First Swap Work in progress

(Everyone has a first time, this was ours . . .) Written by Jeff S, ~Feb 2000

I had been searching for a suitable white VX hatch for a while at this point. One day, I was looking on the web and found a white VX hatchback at a dealer in Fresno. I drove out with a friend and looked at the car one Saturday. This car had been badly abused by the previous owner. The rear side windows had been spray painted black. The car rode on cut Neuspeed race springs with stock struts. Alignment was terrible. There were probable about 50 feet of chopped wires floating around in and under the car. The rear window defroster had been disconnected in order to power some unknown accessory item. Even the center mount for the rear seat had been removed – permanently. To this day, if I wanted back seats, I'd have to get the bracket re-welded into the car. Makes a great excuse for a two seater, though. It had Ghetto Kmart wheel covers, and the engine was dying, the clutch was shot and the exhaust had been redone with a generic muffler. The doors had no window cranks, and the blue carpet on the doors had bad water damage. The passenger door lock was broken, and there were no windshield wipers at all. There was no stereo and no speakers in the car either. The car had no intake on it. I actually had to buddy up to the smog guy so he would pass it on the visual so I could take it home that day. I actually drove with a bare TB for two months until I did the swap. This car was in sad shape, and I really had to massage my poor EG back to heath. Even with all these problems, I couldn't be happier. I considered it to be 'all part of the adventure.' I saw it as a blank canvas to create my Hybrid masterpiece. So I haggled with the salesman and got the car for $3700.00. It was a 1993 VX with 99k miles on it. Then we drove the two cars home and the adventure had begun!

Now that I had the car, I had to find a powerplant for it. I had been looking around on the web for sometime looking for a GSR or ITR swap for a good price. I had seen a 98 GSR that had the full swap intact on copartfinder.com a while before I got my EG. I figured it would be gone already (It had 20,000 miles and they only wanted $3200.00 for it) but I decided to give them a call. Turns out someone from Tech 3 was going to buy it, but the deal fell through. So they still had it. I haggled with them over price and got the entire swap, except the ECU, for an even 3 thousand. So I was like cool, 20k miles on the drivetrain, and a great deal to boot! I put a deposit down and went to pick it up the following week. When I went to pick it up, I took a walk around their yard. They had a gold mine of 3g 'teg and 5g Civic stuff. I ended up picking out an entire interior from several different EG's. I got door panels from a rare 95 white Si. I pulled a roof liner, interior panels, a rear speaker kit, seatbelts, rear top trim panels, the rubber liner that wraps around the door, hatch panels, a glove box, kick panel and other small items from several different hatchbacks. I also got an Integra armrest, Integra kick panels, and white color matched Civic mirrors. I loaded everything into my friends mini van and brought it all to my girlfriends garage.

I then began ordering all the other items I would need. Along with the motor swap, I was planning on putting front and rear Type R swaybars, and Del Sol VTEC seats, and a many other things. I ordered all this stuff through the mail. At one point I had seven packages coming to me at the same time. I ordered a 95 GSR ECU from Katman, front lower control arms, front GSR swaybar, rear Type R swaybar, rear swaybar bracket / bushings, radiator hoses, Del Sol VTEC A/C bracket, RS*R exhaust system, Helms manual for a 95 Integra, and some other small items. . All my OEM parts came from Larry Jr. at Import Auto Salvage. I got the power mirrors (Color matched), Si door panels, and all interior panels. I also purchased Del Sol VTEC seats from a salvage yard in Portland, OR.

During the time I was shopping for swap parts, I installed my black interior. I removed all the blue paneling and replaced it with black counterparts. My friend Brian cleaned the 'new' panels before we installed them, and they looked good as new when they went in. I also took the car to my local window shop and had them remove the black spray paint from the windows and tint the car all the way around. It took them two hours and a lot of razor blades to remove the black spray paint. They never even scratched the glass! The interior that is in my EG now is made up from about six different cars. Almost nothing is left from when I bought it. I have a black dash sitting waiting to be installed. Once I receive my new steering wheel and tach, I'll install everything at once.

