anyone swap in a honda engine? Options

[mark21742]

Just curious if anyone has dropped a newer (mid 90s) Honda Civic engine in a 914?

I have a 96 1.6l engine, harness, fuel injection, all hardware and also have a turbo charger laying in the corner of the garage..... The combo should put down a very reliable 250 hp and just had the gears turning in my head about the thought of it.

[Brett W]

Mark I realize you have the Honda engine laying around, but it is not the best choice for the 914. Trust me on this one. I have three Hondas here now. Just finished putting a GSR engine together for my CRX, have a turbo D16 in my Hatch and am building a GT3 Civic over the winter. I love older Hondas, but for my 914 project I am picking a different engine package.

The Honda engine has or can have equal length axles to eliminate the longer axle. That is a D-series only deal. I have both setups and like the swap to equal length axles for all of my cars. The Turbo car has a CG transmission from the first gen Integras, the race car will have my ZC trans with equal length axles. Torque steer is not an issue with the rear wheels since the rear wheels can't steer. You don't have to have equal length rear axles but it is nice as far as component selection.

The stock Honda pedals won't work. if you are going to replace pedals to use a hydraulic setup, just order the Wilwood three master hanging pedal setup. Cheap and easy to customize. A much better choice than the Honda parts for this application.

If you want to do the Honda engine, just adapt it to work with the 914 gearbox. Of course the 914 gearbox is going to take much of the joy out of that sweet Honda engine though. They sell reverse rotation camshafts for these engines, get a reverse rotation starter and your in business.

For all the hassle your going to go through to make the Honda engine fit and work properly, you can put together a Suby combo that will drop right in, allow use of the Suby transmission, which is a huge step up from the 901/915/930. You can find the engines in the Pull-A-Part for cheap. The 2.2T engine is a solid combo. You can feed them 25lbs of boost stock and they will last for ever. Plus no one wants them, so they are cheap.