Announcement

**Toddxxx** · 17-01-17, 05:47 AM

So that's the introductions done. But where does it leave us with the 'build'?

This particular car was chosen due to the fact that it came with a whole host of goodies and made the process of owning a second car a lot easier. So there won't be much in the way of a ground up build I guess with lots of stuff already done.

What I would like to do with the car though is refresh it with new oem pieces and replace parts with some nice aftermarket bits where I see fit. Spoon is like the holy grail for civic parts for me so they will feature a lot. Funny really, considering I dislike 99% of their stuff for the S2000.
I don't see it as being an all out resto mod but how about an oem/spoon refresher build?

This will most likely occur over a long period of time as I acquire piece by piece. No real rush with this build as the car is just a daily and I already have a race car to focus on haha.
Because of this and the fact that the car was bought to be used and driven I think I might play around with another idea I have in my head where I will document the adventures and trips the car/myself goes on. Might be a cool concept? Less of a build thread and more of a blog?

The car is currently in what I see as stage 1 of its life with me. Stage 1 will comprise of swapping out parts from the previous owner that I don't need/want, adding some touches to it I like and a whole lot of cleaning and refreshing of things so there will be a bunch of updates on that stuff soon.

Until then enjoy reading lots of writing haha

**felixR** · 17-01-17, 09:02 AM

Originally posted by Toddxxx View Post

Because of this and the fact that the car was bought to be used and driven I think I might play around with another idea I have in my head where I will document the adventures and trips the car/myself goes on. Might be a cool concept? Less of a build thread and more of a blog?

Like a car diary!

Stage 1 seems interesting with all the parts you listed

**eeko** · 17-01-17, 11:04 AM

Love it.

Sent from my SM-G925I using Tapatalk

**Toddxxx** · 17-01-17, 12:20 PM

Originally posted by felixR View Post

Like a car diary!

Stage 1 seems interesting with all the parts you listed

Yeah that's what I'm thinking. Something a little different

Originally posted by eeko View Post

Love it.

Sent from my SM-G925I using Tapatalk

Thanks man

**Toddxxx** · 17-01-17, 05:58 PM

Originally posted by chaumeh

Looks like a great base to start with Todd

It's a really good base!
It's been relatively trouble free so far. At work tonight so I'll write up a couple updates to post tomorrow

**Toddxxx** · 18-01-17, 02:31 PM

I'm not too sure where to start these updates as I've kind of jumped all around the car doing bits and pieces here and there so far and haven't really finished one area so to speak.
I guess I'll just down my camera roll and go in that order.

So I had the car for all of 20 minutes (the drive home) before I started modding, well demodding it. It came home and went straight under the carport and up onto stands.
I guess I started on the engine bay first. I probably decided this would be the quickest and easiest section to start on.

I forgot to take a before pic which I'm bummed about but the engine bay was pretty clean to start off with. A quick hose and wipe down is all that was really needed. I removed the DC2R intake that came on the car as it wasn't bolted in properly and had cable ties holding the lids together. I put back in the stock air box that was given to me as an extra with the car and imo it looks better than the DC2 intake. It fits the space nicer and hides all the wiring underneath and just looks correct in the engine bay. The DC2 intake has since been sold so the stock one is here to stay.
I also removed the BYS front strut brace that was on the car as strut braces aren't needed for a daily car...unless it's a spoon one haha

I replaced the radiator to coolant overflow bottle hose as it was old and brittle and had a few cracks that had caused a slow leak as well.

It was at this stage that I noticed a few clips and bolts were missing or tired looking in the engine bay so I started a list of things to grab from the wreckers and honestly to date the trips to the wreckers have been awesome! I can't use them for the S2000 as none go to wreckers so to be able to go and grab miscellaneous bolts and screws and clips that I need for the civic is great! Pick n Payless is awesome but more on that later

And here's what the engine bay looks like. Nice and clean and OEM looking. Just what i wanted

Continuing on with the engine theme. I removed the Spoon Sports muffler to give it a clean and reposition it as it sat too far to the right and was hitting against the bumper causing a slightly melted spot.

Before

During

After

And reinstalled with an extended exhaust hanger. Much better now that it fits the bumper properly.

