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    YR523M EK sedan

    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.
    Last edited by Austro; 25-06-17, 12:44 AM.

    #2
















    Collected parts for around a month after receiving the coilovers before putting the car on stands to get everything done. Due to a few hiccups, the car wasn't on the road again for another five weeks. A lot of this was due to having limited time to get things done as I work an hour and a half away from home and usually stay in that area for the duration of the working week. That being said, a major setback was getting the new wheel bearings and ball joints pressed into my knuckles, for which I was quoted a reasonable cash price and same day turnaround by Fulcrum. Yet another long story short, when I went to pick them up the threads on one of the ball joints were smashed in and the circlip + cotter pin was missing. I then got messed around with a lot of dismal communication and it was a week and a half before I got them back. Somehow I just happen to get all the bad experiences with otherwise reputable places haha.



    The Prelude had been parked up for months at this point due to running a bit rough and developing an exhaust leak, so this was my method of transportation while the Civic got fixed up. Didn't mind driving it at all.









    After a 12 hour day rushing to get things done and cultimating with installing the rear coilovers and camber arms on the street at 10pm, the Civic was on the road and driving again. Within two days, the date for Japnats 2017 was announced and a mate convinced me to make it out. I had hoped to race at both QR and Lakeside before the one year mark of having the Civic so I was getting keen, but I had already spent a bunch of money doing everything prior to this point and even sold a whole bunch of parts I had sitting around to fund it. Nonetheless, I threw caution to the wind and committed. 225 and 195 RS3s were mounted on my staggered 8/7.5j 6ULs for the bargain price of $500 total, I threw on the 13mm rear sway with a pair of spherical bush rear LCAs I acquired for cheap, replaced the front rotors due to having developed some pedal shudder (probs went too ham breaking in the pads last time) and greased all the slide pins. Went for an alignment requesting -2.1/-1.2 and 0 toe all around only to be informed that I needed to shave down the rack ends so the tie rod ends wouldn't bottom out before hitting 0 toe in. Luckily, the LHS rack end had already been cut by someone, so I could still drive with 0 toe albeit with the steering wheel off centre. I also worked through a mysterious squeaking/knocking from the front end which I initially suspected to be the UCA bolts backing out again, and whilst that did happen it turned out to be due to one of the front sway bar D bracket bolts falling out -_-



    Made it a few metres on the 6ULs before I pulled over due to a concerning grinding noise that correlated with wheel speed. The tyre shop that supplied the RS3s used stick-on weights to balance the wheels but had also used a clip-on weight for one of the rear ones (???), and it was fouling on the suspension.



    Another night on the street with my mate kindly angle grinding the RHS rack end for me. Huge thanks to him for repeatedly coming through clutch to help me out when my limited resources and/or knowledge runs out lol.



    I didn't think it would happen, but new rear rotors and pads arrived two days before the big day!







    Started off real shaky due to having basically no idea how the car drove near the limit, let alone having driven proper fast in a long time. But by the third session I wasn't shitting bricks anymore, and I actually had heaps of fun every lap in the second half. I had hoped for better times, but I was still glad that the improvement in my times showed that I was getting somewhere - ended up with a 74.7 on Clubman and a 68.0 on sprint. N.B I actually didn't put the SP-G in until after the track day, and holy shit was it hard to feel what the car was doing when I was basically falling off my seat at every corner.





    I was also hoping to drive at Lakeside in May but that was definitely too optimistic with the finances, so I'm currently aiming for mid July at QR again. Currently have PCI spherical RTA bushes, Hardrace rear toe arms, F7 subframe brace and endlinks and an EK9 rear sway to install before then, amongst the other odds and ends like a corner balance/realignment, replacement of fluids etc. Fingers crossed that prep goes a bit smoother this time around.

    Next five things on the upgrade/fix list are:
    - Goodridge SS braided lines
    - Project Mu HC800/Endless MX72/Winmax W3 or W4
    - Hardrace hardened rubber front LCA bushes
    - Finally replace sump gasket (new OEM one has been sitting here for ages)
    - Regrease CVs, new boots


    Parts list (last updated 15/12/17):

    Mugen twin loop catback, 100 cell cat
    FEEL'S radiator cap, Spoon radiator stay

    HEL braided clutch line
    Buddyclub B-series short shifter
    Prothane front, Whiteline rear shifter bushes

