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D series Insight Build Thread

21K views 141 replies 14 participants last post by  MadScienceG1 
#1 ·
Hey guys, I figured it was time to start a build thread. Like many others, I know this isn't the standard path on this forum, but having an online journal of progress is always a good thing that could help others in the future.

Back story: I purchased this Blue 2004 CVT in December, with it needing a couple things, brake line, front brakes, etc. After a freshening up, it lasted 400 miles before the IMA battery started to have issues, and within another 1000 miles, the CVT decided 2020 wasn't it's year....

So, March 31st is the day I pulled out the stock engine and trans, and started the D swap. I was given a running/driving 1999 Civic LX for free, so that is how it started! Made some terrible engine mounts, but couldn't get the wiring figured out. So, when I found a 1993 Civic that had been hit, for $300, I snatched it up! D16Z6, 175K miles, engine ran really smooth.

So I pulled the motor, trans, and the entire wiring harness, including ignition cylinder, gauges, fuse boxes, all of it. Hooked up power and ground to it with the engine in the Insight, and she fired right up! So, even still, my insight has two ignition cylinders, two gauge clusters, and two interior fuse boxes! Sloppy! I'm working on this, obviously.

So, on to axles. I had followed another Insighter that put a D16 into his Insight, and used CRX HF axles. So I bought them, and had to modify the stock hubs quite a bit to get the outer CV joint to fit. Finally get it out on a test drive, and holy shaking car batman! The axles were just a bit too long, so on the search I went for ones that would work. After searching, I found that 1984 Civic axles were a little bit shorter than the CRX HF axles, so rock auto got me a set for just under $100. Hard to argue with that! When I put those axles in, the passenger side worked perfect, but the driver's side inner CV cup was shorter than the factory D16 one, by over a half inch, so the C-clip on the splines couldn't even engage. I don't know if that is a difference in the 1984 axle, or if the aftermarket company put the wrong inner CV cup on. It was identical to the passenger side inner CV cup, so I think it was an error. I simply pulled the stock civic inner CV cup off the old axle and put in on the new axle, and all is good!

So, I have been driving this car a little bit here and there, and have put about 300 miles on it, and it's doing good for the most part. I have many small things that need to get fixed, and I will work on them as time allows.

Many Videos and pics to follow! She leaves 11's for days!

So on to my current problems: The one I want to fix first, is the power steering. Currently it is not working. The module is plugged in, but it's as if it's not even there. I looked for a ground strap on the rack itself, but couldn't find one. I have heard that is an issue with these cars.

Sorry for the long read, hopefully you can find this process enjoyable! Thanks for looking,

John
 
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#28 ·
Currently it's just getting the tuned dialed in and upping the boost. Two times now, both on the way back from the drag strip, the whole tune has gone crazy rich! I have no clue what it is because I'm leaving it open loop!

The wideband is now hooked up to the ECU, and I welded a better flange onto the exhaust so now it's nice and quiet. So besides the tuning part of it, its been a great, no hassles, experiment!

The short term plan is 8-9psi, turbo heat shield and heat wrap for both the down pipe and intake, and then drag slicks, if I can find a good set for a decent price. I think low 12's, even high 11's are possible with that setup. Time will tell of course!

I did a second pass, but bogged, so it was only a 14.3. I've still got it when it comes to reaction time though, lol.
 

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#29 ·
Ok, another update!

I took the car on a trip this morning, with it running all rich for whatever reason, and eight after I get the tune back to where it should be, I fill the tank up, and the damn thing went stupid lean on me! Like it reverted back to where the tune was originally! So, I tuned it AGAIN!

Now with that somewhat sorted, I added a "T" to the wastegate line, and somehow managed to get it right where I wanted it. 9.5psi. Got it dialed in at 11.5afr and 17° of timing. Feels pretty strong, intake temps after a 1-4 pull were at 110°, they actually started at 118°, due to my intake routing behind the radiator. This will be fixed next week when the turbo blanket, and heat shielding will be in to wrap the intake pipe and downpipe!

