Hi all,
Here's my 'build' thread for my 1999 EK1 GLi sedan. Today marks one year since I got the car and I'm fairly satisfied with what I managed in achieve in that space of time, so I figured I'd start one of these for what I suppose is probably the same reason most other people do. I had actually never browsed ClubITR until around the beginning of this year. I ended up flicking through some builds on a few different sites after seeing that NWP4Life was still down and noticed a few cars on here that I was familiar with. I also happened to stumble upon the active build threads of some people that I had actually purchased parts from for this car! It's definitely cool to see people who are still on forums posting updates on their cars, especially when they're being tracked.
I don't have photos of everything I've done to the car let alone a bunch of photos to begin with, mainly because it's hardly worth trying to take anything worth looking at with an S3 and I don't have the patience to progressively take photos documenting the process of doing/changing something. But anyway, here's the build of sorts. Brief backstory - I also own a third gen Prelude, which was my first car. Purchased in February 2014 but didn't actually get registered until October, or obtain my licence until a year later (lol), bit of a story to that too. Usual sort of Honda things were done to it.... intake, exhaust, wheels, coils, RSB, brake stuff, seats, optional OEM parts etc.
I had always been interested in hitting up a few track events in it, but was wary due to being fully aware of what could/should/needed to be fixed on it to make it reliable. Basically all the standard kind of things you'd like to clean up and replace on a not-so pristine example of a 25 year old car. In October 2015 I ended up getting this.
Bought it for peanuts considering it had a B16A swap and a few other bits and pieces. Plan was to daily and track it to keep the abuse and mileage put on the Prelude to a minimum. Long story short, knew it was rough at best when I bought it, figured out it was a POS for sure soon after. Didn't really have the motivation or time to get it up to scratch especially once it started throwing a CEL and running rough as guts, also pretty sure the valve stem seals were gone. It would have been a lot easier to just get a cleaner base to begin with, so when council told me to get the unregistered hoopty off the streets I sold it on and planned to spend the small profit on the Prelude. Probably less than a week later, I was up at 2am flicking through Gumtree ads (as you do) when I came across an ad with an eye catching name.
Showed it to my mate and had a good laugh at the title, until we both realised upon inspection of the actual contents that the car was actually pretty damn legit. 230k on the clock, bog stock, full service history primarily at Hondacare, still had the red key. But more importantly, $2350 with RWC and fresh 6 month rego. Texted the seller first thing in the morning and got it home that same day.
Mugens went straight on. The car was stock save for darkest legal tint and quite clean overall. A few things needed replacing and fixing for sure, but I really wasn't complaining for the price paid.
I had a bunch of things lying around that were either a) intended for the blue sedan, or b) purchased knowing I would inevitably own a Civic/Integra/some other B-series thing. Within a week or two I had thrown on my EK9 SRS wheel, a Buddyclub short shifter, Circuit Hero extender, OEM Type R knob and a rear Whiteline shifter bush. I bought the bushing kit having forgotten that my mate already informed me that it was actually for B-series, but by pure chance when I posted up the front bush for sale I chatted to a potential buyer and found that they ordered a Prothane kit and received one for a D-series instead, so we simply swapped. In the second photo you can also see the oil caked on certain areas of the underbody. The car leaked oil something chronic when I got it and replacing the sump plug and washer alleviated a lot of the issue, although it still weeped from the sump gasket and rear main seal. Those two are still on my to do list :/
I picked up a Mugen twin loop system for it shortly after. It was definitely an impulse buy, I was basically distraught at having missed out on a pair of black SR3s (gotta be black IMO) with EK9 rails being price dropped to $800 on the one night that I didn't check BHC. I spotted it the next morning and saw I was a mere 20 minutes too late to the party, got sad, went and messaged the guy selling the exhaust as a consolation prize of sorts lol. In need of lock nuts, I went with Mugen ones to continue the trend and because they're actually some of the cheaper ones you can get.... not that it counts for much once shipping and the exchange rate kills you. Oh well.
Replaced the sedan grille (chrome surround, two slat) with a hatch grille (paint matched surround, single slat). Painted the rear licence plate garnish at the same time which also makes a huuuuuge difference, to me at least. In the first photo you can also see the amazing eBay special 3 row alloy rad that rendered the overflow mounting bracket useless, hence the ziptied Japanese mini coffee bottle used in lieu of the stock overflow. There was some degree of reasoning behind why I went for that option but either way, poor life decision/10. I hated myself for ruining what was otherwise a clean and respectful engine bay.
