Honda Civic 97 Assembly or whole Engine Swap

[pwuser158765294989]

Hey Pakwheelers,

Hope y'all are well and in the best of health and spirits and safe from the stupid virus.

So I bought a 97 civic from Karachi last month. It is going to be my 2nd project car. I intend to keep it clean and a daily driver. So I bought it from someone I know and they had a decent amount of work done on the car before I went to Karachi to pick it up. Got the papers transferred on my name and me and my mate were good to drive it back to Islamabad.

We started off the journey at day break and we drove smoothly to Hyderabad for good 2 hours on the super highway smoothly and without any issues. As we reached Hyderabad, I noticed a nasty metal sound coming from the engine. We had our windows down and were doing 120 for a while so not sure how long the sound had been coming for.

To whiz through the rest, we found out that the oil pump was not functioning optimally aaaaaand there was no pressure on high speed and you all know what happened because of it. Not really the guys fault who I bought it from because you can't really tell what condition the oil pump is in till it actually starts acting up. On top of it, it worked fine at lower revs as I had been driving it around in Karachi at 50-70 ki speed. Anywho, so the crank got messed up, the piston rods got screwed. Overall, the engine is in bad shape. So I toed it back to Karachi and parked it and the same fellows place.

Now that some shops are open, my guy went about to check how much it would cost to rebuild the engine. I spoke to my mechanics here in Isloo and also some friends who know cars well like myself. So we came to the conclusion that instead of building the engine, we'd rather swap it out.

What I want to know is that some folks are saying that we only get the assembly swapped and not the whole engine. I kind of agree because the pulleys, the starter kit and everything else works fine. Its only the engine itself that got screwed up so we'd rather just swap the main assembly and not the whole engine.

Thought I'd ask Pakwheelers what y'all suggest. Also, would wanna know from any current or previous Honda owners how much the assembly would cost. I am hearing around 30-35k.

Looking forward to hearing from y'all...

Cheers guys

[payee007]

Totally unrelated to your question.

How much did you buy this car for? What do you think is the market price of civics from 1996-1999? Is it worth it to buy this car as a daily driver, I mean mileage and maintenance

[murtazamohammad54]

If it is well taken care of it is a good daily driver. Have had the 1998 exi model since the very beginning and it still runs great. Fuel economy is not the best but it is just decent at around 8-9 km/l in the city with light foot.

[murtazamohammad54]

I would however suggest Mehran over the civic as a daily driver since it is cheaper to maintain as well as very compact. In the same price range you could get a more recent model of Mehran as opposed to a civic.

[murtazamohammad54]

. I kind of agree because the pulleys, the starter kit and everything else works fine. Its only the engine itself that got screwed up so we'd rather just swap the main assembly and not the whole engine.

This seems to be the better approach. what is the mileage of the vehicle?

[pwuser158765294989]

I bought it for 450,000 which is good considering the overall condition of the car (oil pump failed and engine broke) but that is still fine cuz I had meant to throw in a different engine or build this one anyhow. A 97 civic in this condition in rawalpindi/islamabad still costs you around 650,000 easy so I got it on a bargain. We all know car prices in Karachi are less...

It is an excellent daily driver. Folks all around the world use it as one from doing grocery and taking kids to school in the morning to racing in the night The one i bough has a 1600cc engine, from what I could tell from our drive from Karachi to Hyderabad, it was burning a decent amount of fuel considering we were driving on 100-120. A good civic should do 12-14kms in the city I should say.

[pwuser158765294989]

the engine has around 145,000k's on it. We have decided to rebuild the engine and not swap the assembly and get the best Japanese parts from the market that we can get our hands on.

[murtazamohammad54]

Yes that engine will be pretty good once you rebuild it and mileage is not too much either. Best of luck with the rebuild and please do share every step of the way!