Originally Posted by crazicardi

Over the past year I've owned her I've been making small improvements to the way she looks and drives, learning as I go. In the beginning I couldn't even change my own oil, or owned a jack & ratchet it try it myself lol. Well, I bought some busted Integra wheels off the Facebook Marketplace and painted them the best I could, installed some headlight housings, and installed some coilovers on my own. With this newfound confidence I changed the timing belt & distributor on an old CR-V we got for cheap.

Well, I'm happy with how my car looks and feels now. But I'm not satisfied with where its at. I've always felt like the car has been lacking something: speed. It just doesn't have enough power to really feel exciting to drive. Yet. Over the past year of owning her I've been back and forth on what I wanted to do. Everyone online said K-swap, K-swap, K-swap. K20 or K24. 'Its super easy to do on that chassis, you just slide out the old and put in the new and plug everything back up' (Paraphrasing.)

But after a lot of internal debate I've (obviously) finally decided to stick with the D17.


I decided I will be building the D17 for a a few reasons:

• The motor is already in the car lol
• I'm afraid I will mess a K-Swap up
• Even if I blow the D17, K-swap will always be an option, and D17s are relatively cheap
• It would be cool to see how far the stock engine could take me
• Underdog status

I understand that in the long run the D17 is more expensive to build and that the K-series has way more potential than the D-series. But that's the sacrifice I'm willing to make. I would be able to start on my D17 build today rather than having to wait to do the K-swap in one go, then start building it for performance.


Ultimately, my goal is 300whp or greater when its all said and done. I don't know exactly how to get there but I've got some general ideas on where to start.

Here's my rough sketch for my path towards a 300whp D17 -

Exhaust Swap
I plan on swapping out my exhaust headers for EX performance headers, installing a cat delete pipe, and a catback exhaust. Pretty simple & standard, laying the foundation for future mods.

D16Y8 Intake Manifold
The stock D17 intake manifold is apparently made of plastic and is known to crack under boost pressure. The D16y8 intake isn't direct bolt on but can be with some modifications. I've never modified something like this before so we'll see where we can go with that.

K-Pro D17 ECU w/AEM Cam Gear
I will be choosing the K-Pro standalone ECU over a piggyback system for a couple reasons. The first being, if I decide the D17 life isn't for me anymore and move onto a K-swap, then I already have a core piece ready to swap. Second, it would be much easier to work with than a piggyback playing tug-of-war with the stock ECU. There will be plenty of headaches involved in this journey, I don't want the fuel management to be one of them. This is by the most expensive part of the build.

D17A2 VTEC Head Swap w/ARP head studs
I plan on swapping the D17A1 head for an A2 head for VTEC capability and improved performance. Except for the turbo kit, this is the modification I'm the most afraid of because its the least I know about. I don't understand entirely on how I will be adding VTEC functionality to the D17A1. I also do not know what it means to port & polish a head, and how to take advantage of that. I plan on learning as I go.

I will also install the ARP head studs compatible with the D17 when doing this swap.

D16Y8 Stage 1 Camshaft
Referencing the video beow (cool channel, they have a few EM2s, one of them being a D17 eBay build) and they installed a D16Y8 cam into their D17 to take advantage of three-lobe VTEC since the D17A2 is geared towards fuel economy over performance. According to them, with a little bit of work and with the AEM camshaft gear, the D16Y8 camshaft will fit into the D17A2 head.


D16Y8 Camshaft Install Video


RSX Fuel Injectors
Fuel injectors from the RSX (310cc) will be installed for use with the turbo.

Pre-Turbo Baseline
I've seen it floated around on some threads that up to this point, a build like this can bump up the D17A1 to about 140hp. That is what I am hoping for.

Turbo Kit & Tune
After a good foundation is laid out I plan on installing a turbo kit (either pre-made or custom, undecided) and taking it to a local shop for tuning. I am guessing I will put down 8psi since that is what people have floated around as being the highest 'safe' boost pressure available but nothing is set in stone. This is a piece that I only have a rough understanding of and don't entirely understand how I will install it. But, it shouldn't be too hard, right?

Forged Rods & Pistons

Disclaimer: At this point, I have no confidence in what I'm saying. I do not understand upgrading the internals of an engine to this point. I'm just putting this out here for someone to tell me how I'm wrong.

Of course, once the turbo kit is installed and set to a 'safe' boost pressure I'll have to start looking into building the bottom end of the engine. I am looking into forged pistons & rods available for the D17 and getting those installed for higher boost pressures to creep up to that golden 300whp number.




I am open to suggestions, criticisms, and warnings regarding my plans for this. Light me on fire and burn me at the stake if you have to. In all honesty I am a complete noob that is willing to learn and get his hands dirty. I could use all the advice I could get!


CraziCardi

Originally Posted by FRSam

Sounds like this car should be nothing more than transportation. The last thing I’d wanna do, especially with something that’s been dogged, is to slowly add parts to it, especially if it’s a daily.

If you’re insistent on building the D series, just buy a junkyard D17 and build that, then when you’re ready/ideally have a different daily, then you can build.

Originally Posted by Dbray2001

so the concern is I got the new engine from a junkyard I want to get a new head (not bottom block) because I know the eventual what I can do, but I want to no if I can drive with no vtec kicking in ar first, until i get a standalone, which I was going to buy just in case the head gasket blows, but get an ECU soon after, do i need to rebuild the whole engine in one go though? I'm relatively baby bottom new to this.