**Toddxxx** · 18-01-17, 03:22 PM

I then got under the car and started removing all the other bracing that wasn't needed.
Things that were removed were

- Cusco V2 4 point front lower arm bar
- Cusco V1 2 point rear lower tie bar
- ASR subframe brace
- EK9 22mm rear sway bar
- Hardrace spherical LCA

Again all of these are up for sale at the moment so if youre reading and would like something just message me

While i didn't need the arm braces or the subframe brace i did need rear LCA and i wanted some sort of rear sway bar. Luckily a friend was selling his EK4 16mm rear sway bar and stock LCA so i grabbed them for cheap and installed. With all that bracing and rear reinforcement removed you can definitely feel a difference in driving even on the street. Because i dont need the car to be performance based for a daily driver this is fine.

While i was under the car i discovered three things

1. A front subframe bolt was missing where the cusco brace mounted (possibly from installation?)
2. A couple bolts on the arms had become quite stripped (again probably from removal/installation of brace/coilovers etc)
3. The rear trailing arm bushes were shot!

The first two were easily fixed with my first trip to Pick n Payless. Adding onto the list of engine bay things i needed i left with a handful of nuts and bolts, a couple of clips for the windscreen washer hoses/windscreen cowl and a new washer bottle cap.

As for the RTA bushes. This is what it looked like under the car haha

Left

Right

Installed were the cheap 2 piece poly items that i was told were from pedders. Apparently they don't do too well with the twisting forces of driving and this is why the centre bolt eats out the bushing.

So the arms came out and i bought some new hardrace hardened rubber items to go in. I took the arms to work and used the press there and it was an easy 5 minute job. Arms got a bit of a clean and were put back in the car with no issue and the result? The car is a thousand times smoother in the rear/to drive in general. Yay!

While the car was up in the air and the wheels were off i gave them a bit of a clean too. Inside barrels were pretty dirty and the outsides were just covered in brake dust so nothing major there.

Before

After

While i was at it i also popped the teal caps off the end of the project mu lug nuts as i didnt like the look. They look a lot better now just as open ended silver lugs.

**stephen8512** · 18-01-17, 11:14 PM

Awesome new daily Todd!

Any plans for engine swap later down the line? Perhaps a B18C or even a K20?

**Toddxxx** · 19-01-17, 01:08 AM

With the suspension arms sorted and the wheels back on the car it was time to move to the interior. Id say this is where the biggest amount of work has occurred so far.

My goal for the interior is to keep it super clean and tidy. Full OEM basically with a few nice touch ups. What i really want though is it to be comfortable and rattle free and in a 20 year old car this is far from easy! What i've been working hard to do is making my way through each interior piece and pulling them apart and putting them back together to check that every clip, screw and bolt is accounted for. Of course with any old second hand car there has been numerous missing clips and bolts but again Pick n Payless has proved to be a life saver! No joke i think i have probably grabbed about 50-75 miscellaneous clips and screws so far with a few pieces still to look over.
Its an oddly satisfying experience pulling say a door apart, checking over it for broken clips and missing screws, replacing the missing parts and then putting it back together. Speaking of door trims. When i bought the car the passenger door locking assembly rattled like no tomorrow. You would literally hear the rattle over the radio which annoyed the hell out of me the so that was the first thing that was pulled apart and fixed and led to me doing this with every interior piece since.
As this is a boring process there's no pictures involved but i would probably rate this exercise over any interior purchase you can do to an old car.

In terms of interior modifications the car came pretty set with what i would consider a good interior for a street car. A few changes have occurred though.
My OCD kicked in almost immediately and i couldn't deal with the inconsistencies of all the interior pieces. I had the grey plastics of a CXi civic, black steering wheel from an EP3, red SR3 recaros in the front, black DC2R rear seats, CXi pattern door cards but a VTi sedan center console armrest and a bronze gearknob.

The rear seats were the first to go, traded for stock CXi rear seats and cash. Then the center armrest console was sold and the normal surround was put in. The EP3 wheel was sold and the stock wheel that i was given with the car was reinstalled and a temporary stock gear knob was put in after the carbing gear knob was sold.
So now i had matching CXi pattern door cards and rear seats. The center console armrest was no longer an issue and the steering wheel and gearknob both now tied in with the rest of the grey interior. I was 99% happy minus the damn headunit the car had! The pioneer headunit that came with the car is good despite the fact that its interface lit up different colours and cycled through the rainbow continuously. Super super annoying when my cluster and dash lights both match with an orange hue. I was considering throwing the headunit out at one stage and buying a new one but i had a play around with it and came across the interface settings and was able to set the unit to stay an orange hue as well so now the dash is all one colour. Yay for matching things! :P

While we're on the interior i also removed the C pillar and rear strut braces and picked up a stock space saver and wheel lock to throw in the back as the car will be used for long trips in the future. I just need to find an OEM tool kit or small portable one to keep in the car now to complete this section.

