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K20z3 DC DD build...every part you need and walk through!

91K views 70 replies 25 participants last post by  clumbz 
#1 · (Edited)
I'll keep this list at the beginning of parts used up to date so theres no more question of what is really needed with the z3, sometimes referred to as the most difficult of the K20 swaps because of the DBW throttle body, CannBus system, and other things that well get into during the thread.

Required (Or something similar of a different brand)
K20z3 out of a 06 Civic SI
K20z3 Trans out of an 09 Civic SI
K20z3 Starter
K20a2 Throttle Body with sensors
K20a2 Engine Harness and Charge Harness
K20a2 Intermediate Shaft and mounting bolts
K20a2 Alternator
PRB-A06 ECU
OBX Throttle Body Adapter
Chase Bays Clutch Line
Hybrid Racing Swap Harness
Hybrid Racing Tucked Fuel Line Kit
Hybrid Racing Fuel Rail
Hybrid Racing K20z3 Swap Shifter
Hybrid Racing K20z3 Swap Radiator Hoses
Hytech Replica Stainless K-swap Header
Aeromotive A1000-6 Fuel Pressure Regulator
Aeromotive Fuel Pressure Gauge
Aeromotive 15606 ORB-6 to -6AN Adapter x3
Vibrant Intake Filter
Vibrant 90 degre Intake Tube
Vibrant Stainless Steel Worm Clamps
Vibrant 2.5" to 3" Reducer Coupler

Optional Stuff:
AP1 Cluster with Pigtails
Glowshift DC2 twin gauge cluster
Hybrid Racing K20z3 Oil Cooler Hoses
Hybrid Racing 06 Civic SI Shifter Bushings
Autometer Sport-Comp II Oil Pressure Gauge
Autometer Sport-Comp II Water Temp Gauge
Karcepts Cruise Control Delete Kit with GSR Cable
91-95 MR2 Electric Power Steering Pump
Perma-Cool Power Steering Cooler Kit
Tyco V23232-A0001-X003 12V Diode Surpressed Relay
Rebuild trans with newest Honda gear set to prevent 2/3 synchro going, new 2/3 synchro, new 3/4 synchro, new axel seals, and new TOB fork seal
OEM Honda Water Pump: 19200-RBC-013
OEM Honda Thermostat: 19301-RAF-004
OEM Honda Timing Chain: 14401-PNA-004
OEM Honda Tensioner: 14510-PRB-A01
OEM Honda Head Gasket: 12251-RBC-004
OEM Honda Spool Valve Assembly: 15810-PRB-A03
OEM Acura RDX Injectors/Clips:
ACL Race Main/Rod/Thrust Bearings
3/8ths Vac Plug for Idle Air Assist Bypass
3/8ths NPT Plug for Idle Air Assist Bypass
Walbro 255 In Tank Fuel Pump
Walbro Fuel Pump Install Kit
DEI Reflect-A-GOLD Tape
Exhaust Manifold gasket
Front Main Seal
Rear Main Seal Kit
Accessory Belt Auto Tensioner
Fuel Injector O-Ring Set x 3 for an extra pair
Valve Cover Gasket Set
Valve Stem Seal Kit
Oil Pan Gasket
AEM Power Alternator Pulley

Index
Wire Harness/Sensor Layout/Sensor Pinnouts - Page 1
Fuel - Page 1
AP1 Cluster - Page 1
Water - Page 1
VSS Wiring - Page 2
Harness De-Pinning - Page 2
Radiator Cooling Fan Wiring (as per FlackoNAEG's request) - Page 3
Inector and Injector Clip Differences - Page 4

I got the K20z3 for a rediculously good price from a Honda dealership that pulled it due to a bad water pump that potentially could have blown the headgasket. Since these are usually things I look at and replace during my swaps, no problem.





I decided to clean it up a little bit just so it wasn't so dirty when I was trying to see what I had to work with:



The K20z3 trans I got from another dealership that pulled it due to the 2/3 syncro being bad. As anyone knows this is very common on these transmissions. Again, I always have my transmission rebuilt before swaps, so no biggie. I actually just got an update from the place I take all my transmissions to (Probuilt Transmission in Bulter PA) that they were going to be throwing in the revised Honda gearing and syncro that was released to address this issue. It'll set me back $795 bucks to rebuild it, but the way I see that is I now have under a grand in a completely rebuilt and known good z3 transmission. Well worth it to me.

