Weight Reduction

Unless you're serious enough about performance to give up luxury, you might not want to try this. My car is not going to be a daily driver any more, so why not shed some lbs.

The great thing about these cars is their weight. That's why a torqueless 4cyl can keep up with a 225hp v8, because the v8 is in a 3600+ lb vehicle. It's all about the power to weight ratio. Every new generation of the civic has been getting larger and heavier than the previous. (Their engines have also been getting more powerful to compensate for this- look at how well the K series does in a EG)

It is said that every 100 lbs you shed will take .10 off of your 1/4 mi time.

Every pound counts if you are serious. Also the best place to start is unsprung weight (wheels & suspension).

First get some lighter wheels. Large wheels will slow you down, even if you have lightweight 17" rims, as they spin the rotational mass will increase. (think about holding a bucket of water by the handle and spinning it in a circle. Rotational Mass keeps the water in the bottom of the bucket). 15" wheels is really the largest these cars need in terms of performance. A 15" rim will get you options of a 6.5" or 7" width. Depending on how much you want to spend will determine on how light you can go. Racing Hart CP035 15x6 weighs in at 7.9 lb, very light. A 15x7 at just under 10 lb. Still very light. Under 10 lbs for a 15" wheel is great. Forging is the manufacturing process that makes wheels stronger, and therefore lighter so less material is needed. Rota makes a copy of the expensive RH CP035, the Rota Sub-Zero. It is cast, not forged, and a 15x6.5 weighs 12.9 lb. and also cost much less. You get what you pay for, a knockoff rim will always cost less but weigh more. The popular Rota Slipstreams weigh 11.9 for a 15x6.5" which is still a bargian for the cost, making them such a popular choice.

There's the same wheel weight list floating all over the web. I'm not sure who to credit for creating it but they did a great job. Here's a copy

So being on a budget, I decided to use the 14" rims from my 96 HX. The HX boasts great miles per gallon and light rims from the factory helped to achieve that. They weigh 11.75 lb each. The VX was the EG version of the HX, also claiming great gas mileage. They came with 13" rims that weighed 9.something lbs each.

The 14" HX rims

Next I removed my entire interior (partially because of other work I would be doing to the car)

I went a step further and removed all the sound deadening applied from the factory. My hatch is a DX, the CX has the least amount of deadening.

(The SRS unit, sensors, and wiring have all been removed in the above pic)
The easy way to do this is use cold rather than heat. A heat gun will work, but make a sticky mess. I did this in 4° F weather using a mallet and gasket scraper. The tar sheet was frozen solid and shattered off in chunks.

(The SRS unit, sensors, and wiring have all been removed in the second pic)


I have yet to weigh, but I would guess about 10 lbs.

Here's what I have removed:

Pulled front & rear seats, carpet, seatbelts, headliner, door panels, rear plastic panels, inside of tail gate, rear washer motor, heater core, blower motor, air controls, SRS sensors, module & harness, sound deadening, spare, jack, and some big stamped steel bracket that was under the dash.

Going to put the front seats & belts back in. Also the dash, radio & door speakers. (I gotta have music untill I can listen to a HKS blowoff )

From the engine I deleted power steering lines & fluid tank, washer fluid tank & lines, charcoal canister, and got a lighter battery. I never had A/C, also thinking about pulling the wiper motor and wipers, but I'd be in trouble if I got caught in a storm. I guess there is Rain-X.... we'll see. Also I am converting from Auto to Manual which is supposed to be a little bit lighter.

Here's my battery... $25 at the autoparts store. Optima & NRG are nice because they are sealed and you can mount them anywhere, even inside the car. But I can't spend that much, so here is my poor man's Optima. It weighs about 15 lb less than stock and is much smaller. Also in the pic is the Tray I started to build that will mount the battery inside the bumper.

I believe this car was 2200 lbs stock, I'm aiming to get it around 2000 lbs. In addition to faster accelleration, less weight will decrease your braking distance and improve handling. Weight reduction is always a good thing!

Engine: How to determine Bearing size (Main & Rod)

I am writing this because I had a hard time finding out how to read the stock bearings to figure out what replacements to order from Honda for a D16z6 motor... Maybe this will save somebody some time...

First, Why would you want to do this?
OEM honda bearings are not all the same size, even in the exact same applications.
Honda uses slightly different sized bearings, coded by a number and a color.

Second, why not just buy ACL bearings and call it a day? ACL bearings are good quality, and proven in high HP motors, but they do not come in the different tolerances that the OEM ones are available in.... more of a one size fits all. I went with OEM just for a piece of mind, and will be double checking the clearances with plastigauge of course.

First I want to show this chart I have found on Honda-Tech.com (a great resource for information on all Hondas)Click for full size:

each bearing is coded with a number, and a dab of paint. the paint is on the edge of the bearing, the number is stamped on the crank and rod.

Here is how to read the crank bearings: (click to see ful size image)

(I put the red type over the stampings on the crank, they didnt show up well in the pics)

This pic shows where you will get the numbers from for the crank bearings. Also it is important that you NOT mix up the order of your bearings when you take the bottom end of your motor apart! Write it down and label them with a marker- if you get them mixed up, you made a ton more work for yourself.

so from the pic, you can see that bearings from left to right read 3, 2, 3, 3, 2. the "6" that is stamped in the cast area does not matter, only the smaller stamed #'s in the flat parts of the crank matter.

Now after you write those down in order, look at the other half of the bearings for the color.
(click to see ful size image)

the dab of paint can be hard to see (not visible in pic), it is on the thin edge in the center of the half circle. Also be sure you have your bearings in the right order here, not 180° backwards,
(brown looked more like orange, green was easy to see)

So I need one "Brown 3" bearing two "Brown 2" bearings and two "Green 3" bearings. Go to the parts counter at the dealer and that is what you tell them.

Looking back at the chart, you can see that these are close in size. if one of them was a "Pink 1" I might double check my readings since that is so far from the rest of the bearings.

Rod time: (click to see ful size image)

on the left is the OEM D16z6 rod. Right is Eagle aftermarket rods.
All the OEM roda have a number of 1-4 stamped on them. The number is on one of the edges where the cap meets the rod. All the stock rods had the "2" stamped on them. That is your number for the rod bearing. For finding the color, use the same method as before and look for the dab of paint on the edges of the bearings. Mine were all green.

So if I was going to use these rods again, I would go to the dealer and order a set of four "Green 2" rod bearings.
Since I am using aftermarket rods instead, I need to get the correct size for those.
I did some searching on here and found that the Eagle rods are the equivelant of #3 oem rods for D-series. (they also said B-series are equivelant to #2)
So I would buy four "Green 3" rod bearings.

And that's how to figure out what size OEM bearings to use when re-building your D-series
And double check ALL clearances with plastigauge!
let me know if I forgot anything so I can keep this how-to accurate

UPDATE: So I went to the dealership to order the bearings.... All the Green main bearings were on severe back order, the Browns were discontinued!
Looks like ACL bearings for this D16z6!

I should clarify, The reason I wanted OEM was because I don't have the tools to measure the crank to determine which ACL's to order. After Honda told me there was no way to get the OEM's, I dropped the stripped bottom end off at an engine shop because I didn't have the time or tools to do it myself. ACL's are proven bearings. If I was doing it myself with plastigage, I would have liked to had OEM so I could have a piece of mind that my new bearings were as close to the correct size as possible.
The difference between ACL and OEM is OEM measures them in a single number + a color (easy for people like me who couldn't measure to .0001 of an inch). ACL's must be measured in .0001 of an inch with very precise (and expensive) tools.