By Jon Amann on Sunday, November 12, 2000 - 04:52 am:

Howdy all. I'm 19 from Vancouver, WA and I just recieved a 1979 Civic CVCC 2dr in perfect condition with 72k miles on it from my uncle who lives in the eastern oregon desert. Well, at first the car was peppy, actually, it felt like a go-cart! =) After a few weeks of fun back country driving however, the obnoxious 3bbl carb started to go out of tune, the left front rotor became warped from all the quick stops, and degraded the performance by a heck of a lot. Anyway, I was curious about tweeking it and the engine, and started looking for resources on the net. I've looked and looked, but all I can find is mods and engine swaps for 1200cc cars. I wanted to know what I should do to this thing to make it GO! GO! GO! As far as the corners and braking, I think I have some ideas now as I have upgraded the front disks with wagon calipers and pads and threw some 13" accord rims and yokahama's on it. Now I need some grunt and zoom! So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

By jon on Sunday, November 12, 2000 - 01:57 pm:

i think you can replace that 3bbl carb on the cvcc's with a weber 2bbl or a weber lookalike like a hollley or pinto carb that should make it a little quicker you might also be able to get a better cam shaft theres a place in vancouver bc called shadbolt, their number is on this board somewere and ask if he has any cams for your car.

By Charles R. ( - 207.104.139.178) on Monday, November 13, 2000 - 11:46 pm:

Depending on how involed you want to get really determines what you can do.
There are kits to replace the 3bbl pile with a decent Webber carb. The local Webber distributer here is Pierce Manifolds. They sell the adapter for around $40.00 US. It's the carb that will set you back, around $300.00 US new. Hunt for a used DGV or DGEV 32/36. These are the two barrel "progressive" downdrafts you find in classifieds for around $50.00-$100.00 US.
I would say this should be your first step no matter how far you want to go later, it's a good carb and you can go pretty far with it.
After that, a camshaft and open up the exhaust system (at least two inch dia. all the way out).

This should give you a zippy daily driver.

Now, if you want to go faster... swap the engine.
The early 1751cc Accord/Prelude mills will bolt right in. They also give you about 20-25 more horses(stock vs stock). Do a cam and the exhaust and now you have a car you can embarass a few V8's with.
There are other threads here that deal with details on which years are best. I'm not sure and I don't want to lead you astray.

By Ramon on Thursday, November 16, 2000 - 07:07 pm:

Charles are you from the south bay and did you ever have a large speaker box in the back of your car?? With a custom aluminum dash??

Ramon(Gilroy)Milano

By Charles R. ( - 207.104.157.184) on Thursday, November 23, 2000 - 12:13 am:

Why, yes, as a matter of fact, that would have been me. :)
Depending on if you saw it when it was black, or white would answer if it was actually even the same car. This white 3-door replaced my totaled black 2-door. :(

By Ramon on Monday, November 27, 2000 - 03:21 pm:

Not possitive of color (been a long time)but I do remember the custom dash when I saw it Jack'N'o-box off Dunne ave in Morgan Hill. You were hanging out with a guy who ran a slush box 2 speed and 1600. I had a set of old 12 inch slot mags with the lip on them you semed to like so much (back then). Still have them. My car was yellow with a 1751, 5spd, and a weber down draft.
Still have most of it in the garage.

By Charles R. ( - 207.104.157.177) on Sunday, December 03, 2000 - 12:06 am:

Jeez, that was back in the day!
I own that guys' car now. It's sitting here rotting in the barn, another victim of "back burner" syndrome. I remember asking anyone I found with that type of rim if they would sell them. At the time I had two like those and two that were only similar. I wanted a full set of one or the other. Would you believe I've still never found a full set of those? I still have only three. Of course I now have a full set of 13 inch slots,a set of 13 inch Accord alloys and the other two 12 inch slots. I've sold even more. But, you'd think in all these years of wrecking yards trips, I'd have found at least one more of that type. We'll have to get together sometime, I'm currently staying in San Martin at my stepfathers ranch.
Maybe we'll drag Rick down and have our own litte Bay area meet.

By Brian Wilborn on Sunday, December 03, 2000 - 12:10 am:

A Bay Area meet sounds like 'da bomb. You know I've owned my Civ for about 4 years and have been reading things on this board for about two and have wanted to organize some kind of meet for us folks in the Bay Area. How many people would be interested in coming if one were to be organized somehow??

By quikrick on Monday, December 04, 2000 - 07:19 am:

Count me in DUDES! South bay is cool with me!

By Ramon ( - 207.5.4.95) on Monday, December 11, 2000 - 07:44 am:

A south bay meet would be great just to B.S.
We should meet soon (have time off coming up) and bring pictures (you know of all the ones not on the road yet). How many would be interested? Where? When? Kick some idea's.

Willing to drive
Ramon (Gilroy) Milano

By Charles R. (207.104.157.172) on Tuesday, January 02, 2001 - 10:53 pm:

Aha!
Here was this thread again.
Now that Christmas and new years is over I can get things back to normal.
I noticed Rick is in Oakland, and I believe Brian is in San Pablo.
Ramon and I are down south of San Jose. I guess a good compromise in distance might be around, Fremont? Actually, I know Milpitas better as far as Resuraunts go.
I work everyday, so it doesn't really matter when, although it's easier to leave the farm on weekends than it is the shop on weekdays.
I see that we're getting a visitor from down under soon. Should we wait for him to arrive, or meet ahead of time to plan some "activities"?

A fair warning... If we find a place with TV/VCR access, I have loads of boring in-car and autocross footage...
It's worse than baby pictures I tell ya

By tedshred (63.224.195.169) on Wednesday, January 03, 2001 - 08:31 am:

Dang, I grew up in the bay area. Sure wish I was going to down there for this gathering.

If any of you guys see a '74 blue alfa GTV at the autocross events, give the guy lots of crap. He's my brother and I'm out to beat his time as soon as I get my heap going.

By Ramon Milano (207.5.4.95) on Thursday, January 04, 2001 - 12:29 pm:

I work during the week and have weekends off. A Saturday afternoon would be great. Just need to know a couple weeks in advance to plan for my family.

By errol (152.163.195.177) on Sunday, January 07, 2001 - 07:32 am:

To Jon; Has the car you got from your uncle sat for a while? Try checking the vacume lines with 'little' blasts of carb cleaner with the jet nozzel around the carb base and the vacume lines around (with the car running at normal operating temp). If the carb all of a sudden started to run rich and die at stops, There is a little diaphram on the drivers side carb middle base (you have to pull the carb) that has 3 screws. If the diaphram is rotted it will suck fuel and flood you very quick. The others are the #3-4 vacume lines on the back of the carb that point toward the firewall,(by the idle screw head). These seem to deteriorate from the heat of the manifold, check the sides you can't see as they bend toward the carb. I just replaced my cvcc carb with a weber and like it (just seems too close to the hood for me...maybe a scoop!!) About engine choices, get a 1751 engine and 5sp out of a 80-81 accord, freshen up the engine block,get a canadian head and manifold and then use the weber conversion. There will be plenty of torque and hp for you (right now) Actualy, try and find a whole car that might be in the paper that 'needs work' or in the back of a car lot that looks like it's been sitting for a while. You can really score big that way (if you have room for it)Strip it and use any parts you can. And if you do get rid of the cvcc carb I might be intrested. errol