y5 in the making

[GasSavers_topher]

Welcome to my build

When I originally wanted to build a Honda I wanted more power without sacrificing economy and maybe even approve upon it. Even though many said they are inversely proportional I choose to disagree. I originally wanted to build a jdm d15b with 3-stage vtec. Doing research on the 3-stage vtec I discovered the usdm vtec-e, the d15z1, d16b5 (gx) and the d16y5. In the beginning my noobness led me to believe that there was no aftermarket support for these little engines. Well more research and a few phone calls opened up a new world of opportunities. I realized that no aftermarket parts were listed because there is minimal, or seems to be minimal interest in the engines in the general honda world.


Knowing that I could build a y5 to my hearts content I set out to find one. I was able to pick one up semi-locally for $250 which may seem high but at the time it was way cheaper than jdm importers and it came with many extra parts. I first was going to swap it in right away, throw on some bolt-ons and call it a day. But, my ?slight interest? turned into an obsession with the y5 build.


I first looked for a cam and was unable to find one. I was lucky enough to contact a very helpful guy in California who informed me for vtec-e to engage the base circles of the intake lobes must be the same. Knowing this I contacted Bisi upon the recommendations of others and he said ?No problem?. I described what I wanted out of my car, power with fuel economy in mind, so we decided upon a level 1.5.


So now that the power house was on it?s way I decided it would be nearly impossible to swap in to my car while having something to drive to school and work, so I begun to look for a shell to swap into preferably a hatch or coupe. I lucked out and a friend sold me the 97 ex in the pictures below for $300. Yeah cheap I know. When I got it, it wasn?t running. Well a cleared code later it started right up and has ever since.

Thanks for reading and here it goes!
Things I already have in Bold
Engine/Transmission:
D16y5 head
-P&p?d
-5-anlge valve job blended together
-Stainless valves
-Bisi level 1.5 cam
-Bisi cam gear
-Stiffer spring (not beehives)
-Factory roller rockers except secondary intake valve follower
-D15z1 valve cover
-D16z6/z1 dizzy. Still need jumper harness
-240 injectors
-Fuel rail
-Manual y5 IM with egr block off plate-Cheap C.A.I.
-still undecided on compression 10:1 or 10.3:1

D16y5 Block
-Stock crank, rods and p2m pistons
-P2m pistons have been ceramic coated
-O.E.M Honda bearings and thrust washer
-New water pump
-Endyn upgraded oil pump for y engines
-Arp rod bolts

Exhaust:
-Heat wrapped Hedmann Chikira
-2? pipe to rear c Flowmaster

Transmission:
Bone spec
-Dx/lx 4.058 FD
-Stock 1st and 2nd
-Zc 3rd and 4th
-Hf 5th
-13lb flywheel balanced to nascar specs soon to come
-Probably going with a Sachs Clutch

ECU:
-Chipped and tuned by Amkrew
-obd2a to obd1 harness by rywire

Suspension:
-Lowered about 2"
-Homemade strut tower bars on the way

Body/Exterior:
-Homemade black housing headlights TU:
-15? Konig heliums
-Maybe a lip

Interior:
-factory. except I removed sound detoninga and bulk head blanket.

Aerodynamics:
Since this is a project car I believe it should serve as a learning tool for others and I. And everything in this category is a maybe.
-Smaller mirrors
-Grill guard (well I havn't seen a tastful one yet please inlighten me)
-I was also wanting to reduce drag on the rear bumper by making my own diffuser via either two elongated holes about 3? high that cross the span of the bumper with about a 2? gap in between. Or three elongated holes that mock the shape and angles of the taillights and the license plate holder also only about 3? tall.



Well for those of you who read through this I would like to thank you. Any constructive criticism or input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris

UPDATE: I was going to use the two door as my swap candidate but, decided that if I choose the 4door.
Reasons:
Clutch is almost brand new and still has lots of life
Flywheel has already been lightened
No manual swap required
Plus by doing the swap to the four door it will save me lots of time and money and I will have time to get it done right.
4 door has a rod knock so it's already broke.