I had originally wanted to do my swap over new year weekend, but being a Technical Support type, I ended up being scheduled for the Y2K shift and it looked like I was going to be working all weekend. So I figured I'd take the following Thursday and Friday off and do it just in time for the first ever Bay Area Hybrid Meet. When I asked my boss for the days off, he didn't seem too happy. So if I wasn't going to get the time off work, I would need to start sooner. On 1.1.00 when the world didn't end they let everyone go home early. I left work at 12 noon and decided I was going to start my swap that day. I figured if I could get all the major work done in the next day and a half, then do the small things over the following week, then turn the key the following Saturday. One week start to finish.

I still had not received the front LCA's, front swaybar hardware, rear swaybar hardware, radiator hoses, valve cover nuts, driver's front lower engine mount bolt, and a few other items. However they were already in transit and I knew they would be here in the next few days. I prayed I was going to get everything I was supposed to get on time. I had in the garage the following items: Complete B18C1 changeover, including everything except the ECU and lower A/C bracket/engine mount bolt, Del Sol VTEC radiator, 94-95 GSR P72 ECU, Del Sol VTEC A/C bracket, GSR AEM intake, and a 98 GSR cat. I was going to pick up the RS*R exhaust the following Monday. So I got off work at noon and headed over to my Girlfriends Mom's house, where the swap would occur. I called my friend Brian, who I had drafted into helping me do the swap and told him to meet me there.

We started swapping the motor Saturday afternoon, 1.1.2000. We began by tearing down the tired VX motor. I removed all the vacume hoses and wiring, then removed the AC compressor and tied it out of the way. I then removed the clutch lines and radiator. Brian removed the exhaust system. We couldn't get the downpipe to unbolt from the cat, so we unbolted the VX straightpipe from the downpipe and left the complete header on the engine. Brian had to cut the muffler hangars with a dremel to get the old muffler out. While he was doing all this, I removed the VX the shift linkage. This was not as easy as I was expecting. The wrist pin that held the linkage to the tranny was a lot harder to remove than I expected. I tried driving it out with a hammer and several different sized screwdrivers. (It wasn't helping that there wasn't much room to swing a hammer.) After about 20 minutes of trying unsuccessfully to get the pin out, I devised a different plan. I decided to cut the linkage. I figured no one will ever use it, so why the not. So I took a dremel and hacksaw to it. Took about ten minutes. I was able to cut it without much trouble. Then I pulled the axles from the hubs per the Helms manual. I then removed the throttle cable and clutch line. So after one nights work (about three hours) we had the VX motor stripped down to just the mounts. We could have gone further, but we had no engine lift.

The next morning I rented a lift and went to work again. I was able to rent a "beak down" lift. Each piece pulls apart and it can fit a small car. Good thing, because I picked it up with my Integra! So I picked up the lift and went to the house. Brian arrived a little later and we went to work. I assembled the lift in the driveway and bolted it up to the VX motor. There are two lift points, one on the top left corner of the block, and the other is a tranny casing bolt. You remove the bolt, slide the harness over it and reattach the bolt. It is a specific bolt, so be sure to consult your Helms manual. So I had the VX motor fully bolted up to the lift. I tensioned the lift and began to remove the mounts. I began with the front lower tranny mount, followed by the A/C bracket mount, then the rear tranny mount. It was at this point that I realized I would nut be able to get the axles out of the hubs after I pulled the motor. So I slid the axles back into the differential and tried to remove the 32mm axle nut. We torqued against it heavily with a two-foot breaker bar. The engine would torque over heavily since it only had two mounts. Plus the open differential would spin the other wheel. So we inserted a long bar to block the opposite hub from turning. This passed the force into the engine and the crank started spinning. So we inserted a socket extender into the crank pulley and braces it against the frame of the car to stop the engine from turning. Even with all these things we couldn't get the axle nut to break loose. Once nothing on the car would turn any more, the ratchet did, and it broke. So we decided we needed to bring in "more power." We went to the hardware store and got a five-foot breaker bar, and a new ratchet. We brought it home and stood on it – both of us. Suddenly it gave – or so we thought. The axle nut was not loose, but it had definitely moved. I checked the rod in the other hub. It hadn't moved. I checked the extender rod in the crank pulley.