    MCA Blue v3, 12kg/mm front 8kg/mm rear
    OEM 26mm front sway bar, SuperPro D bushes
    EK9 22mm rear sway bar, Function 7 subframe brace, ASR endlinks
    Hardrace hardened rubber camber arms front & rear
    Hardrace spherical rear LCA
    Hardrace hardened rubber rear toe arms
    PCI spherical RTA bushes

    DBA blank rotors
    Intima SR front pads
    Remsa Master HPT rear pads
    Goodridge stainless steel braided lines
    Cusco BCS

    EK4 blades on 195/55 Bridgestone EP100
    949 6UL 15x8 +36 gen2 front, 15x7.5 +42 gen3 rear on 225/45 & 195/50 Hankook RS3
    Mugen lock nuts/Project Mu Super 7

    EK9 SRS wheel
    EK9 cupholders
    OEM Type R knob, Circuit Hero shift extender
    Recaro SR3s on OEM passenger rail & Vision superlow driver rail
    Recaro SP-G on Bride FG rails, Recaro head pad, replicaro side bolster protector

    OEM hatch grille
    OEM front lip

    OEM front wheel bearings
    OEM tie rod ends
    Hardrace front lower ball joints


    Thanks for reading if you made it this far!
    Last edited by Austro; 15-12-17, 10:09 PM.

    Comment


      #3
      Such awesome build progress so far man, I love all the little details like the cupholders and swapping the grille out the most! It really does change the overall image of the car.
      And your Prelude is absolute sex man, so rare to see one done properly

      Comment


        #4
        This is quite cool, look forward to seeing the progress.
        1997 Honda Civic EK4
        Winton - 1:34.94
        Bryant Park clockwise - 55.58
        Bryant Park figure 8 - 61.30
        Wakefield - 1:10.16
        Phillip Island - 1:55.43

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by KVZT View Post
          Such awesome build progress so far man, I love all the little details like the cupholders and swapping the grille out the most! It really does change the overall image of the car.
          And your Prelude is absolute sex man, so rare to see one done properly
          Thanks man, I definitely feel like the sedan grille looks out of place on anything but a white car. Looking to get an OEM front lip second hand and then paint match it + the skirts and side mouldings and that will be it for exterior changes. I wouldn't say the Prelude is done properly but it'll get there




          Threw them in on Sunday as planned.



          Could've sworn the old ones were cooked when I first inspected and bought the car, but nope, seems like they were replaced recently. Thought cracking might have been the cause of squeaking from the rear end when going over bumps with some lateral movement, but me slacking on a post trackday spanner check was the cause. A few of the bolts on the sway bar assembly were slightly loose. Can't tell for sure if that was definitely the cause but no more squeaking now anyway.



          Got sent three backing plates to suit a second gen teg and only one to suit 88-00 Civic/94-01 Integra. Aside from the extra hole, the shape was also more rounded so we had to file it down to fit. No biggie either way, Brian replied via email within nine minutes when I asked if I had to grease the area where the bronze part of the aluminium shaft mates to the inside of the bearing (you don't).



          Done.



          Terrible photo showing the suspension at full compression and the clearance to the sheet metal above the trailing arm. Because the spherical bush is offset lower to improve geometry, it would normally foul so I hammered away as per the instructions to make some room and got showered with flakes of rust proofing in the process. This was taken last night when I jacked the rear up to do a quick spanner check on the RHS due to concerning loud knocking sounds that only occured on a specific stretch of a downhill slope near my house. After ensuring everything was sufficiently tightened up and driving slower through that spot, I figured it was just noises from the bush banging around when there's minimal load or something as the shaft doesn't fit snugly inside the bearing. I'll double check the LHS sometime soon.

          I found mixed feedback on changes in NVH when looking up people's experiences with the PCI replacements, but honestly, it's not an appreciable difference in a basic 20-30 year old small car that wasn't designed with luxury in mind. I can feel a bit more vibration from the rear through my seat, and sudden harsh bumps e.g. driving over cat eyes produces more of a sharp 'thud' than the dull 'thump' from normal rubber RTA bushes (super scientific explanation, I know). I'm still kinda concerned by the loud knocking that occurs on that section of road, only really for peace of mind sake since if some other suspension component starts causing a knock I'd like to inspect further rather than being inclined to pass it off as the RTA bush.

          Hopefully EK9 rear sway bar install this weekend

          Comment


            #6
            very nice! i am enjoying reading this..

            Comment


              #7
              Pretty cool build!
              ClubITR | Like

              Comment


                #8
                Thanks guys!