So hopefully with some cooler intake temps, and 9psi, I can get some better track numbers here in the next couple weeks!

Thanks for looking!

John
 
#30 ·
I decided to look into a little of the wiring yesterday. I found the wires that need to see VSS signal for both the speedo, and the Electronic Power Steering. So after running a little bit of wire, I now have both a functioning speedo and EPS!!!

I do have a question if anyone here can answer. After getting these fixed, on my test drives, I get the sounding key "Dings" every 30 seconds. This is the noise you here if you put your key into acc position with the door open. It dings 6 times then stops. Any Ideas as to why this would happen? If nothing else, I guess I could find the "Dinger" and take care of it by removing it!

I also messed with launch control. Just playing with some settings, I have it building a little over 2psi at 4200rpm. I'm not going to build crazy boost yet, becasue on street tires it just doesn't make sense.

On a side note, I try to keep up with a lot of the tuners, and I watch a lot of their tuning videos, and it looks like I am being incredibly conservative on the timing. In two different cases, I seen them put right about 20 degrees of timing in at 8-9psi, where I am only running 16-17, and they are saying that they are even being conservative! So I guess the next time out at the track, I will run a pass with 16-17 degrees of timing, and then bump it up, as long as temps stay under control!...

She's starting to come alive! I feel like by this time next year this car could be a monster!

Thanks for looking!

John
 
#32 ·
Yeah, I have 91 in the tank, it's all I can find regularly. The bad part about that is I don't have a knock sensor, so I have to keep it on the safe side. I haven't heard anything audible, and with the research I have done, I would feel comfortable going to 20 Degrees as it is. I also have some "octane booster" in it, which may have given me a couple points. I plan to only run 87 octane on wastegate pressure of 4.2psi, because it ran fine with the 87 that was in there when I first turbo'ed it.

More than likely, I will eventually run E85, as I can get it easily where I live, and the knock prevention of alcohol based fuel is just incredible! On my twincharged 93 Probe GT, my megasquirt ECU quit controlling spark, so I switched to E85 and ran stock timing! Ha ha, not recommended for sure, but it had no problems at 14psi!!!
 
#44 ·
More than likely, I will eventually run E85, as I can get it easily where I live, and the knock prevention of alcohol based fuel is just incredible! On my twincharged 93 Probe GT, my megasquirt ECU quit controlling spark, so I switched to E85 and ran stock timing! Ha ha, not recommended for sure, but it had no problems at 14psi!!!
E85 is insane, now that gas is stupid cheap it seems that it costs close to what regular costs. I’m definitely doing the dual tune in my DC5 just for the fact that car will run a little cooler.


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#33 ·
Small update! I fixed the issue with the door chimes! When I pulled the driver's seat, I forgot to disconnect the seatbelt wiring, and broke them. Thinking it was a an open loop when the belt wasn't plugged in, I just looped the wires together. I was wrong, it was a closed loop. So I disconnected the wires and now there is no chime.

I just ordered a clutch and flywheel for it, as I am pretty sure I smell clutch after I open the hood after driving it hard. It's still holding great, but at some point it's going to give up the ghost, especially if I start running some sticky tires! I'll hold off on replacing it until after it actually starts to slip.
 
#34 ·
I'm just rolling along with updates! Today the header wrap and the turbo blanket came in, along with some Sealight LED headlights. I chose these because the ones I purchased for my F150 had shields around the low beam so it doesn't blind oncoming traffic. These had the same shield, so hopefully we are good in that respect. I will see how they do tomorrow AM when I go to work.

I wrapped the intake tube, and put the turbo blanket on, and also shimmed the hood about a quarter inch. This worked really, really well! Intake temps are staying roughly 20° colder through the same situations as yesterday, and the underhood heat soak is way lower with the shims! It pulls a lot harder when it can start at 95° instead of 118°, lol. A full 3-4 pull ended at 100° on the dot, so that is a significant improvement!

I also sourced a set of 24.5x9x13 slicks and wheels that I am taking a small road trip tomorrow night to go get! Quarter mile times should drop substantially in the coming weeks!