It was impressive to see. The force was enough for the crank pulley to rotate with the rod in it. This caused the rod to twist and splinter the crank pulley. Wow.

We STILL weren't able to remove that nut. So PooN called me about a lift I was gonna borrow from him. I told him I didn't need a lift, but I did need advice on the axle nut. He agreed to come over and take a look. So he came over to help us out. The three of us discussed many options, and finally decided to pull the entire knuckle/axle assembly and take it to a shop and have them do it. Once this decision was made, we could finally remove the knuckle/axles and lift out the VX motor. We had lost an easy two hours delaing with this problem. Once we got the VX motor out, I laid it down on the driveway. I detached the lift and rolled it into the garage and strapped up my B18C1. While I was doing this, Brian cleaned up the Civic's engine bay real good with Simple Green. I lifted the GSR motor into the air and wheeled it into the driveway. I added a new Honda oil filter and my Autometer oil pressure and water temperature sending units. Doing this while the motor was in the air was MUCH easier than doing while the motor is in the car. I know, I've done it both ways. While the engine bay was empty we posed for a couple pictures. I also installed an OEM front crossbar from the same GSR that donated my motor. Once the motor was prepped we began to maneuver it into the car. We hung it right above the engine bay and realized what a tight fit this would be. Once again my memories of posts I had read on the Hybrid page came in handy. We need to lift the motor at an angle, with the tranny lower than the block. So we laid the engine on the ground and re-adjusted the hoist chain. We re-lifted the motor and once again moved it over the civic bumper. It was a tight fit as the hoist barely cleared the garage ceiling. We had approximately ¼ to ½ inch of clearance on each side between the engine/tranny and the shock towers. I had my girlfriend come and operate the lift while Brian and I maneuvered the engine into the engine bay. This took about twenty minutes to do. Once we got it in we attached the top tranny mount first. Then we attached the upper driver side mount. Then I squirmed under the car and attached the rear tranny mount. (NOTE: The rear tranny mount bracket was bolted to the trans and block when we installed the motor. It's a little harder to maneuver into the engine bay, but worth it because you only have to attach one bolt between the motor and firewall once the motor is in. It's a tight space in there!) Attaching these first three mounts was challenging. We attached and removed the mounts several times to get everything lined up properly. Once we got this done, I attached the front lower tranny mount. I torqued the mounts down according to Helm spec. (NOTE: In the Helms I found a certain order in which you are supposed to attach and torque the mounts – bolt by bolt for each mount. I had never heard of this before. Helms warns of premature engine mount bushing wear if you don't torque them in the right order.) That was pretty much it for Sunday, as it was about ten PM. We packed up the lift and left the HB for the night.

The next day (Monday) I took the lift back to the rental place. I drove to Modacar on my lunch break and picked up the RS*R exhaust. Also my packages had arrived from Import Auto Salvage. I received the drivers side fender liner, front lower control arms, and a GSR master cylinder, booster, prop. valve and hard lines. I still hadn't received many things I needed to complete my swap, including the valve cover nuts, GSR radiator hoses, and the rear ITR swaybar. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get to work on the car Monday night. Tuesday at lunch I took my knuckle/axle assemblies to Speed Merchant to get the axle nut removed. They told me it would be $10 to do both nuts. When I showed the tech what I had, he smiled and got his impact gun. I told him the nut size and he stuck it on the nut. I told him they were torqued to 132 ft/lbs., and he jokingly said, "Is that all?" Thirty seconds later both axle nuts were off. He then told me no charge and good luck on my project.

