sorry im a newb

 

a ZC is a motor that came from JDM civic si (i think) but it was bassicall our SI motor w/ a duel cam head
b16's came from SIR's

 

i wonder if it stood for something (an abbreviation of what)?

 

i dunno. it may have because it is stamped on the block, but usually honda is pretty good about naming its blocks with the block type, displacement , and head type. ZC is odd in the manner that it isnt as descriptive as most other honda codes are

 

It's probably a remnant from the old style of Honda block codes. Somewhere near the end of 3G (84-87) civic production (where the ZC was first placed) They adoped the modern block stamping system, renaming engines like the EW's to the D15A's, and the EV's to the D13A's. Older 80-83 Civic engines were known only by these old codes, in this case the EM (1200cc). Thus, if you want to get really technical, the D series are historically E series engines. I figure ZC is an old designation that never died, even though it did get a D series designation in the 1G Integras as the D16A1/8/9.

 

The ZC was just a designation given to the early dual cam non-vtec and early single cam vtec engines to denote essentially "production R&D" designs. Why they picked ZC is beyond me, but from everything I have found, they could just have easily called it a PU.