Bagged B18 '88 DX Coupe Build! [Archive] - Page 2 - 3geez.com

B0CKS

10-06-2020, 09:58 AM

Time to do a little writing! I know it’s been some time, my schedule has been pretty packed with extraneous activities, that aren’t all Accord stuff, maybe to my discontent. Naaaaaaaaaaaah It’s been a blast, I found myself in California with a buddy last weekend, enjoying all that is the Honda Mecca of America, as well as going to Vegas for a photo shoot of his car.
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And, spent another weekend a bit back shooting out Delmont, one out camping, one up North in a house on a lake, then another night helping my buddy go pick up his own white on white 98 Neon coupe, another evening picking up 7 OEM 1995 Viper wheels, other nights reworking my apartment. In short, it’s busy, and looking at my next few weekends, my car is going to continue being a dust magnet.
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But, I mean, I’ve been doing what I can! California junkyarding is something I can only describe as nirvana, despite being a trip that happened on a cloudless 99 degree day on fresh black tar. Got a great haul for some decent prices, and was impressed at how everything came back to Michigan intact, despite being transported on a checked bag in a Spirit Airlines flight! Couldn’t help myself with those hubcaps, I have my full set of four, but I know one or two is a little thrashed, so I justified my insanity! …Even if I won’t have an Accord that can fit 13” wheels before too long.
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And speaking of wheels- while there’s absolutely no faltering in my love for Manaray’s- I may have a source (only 4 hours away) on a set of wheels I’ve been keeping an eye out for for an easy three years, a set of Mitsubishi Starquest Cowbells. I know, they’re weird, but something about them absolutely sings to me, and the sheer clunkiness of the design just screams 80s tech, which I think fits a handful of accessories this car seems to have mounting into it. These are a near duplicate of the Manarays in terms of specs, 15x6.5 +18s, and what I’m hoping to do is run a slightly more aggressive tire on it, the current 195/45/r15s are just a hair too small for the wheel wheels in my opinion, and something with a little more of a track look has been something I’ve been really wanting to find. The catch is, these wheels are stupid rare (far as I know) and the set I’m finding is fortunately affordable, although decently thrashed. They’re still round, but the curbrash is something concerning. And, they’re 4x114.3, which means a fill, redrill and repowdercoat. Which means big $, so these are going to be purchased now and then put on the shelf for a good long while.
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And speaking of things that are going to cost some cash, I’ve been getting somewhere on an other project, making a functional cold air intake. I’ve been pretty held up on the fact that the current CAI location is not great for the first two thirds of namesake, and that the best way to make this car not eat it’s own heat is to build some sort of a scoop, and after a decent amount of deliberation and doodles, here’s where I’m at. A cowl induction hood that’s as low key as I can think of, and still a proper addition to the aesthetic of the car. Forward facing boxes poking out of the hood all seem so tacked on, and anything dramatic just screams rice, so here’s the most subtle answer I can find, and one I think speaks well to the car. This project is out of my scope of fab, so it may be exported, but for now, here’s the plan. Thoughts??
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Also, I’m pulling 2 5th gear sets from my spare A20 transmissions, who wants one?
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ShiRen

10-06-2020, 10:28 AM

Alright... I'll bite, why are you pulling 5th gear sets? Also I might actually take you up on that, my 5th syncro goes cronch.

B0CKS

10-06-2020, 11:52 AM

Alright... I'll bite, why are you pulling 5th gear sets? Also I might actually take you up on that, my 5th syncro goes cronch.

I don't have a use for them, the spare coupe I have is getting gutted, and the engine that came out of my main car is also just a paperweight, so I figure they'd be more use to someone else! Think 70+ S&H is fair?

B0CKS

10-06-2020, 06:06 PM

Okay, I really should be doing the more pressing stuff of getting everything ready for turn key, but I've got the spare Accord in the bay right now and I couldn't help it.
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It doesn't look too bad IMO, might swap this hood onto the main Accord for a bit just to get an idea of the home it actually has before doing anything else.

B0CKS

10-13-2020, 10:57 AM

Alright, we’re back on track with more updates, and some of these are actually directly relevant to getting the car together!