Tuesday night I began by connecting the throttle cable. I had gotten the GSR throttle cable with the swap package. Installation was easy and there was almost no adjustment needed. I simply adjusted the two nuts till it fit on to the TB pulley snugly. This lined up perfectly with the pedal as well and there was no free play in the pedal. I then installed the RS*R exhaust system. It hung up to the stock mounting points with no problem. It stuck out the back just the right amount.

I then installed the downpipe. I had to buy new exhaust gaskets from the Acura dealer for this. Once the down pipe was in, I installed the cat. I then realized that I had a gap. I measured it and it was exactly 3.5". So a Civic Si cat-back exhaust and a GSR downpipe and a GSR cat do NOT line up perfectly, it's short. I was misinformed about this. No worries, though, all part of the adventure. Since the cat was hanging at an awkward angle, I removed it temporarily.

Then I connected the vacume lines. There are four lines on the car (OBD1) and one line on the motor (OBD2). The VX had a black box that bolted to the firewall. I did not need this anymore so I removed it. I now had two lines on the car. The open line coming from the engine is the evap purge control solenoid valve. I connected that line to the larger of the two lines coming from the evap canister. It was a tight fit, as the VX hose was smaller than the GSR hose. I had to stretch the VX hose onto the GSR evap valve. I also had one line that connected to nothing on the car's evap canister. This was the evap emission purge control diaphragm valve line. I folded a hose back on itself and capped that line. However this will be an issue later when smog time comes.

I then removed the fan assembly from the Civic radiator and bolted it to my Del Sol VTEC radiator. This bolted up perfectly with no problems. I did, however, have to adjust the lower radiator mounts so it would sit in properly. They were bent up slightly and I had to knock them down with a hammer. Then I test fit the radiator and it lined up perfectly. I did not actually install it yet though. I then climbed under the car to do some work underneath. I replaced my front lower control arms and installed the Type R (GSR) front swaybar. Everything bolted up perfectly. The tolerances for the front sway bar are amazingly tight. That things sure snakes around up in there! Then I installed the shift linkage. This was also very simple. I inserted the pin and circlip and adjusted the rubber boot. I then installed the heat shield between the linkage boot and the exhaust downpipe.

Once the linkage, swaybars, and exhaust were in, I installed the axles. I first had to re-install the knuckles. I bolted the knuckle to the upper control arm and rested it against to lower control arm. I slid the axle into the inner differential and then slid it into the knuckle. I lined the axle up so the opening on the clip was facing down and pushed it in. The axle snapped in flawlessly. Thanks to the Hybrid board again!

I did have a little trouble getting the axle splines in to the drivers side knuckle. I knocked it in gently using the axle as a hammer. Definitely oil the axles before installing them.

I then bolted the knuckle to the lower ball joint and the steering linkage and put new cotter pins on all the castle nuts. I then reinstalled the rotors and calipers to the knuckles. This was it for Tuesday, as I was getting late, and I was exhausted. Thursday started off on a bad foot. I was able to negotiate the day off from work, but I didn't have much work I could do, as I was waiting for my packages from UPS. I was sitting at my apartment 15 miles from the car waiting for the packages. I waited till 12:30 in the afternoon and called UPS. They informed me that ground packages are guaranteed delivery by 7pm. I couldn't believe it. So I decided to skip waiting and go work on the car. I'd come back around five to see if they had arrived. I couldn't do too much to the car without those packages, but there were a few things.

I began by prepping the car for the rear Type R sway bar. I modified my step brackets and washers so I could bolt the bar on. I then installed them to the subframe. This was no small task, as I had spaced my mounting bolts between the subframe with washers. This took quite a while. Once I got that done I began the wiring. Kenji and I had discussed which wires I needed to move. He was very patient and put up with my repeated emails asking for help. Kenji is da man!