Now that my basis was down it was time to start getting the swap materials together.
 
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#33 · (Edited)
Harness De-Pinning:
Couldn't find a very good write up on this but its very easy, so I figured I'd add it in. Every plug I've got to on the harness has this same basic release procedure be it 2 or 3 terminal. If I find a different plug I'll add it too.

1) Locate the release notch cut into the top of the inner housing piece.


2) By far the easiest tool to remove this with in my possetion was a Hook Pick Tool. Just simply stick the end of it in the notch and rotate the handle away from you to pull out the inner housing piece.


3) With the inner housing removed, you can look into the pins. There is a release tab holding the terminal into the harness plug on the opposite side from the outter harness release you use to release the harness plug from the sensor. Insert something small like a clothes pin in between the terminal and this release tab. I have marked this with the straight line in the picture below.


4) With the terminal removed from the housing you can more clearly see this release tab now resting further down into the hole where the terminal was pulled from.


5) While looking at the terminal you can clearly see how the whole operation works. The release tab holds the terminal into the housing by resting in this open area towards the back of the terminal itself. So our goal was to lift the release tab out of this space at the back of the terminal.


Found a couple other pin locks while working through the rest of the harness. I've done a couple of these now and this one was by far the easiest. Had the whole thing de-pinned in about 20 minutes. It was the first one i've done that was more fun than nerve racking. But heres the other 2 types of pin locks I found:

Large 6 Pin Lower Harness Connector
This has upper and lower locks. There is no piece that needs removed prior to de-pinning. Just simply release the top and bottom locks at the same time and pull out. I was able to just use what was in reach (de-pinning tool and a clothes pin)


Starter Power Wire
I believe I have this labled. Haven't really had the starter mounted and frankly didn't do research on it yet because I'm sure it'll be obvious when I lay the harness on the engine. But this ones pretty self explanitory too. Starts out like this with a black/white 16 or 14 gauge wire in it (going on memory).

Pop the ass end of the plug open:

The release is on the clip side of the plug.


Pardon my mangled magnified hand. But those of us here all understand how messed up you get while actually working on a car yourself instead of paying someone else to do it all for you.
 
#34 ·
heya, spoke to a friend of mine last night. The TPS voltage is 5v, yellow with blue stripe
Just another option.

I'm about to check voltages on my setup, extend and repin the connectors and see if my speed sensor works.

Ek4 VTi-R/ SiR - K24a3 with the Tsx transmission, magnetic speed sensor.
02-04 K20a engine harness, repinned at the ECU connectors to suit the 05 - 06 haltech (k20z3) platinum plug in pro.
 
#35 ·
Ah yes I see what you're saying. Run power to it from ECU pin "A20" and "A21" which are the 5V VCC1 and VCC2 outputs to sensors. Absolutely makes more sense than buying and wiring in an additional piece. Good thinking. I'll edit my past posts on here that that is mentioned in to reflect this new found revalation! haha. Thanks!
 
#44 ·
wow thanks alot for the feedback guys! All the comments finally making me feel like I'm not doing all this for nothing.

Uh yeah I can post some pictures of the car. Its in winter mode now and didn't really do anything to the body yet which has some pieces I'm not a fan of left over from pervious owners (fiberglass rear bumper, needs some wheels spacers, etc), but I'll get some up shortly here.

Its an odd car. Its an RS body but someone put GSR doors on it, so I ended up wiring in the power mirrors myself too since the harness weren't in the body of the car, but they were in the doors. And it has power mirrors so I figured "what the hell, thats get these things working". It has a bunch of other odd little things to it too.

I actually pulled all the interior out this weekend to fix some leaks that it had in it, found that I had some coolant inside the car that should have been outside of it. So had to do a heater core and someone in the past used wrong size hoses for it...ah its been a bit of a mess but I'm a stickler for perfection.



While it was all apart I did put in a mint dash and JDM DB6 seats my buddy had laying around so the interior is finally starting to look good for me. Also pulled out a bunch of the random wiring someone in the past had put in and got the clock working and all the other little stuff that wasn't working in it before.
 
