honda motor

in 1989 what motors could have come out in a honda civic hatchback si, it says 16valve and DOHC on it, he says its 2.3 or something above 2.0 but i think it could only be a 1.6. it would be cool if it were higher, either way I could use some suggestions on mods, cam, intake, exhaust, turbo/supercharger, cold/ram air, fuel system, anything to make it better. thanks.

look on the block for an engine code and let us know what it says ... we should be able to tell you what motor it is.

Your car definitley has an engine swap .. no stock 89 civic si came with a DOHC motor.

i believe it is
D16A6
2602101
thanks

that's the stock 1.6L Si engine...but it's probably not DOHC....

whats the difference between a DOCH and an SOCH? i'm pretty new to imports and i'm trying to figure out if its worth fixing up this honda, actually it's in good shape and has really low mileage(less than 100,000 i think), just trying to figure out what I'm working with first

DOHC = Dual Over Head Cam
SOHC = Single Over Head Cam

i'm assuming you can get more power out of a dual cam setup? and whats a good cam to upgrade too, or does changing the cam usually mean you have to start changing out the heads and intake right away?

The only way to get to a DOHC setup is to change either the head or the whole motor. The easiest way to get into that is the ZC motor. Putting a DOHC head on that motor would be a serious pain. However, you can do several different things like getting a SOHC V-tec head, a SOHC V-tec motor, or a B-Series motor. This has been hotly discussed on this forum, and you can find oodles of threads where this issue has been debated back and forth to no resolution.

However, if you want to do it the right way, it's a B-series motor that you want. The B20, B16, and B18 are all excellent motors and give you a good starting point for some serious power. If you want to put on a V-tec head, I have one I can hook you up with, that has a really cool ZEX cam in it. If you want to do a whole V-tec SOHC motor, I can get ahold of one of those for you as well. However, I would say to do a B16 or B20 for something that is totally driveable, a stable foundation to add to, and something that not everyone has... Just my $0.02. Do a search for ZC or B16 and you'll see where it has been discussed...