Why swap that engine?

March, 2002

Well, this is what got me started thinking about a swap...yes that is a 5 gallon bucket of oil, and yes that is my favorite little car...the D15 goes through about a quart every 250 miles or so.  Luckily, there isn't a cloud of blue smoke following me, but I don't think the enigne is going to run forever with this rate of oil consumption...maybe so?  At first it was kind of neat...I saved all the oil from the oil changes in my other cars and dumped it in the CRX...saved me a trip to the auto parts store to recycle it.  I burnt through that in about 6 months and started trying to get rid of this oil that was in the basement of the house I moved into.  It's actually diesel engine oil, but what the heck...it's probably designed for harsher conditions than gas engine oil!  I will be sad to see the D15 go, though...means I'll have to start changing oil again!

Here are a couple of reference shots of the old "D".  You'll see that even though the engine is carbureted with a minimum of computer control, the eninge is a maze of vacuum tubing and boxes...essentially a computer using vacuum signals instead of electricity!  All of this tubing will be gone with the "B" replaced by simple wires and 1980's computing technology.  My plan is to basically cut and cap all of the wires currently running to the engine except for the alternator.  The "B" will run completely stand-alone off it's own computer.  This is a clean sheet approach as I will not try to convert the current wiring harness.