Usual maintenance things, plus headlight bulbs, a whole bunch of T10 wedges and other miscellaneous items were done. The front rotors were in dire need of replacement, and I was planning to go with QFM HPX pads up front just to try them out and see if they were either bang for buck/trash as different people make them out to be. However, that turned into six weeks before I received anything from Brakes Direct. They initially confirmed the HPX were in stock but it turned out this wasn't the case, then it was another four weeks of being told that replacement pads of another brand would be due within a few days. I was pretty annoyed at this point because I really would have just gone with anything that was remotely above OEM spec in the price range as I wanted to start dailying the Civic, although I ended up doing that before I fixed the brakes anyway due to the clutch fluid leak in the Prelude being exacerbated and leaving me bleeding it on the side of the road one morning when I was heading to work.
Picked up an SP-G on Bride FG rails for a good price. I'm not completely certain on the exact chronological order of things, but I feel like by that point I also had a Whiteline rear sway bar + brace kit, Samco hoses, and some Hardrace arms sitting in my room (only the hoses were brand new). While I was happy with the way things were tracking and progressing, my tally of how much I had spent at that point and how much further I had to go just to do the basic suspension things made me question what I was doing and if it was really what I wanted. I've always been a fan of grassroots type racing events and what people in Group N2 at Vtec Club were achieving, so it wasn't an issue of me wanting to have a fully built sick as track spec car before I got out to race. I simply started having doubts and thought that maybe I should just save up a bit and buy a DC2R outright, keep it simple and sacrifice a bit of short term satisfaction to save money in the long run and have another Honda that I really wanted to keep forever and was awesome out of the box. I thought about it for a little while, then started sellings things off. I changed my mind again when I realised that an R was still a significant buy-in cost that in the end, would take a lot more money away from funding the Prelude which always was the main priority.
No sound deadening stripping or anything, just had to remove my carpet to remove all the water from my car getting flooded after being parked outside my new sharehouse at the time. Worst reason to have to do it ever.
The growing road noise front the front end, particularly on specific sections of road made me consider that the wheel bearings were on their way out. I still hoped the RE002s that were beat to shit with a nail embedded in one were to blame, but replacing them with daily duty suitable Ecopias didn't resolve the issue. I thought about it, and figured that if I was going to pull the knuckles out I might as well replace the lower ball joints while I was at it. Shortly after, OEM tie rod ends were added to the order list. And not too long after that, a set of MCA Blues popped up for sale interstate.
Here's my 'build' thread for my 1999 EK1 GLi sedan. Today marks one year since I got the car and I'm fairly satisfied with what I managed in achieve in that space of time, so I figured I'd start one of these for what I suppose is probably the same reason most other people do. I had actually never browsed ClubITR until around the beginning of this year. I ended up flicking through some builds on a few different sites after seeing that NWP4Life was still down and noticed a few cars on here that I was familiar with. I also happened to stumble upon the active build threads of some people that I had actually purchased parts from for this car! It's definitely cool to see people who are still on forums posting updates on their cars, especially when they're being tracked.
I don't have photos of everything I've done to the car let alone a bunch of photos to begin with, mainly because it's hardly worth trying to take anything worth looking at with an S3 and I don't have the patience to progressively take photos documenting the process of doing/changing something. But anyway, here's the build of sorts. Brief backstory - I also own a third gen Prelude, which was my first car. Purchased in February 2014 but didn't actually get registered until October, or obtain my licence until a year later (lol), bit of a story to that too. Usual sort of Honda things were done to it.... intake, exhaust, wheels, coils, RSB, brake stuff, seats, optional OEM parts etc.
I had always been interested in hitting up a few track events in it, but was wary due to being fully aware of what could/should/needed to be fixed on it to make it reliable. Basically all the standard kind of things you'd like to clean up and replace on a not-so pristine example of a 25 year old car. In October 2015 I ended up getting this.
Bought it for peanuts considering it had a B16A swap and a few other bits and pieces. Plan was to daily and track it to keep the abuse and mileage put on the Prelude to a minimum. Long story short, knew it was rough at best when I bought it, figured out it was a POS for sure soon after. Didn't really have the motivation or time to get it up to scratch especially once it started throwing a CEL and running rough as guts, also pretty sure the valve stem seals were gone. It would have been a lot easier to just get a cleaner base to begin with, so when council told me to get the unregistered hoopty off the streets I sold it on and planned to spend the small profit on the Prelude. Probably less than a week later, I was up at 2am flicking through Gumtree ads (as you do) when I came across an ad with an eye catching name.
Showed it to my mate and had a good laugh at the title, until we both realised upon inspection of the actual contents that the car was actually pretty damn legit. 230k on the clock, bog stock, full service history primarily at Hondacare, still had the red key. But more importantly, $2350 with RWC and fresh 6 month rego. Texted the seller first thing in the morning and got it home that same day.