                Was considering leaving the VTiR rear sway on for sprints on the 13th just to get more of a feel for the baseline setup now that I have the SP-G in, but decided why the hell not and installed the new setup. Haven't driven too much on it but the difference is (as expected) night and day difference, you can really feel the outside front loading up and hooking the car around. As mentioned earlier, it's an EK9 22mm with Hardrace bushes mated to an F7 brace and endlinks, however the only original hardware that came with it was the lower two bolts that secure the brackets to the brace. The seller gave me a pair of stock rear LCA to subframe bolts and a mismatched assortment of OEM bolts for the D brackets. I ended up giving the brace a quick clean, bought new high tensile bolts to replace the mismatched ones and chased the threads - they were fairly mangled. Unfortunately it didn't click in my head to replace the nuts for the endlinks.... they had normal ones instead of flange nuts. Wondering wtf happened to all the F7 hardware? Will likely have to pick some up on Thursday morning before the afternoon session.

                Was also going to sand my front pads, bleed the brakes, replace MTF and adjust my valve lash today but I came down with a shitty cold so I'll have to chip away at it over the next few nights. Will post another update after the track day

                Comment


                  #9
                  woo very nice! keep it up! .. I have yet to start modifying my car i am trying to find a workshop in bris to do a engine swap package drive-in/drive-out before i start anything for mine..

                  Comment


                    #10


                    Day out was super underwhelming. It was going well in the first session as I progressively chunked down my times with each lap, easily hit 71.9 on Clubman which was to be expected at minimum IMO due to running 68 flat on Sprint at the last event. Then I cooked it at T1 not even trying to take it as fast as I had previously done. Next session one of our mates had a crash which really dampened everyone's spirits, coupled with me struggling to adapt to the drastic change in handling with the GLi front/EK9 rear swaybar setup resulted in a bit of a frustrating day. I had stayed up well into the morning prepping the car and ran into a few headaches, including trying to change my upper rad hose to resolve a leak only to find that the replacement hose seemed to be at least 2mm too small in ID compared to old OE/current one of a same brand (Mackay, for reference). In the end I decided to put the old OE hose back on knowing it would probably leak but hopefully not as bad as it currently did. However, my car still reeked of coolant last night and there was a lot of residue on inside of the thermo shroud and on the blades themselves. The upper hose doesn't seem to be leaking from either end, so it's either leaking from the middle onto the fan or the rad itself is leaking which may also be plausible as I did notice some suspect spots of coolant on the fins. Just going to order new OEM hoses now, /rant

                    Ended with a 67.7 on Sprint which is only 0.3s faster than my previous PB, but that was with taking it a lot easier on some corners after a few more hairy oversteer moments even on the slower corners. Most of it wasn't due to upsetting the car from lift-off oversteer or being too eager while the tyres weren't warm enough (my spin was on the first hot lap of second session), so I'll put it down to lack of skill plus also not being used to the way it drives. Either way, my driving definitely improved regardless, just bummed about not sticking with my instinct of sorts to simply run the same setup for my second time out. I tossed up between throwing on an OEM 26mm front sway, a Cusco 18mm adjustable rear or just going back to the VTiR bar, and decided to try the first option for next time. Worst case, I'll go back to what I had originally. With some better lines and bigger balls to go foot flat earlier in certain corners the gearing was revealed to be a more of a pain than I had already found last time, having to sit basically right at limiter in second for more often than I'd like. Guess the solution is to try go even faster and aim to stay in the powerband in third lol

                    Next track day most likely won't be until December due to some big exams looming, unless I decide to make some more 'poor' life choices. Plenty of things still to fix/replace before then anyway!
                    Last edited by Austro; 14-07-17, 09:37 PM.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Anything new?

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Yeah, couple of things but nothing major. Waiting to do one big post in a few weeks time.... watch this space lol.

                        Comment


                          #13


                          Welp, long time no update. Most of this stuff happened a while ago, but I didn't feel like it was worth posting about bit by bit. This illustrates how much the issue of the leaking Koyo exacerbated. From inspection, it seemed to have started leaking from where the fins mate to the end tanks. The change in smell of the coolant and a few other characteristics seemed to align with electrolysis in the radiator, but I had no intention of going through the process of ascertaining whether it was actually happening. I didn't toss out the Koyo as I was/am kinda hopeful that maybe the leaks are small enough that they are able to be fixed so I can use it again one day in a different build.