So I needed to move two wires. I needed to move one at the ECU plug and one the engine harness where it plugs into the car. The ECU relocation was for the IAB valve and the engine harness was the knock sensor. It took me quite a while to move the A20 pin to A17 because I didn't realize how the ECU socket was built. I tried for about an hour to push the pin out, then I realized that the back of the harness hinges out. Once I did this it took two minutes to move the pin. I also attempted to move the engine harness wire to hook up the knock sensor. However I couldn't find the wire that Kenji had referred me to. He instructed me to fin the red/blue wire on the engine harness and connect it to the blue/yellow wire on the car harness. Well I couldn't find a red/blue wire, but I found a blue/red wire. I though maybe he got it backwards, or maybe my engine was backwards, so I connected the blue/red wire to the blue/yellow wire on the car.

It was almost four PM and time to go pick up my packages. I was very frustrated at this point because the wiring and R sway bar was all I got done with my day off. However, it would turn out that my evening would be much more productive.

Well the packages had arrived. I don't know when, but some time between one and four thirty that day. Good old UPS~ I received the Type R rear swaybar, both radiator hoses, the valve cover nuts, and the lower A/C mount bracket bolt. I took all these items back to the garage and began working again. I installed the A/C belt and then installed the A/C bracket bolt. Then I installed the fifth and final motor mount. Brian came over and he installed the radiator hoses, and radiator. The GSR hoses lined up perfectly and were the perfect size for the Del Sol VTEC radiator. We used hose clamps just to be safe, though. Once we did this we filled the coolant system with 50/50 mix of coolant and distilled water. An interesting thing was there was no bleeder valve on the motor. The 95 Helms showed a bleeder valve where the upper radiator hose met the engine. My 98 motor did not have one. However it took the correct amount of coolant so I didn't worry about it. I figured that with the heavier engine my car would sit lower than it did before. So I adjusted my Ground Controls to raise the front end. I ended up raising the front three coils (3/8") to compensate for the extra weight. I then attached the front tires and lowered the car. This was the first time in six days that the car sat on it's own tires. I torqued the axle nuts and notched them with a mallet and a screwdriver. So it was almost ready to start, and two days ahead of time. However my girlfriend's mom was sick and had gone to bed already. Since the exhaust header was not muffled, and it was after ten PM, I decided to wait until Friday to turn the key.

I sneaked out of work early that Friday. I was very excited to finally turn the key on my new creation. I raced down the freeway from work as fast as the traffic would let me (not that fast!) Once I finally arrived, I began to work. I had to swap the wire at the ECU before I could start the motor. This was the A20 to A17 swap for the IAB wire. This took about an hour of struggling Wednesday night. However upon looking at the socket again I was able to see the hinge on the rear. Once I saw that the wire relocation took only seconds.

The moment had come. I walked around the car again, trying to remember if I had gotten everything, trying to remember ever post I had read. I re-checked the oil, re-checked the coolant fluid. Everything looked right. I sat in the car, and put the key in. I rotated the key to the 'on' position so the fuel line could pressurize. Then after a quick prayer, I turned the key.

She coughed for a second and roared to life. I almost jumped for joy! It wasn't near as loud as I was expecting. About as loud as a dirt bike. Immediately the check engine light came on. I was bummed because I wanted to throw no codes my first time. I got out while it was running and looked under the hood. I noticed that the radiator hoses were leaking fluid. I inspected the fuel filter and other fluids for leaks. None. I shut the engine off after about 2 minutes. Victory was mine. I had created a monster!

I immediately shorted the ECU and checked to see what codes were being thrown. It was code 23 and code 41. I checked them in my helms. The 23 was the knock sensor, and the 41 was the o2 sensor. I looked under the car and realized the cat, with the o2 sensor still attached was sitting in the corner of the garage, not on the car. That explained one code.

