The EF9

[Afx31]

Well well well, looks whose bought another car.. Since owning my first ED Civic which is now more so my "track car" I've always dreamt of owning a genuine EF9 street car one day, where I could throw my old Work Equip 01's on and essentially be like my civic before the roll cage went in. However with prices of JDM cars sky rocketing and EF9's that are starting to be imported being north of 20k (and still needing work done to them) the dream slowly started to fade away..

About a month ago a friend who bought a EF9 last year contacted me asking how much do I think his is worth, and from that started a 3hr chat that evening about his EF9 which lead into me seeing it in person and test driving, which lead to me now being the owner of a complete genuine EF9! I did get it for a lot less than the imported ones I mentioned above however it does need a fair bit of TLC, the car originally had black Mugen MR5's on but 1: they were weak specs; 2: I don't really like the MR5's, more of a CF48 kinda guy (letting him keep them reduced the price a decent amount as well). At some point in it's life time it's had a open door respray from the original grey to white, I do like white however I believe the end goal will be respraying it to the grey. It will be a long term OEM restoration project, de-modifying a few areas on the car and adding my own personal touches with some other modifications, along with some Honda Access parts I have stored away.

Don't expect this build to be resprayed and completed by the end of the year, for a while it'll be just fixing any mechanical issues and enjoying the car as is, still need to fix the ride height from previous ownership which will be done soon. Stay tuned for more to come!


20200824_184058 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr


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[Afx31]

So sometime last week I tackled quite a few things which I wanted to either fix or cleanup asap. First thing was the interior lights/cig lighter/clock were not working, previous owner said he had a cig lighter fan he used for a while and then one day it stopped working. As assumed it took out a fuse or two so quickly replaced them. Was good fun as the fuse box diagram was all in Japanese, of course nothing Google translate couldn't solve


20200824_151017 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

As well with this was the boot gas struts wern't holding the boot lid up. Previous owner apparently couldn't find any, luckily I had some spares. Another thing that made me chuckle a little was the battery tie down was upside down, *sigh*.. It's not really in the best condition, the black plastic is all falling off and it's rusty underneath. These can still be bought brand new I've been told so that will happen in the future. Also need to fix up the terminals/wiring somewhen, tad sketchy..


20200824_152424 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

Before:

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After:

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Buddyclub oil cap, genuine or fake I don't care get that outta here!


20200824_155936 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

One thing I forgot to include with the first post was the brand new hardrace front/rear camber arms that came with the car. I put the rears in to fit my Work Equips under the guards without rolling them. I plan to raise the rear with a slight roll so I can pull some camber out of the rear. Also the Tein coilovers that came in the car have seen better days but will do for a while until I buy new suspension (might be a while).


20200824_161011 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr


20200824_160544 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

[Afx31]

Since buying the car I noticed the engine sounded a little noisey, as if the valves needed to be adjusted. I knew it wasn't bottom end as I've had a previous car with a knocking bottom end so wasn't too concerned about it blowing up as such. I've never actually adjusted valves before so my good mate Tony came over to give a hand as he had the tools and the knowledge.

Upon adjusting the valves, 3/4 of them were extremely tight (in regards to clearances) and 1/4 were quite loose. With them all adjusted to spec the light tapping noise went away and she sounded 'normal' again. Also had the first time of looking inside the motor, looked quite dirty with some gunk on top so we cleaned it up. Even had a genuine Honda timing belt on it, no idea when this was replaced so might look into a timing belt service next year.

Dirty:

20200830_120852 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

Adjusting the valves:

20200830_123254 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

Adjusted valves and cleaned up the top section:

20200830_130616 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

Cleaned this too but forgot to take a photo:

20200830_131458 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr


20200830_122142 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr


Decided to check the spark plugs as we were there, quite dirty and fouled. It's expected to be caused from the car running cold, when driving around it doesn't seem to build up much heat, making the car run rich as the ECU thinks it's warming up still (what I was told). Assuming the thermostat is stuck open, or maybe theres no thermostat for some reason, however I'll order a new Honda thermostat and flush the coolant as well. Once running fine I'll then put some new spark plugs in as well.


20200830_121417 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr


Next step was to install the headunit that came out of my civic. The previous owner removed the headunit, not sure why but he said he enjoyed the sound of VTEC ? I'd still leave a headunit in but oh well, maybe previous one didn't work? All I know is, I still enjoy some tunes when cruising around. Used the headunit plug loom from my civic which I did cut out, as the car is only really seeing the track now I'll tape it back behind the dash on that car.


