Honda D13 / D15 / D16

Honda's small four — the 1.3 D13, 1.4 D14, 1.5 D15 and 1.6 D16 — in the Civic, CR-X, Concerto and Logo.

⚑ It is Honda's D-series and not Mahindra's D15, which is a 1.5 diesel with a page of its own here; this catalogue's own alias tooling once had to be stopped from confusing them. The D prefix is worth nothing without the marque.

It is a single-overhead-cam design and it is belt-driven — and it is an interference engine, which on cars this old with unknown history is the decision that matters most.

The VTEC engines are a minority of the family. D15B7 and D16A6 have no VTEC at all; D16Z6 and D15B in some markets do. An owner reporting that "VTEC never kicks in" may be describing an engine that never had it, and establishing which is fitted comes before any solenoid or oil-pressure diagnosis.

Its recurring faults are ignition and breathing: the distributor fails with heat and gives an intermittent hot-restart stall — the ignitor inside it, most often — plus a tired idle control valve and inlet gaskets that harden and leak unmetered air.

These are heavily modified cars, and a rebuilt engine's stamped code may no longer describe what is inside it. Confirm the build before trusting a compression ratio or a fuel requirement.