Now for these red recaros. Since getting the car i've been trying to decide whether to sell them or keep them or swap to black ones to be less out there and match in a bit better. The SR3 are nice seats and are very comfy and look nice but the red doesn't necessarily blend in with my interior hence the option of swapping to black ones. They're also not really needed in a daily and could be sold for a nice amount to then be used in other areas of the car. I haven't sat in the stock seats before so i dont even know what they're like. If i was to keep the SR3 id buy seat covers for them to protect them from grime and the sun etc so then again whats the point of having them? There's also the hassle of finding stock CXi seats in perfect condition to replace the recaros.
Anyone with opinions on the matter please feel free to chime in

ANYWAYYYYY

The red recaros needed a clean! Surprisingly the passenger seat was the dirtier of the two and the driver side was quite clean. Bolster wise both seats are almost perfect. It's getting really rare these days to find a set of recaros in this condition so im very happy to have these.

http://www.ozhonda.com/forum/showthr...-your-Recaro-s

I've used this link/method to previously clean two sets of red recaros that i've had and they've always turned out great so once again i grabbed some softly from Woolworths and headed home to spend a few hours hand cleaning the seats to restore them to their former glory.

Some before pics

Bucket full of dirty water from contaminants coming out of the seats

And the end results really show just how effective this method is. You'll need to leave the seats in a dry area for 24 hours or so for them to dry out so this isn't a quick clean method but for $5 and a couple hours it sure is a cost effective method.

Upon removing the seats i discovered that the driver side seat rail is actually from a DC2 (previously covered by rear floor mat so i never saw). This means that only three of the bolts line up and usually the rear inside bolt is left out as the EG/DC2 rail covers half the bolt hole that the EK requires. Some people leave it like this with three bolts but that seems kind of dodge to me. The proper solution is to source EK9 rails but they're rare and super expensive in Aus so another solution is to grind off the rear tab then make a semicircle notch where the rail covers the hole thus allowing you to now put in the fourth bolt. This is what i did and the seat install is now less dodge haha. I may make up an extension from steel and weld it onto the existing rail in the future but for now this will do.

That covers the seat restoration and pretty much the interior so far. Sorry for so many words and not a lot of pictures.
I'm going to bed now

**Toddxxx** · 19-01-17, 01:15 AM

Originally posted by stephen8512 View Post

Awesome new daily Todd!

Any plans for engine swap later down the line? Perhaps a B18C or even a K20?

Thanks Stephen

No plans for an engine swap at this stage. D16 is good and economical for daily use. Currently at 330kms from just over half a tank
I can 100% say no K swap will ever happen but in the future if i still have the car and everything in life is going well i may B swap it for a bit of fun but that isn't going to be for a couple years at least if ever. I still have the S2K to focus on and build

**totti** · 19-01-17, 02:00 PM

Would you consider swapping for black sr3? Mine are also freshly steam cleaned

**Toddxxx** · 20-01-17, 05:15 AM

Originally posted by totti View Post

Would you consider swapping for black sr3? Mine are also freshly steam cleaned

I actually did a post on the fb groups looking for a swap the other day. I checked out a couple pairs and the ones I looked at just didn't look that great in person. Not sure if it's just the black in general or if it's just their seats but I'm back to liking the red again haha.
I'm looking for a set in the same condition as my red ones so if yours are that good send me a pm and we can talk

**Toddxxx** · 11-02-17, 07:46 AM

The exterior got a bit of a freshen up this week.

I picked up some white EK4 door handles to replace my black EK1 ones. They were a bit rough when I got them so I pulled them apart and gave them a good clean. Put them back together and they look much better.
I also grabbed clear side indicators to replace the amber ones.

These two small changes have made the exterior look a lot nicer imo.