The other one was not as easy. If you remember, I made an assumption about the knock sensor wire info that Kenji gave me. Well, my assumption was wrong. I re-inspected the wiring looking for the blue/red wire. Again I was unable to find it. However, since I knew the car would run without the knock sensor and since it was beginning to getting late, I decided to focus on getting the car rolling and deal with the code later. I put the cat on and re-attached the o2 sender to the engine harness. I also tightened the radiator hoses down real tight to eliminate the leak. I had to re-tighten the hose clamps many times to get them to stop leaking. Make sure your radiator hoses are tight. Saturday morning I woke up early. I went to where the Hybrid was. I had arraigned with a friend to follow me to Midas to get the exhaust gap welded up. I wanted to weld a spacer onto the back of the cat. This way I wouldn't have to modify the RS*R exhaust or header. This was to make future upgrades easier.

I drove the car very slowly and mildly going to Midas. I never took it above 4k RPMs. Considering that I was driving down the freeway with an open exhaust, I didn't want to attract any attention. By the way, the open exhaust is a LOT louder when you step on the gas than when it's idle. We arrived at Midas to see they were busy as heck. They informed me that it would be a four-hour wait and that I'd have to raise me car to get it on their lift. I got desperate. I didn't want to mess with my coilovers and wait for hours just to get a little piece of pipe welded onto my car. So we walked across the street to Carrows and grabbed their phone book. We started calling muffler shops one by one. We found one on the other side of town that could do the extension and see us right away. So back onto the freeway we went. Needless to say I was very nervous running an open exhaust and throwing a code. So I took it easy on the car once again. Once we arrived at the muffler shop, we immediately were able to put the car on the rack. The welder guy took a look at the exhaust and turned to me.

"Why spend $60 on a extension, when you can spend $160 on a full race cat?" He walked over to the wall and held up a 2.25" race cat. The sun showed right through it. I was sold. So we relaxed and snapped pics while he welded the new race cat into the car. Unfortunately he cut up my 98 GSR cat for the flange and o2 bung. I wouldn't get to re-sell that item. He also pulled the o2 sensor wires out of their socket. So I was back to two codes again. Once he finished I drove the car back home. I was still easy on it, as I didn't want to push it on multiple engine codes. We got it home and I inspected the o2 sensor. I repinned the wires and reconnected the sensor. I then installed the black carpet I had gotten from illmethod. My civic had had no carpet in it since the day after I got it and I was tired of looking at the ugly metal floor. Then I washed it up to get ready for the Hybrid meet the next day.

By now it was dark. My friend Brian hopped in the passenger seat. We took the car for the first true test drive. I yanked the wheel hard from side to side. The car was a stiff as a rock. Those Type R swaybars just proved themselves. We got out of the neighborhood and onto a straightaway. I had to stop at the last corner for a stop sign. I turned right and laid on the throttle. My Hybrid took off like no tomorrow. It actually scared me it was so fast! I laughed out loud. It was absolutely amazing. Petty words cannot describe the sensation. We spent the next hour tearing it up on straight-aways . . .

The next day was the first Bay Area Hybrid meet. We fixed a few bugs on the car, including the knock sensor. It turned out Kenji was right and the wire was there. I just hadn't looked hard enough the first times. We went up Hwy 9 (Local curvy mountain road) and I got it sideways on a few of the turns. Kit was behind me in his S2000 and he said he could see the side of my car as I slid through the turns :-).

Man this car is fun. I felt great that day. Years of dreaming, and planning, and organizing paid of in such a perfect way. I renamed my car from 'the go-cart' to 'the hybrid.' I finally felt like I had gotten it right. Third time's the charm, I guess . . .

Since then I have added a complete Type R five lug conversion to the car. I swapped the master cylinder, booster, and prop valve. I finally installed the black dash and got rid of the ugly blue steering wheel. I also relocated the battery to the trunk somewhere in all of this. I think that at this point the only thing left unchanged is the shell and the subframe. Not bad for a total investment of under $12,000.00.

I have a few tips for those who are doing this themselves with only the help of the internet. These are the things I didn't ask and didn't know. In my 2 years of research, I was never informed of the following: