If you're cruising around one evening in your SOHC non-VTEC powered Honda and you're wishing you could have more power (and don't have a huge amountof cash), this article could be of use. One way of extracting a few ponies out of your little D15 as many of you know is by swapping on the almighty D16Z or D16Y VTEC head. :) (Almighty in terms of SOHC power that is). I never officially did this, but I did a fair amount of research into it before I ended up buying the ZC instead. This is mainly directed at doing the swap on 92-95 models, but the 96-on is pretty much the same thing.

These heads can be found in abundance in local auto yards and especially Ebay. When it comes to purchasing, for 92-95 Civics make sure you buy ahead off an OBD1 D16Z6, and for 96-00, buy a head off an OBD2 D16Y8. They WILL both work for the opposite applications, but you get into wiring issues with the diffent engine management systems, and it's simpler tojust buy the one for the same generation. Make sure you get everything you need, IE: valve cover, distributor, throttle body, intake manifold, fuelrail ect. when purchasing. Some guys like to hide stuff on Ebay.

One point of note, if swapping a Z6 head onto a 5th Gen D15, drive down to your local Honda dealer and pick up a head gasket for a D16Y8 motor. On the Z6, they will often bump the compression ratio up to 10.1:1 in many cases. Some guys claim to have hit 11.1, but that's B.S.

Once you have your head unit, find a P28 ECU that would've come stock with the D16Z6 motor. Unfortunately, if your original motor didn't have VTEC, Honda wasn't nice enough to give you a VTEC ECU and just leave the wires off. Wiring up the VTEC is relatively easy. I also had to do this with the ZC motor, and if I correctly remember, the ECU connectors are the same, you just have to add in the wires as follows:

1. VTEC solenoid to pin A4

2. VTEC oil pressure sensor to pin D6

3. VTEC ground to chassis ground.

When swapping in a JDM B16A into a 5th gen, I believe there are more wires that need to be hooked up, but for the mini-me swap that should be all you require.

Other parts to look into before attempting the swap would be a D16Z6timing belt, valve cover gasket, new spark plugs, new oil(Synthetic highly recommended!), oil filter and even if you want peace of mind, have the valves adjusted. Aquire all of these and you should be set. From my background, it really is almost as simple as just popping the first one off and throwing on the second one, but if you're not the most mechanically inclined person in the world it wouldn't help to have a mechanic help you out. I have read that some people have issues with installing the new timing belt, so having a knowledgable guy like Veris around would be handy!!!!

I've never driven a car with a mini-me swap, although most of the initial impressions from owners is that the lack of torque is still very evident, but once VTEC hits the car really starts to get moving. One kicker is the D15 tranny's are geared for fuel economy rather than acceleration, and this makes the difference at low rpm. If you have some spare cash kicking around afterwards, invest in a D16Z6 tranny as well for some improved acceleration. After all, that's why we tune these things in the firstplace right???

zc_vtec