Apart from that I also refreshed the roof moulds and the window moulds. Both pieces had weathered under the harsh aussie sun and had started to grey. They also had wax residue and whatever else left on them from previous details etc

I was looking into products to restore the black to these pieces but nothing really seemed to be a permanent or even a semi permanent solution. Most products would bring back the blackness but would wash off the first time it rained or got washed so ceebs for that. Decided to just spray them black. I'll see how this lasts and if it turns bad I'll just buy new moulds from Honda.

Roof moulds were easy. Upon removing them I found this

So a quick clean later we had the grooves looking fresh again.

The moulds were sprayed and left to dry and reinstalled. Much better than what they looked like previously.

Then it was time to refresh the window moulds. Super common issue for these pieces to weather badly and 'dry' out and turn grey and scaly and crack etc
Interestingly the passenger side is in perfect condition where as the driver side is really bad. Either the passenger side was parked in the shade constantly or it's been replaced at some stage over the cars life. I'm leaning towards the latter.

So with one side being new and the other side being old and cracked I did a temporary fix and sprayed the drivers side so it is at least black for now. Will order a new one from Honda when I get around to it.

**Toddxxx** · 11-02-17, 08:33 AM

With those bits and pieces sorted it was time to move onto the major job I wanted to get done. Since buying the car I've never really been happy with the front end fitment.
The front bar didn't line up with the guards too well, the carbon bonnet sat askew and had some ugly gaps, the drivers side guard wasn't positioned correctly and the headlights sat differently on either side.
While it wasn't too bad all these misalignments really annoyed me so the car went up onto stands and the whole front end was removed including the sideskirts (needed to be removed to access the lower guard bolts). Of course there was 20yo crud buildup underneath most things so everything got a really good clean. I decided at this stage to also remove the side door moulds and clean under them too.

With the guards put back on and bolted down loosely the realigning began. The passenger side was pretty good to start with so all I did was make sure the gap to the door was the same the whole way down. The driver side was the issue with the guard originally being pushed all the way back up against the A pillar and door resulting in a few paint chips here and there. A bit of touch up paint and it was realigned properly as well. So now we had two good guards.

Next on the list was the headlights. Before going back in the car they received a little mod. Like my S2000 they suffered the 'orange haze' from the orange indicator bulb and like my S2000 instead of buying $40 clear bulbs I just attacked the stock orange bulb with some silver spray paint. Came up perfect yet again.

Before

After

Back on the car I positioned the headlights roughly where I thought they should go making sure they lined up well with guards. Then the front bar was placed on and more adjusting took place. After this there was a lot of back and forth of bar on, look at fitment, bar off, adjust headlight and/or bumper bracket, bar on, check fitment and repeat. The issue previously with the headlights was one side sat nice and flush with the bar whereas the other side protruded out a fair bit. This then meant that the protruding side didn't line up well with the guard or the bonnet. All the back and forth adjusting got the front bar, headlights and guards nicely aligned. Now it was time to tackle the bonnet.

With all the other pieces now properly aligned the bonnet was even more out of wack. This makes me think that the bonnet was placed on first and everything else was aligned around it previously, thus everything being misaligned.
The first part was easy and the bonnet was shifted across more towards the passenger side to get the gap to the guards the same on each side but the front of the bonnet was still raised and not sitting flat.
I played around with the rubbers that the bonnet sits on but that really didnt do anything. I did notice that the bonnet catcher was hitting on the latch assembly and pulling the bonnet to one side more than the other. To fix this i removed the latch assembly and elongated the holes sideways so i was able to slide the assembly over enough for the catcher to cleanly lock. This made a massive difference in how the bonnet sat so all that was left to do was elongate the holes upwards so i could lower the assembly enough to have the bonnet pulled down for a tighter fit.

I didn't get a good picture to properly show the gap beforehand but you can see clearly in this pic how much the bonnet was raised on the driver side.

And what a difference all the work i did has made!

Originally I was trying to buy/swap the carbon bonnet for a stock white bonnet due to poor fitment but now with everything fitting much nicer im quite happy to keep the carbon bonnet for now. As with any aftermarket item, fitment is always an issue. I guess it wasn't a big issue to the previous owner but all it took was a hour or so to get the bonnet to fit just as nicely as the oem unit. It really does make a massive difference to the look of the car and it makes it much nicer to look at. To me anyway

Announcement

Todds new EK1

Todds new EK1

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