#45 ·
Just as a sneak peak I also finally picked up a shift knob at a reasonable price that I liked. Little back story:

Apparently some shop that must be JDM as fawk (so JDM in fact that it got cracked by the tsunami a couple months back) had a bunch of Mugen shift knobs. Unfortunately the boxes got mostly destroyed with the waves overwhelming the city (and boats, dolphins, n' sh*t). So I come across this joint online unloading these shift knobs at a reasonable price. It seemed like a hell of a story and after reading it I'm like :raisins:. I didn't believe it figuring it was a story behind another knock of knob company out there. But for the price difference I figured I'd roll the dice. Shift knob comes in and weights A TON and looks great. So I figure its either real, or real enough for me.

The shift knob has since become known in my area as the "Fukushima Shift Knob" and glows in the dark sometimes due to the radiation still on it from the power plant meltdown.

But anyways, heres a picture of the Fukushima Shift Knob and the Hybrid Racing z3 Bolt In Shifter. Makes for an absolutely stunning comination in person in my opinion. Hybrid Racing = Top Knotch in my book!

 
#46 ·
I like what your doing. The biggest problem withu swaps is that everyone does them differently. I like how you taking a step by step and why your doing it. I especially like how you've shown every one how to depin connectors, and that you can't just swap wire around for the speed sensor. Good stuff, faint wait for the end product.
 
#47 ·
awesome writeup, i have a request...if you could possibly go over the radiator fan wiring, that would be great. you seem to have a clear way of explaining and the othe write-ups ive seen arent as detailed as you would probably explain it.
 
#48 · (Edited)
Radiator Cooling Fan Wiring

This section is in direct response to FlackoNAEG's question above. I appreciate it because I didn't really look into it yet up until this point so keep the questions/suggestions coming in hopes we cover stuff that I may not be thinking about.

Anyways, there are two very simple options to this one:
WITH Kpro
If you plan on using K-pro you have no worries. I'll post in an exert from K-Tuned.com and their swap harness directions:
"If you are using KPro, hooking up a fan switch is optional. The KPro software (Protection section) can be set up to control the cooling fan through the oem ECT sensor already wired into the factory K-series engine harness."
So let me lay this out to you. KPro will be getting its temp reading from the Red/White wire located at ECU pin "B8". As long as you still have that in your harness and going to you ECT sensor in the side of your head as noted in pictures a page or two back, then you can use Kpro to send out the signal to your thermo fan relay to turn on.
This signal is sent OUT from the ECU on the Green wire located at ECU pin "B6". This wire goes to Pin 7 of the 20 Pin "C302" plug of your swap harness. This in turn carries the output to the thermo fan relay, switching it on at the temp determined in KPro.
Easy right? No wire splicing at all, simply activating through software in Kpro.

WITHOUT Kpro
Again we'll start with an exert from K-Tuned's Swap Harness directions:
"For installs without KPro the fan switch must be wired up to control the cooling fan. To do this, you will need to reuse the fan switch from your B/D series engine or purchase a new one from your local Honda dealer or from us, K-Tuned. You will also need to cut off the 2 pin connector plug from your old B/D series harness. There are 2 wires on the plug for this sensor, signal (solid green) and ground (black).

To wire up the fan, connect the signal (green) wire from the fan switch plug to the yellow / blue wire found on the driver side plug of the K-Tuned harness. To complete the circuit run a new ground (black) wire somewhere to the chassis."


So heres a bigger break down....Including pictures which all of us love.
Below is the radiator cooling fan circuit diagram for my 94 integra:


And now the radiator cooling fan circuit diagram for a 02-04 RSX type S in which I've removed the A/C portion just to clean it up and make it easier to compare and constrast:


As you can see now, the systems are near identical with the exception of a few wire colors and the higher amp demand on the RSX. You would simply need to pull ur ECT switch out of your thermostat housing on your B series and wire it to pin 7 of the C302 20 pin connector on the swap harness. This will then trigger the cooling fan relay as your factory switch would.

So for further breakdown:
1) Take the harness, clip, and sensor out of your B18
2) Find one of the nermous swap companies fittings or radiators with a provision for factory ECT switches and purchase whichever way you prefer.
3) Wire the Green wire from the sensor to the USUALLY Green wire at pin 7 of the 20 pin connector on the VEHICLE SIDE. Make sure not to run it to the side running back out to the Engine Harness.
4) Run the Black wire from the sensor to a good ground.

