overpriced these small parts are in the UK. They're £1.64 in Japan but of course that comes with a 2 week wait...) Front VTI-S lip test fit - needs painting of course. Currently pondering what to do with the fog lights as they are a bit of an eyesore - one of them has rusted inside and it looks like there's a surround missing. I might just get the blanks and delete them, weight saving (!).

Sure, we paid £700 for ours plus £80 delivery (which I didn't think was too unreasonable to be honest). I think that's about the going rate for one really. It's a JDM import engine from an automatic car - unknown mileage but it should have had an easier life than a UK one. Typically since I've now bought one there's a k24a3 from an accord showed up on eBay for £570! It doesn't look as clean as ours but would likely be just fine.

A rather inebriated looking K24A showed up this morning But it has the RBB markings on the head which is what matters - meaning it is the "full fat" version with 3-lobe VTEC and ~200hp. There is a similar looking version with 160hp and only 2 cam lobes so you have to be careful! Hopefully get that mounted up onto an engine stand at some point and take a closer look inside but so far so good. For peace of mind i'm going to give it a compression test and have a peek into the cylinders with a scope before going any further.

Progress so far Started to strip out the engine - radiator (probably leaking) and AC condenser (also probably leaking) removed: Painting the rear bumper - to cover various marks and scratches but also somewhat of an experiment to see what it looks like with rubber strips colour coded (from photos i've seen I think it will look better) I've started putting together a list of parts that i'd like to acquire (the amount of small parts you need for a K-swap is crazy. It's all bolt on but you definitely need a spreadsheet or similar to manage it!)

Yes it is a before and after. It has great shine when throwing flash light on it ☺️

I crashed my MB2, and the front bumper needs replacing. Where can I find a new one? I searched online and couldn't find any store that had new bumpers.

many thanks both, I had a quick look for repair panels yesterday, they do exist but not found for inner arch yet. also not sure how they compare e.g. in thickness terms with OE body shell ? suggestions on best place to buy the panels appreciated. otherwise I will just carry on googling. ours has been garaged (unheated though) so it is out of the weather, except when used - it's still the daily driver.

The good news is all the Civic M's MB/MB/MC are the same body parts in that area so repair panels for the Rover 45/400/MGZS fit. @Roverjoe in the forum has restored his in this area and has videos on Youtube. The Civic Ms seemed to have outlasted the 3 door civics rust wise, especially in the rear arches/sills, so think they've done well to only be needing this done now. I'm luck that my deck still is solid in the sills/arches etc but she's garaged all the time since 2013.

Hi, are you sure you need new trailing arms? Upon a short google search, I stumbled upon this. " You do NOT need the entire trailing arm; ALL 88-00 civics and 90-01 Integras take the same shaped trailing arm. You need only the spindle, which is attached by a 24mm nut, and four T50 torx bolts. Please note that most swap the entire trailing arm because those torx bolts are in there VERY firmly. I have banged the hell out of a hammer and impact and still had them stay. I advise air tools, because even with all my weight and brute force, they may not come out. Brake lines may be stubborn if your car is older and rusty. The brake hard lines can strip easily if you do not use the proper wrench. A brake line wrench is what you need, which is a 10mm box end wrench with a slot cut out so that you can slide it over the hardline. You can use this on the bleeder screw too if you put the bleeder hose over the bleeder valve first so that brake fluid doesn't spill. On an EK chassis civic, the bleeding sequence is right rear, then left front, then left rear, then front right. Don't go in a circle, the EK chassis uses a crossed brake system, so go by this sequence to avoid any cross contamination of air into the lines, otherwise you may be bleeding all day. " Rear disc conversion, keeping the drum trailing arm | Honda D Series Forum Cheers!

