92 Honda Civic hatch ZC motor

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92 Honda Civic hatch ZC motor

By 92DXcivickillerbee
- Tue May 23, 2017 12:11 am #6906892 Well to start I have a 1992 Honda Civic DX hatchback.just bought it last weekend it came with no water pump no timing belt and was missing quite a few things off the front of the engine. Guy sold it because it had a crack block around the water pump housing I grinded the crack out TIG weld everything very carefully grinded the tig welds all nice and move to a factory finish. Well in the process of installing a timing belt and water pump I realized it wasn't working. For some reason the timing belt was way too big. So I started looking stuff up and realized that my D15B7 has a mini me swap already it has a 97 D16y7 VTEC head. So I had to get water pump and belt tensioner pulley for the D15 and a timing belt for a d16y7 motor. After that the distributor was not working. :( so I looked and looked and could not find any distributor with the OBD one wires on it then found out I have to take all the stuff out of an OBD1 and put it in the OBD2 Daisy which I redid. After that it started right up. Sounds great has great compression on all cylinders all around 175 183.... It also has a p28 computer.

I came across a 92 Honda Civic from Japan. At junk yard It had what appeared to be the same engine that was in mine but wasn't VTEC and has a brand new head on it. I thought okay well not big deal I could just switch the head. But I'm very lost about this. Because the motor is a ZC MOTOR which everyone saying is the same as a D16. But has higher compression. And makes about 130 to 140 HP

Im lost guys please help can I use this block should I keep the block as it is. Is the new head going to compromised the original engines horsepower. The head is a PM3-18.
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Re: 92 Honda Civic hatch ZC motor

By teal_dx
- Tue May 23, 2017 1:56 am #6906893 Welcome to the forum!
First, the d16y7 is not a vtec head, the d16y8 is. Second, you went the hard route on the distributor. An OBD1 distributor from a d15b7, d15b8 will bolt right up to a d16y7 or d16y8 head. No need to swap the guts. But you did it the hard way and it worked so kudos to doing the hard work the right way- especially repairing the block yourself. :thumb:

Since you already put all the time and parts into your current setup, I'd just keep it as-is. You know it's reliable and done properly. You could always buy it and build a second motor on the side, but I would get your hatch on the road and enjoy driving it in the meantime.
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Re: 92 Honda Civic hatch ZC motor

By teal_dx
- Tue May 30, 2017 7:48 pm #6906911 The d16y8 and d16y7 heads have the squared off combustion chambers, which are a little smaller than the D15b7 heads. That means you have a higher compression ration than a stock d15b7 or d16y7. Assuming the internals are stock, I'd guess you're somewhere around 10:1 to 10.5:1 CR, depending on which head gasket is used. So you're getting a little extra power from that (be sure to use 92 octane fuel with that setup.)
I don't know enough on the PM3-18 head to tell you if that will be a better setup on a zc bottom end or not.
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