20200830_111646 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

Lucky nothing sparked/arked from these flying around with the positive and negatives wires free

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Along with this I noticed the cigarette lighter plug thingy was faded, luckily I had a spare. I had a replica Personal Box sticker on the ash tray in my civic, thought it would look better in the EF9. Maybe one day I'll but an actual one. When removing the center console I noticed the ash tray has a light running to it, and at night confirmed it worked along with the cigarette lighter ring around it as well. Pretty cool!


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Interior looking much better! The steering wheel that came with the car was some rep, horrible thing it was bending and making driving with no PS even worse! I do plan to buy a steering wheel for this car, but for now I'll just use the steering wheel off my civic as it only needs a steering wheel for the track which can easily be swapped back, and more cost effective at the moment. Definitely helped with the driving feel.

Pretty happy with how the interior now looks with a few minor fixes:

20200831_110351 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr


Last up was fixing the passenger parker light, it always stuck out on a weird angle, was told the guard is bent or something. Upon investigating it was just missing the black clips to go behind. As I've said and will say more throughout this resto, luckily I had spares..

Before:

20200830_133417 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

After:

20200830_135504 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

[WPN00R]

Good work. Lovely Car

[Afx31]

Good work. Lovely Car

Cheers mate!

[Afx31]

Few days ago I decided to give the EF9 a wash and a semi decent polish to see how much better it could look, came out great! I'd have to do a full proper detail in the future however I'm unsure how thick the resprayed white is and don't want anything to come off. Took her out for a drive that night for some photos.

Also I noticed there was a exclamation mark within the handbrake light circle on the cluster, tripped me out at first! Wonder why someone decided to do that, definitely not OEM but I think I'll leave it to give some more character to the car.


20200830_214742 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr


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[stalis]

great pickup! love it

[Afx31]

great pickup! love it

Thanks mate!

[Afx31]

Time to catch up on some updates, 2 weeks behind... my bad.

It was time to do a service on the old girl, changing the oil/oil filter and also doing a coolant flush + new thermostat. The reason for this is since I bought the car it's always ran quite cold which I assumed the old thermostat was probably stuck open. So decided to just go ahead with a new OE Honda thermostat.


20200905_142354 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

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Upon removing the thermostat + housing it was all very crusty, one could only assume this hasn't been replaced in some time. Gave the housing a clean with some degreaser and scotchbrite to try remove some of the crust.


20200905_140435 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

Before:

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After:

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New OE Honda Thermostat, beautiful. Bled the coolant and everything was micky mouse. Thermostat opened as should and fan kicked on when required. A eBay fan has been wired in with the alloy rad so I was curious to if they had done it correctly and it worked.


20200905_142535 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

Now time for the oil. Upon going under the car (first time investigating) I spotted this large hump around the sump plug which did seem quite suss, however at the time I thought nothing of it. Cracking the bolt I heard a crack and same tightening the bolt but all seemed fine and thought maybe it was just the sump plug washer.. Stay tuned in the next post to see what actually happened, maybe y'all can have a guess..


20200905_164351 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

Cool Greddy sump plug which has a magnet on the inner side, lucky there was no metal stuck on it. Also found a sandwhich plate with sensors and plugs tucked behind the oil filter, so guessing it's had some gauges in the past. I don't plan to run aftermarket gauges so might just sell this at a later date.


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20200905_163620 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

The car came with this Buddyclub oil cap, no idea if real or fake however it doesn't matter, I luckily had a spare OE Honda one lying around

20200824_155936 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

[Setanta]

Looks like it was a grey SiR originally? I had a black one that got written off by a bus 14 years ago. The thing about the EF9 is you can see just how shitty the Aussie market cars are by comparison.

If I can make a suggestion, you have no compliance plates showing and unless this is a private import with the plate showing this, don't publish too many pictures that show the firewall.

Why? Because if it came in through Vic/Qld/WA as a "rebuild", it's illegal in NSW and may end up getting crushed if too much attention is drawn to its lack of compliance.

Love your work, I really miss my SiR and would love another one.

[Afx31]

Looks like it was a grey SiR originally? I had a black one that got written off by a bus 14 years ago. The thing about the EF9 is you can see just how shitty the Aussie market cars are by comparison.

If I can make a suggestion, you have no compliance plates showing and unless this is a private import with the plate showing this, don't publish too many pictures that show the firewall.

Why? Because if it came in through Vic/Qld/WA as a "rebuild", it's illegal in NSW and may end up getting crushed if too much attention is drawn to its lack of compliance.

Love your work, I really miss my SiR and would love another one.

Yep originally grey, I paid for the import information before it left Japan, there wasn't much info however they were able to confirm it was white before coming to Australia in late 2004. I do plan to return it to the grey. Damn sorry to hear about that, I'm quite careful when driving of the idiots around me just in case someone isn't paying attention. Yep I have a ED6 which I track, have made it look like a EF9 when I first got it 6yrs ago.

