Honda Civic 1500 Dx Wagon

calaverasgrande

So I buy this 86 Civic Wagon. When I am setting up the insurance online it looks up your vin #. So it says it's a "1986 HONDA CIVIC 1500 DX wagon". So this means I have an L4 1500 engine right? Is this a good engine? I havent had much luck getting info on the different engines and such.

calaverasgrande

So I think it is one of the EW engines?
It says 12 valve on the top. I may get some shop rags and WD40 and clean up the engine compartment to see what I can see. I know I probably need to replace one of the gaskets. There is a little bit of oil leaking on one part. There also is a slow tranny leak. not looking forward to sorting that out.
Is this engine worth putting time into or should I be looking for a crate engine as this car is at 84k and proabably needs a new one soon. Though it did pass smog fine so it cant be too off right?

Dash-N-Cars

Dude if its at 84k, fix your leaks and consider yourself lucky! That engine should last you a while, depending on what you want to do with it. But I have that engine in my 86 CRX and it runs excellently, with 96k on it.

SiWagon

It 's a good engine.The only prob I remember was you must change oil every 3,333 miles 'cuz if u don't the oil gets gunked up in the valvetrain & you'll spin a cam.Car & Driver did a article on this and the gen3 Civic awhile back.I had a cam snap on my'84,when I popped the head off the cylinder sleeves had NO grooves & looked new from the factory.

If you really want to do the engine get a donor teg & swap over the engine &brakes...you'll have a Wagon Type R :twisted:

Dash-N-Cars

^^2x I had the same thing happen with my rex. The guy had it before me snapped the cam, replaced the head drives great. Espicially since I bought the car for 100 bucks

And yes on the brake swap, I did a rear brake swap on my CRX and it turned out amazing.

calaverasgrande

sounds like I should change the oil then. Its kinda dark already. Maybe after I work mon-tues I can have time on weds.
Kragen has a deal on filter and oil right now. Any heads up on the best oil? Synthetic?

calaverasgrande

SiWagon wrote:

It 's a good engine.The only prob I remember was you must change oil every 3,333 miles 'cuz if u don't the oil gets gunked up in the valvetrain & you'll spin a cam.Car & Driver did a article on this and the gen3 Civic awhile back.I had a cam snap on my'84,when I popped the head off the cylinder sleeves had NO grooves & looked new from the factory.

If you really want to do the engine get a donor teg & swap over the engine &brakes...you'll have a Wagon Type R :twisted:

whats a teg? Does that mean get an Acura integra and grab parts? There are a couple pick n pulls near here, so its good to know which models may have similar parts.
When I drove a ford E150 I had NO trouble finding parts. Plenty of Ford vans and pickups to pull parts from, plenty of fords/lincolns/mercurys larger car parts carried over too.
My old datsun 210 had some engine parts in common with certain CNG powered forklifts!

Dash-N-Cars

Yeah teg is integra. You can find a ton of them in oakland I guarantee! There are 3 in the picknpull here in ARK so you should have a ton. But I'm building my wagon with junk yard parts, working out excellently!

The_Head

I had an 87 Si hatch for about a year. The PO took good care of it and It was a sweet car. I also had an '87 Teg that was originally going to be a donor vehicle for the Civic, but that plan fell through and I ended driving it for 3 years. It's in the junk yard now (I found it the other day).

Since your wagon is carbed, it makes an engine swap more of a pain. They did make carbed ZC's though for this era of Hondas. It's recommended you find a donor Teg (86-89) so you can swap everything over.

Redpepperracing.com is your best resource for information on the 84-87 Civics.

I would just drive the thing if it were me though.

calaverasgrande

well for right now I am working on getting the brakes less mushy (and the check brake light to go off!) and fixing the radiator fan before summer really hits. The fan doesnt turn at all right now, but its fine like that on the freeway. On city streets it get up to the middle of the temp range.
After that I am gonna want to get under the hood and see if I cant get some more oomph out of it. Engine swap I only mentioned because it seems people want to do that on these at 90k or so. I have a hard time making some on ramps and off ramps with the slow accel this has, and it hates hills. It is a lot smoother than my datsun though. I have several times found myself at 85 when I wasnt paying attention to the speedo! I am sure it could do more. I have read that the engine in these is 74 carbed, 90 with fuel injection. Is it a major pain to do fuel injection, and will it not pass smog? I dont think I see a cat on this so I am kinda wary of anything that might mess with my smog.

Dash-N-Cars

Yeah the FI swap is a bitch and a half. I was going to do it with my CRX but decided to just swap to a new head and call it good. Also with smog, you could get some problem outta the swap. I don't have personal experience with smog testing, but I hear it isn't to much fun lol. But check with those guys at redpepperracing, they are good people and very helpful. I found alot of good help when I needed some with my CRX.

The_Head

calaverasgrande wrote:

well for right now I am working on getting the brakes less mushy (and the check brake light to go off!) and fixing the radiator fan before summer really hits. The fan doesnt turn at all right now, but its fine like that on the freeway. On city streets it get up to the middle of the temp range.
After that I am gonna want to get under the hood and see if I cant get some more oomph out of it. Engine swap I only mentioned because it seems people want to do that on these at 90k or so. I have a hard time making some on ramps and off ramps with the slow accel this has, and it hates hills. It is a lot smoother than my datsun though. I have several times found myself at 85 when I wasnt paying attention to the speedo! I am sure it could do more. I have read that the engine in these is 74 carbed, 90 with fuel injection. Is it a major pain to do fuel injection, and will it not pass smog? I dont think I see a cat on this so I am kinda wary of anything that might mess with my smog.

The fan stopped running on my old teg too. I wired up both fans to a switch after that and controlled it myself. That might get you into trouble at a smog station too, but I really have no idea.

calaverasgrande

out here in cali they have two tests for smog, the exhaust test and the visual. Even if you pass the exhaust perfectly you can flunk visual for having too many aftermarket parts!
Some cars are automaticaly sent to test only stations which are a bitch! They test to a higher standard and are very picky. What makes no sense is that my 86 honda and my previous 82 datsun both were models flagged as test only. My 77 ford E150 with a 4 barrel 351 windsor V8, not test only!
Miss that van. It certainly roared. And it could burn rubber.

Jaker

The rad fan issue is the switch in the back of the block near the oil filter. It's a coolant temp switch that turns on the fan when the coolant gets hot enough. Either live with a manual dash switch wired to the 2 plugs that come off the switch in the block, or change the switch in the block. Only catch with the later, is you'll end up dumping a bunch of the coolant and have to top it back up.

Dash-N-Cars

Yeah I'm pretty sure that's why my wagon is sputtering. I looked back in that area and found a plug just laying back there without being plugged into anything. It's a single wire with a big rubber boot around it, could that be what your talking about Jaker?

Jaker

There are 2 of them. They both have rubber boots over them. The one with the smaller rubber boot is the oil pressure switch that turns on your dummy light on the dash when you lose oil pressure. The bigger one goes over the rad fan switch and should have 2 wires/connectors in it. If it does not, chances are the wire pulled off somewhere inside the plastic wire covering.

Dash-N-Cars

I'll check it out when I get outta class today. Sorry for thread jacking, and thanks for the help.

calaverasgrande

I'll have to check that as well. The seller told me he had removed something and rigged around it. That may have been what he was talking about. I need to make a pick-n-pull laundry list.