                          Final look at the Koyo in the bay :/ you can see how hard up it is against the rad support even with the rubber cushions cut down. Side note, I was watching an IG livestream by Ryuichi from NGR and his EK had a Koyo rad as well. From what I could see, he circumvented this issue by cutting out a triangular chunk from the rad support for clearance and then welding on a thin piece of metal in place to keep it looking kinda uniform. When I went to the wreckers to get new cushions, it seemed like the only Honda there that might have had a compatible one was a GD Jazz. I had to wrestle a bit to remove them without pulling a whole bunch of things off to remove the rad first. Thankfully they turned out to be the exact same.



                          I called up a few places for quotes and settled for an Adrad replacement with a single alloy core, at least now I can put my FEEL'S rad cap to good use! I replaced the top hose with an OEM one (zero fitment issues unlike the second Mackay replacement), went back to the OE style clamps, remounted the stock overflow and gave it a good few flushes with the Nulon stuff and fresh water and bled the system.



                          Hanging out at Honda. Around the time of the last few updates, I had just started to have to daily drive it 1200km/week for my work commute. I didn't want to beat on the RNRs that much but luckily I managed to pick up some EK4 blades for cheap, they're not in great nick but they serve their purpose. My terrible guard roll/flare and the neg camber on the front makes it looks super gumby though.



                          I was planning on buying a Cusco BCS in the future solely to suss it out first hand as opinions on their efficacy are a real mixed bag, so when one came up for $20 it was a no-brainer. I initially thought it was a Tegiwa part based on how the 'L' shaped part in the centre sits compared to most photos of the Cusco ones, but the images on the Tegiwa website appear to show one that mounts differently, so I have nfi lol. I've seen people use it both with/without the red part and I know some kits omit it completely for certain models, but I left it on for now even though it sits at an angle. If I had to make a weak attempt at describing the effect it had, I'd say there was maybe a 20% improvement in pedal feel - enough that I think it was more than placebo, but nothing earth shattering like some people report. Cold pedal bite is firmer and feels like it starts higher in the pedal stroke, but I can't seem to tell a difference once the pads have some heat in them.



                          Snagged these for a good price with an OEM EK9 passo rail and what appears to be a Spoon/Vision drivers rail which is suuuper low. The drivers seat rocks around a little bit, but I don't plan to throw them in for a little while so I'll examine it when I eventually steam clean them. Hopefully the bolts are just slightly loose.



                          Recurring character status solidified. The guy that I bought the OEM 26mm front swaybar off left the LCAs attached with the endlinks, I really didn't want the extra bits but he said he didn't either so I just went with it. Later on I found that the nuts on the endlinks were pretty crusty. With all four sides the slot for the hex key would start stripping as I got to the halfway mark, that's how much force it took to back off the nuts.... hence grinder to the rescue once again.





                          On top of the PCI RTA bush noises, I started hearing some other creaks and knocks from the rear which have been getting louder and more concerning by each passing week. I took a wild stab in the dark and decided to replace the F7 endlinks because they seemed flogged out from what I remembered when I installed the EK9 RSB. The ASR endlinks have sleeves that sit in the spherical bearings, and the one that sits next to the head of the bolt which goes through the LCA is extra thick. After tightening everything up, I noticed that the bolt barely even engaged with the collar in the nyloc nut. Even after cranking to he-man torque it was ~2mm away from sitting flush with the end of the collar. To be on the safe side I substituted some normal ones to tide me over until I source some skinnier flanged nuts.



                          Got the 26mm FSB on with some Superpro poly D bushes. So now I only have replacement front LCA bushes and front endlinks to go before I'm done with the suspension refresh. The difference is obviously quite noticeable, but it was the change that I'm after. It feels quite understeery now that I've grown accustomed to the really sharp turn-in of the old setup, but the car feel much more stable and confidence inspiring after 6/10ths and it still rotates quite well and responds similarly to steering and throttle inputs. No doubt it'll feel more composed on track so no excuses if I drive shit next time I go out, hahaha.

                          More updates this weekend

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Good to see more progress man. When's the next track day planned?

                            Sent from my VTR-L09 using Tapatalk

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Originally posted by Toddxxx View Post
                              Good to see more progress man. When's the next track day planned?
                              Thanks man. December 14th, last Time Attack QR event for the year. I really wanted to make a sprint day on the 14th of this month which would have been mint because I'm fairly certain it would have been pretty empty due to WTAC, but combination of my schedule and saving to go to Japan next month led to me not pulling the trigger on it.

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