This is the new contender


[/QUOTE]

[GasSavers_topher]

First off I cleaned out my side of the garage and re-claimed it
Here is where my car is suppose to park anyways.


Here is the crusty engine bay that we started looking at last night:




Here is what it looked like when we called it a night:


I did go through with tape and mark every single connector to it's original place. When I go to put this back together I wan't it to go as smoothly as possible I figured every little thing I can do now would help:


And just for fun guys here's a video of the y7 breathing it's last breate (at least in this form LOL):

[Danronian]

Interesting build. I hope you dyno it when it's done to see the power-band. The y5 is a gas sipping candidate I was thinking of for my '95 VX in the distant future.

The only thing I'd like to bring up/understand is the use of a DX trans? Why not just go with a cx/vx which has the best economy gears in it out of the D-series hydro trannies? Not sure if the final drive you swapped in is from a vx/cx, but if it is, it sounds like a great choice, otherwise, my question remains.

Good luck with everything!

[GasSavers_topher]

Good point Danronian I was thinking about the cx/vx trans but with my gearing I beleive I have the best all around set-up out there with oem parts anyways.

With the dx FD 4.058 and .694 5th I should still be able to manage 43ish mpg no problem. To note I was getting 37-40 mixed driving with this car before and that was with dx/lx trans and stock y7 that was buring oil. Rember this car was custom tuned so my vtec-e wont engauge untill 4k and I actaully might raise it higher from here even. I was thinking like 4.3k.

Chris

[thisisntjared]

why would you raise the vtec engagement? you should not be revving to 4k if you are trying to save gas.

[GasSavers_topher]

I rose the vtec engaugement so I can cruise at higher speeds with the slightly shorter gearing and still be in 12 valve mode instead of 16.

[thisisntjared]

interesting, so with the gearing in 5th, what is the vehicles speed @ 4000rpm?

[suspendedhatch]

A custom cam in a Y5! Lots of people have dreamed about it but you're the first that I know of to succeed. And from Bisi no less. I'd like to hear a lot more about the cam. What are the specs? Some pics should be interesting too.

A couple things I noticed:

The Z6/Z1 distributor is the wrong distributor for a Y5 head. You need any 92-95 non-VTEC or 96-00 distributor.

You could block off the EGR or you could get a Y8 IM as they are identical except for the EGR. I saw a Y8 IM in the junkyard incidentally but I didn't pull it because I don't know if they're popularity had climbed back up again. A year ago I sold a couple for $150!! LOL.

Don't cut holes in the bumper as this will actually increase drag. What you want to do instead is to mimic the VX diffuser and stop the air from getting up into the bumper in the first place.

I would not raise the VTEC-E engagement past stock. I recently dyno tuned my engine with both VTECs disengaged and power completely fell off the dyno starting around 3500 RPM. Above that RPM you are always trying to accelerate, so killing the power there will hurt your mileage because you'll be accelerating longer and with more throttle.

What I can suggest instead is that you raise your throttle % and/or load thresholds for VTEC-E. On my car I find that cruising is at a max of 25% on the highway (as low as 5% on the street) and load cruising on the highway is below 55kPa (although load varies a lot from one car to the next and from one altitude to the next). Another thing you can safely do is to run the engine lean at light load acceleration all the way up the RPM band; whatever load you're at when accelerating at 25% throttle. My motor can tolerate light load acceleration at 17:1, though it makes much better power and response at 15.5-14.5.

Your motor will have slightly less load than mine because yours have the roller rockers and mine doesn't.

For pistons/compression ratio I absolutely insist that you get Endyn Roller Wave. I am already jealous of your build but if you got those then you would be my hero.

[suspendedhatch]

Are you sure that's a Y7? It has the Y8 intake manifold on it. The Y7 intake manifold has the throttle body facing straight up like the old car manifolds used to have.

[GasSavers_topher]

It's a y7 with a y5 IM if you look at the third picture down in my second post You will see the block off plate made off machined aluminum.

With more lift on the primary side raising vtec will not be a problem. I know the guy that tuned my car tuned it to his same specs and he was getting 46mpg and running a low 15 in the 1/4. It should be fine