i am in the process of buying a 92-95 civic hatchback and needed some advice becasue i am on a budget. Ok i have 3 Grand right now and another 3 grand coming end at the end of april, plus im selling a ford explorer for 1500 to a buddy of mine and that is going to happen at the end of may. So should i buy a car now for under 3 Grand, then wait till the end of april and do an engine swap? Or should i just buy a hatch with a engine already in it? How much does the installtion of a complete (engine/tranny/ecu) costs? I was thinking of going with a B18C (94-95 GSR) motor/tranny/ECU?

 

The full swap for the b18c on www.passwordjdm.com is goin for 3500 not including shipping...and then you'll have to find someone to put it in so that would be another 1000.

 

Only a $1000 for the labor! Wow, that's pretty cheap. Over here in Los Angeles its about $1,500 or $2,000. I say screw that and I will do it myself. Besides, some of the beauty of fixing up your ride is learning.

 

It will be a lot cheaper to buy a pre-swapped car then doing it yourself.

On the other hand, when you buy pre-swapped, you often have to go back and fix the previous owners stupid mistakes and rig-jobs.

 

And understand the likelyhood that it probably had the piss beaten out of it.

$3500 is too spendy, you can get them cheaper. And doing a motorswap really isn't difficult, do some homework and give it a shot. It's not very technical.

 

Is a B18 GSR an easy swap? I would be doing it with my dad and his dad used to race back in the day so he knows about cars. But could it be done in a weekend?

 

I did a lot of research back in the day when I was deciding on engines for my 92 dx hatch. I settled on a b16a from hmotorsonline. The reasoning behind this is that it was my first swap(hey, im 17, give me a break), and it can be done in a weekend if you work your @$$ OFF.

Now unless I have forgottten things about the b18c, then this information should be correct:

It will be OBD2, your car is OBD1 so you will need to buy some type of a jumper harness or something along those lines for OBD1>OBD2.

Axles I believe line up correctly

Motor mounts, you will probably have to mix and match to get things right, I dont remember the exact mounts but take a look at hondaswap.com, it may be less active than say, honda-tech, but the information there is DEFINATELY more helpful.

Do everything you can ahead of time, this includes running wires to the ecu, doing any wiring possible to avoid having to do it later.

I would buy a hatch in ok condition, have you thought about buying a shell by the way? This woudl leave you with quite a bit leftover money. Then swap it yourself, it is a awesome learning experience, kind of a pain in the ass, but definately satisfication is guaranteed.

My b16a, started on friday night, was completed on sunday afternoon, fired her up and got no CEL's, running a chipped p06 right now, but once I get my new knock sensor, will be running on a p30.

B16a would be the easiest swap for you, im definately satisfied with mine, for now at least, it will probably be getting boost sometime, but its freaking awesome.

 

OR you could just buy an older Integra GSR for that kind of money.

 

naw the hatchbacks look better o and the post above me saying i need to convert the OBD 2 to OBD1 i thought the 94-95 GSR motors had a OBD 1? Wouldent that work with the stock linkage?

 

Yep, your correct, just did some more researching.

It looks like those motors are obd1 so that takes a lot of money off that you wont have to spend. Youll probably have to wire up a few things(NOTE: Do this before hand, run the wires from the shock tower plugs to your ecu plugs, saves time during swap)

It looks like whatever linkage you get on the motor will work. I guess I didnt know on my b16 that I need to buy integra linkage as well.

Good luck on whatever you decide! Feel free to pm me with any questions!