Help with city turbo1 motor

[Drifter995]

Hey all, I'm about to start myself a honda city turbo1 motor conversion into a first gen civic, and am curious about a few things about the engine.. if you could answer, it'd be much appreciated

a) Does the turbo boost upgrade (getting the small amounts of piping and upping the psi or so, found in nya thread: viewtopic.php?t=4) work for the turbo1 motor? or is the turbo different on the 1 compared to the 2?

b) What ecu would you recommend? I've been told a wolf ecu, by one person, microtech by another, haltech by another person... The person offering wolf was because microtech are apparently outdated and running old and cheap internals

c) If I wanted to bore out the engine to 1.5l what pistons could I use? I want to bore it out to close to 1.5 so I'm not dropping too far from stock (stock engine is 1.5)

d) Can you get a nice lumpy cam for the 1 motor?

Basically, all I really want in the end is about 150kw at most. 150hp at least
Going to hopefully build up the engine, and get it running fresh. it will have all gaskets replaced, hopefully the head worked/ cleaned, block freshened up, etc.

Cheers
-Ben

[civic_zr]

A) Yes T1 motor will still benefit from more boost, and better breathing

B)Factory, its basically a glorified fuel controller anyway

C)Don't know if its possible to bore it out to 1500cc, but probably not.

D) You can get cams reground. Finding an off the shelf new cam will be next to impossible, regrinds are your best option

Your aim 150 - 200hp(150kw) is unrealistically high for these little motors. Remember they are almost 30 years old, and 1200cc. Making 100wkw even is a high expectation. If you are after that much power go for a boosted sohc d series motor, they fit into the 1G Civic.

My 2c.

1) Freshen your motor up with new seals etc, arp headstuds, and and recondition the turbo if you can find someone/where that can do it.

2) Get the motor in your car, you'll find there are heaps of little unforeseen issues that will slow you down. If you can, make a list of all the parts you have, and go through it checking you've got everything you need prior to starting the swap. (Remember for the 1G Civic you need to upgrade the fuel system, and customize a loom)

3) Get a nice free flowing exhaust system, consider cooling upgrades such as alloy radiator from 1stgencivic and an oil cooler (I found my 1G civic desperately needed one, the oil temps went through the roof with any prolonged time on boost)

4) Enjoy it. You'll be suprized how much fun 15psi is with these little beasts

[Drifter995]

Awesome, thanks for the advice dude

I did have a look at the engine today, and I think I found the ecu... a little blue box with two plugs... I pulled it apart and the names of the points all sounded like ecu things (Ign, cool, heat, gnd) stuff like that... So, I wouldn't need a new ecu to run a bit more boost and/or bigger injectors?

I wasn't sure about the power too much, just figured I'd replace all seals, rings, gaskets, do head, cylinder and turbo is a good point, then see if I can't get it up a bit... but, I saw the t2 was 100hp~ and the t1 was like 80 or less, so I suppose just doing the breathing upgrade, getting an intercooler, fixing up a custom exhaust, a nice intake and what not will suffice. Anything more than the current 50~kw should suffice xD
The radiator in it should suffice for now (hopefully) it's a 1500cc one, and those are (or so I'm told) the best of the 1st gen rads, so theoretically that should do me for a bit...

For the sohc d series motor, I have a d15b7 at home, lying in my written off eg... only downside is, the motor would be a pain to put in... (I imagine I'd have to do a lot more than with the city motor, which is apparently pretty much straight bolt in)

as for the fuel system, I shall upgrade all the fuel lines (may as well while I'm there, hey?) I got a free 420hp walbro (I think, something like that) fuel pump with the engine, so that should help..
The loom came with the engine, so I'll just need to get somebody to mesh them together (I use mesh loosely, I mean fix up... you know what I mean)
The car already has a 2inch exhaust to a lukey muffler, which if I can cut at the flexi bit, I could make a temp bit to go from the dump pipe to the old exhaust, until I get the funds to send it to a friends in hobart.

And yeah, cheers I plan on keeping this car for as long as possible, having as much fun as possible ^^