Mugens went straight on. The car was stock save for darkest legal tint and quite clean overall. A few things needed replacing and fixing for sure, but I really wasn't complaining for the price paid.
I had a bunch of things lying around that were either a) intended for the blue sedan, or b) purchased knowing I would inevitably own a Civic/Integra/some other B-series thing. Within a week or two I had thrown on my EK9 SRS wheel, a Buddyclub short shifter, Circuit Hero extender, OEM Type R knob and a rear Whiteline shifter bush. I bought the bushing kit having forgotten that my mate already informed me that it was actually for B-series, but by pure chance when I posted up the front bush for sale I chatted to a potential buyer and found that they ordered a Prothane kit and received one for a D-series instead, so we simply swapped. In the second photo you can also see the oil caked on certain areas of the underbody. The car leaked oil something chronic when I got it and replacing the sump plug and washer alleviated a lot of the issue, although it still weeped from the sump gasket and rear main seal. Those two are still on my to do list :/
I picked up a Mugen twin loop system for it shortly after. It was definitely an impulse buy, I was basically distraught at having missed out on a pair of black SR3s (gotta be black IMO) with EK9 rails being price dropped to $800 on the one night that I didn't check BHC. I spotted it the next morning and saw I was a mere 20 minutes too late to the party, got sad, went and messaged the guy selling the exhaust as a consolation prize of sorts lol. In need of lock nuts, I went with Mugen ones to continue the trend and because they're actually some of the cheaper ones you can get.... not that it counts for much once shipping and the exchange rate kills you. Oh well.
Replaced the sedan grille (chrome surround, two slat) with a hatch grille (paint matched surround, single slat). Painted the rear licence plate garnish at the same time which also makes a huuuuuge difference, to me at least. In the first photo you can also see the amazing eBay special 3 row alloy rad that rendered the overflow mounting bracket useless, hence the ziptied Japanese mini coffee bottle used in lieu of the stock overflow. There was some degree of reasoning behind why I went for that option but either way, poor life decision/10. I hated myself for ruining what was otherwise a clean and respectful engine bay.
Usual maintenance things, plus headlight bulbs, a whole bunch of T10 wedges and other miscellaneous items were done. The front rotors were in dire need of replacement, and I was planning to go with QFM HPX pads up front just to try them out and see if they were either bang for buck/trash as different people make them out to be. However, that turned into six weeks before I received anything from Brakes Direct. They initially confirmed the HPX were in stock but it turned out this wasn't the case, then it was another four weeks of being told that replacement pads of another brand would be due within a few days. I was pretty annoyed at this point because I really would have just gone with anything that was remotely above OEM spec in the price range as I wanted to start dailying the Civic, although I ended up doing that before I fixed the brakes anyway due to the clutch fluid leak in the Prelude being exacerbated and leaving me bleeding it on the side of the road one morning when I was heading to work.
Picked up an SP-G on Bride FG rails for a good price. I'm not completely certain on the exact chronological order of things, but I feel like by that point I also had a Whiteline rear sway bar + brace kit, Samco hoses, and some Hardrace arms sitting in my room (only the hoses were brand new). While I was happy with the way things were tracking and progressing, my tally of how much I had spent at that point and how much further I had to go just to do the basic suspension things made me question what I was doing and if it was really what I wanted. I've always been a fan of grassroots type racing events and what people in Group N2 at Vtec Club were achieving, so it wasn't an issue of me wanting to have a fully built sick as track spec car before I got out to race. I simply started having doubts and thought that maybe I should just save up a bit and buy a DC2R outright, keep it simple and sacrifice a bit of short term satisfaction to save money in the long run and have another Honda that I really wanted to keep forever and was awesome out of the box. I thought about it for a little while, then started sellings things off. I changed my mind again when I realised that an R was still a significant buy-in cost that in the end, would take a lot more money away from funding the Prelude which always was the main priority.
No sound deadening stripping or anything, just had to remove my carpet to remove all the water from my car getting flooded after being parked outside my new sharehouse at the time. Worst reason to have to do it ever.
The growing road noise front the front end, particularly on specific sections of road made me consider that the wheel bearings were on their way out. I still hoped the RE002s that were beat to shit with a nail embedded in one were to blame, but replacing them with daily duty suitable Ecopias didn't resolve the issue. I thought about it, and figured that if I was going to pull the knuckles out I might as well replace the lower ball joints while I was at it. Shortly after, OEM tie rod ends were added to the order list. And not too long after that, a set of MCA Blues popped up for sale interstate.
i am enjoying reading this..
Comment