Okay next up, the rest of the sill and front jacking point and floor. The whole sill from front to back was GONE nothing left hardly, Thankfully it did not creep too far up, although i did cut out the bottom part of the back where the floor was spotwelded to as i didnt know if that seam was compromised from the otherside. When replacing the lower section where the floor meets i made sure that the car was supported and i also only did it in section so i didnt move the floor too much. It looks a bit rough but that lower edge was grinded straight for when i put the rest of the sill on. A photo of what i cut out A Before and After! Next bit was to weld the outer sill. Here is it is with the cover on, Panel gaps are slightly out as the doors are not yet put on properly. but it gives you an idea. Next up is the front jacking point This was some seriously thick metal and many layers of it, and with it being upside down it was very awkward to get accurate cuts with the grinder. Rot Cut out and new metal put into the floor. Not the best welding as i was upside down. Reinforcer piece put in then that was plug welded to the floor as from how it was done at factory with the spotwelds. Another piece made for the inner section of the jacking point. added some drain holes too! all Electrox Zinc Primed Then the outer section was welded in the new jacking point panels from Discount MG Rover Spares are spot on! and are made from 2mm steel so thicker than the original! All welded in Rest of the outer sill welded in, sadly i forgot to take photos of the inside section, it was all cut out replaced with fresh metal and the areas where the bolts go in for the wing were cut out, sand blasted, and re welded back in. Another section of the sill being welded in as this had to go under the jacking point piece so was left till last as it was easier to plug weld them from the inside rather than upside down. A Couple of Before photos And After Photos! The Floor inside was all stripped to bare metal and epoxy primed Photo of the car with all the work done! New Grommets were installed alongside new seam sealer. Very happy with the result. And just like that, the interior is back in! Im going to be doing some more work on it over winter, such as brakes and suspension, nothing bodywork wise as its too cold to paint etc. so that will be done next year, hopefully the car will be ready for an MOT around april time next year depending on weather!

I started out with the heko ones, but then got a set of the Climair ones, which are a bit better.

With ECU stuff OBD1 really is the way to go, because whether or not you decide to chip it or put an S300 in it, it's basically the best choice to use an old OBD1 ECU. I've actually got a S300 installed in my Civic right now and since it's a pre-facelift it already was OBD1 from the factory. But OBD1 conversions are relatively easy and well documented online. Depending on your personal tastes you could also go with a standalone ECU like a Link or Haltech unit. They cost roughly the same as a S300, but offer a very different featureset and more modern management options. (But they are not plug-and-play) And while I don't have any experience turboing cars, I'd say a relatively safe power figure for a D16 would be 160 to 180-ish hp. (Those conrods are thin) Already took apart a spare D16Z6 that I bought this summer, as I plan to completely rebuild it for a high comp NA build, and when I held those tiny little spaghetti-conrods in my hands I almost couldn't believe that those suckers manage to survive regularly hitting 7500RPM!

Basically any D-Series manifold will fit all kinds of engines out of that particular family. Except D17s, those are "special" (aka the worst engines Honda ever made). Got a 4-2-1 header myself that I bought when my car still had the stock D14 in it and it directly fit my D16Z9 without any modifications. And I can attest to the rust concerns - my rear arches were pretty bad (but still manageable) when I got mine, the front corners where the fenders meet the sideskirts were rotten through and the rear corners are also slowly starting to bloom, as well. Definitely make sure to check those spots when you've got the time! Oh, and your distributor is probably going to die at some point. All of them do, it's kind of inevitable. Do yourself a favor and don't get one of those repro units when it finally goes out - Blueprint and Yingzhen and whatnot units are all Chinesium garbage. The only high-quality replacement I could find was one of those rather tacky sounding "Dragon Fire" units, but quality-wise they are pretty much OEM+, made in the US (not China), and even provide a stronger spark than the stock dizzys do. Other than that, welcome to the club! :)

Cheers dude! Checked for vac leaks already and none have came up, used soapy water, as well as the old brake cleaner technique Definitely reckon it’s throttle body related, will dive into it this weekend

sorry no pics of spam for you spam lovers, but Yokohamas good if you only need dry grip ?

Hey Bro, Same with the one I wanted, common area. Poked and made it all worse haha, was the same on the other side, but the stability was still there, so a couple of small welds and used Isopon skin, high build primer, done. Got the other areas the side trim attaches to (in pics) back to bare metal, Jenolited everywhere, painted. Annoying at the time I painted gloss black to get it protected as nh605p was out of my dead budget! So check the side trim as it will have work for you :P You one looks better than mine, still be prepared as Kink says, that rust is coming from the inside out, you need to get at the source. If you love it and really want it, get it and sort it.

A weekend wrestling full rusted bolts... the ache of getting off the LCA's... horribly rusted and pitted 😔 Going to need some serious effort, any advise? Going to grind, use some high build primer and silver enamel paint, we will see... Thanks to Broon, getting the full strongflex poly bushes, thanks for the link bro.

Deleted... Been getting a few spams of late. Who in their right mind would click a link to order blue pills from Moscow 😂

Ayy I'm on the same boat rn haha, only thing I have a D14 and not a B18 😅