It's that easy!
 
#51 ·
Bring it on. Like I said I'm sure there are more things I haven't gotten to yet. So please ask away.

For an update, I began pinning out the swap harness for future troubleshooting purposes. Figure this can help us out if we ever lose signal to the cluster or anything else in the car. It will help us undertand the entire path of each circuit hopefully.

In the midst of doing so I found some odd discrepancies with my swap harness I bought off of here and what I figured it should be through the ECU pinout. After double checking with David at Hybrid Racing we decided it would probably be safest to just get me a new harness.

So that is my next update I have in the pipeline, but wanted to give that quick shout out to David and Hybrid Racing for their continued amazing customer support and support of this forum.
 
#54 ·
Thanks Mike. I have a couple of your products scoped out to put on this build too believe me. I'll be in touch!

Unfortunately (or forunately) something came up and I decided to go single big turbo on my RB26 so this probably won't get finished until mid summer now instead of late spring like I had anticipated. Just letting everyone know this may ease up for a couple months as far as buying stuff for it. But wiring an the cheap stuff will still be coming up here and there.
 
#56 ·
A couple more for the z3 transmission:
The old school way which I took from another thread stated by PapiTuyo326:
Alright.

"In order to get it working, you need to use the shift cable bracket and shifter arm from either an ep3 or an rsx or whatever combination of K-series parts you have had working in your chassis. I used the Ep stuff since I have an Ep.

1. Switch the Shifter Arm

a. If your replacement shifter arm is from a 6 speed trans then you are good to go, just swap it with the FG piece.

b. If your replacement shifter arm is from a 5 speed trans (like the Ep, element, etc) then you need to switch the parts of the shifter arm. There is a 12mm Hex bolt keeping the assembly (parts 4,5,6 and 14,15 on THIS picture) on the 5 speed shifter. Remove the assembly. You will then need to get the parts from your FG shifter arm off (parts 4,5,6,7 and 20,21 on THIS picture). The Bolt is the same, but be careful when taking it off, as there is a spring in the 6 speed mechanism. Put it on your 5 speed shifter and bam, instant 6 speed shift goodness.

2. Now that that is fixed, you need to deal with the fact that only two bolts can be used to hold the shift arm assembly down. I am going to buy a Tap set today and get it done. The two bottom bolts actually do a good job at holding it on. You could probably get away with hondabonding the crap out of it, but might as well Tap the remaining holes."
K-tuned also has a pretty nice and cheaper setup HERE. The only real reason why I went a little extra for the Hybrid one was so I didn't have to cut out my tunnel. My cars in pretty good condition for being a 94 so I'm trying to do as little cutting as possible. But if I wasn't worried about it the K-Tuned would be my pick I'm sure.
 
#57 ·
Well I had a good last couple days. Got my new swap harness from Dave@Hybrid Racing a couple days ago. I had aquired an old "all blue wire" swap harness off of here when I first started the project and after consulting him found that some of the pins were off. So I decided to play it safe and get a new harness from him which came in yesterday and BOY am I glad I did that. If you're ever wondering if its worth the extra 60-100 bucks to get a new harness instead of one of the old all blues it TOTALLY is. The color coding is beautiful and will absolutely help with troubleshooting in the future if you ever need to.

Then I come home today and see this lovely...The reason why like I said a few post ago I was going to have to take it easy on this for a couple weeks:




Little upgrade from my twin GT2860R's on my RB26 swapped S13 to one of the relatively new Borg Warner EFR 8374. Finally stepping my game up!:new_slayer:
 
#61 ·
No problem guys! That was the reason I was doing it the way I was! Good to get some positive feedback.

However, a bigger and much more exciting project fell onto me that I'm going to undertake so I'm actually going to begin parting this out. Which unfortunately will also mean the end of this thread right here.....

Hopefully we can leave it open to help people in the future. I will also still reply to it with what I had planned out if anyone else has any future questions...just no more pictures unfortunately unless someone can be kind enough to work along with us on it or even pick it up.

Sorry guys! But like I said keep the questions/pictures coming of your experiences so hopefully we can keep this in depth thread going.
 
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