Thanks for the tip, I don't have any papers however it's been registered in NSW for 10+ years, surely any issue would have been raised already. It's under the same vin on the NSW RMS as well. Will keep in mind though.

Cheers mate, will be a slow resto but looking forward to it.

[Afx31]

So yeah about that weird looking hump around the sump plug. Upon loosening/tightening it when changing the oil last I heard a slight crack however thought nothing of it. Did the oil change and took the car for a spin around the block, all seem fined so I parked it up. Working from home this year due to COVID19 I didn't go outside for 3 days, to then find a pool of oil running from the front of car to the back..

So it looks like someone has stripped out the sump plug thread in the past, and inside of fixing correctly they decided to JB weld a nut in front of it.. I really do question ones mindset whom thought this would be fine. I mean it "worked", but still..


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Anyways lets get this sorted. The previous owner so happened to have a spare B16A sump (raises some concerns), looks like it had been left outside as it was covered with leaves, fluff & dirt so used a can of degrease trying to clean it out. Also ordered a brand new OE sump gasket. Also went ahead and left the sump bolts/nuts in some degreaser to clean them up a bit.

Before:

20200913_113746 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

After:
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20200919_132236 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

And here is the final product, much better. With this out the way I think the rest of the car mechanically seems quite good. The bottom of the gearbox looks a little wet, will need to look into that in the future however it's a very slow leak.

20200919_145026 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

Also when dropping the lower part of the exhaust to remove the sump, I noticed 2 of 3 nuts on the flange were well backed off.. Look forward to finding more dodgy stuff on the car.


20200919_121907 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

[Afx31]

Damn I'm a tad behind on the updates, no excuses apart from laziness...

After replacing the sump as I showed above, the car was perfect driving around with no issues what so ever. So I decided it was time to clean her up a bit, did a semi decent polish by hand over the car, I didn't want to go too crazy incase the resprayed white decides to come off. One thing that has annoyed me is there are no badges on the car, so I decided to put the front & rear H badge on and stole the SiR badge from my other EF9 tailgate.

I took measurements for the SiR badge however I had none for the H badges, so my mate Tony showed me an "old trick" they use in panel beating where before removing the badge off a car (in this case I used my civic track car as the template base), you use masking tape and tape around the badge, along with some panel line on that panel to guide yourself off which you can see is done for the front H badge. Then you lay the masking tape template onto the car and there you go. For the SiR badge we used the measurements I took before removing it along with some photos off google.


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Also another helpful day from the team engineer:

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And heres some more entertainment/misery with the bumper brackets.. One incorrect bolt that isn't even doing anything, and another one which was too long so they added a nut to space it out..

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20200919_145640 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

Guessing this extra hanger on the drivers side at the rear was added back in Japan, they are known for doing drivers side exhaust exits on the EF9s.

20200926_135720 by Will Mitchell, on Flickr

[Afx31]

Attended a Cars & Coffee a month ago (which was the day after the last post photos), it was a nice to take the car out on the sunny morning. With the polish and badges freshly fitted it felt like a different car! I do need to adjust the height, in the side shot you can see the front is higher than the rear, that is because the front is already maxed out low on the coilovers (shitty coilovers). At this point in time I don't really want to splurge on new coilovers as I only just bought new track coilovers for my civic. I was thinking of using the coilovers from my Honda Wagon as I dont really drive that at the moment and I wanted to try lifting it, although I'd feel bad in doing so.

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Now, I do like the whole old school Recaro Fishnets, I've always wanted a pair for my wagon so I was excited when the EF9 came with one even though it didn't have the original drivers seat. However upon driving this I found my middle to lower back would start hurting which I believe was due to there being no lumbar support at all. As I was going for a near OEM resto on this I decided I'll try get my hands on a EF9 drivers seat.

A mate Ralph just so happened to have a pair of EF9 seats stored away for the past 5+ years, which he happened to be selling as of now so I took them. I can't seem to find a photo of the 2 seats however the passenger seat was MINT, along with the drivers seat minus a tear in the drivers door side bolster which is standard.. Luckily the bolster foam itself wasn't damaged and still had it's stiffness so I decided to throw it in the car anyways as is, now to just sell the Recaro to cover the cost of the new pair of EF9 seats. Obivously in time I'll get this repaired properly by a professional. Definitely comifer though!


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And heres a little something I bought for the car, OEM SiR is best! Not sure how I'll feel with this vs my momo, however for $100 I couldn't say no!


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[Setanta]

Somewhere, lost in boxes somewhere... I have 2 original SiR badges still in their Honda packaging, along with under bonnet EF9 stickers. If I ever find them, I will let you know.