Thanks for reading, sorry there aren't any pics recently, I'll try to do better!
 
#36 ·
If I didn't care about the money invested I would go with a ceramic coating. I never noticed any ill effects on my painted or stainless exhausts with header wrap, but I could see how mild steel could have issues. I'll probably paint my downpipe with a ceramic paint before I end up wrapping that. I'm not concerned about the intake, as it's aluminum...

I'm really anxious to see how well all these things do combined on my next outing, because they all have shown good results in their areas. The slicks will just be icing on the cake, if I can get it to not destroy the clutch, lol.

On my old twincharged probe, I was consistently running 122-123mph in the quarter, because the tires were the weakest link. Once I threw slicks on, it was game over. Here is the only pass I ever made on high boost (14psi) and slicks, clutch gave up at the 1000' mark...

 
#37 ·
Update! After a 6+ hour round trip, I now have two sets of slicks! Both are 24.5" Tall, one is 9" wide, and one is 7" wide. I think the 24.5x9" slicks will have an issue fitting, but they are on the 4x100 bolt pattern. The 24.5x7" slicks are on 5x100 bolt pattern, so I may switch the 7" wides to the other rims and try them out first.

I will also hook up the clutch sensor switch, so I can activate No Lift Shift, and keep the engine in boost! Looking at my logs, I'm losing about .4 seconds per shift of acceleration due to backing off of the throttle.
 
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#38 ·
Here are a few pictures of the 24.5x9x13" wheels and slicks. Not the style I'm used to, but it'll work, lol.

86506


86507

86508

86509


Not sure if I will be heading to the track tonight or not, depends on what the wife says!

I did also order a new helmet a couple days ago, it's Snell 2020, so it will be good for roughly 12 years.

Thanks for looking!

John
 
#40 ·
My very first thought: Why didn't that dummy put the slicks on the back, where they're supposed to be.

My very second though: Why are you calling the wrong guy "dummy?"
 
#41 ·
I'm not into drag racing and couldn't say how much of a difference it would make, but if you cover up all that grill opening where your charge pipes are so air can only enter into the intercooler I guarantee you'll make more power (more efficient intercooling), your radiator will be more efficient, and you'll have better aerodynamics (go faster and better fuel economy). As you have it now I wouldn't be all that surprised if you actually aren't getting any air flow through the intercooler and that all the air is more or less bypassing it.

I have an aluminum half radiator on my K swap that was having a hard time staying below 200*F and was having intake temps 30*F above ambient despite having the air filter located in the fender well. Once I blocked off the grill opening next to the radiator so air could only flow through the radiator it's actually difficult for me to get the clt temp above 185*F unless I'm not moving. My IAT's also dropped to about 15*F above ambient. I recall having similiar results when I had the turbo 3 with making it so air could only enter by traveling through the intercooler. I haven't measured the actual air pressure differences yet with my air blocking/guiding but plan to... just haven't really felt like driving my car much lately being my driver window quit working and is stuck down.
 
#42 ·
Haha, when I put the drive tires on the back, they won't need to be slicks, because it will mean it's awd!
 
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#43 · (Edited)
I haven't seen ect's over 192. And ever since I added the hood spacers, turbo blanket, and wrapped the intake, I haven't seen over 185. Intake temps are between 10-20° above ambient. The intercooler is actually ahead of those open spots, so if I were to close them off, I don't think I would get any more through it., it would just route around or under/over the bumper. I'll take a closer look when I get some time!
 
#45 ·
Small update, nothing new to report as far as progress made. I actually took a decent step backwards! When I mounted the slicks on the car and went for a drive last Thursday, a buddy of mine asked for a ride, so we went down a country road and gave it the beans a couple times. Well, that ripped the rear motor mount, so I am looking into a new design for that. I am also trying to get the passenger side stiffer by using Polyurethane to fill the gap in the rubber mounts.

Besides that, the car is running good, and should be good to see upper 30/lower 40's for gas mileage. The only problem with that, is I have to run a full tank without going to the track or hooning it too bad, or I'll never get a good sample for gas mileage!

I also looked into the bumper situation that Mattl92 mentioned, and as for now I will leave it be. The passenger side opening feeds right to where the intake is leading to the turbo. I need fresh ambient air here for obvious reasons. If I get to a point where the boost is getting higher and I am having issues cooling everything down, I will look into it more seriously! Also, as I stated, the openings are actually behind the intercooler, so while I'm sure it would help make some of the air force feed through the intercooler, I feel there wouldn't be as great of a benefit as if this were a Civic, where the bumper is flat most of the way across the bumper.
 
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#46 ·
Got a couple hours out in the garage last night, and let me tell you, this is now starting to feel like a project should! Why? Well because of the problems that are coming to fruition, of course!

I made a new rear mount, that uses the stock rear rubber mount that is mounted to the chassis, and then welded a steel adapter to the bottom of the engine. It seems to be working good, but for some reason the shifter mount has been giving me issues. I think it has to do with how I mounted it to the sheet metal of the tunnel. I plan to use a mounting plate to hold it up when I get another chance to mess with it.

Also, while doing a quick drive last night, I got on it to check the tune modifications I made, and I am pretty sure I have hit the limit of the factory clutch! Intake temps were 80 degrees or under, and it's still at 9.5psi. So I'm assuming I am currently at 200whp, or slightly above. So we will see how it runs the next few times I drive it, because if it's slipping too bad, I'll throw the new clutch in as soon as I get it, and wait to head back to the track.

Thanks for looking!

John
 
#47 ·
Another update! I used the sandwich plate technique to remount the shifter mount. I used two .125" thick aluminum plates to sandwich the sheet metal of the tunnel and the shifter mount itself. The reason for having to do this was due to the shifter mount actually bending the sheet metal of the tunnel, causing the shifter linkage to fall out! It seems to have worked for now.

Now, back to the engine and tranny mounts. I purchased some Energy Suspension bushings that will work with 1.510" ID tubing. This is a relatively common size, of 1.75" OD with a 1.20" wall. I don't have any of this tubing yet, but it can be ordered easily enough from companies like McMaster-Carr, or most fab shops will have left over droppings you can pick up for cheap.

I will be working on the main mounts here in the next week or two, and that will help with what motion I still have left in the engine bay!

I'm going to try to go to the track tomorrow and throw down some times. I think I will run my first pass on my street tires, and then run a couple times on the slicks, as long as the clutch holds.

Thanks for looking,

John
 
#48 ·
Came to the track tonight, lots of issues! Broke the shifter mount, again!!!! Jerry rigged it, and put the slicks on. First pass broke the shifter, second pass hit a rev limit in 4th, not sure why, it was my launch control limiter that should shut off after 6mph...

Last 2 passed were on the slicks, with no launch control.... but, I skipped 13s and went straight to 12.80s, lol

Thanks for looking! I most likely won't come back to the track until later in the fall for some better weather! DA was 2000 tonight...
 

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#49 ·
I just thought of something. I'm wondering if my vtec isn't physically coming on?!? The numbers would make a lot more sense if that were the case!.

I know the computer is activating vtec, but I have never really heard a hard vtec switch over! That's something I'll look into soon...
 
#51 ·
I sure did! Lol. Normally I'm between .000 and .050, however, with the issues I was having, I only concentrated on the car stuff. For example, if you look at the first pass, I did try to cut a good light.

Time always starts when the beams are tripped, so the ET isn't affected
 
#52 ·
Update on Vtec. It is definitively NOT engaging. With Hondata, I changed the vtec RPM engagement to a few different RPM's, 2500, 3000, 3500... I could not hear the switchover at any point. So I have some investigating to do. Before testing, I pulled off the Solenoid and cleaned it, but it wasn't really dirty, so I figured that wasn't going to be the problem, but better to clean it out anyway.

My 1.75" Tube is here, so I will start working on my permanent motor mounts with the Energy Suspension bushings. This will solve a whole bunch of small issues, ha ha.

Thanks for looking! Pics to come of the mounts as they are made!

John
 
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