Let’s start off with the small, important stuff, then spin off into ADD wasteland! First things first, I finally sorted out the AN radiator fittings! They’re a bit of a hack, but they’re darn tight, and hopefully wont leak. I’ve decided that these are ultimately a stop gap, and getting some built XRP lines are going to be the way to go. Regardless, they look great for now! Fingers crossed on functionality.
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Then, for minor work, I got the gas tank emptied, and rebuilt the armrest from Cali to be really nice and new in appearance! Calling that done! Then, I finally actually got around to test fitting the battery in place, and while it is indeed very snug, it seems to fit really nicely! I bored and bolted in the hole for the rivnut for my 4 inch ground strap, so check! Still gotta run the positive to position, but it’s just another small thing to take care of.
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Then, I’m super excited to announce that the OEM steering wheel adapter is (professionally) welded up and, powdercoated (un-professionally, by me), and it looks GREAT. Feels fantastic as well. Totally blends, and is totally rigid. Just geeked, the nerdiest things are the best.
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Alright, now on to my distractions! I drove four hours out to Ohio last weekend and did indeed score those cowbells mentioned in the post above! I’m excited to announce they’re in better condition than I expected, and the drive went great.
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And if you weren’t sold on them yet, check this out. They’ve got this touch look, and I think they’ll fit really well with all the oddities this car will have, the carrozzerias, hood scoop and fogs all have this four sided approach that all sing to me. I also went to the junkyard to pull a random H branded centercap so I could make an adapter to fit an OEM centercap into these wheels, since I’m missing three, and it turns out 98-07 Accords were taking notes from Mitsubishi, because they plug right in, and the centerbore is perfect. These are going to be on the shelf for some time, but I found a place in California that redrills and fills wheels for 180 a set, which is awesome! Makes this project a lot more budget friendly.
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I suppose this isn’t literally directly an update, but there’s a new car in the family that’s certainly going to be popping up in photos, a car my Dad has dreamed of owning ever since he was a kid crossing the country in one, a 1971 Olds Custom Cruiser. It’s all types of sweet, and I’ll happily be spending time away from the Accord making it cool. Just a heads up.
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That also brings the fleet of Oldsmobiles in these stalls to a staggering 3, which meant we had to bring them out for a photoshoot, as we’ll be listing the Delmont for sale to make room for the newest barge.
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Good stuff! Lists are getting shorter, so I’m happy!

ShiRen

10-13-2020, 11:23 AM

B0CKS

10-13-2020, 11:33 AM

Do you have any plans for the brakes? I see that stock prop valve peeping out, it makes me anxious. I block mine out of my mind, but it feels like I am stopping the whole car with the rear drums more every month. I was also wondering if you were looking into new headlights, I switched to led a long time ago because the circuitry is not strong enough for those halogens, but all of the good 5x7 projectors stopped getting manufactured about 5 years ago. I think you can still find them, but I am seeing prices like $450 and that just hurts.

I really like the battery location, I might have to copy that, but I want to go li-ion when I do. Good to keep the weight over the front right and the battery cables a reasonable length rather than move it to the back of the car and have to deal with venting it. That location is completely empty anyway, its perfect.

Please do! I stole the location from Anthony Calabek, so I can only take so much credit. I've got a big ole' Optima since I'm worried about running a few extra accessories, but I've been really drawn to the lightweight Odyssey batteries that are often found in track cars, really easy to package and tuck out of the way. I bought a universal tray so if you're fitting an OEM size battery, let me know and I'll point you to it. Was on ebay for like 20 or 30 bucks.

That is a stock prop valve, but from an SE-i! I've got a complete rear disc conversion, Wilwood four piston front calipers and- while they're arguably not very too useful-slotted and drilled rotors in every corner. As for headlights, I think I'm going to leave them as just halogens. while there's clearly going to be non-stock components, I really want the overall exterior to be pretty period correct, and LEDs and the sort are always a giveaway. That said, I did have some LEDs in my spare car while it was still a driver, and I sure did appreciate the improved visibility, but style first on this one lmao.
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ShiRen

10-13-2020, 01:23 PM

B0CKS

10-13-2020, 08:27 PM

I knew you grabbed SE-I rear brakes, but I missed the Wilwoods (there is a lot going on in this thread lol). I don't think the base vs SE-I prop valve makes much difference, they're still plagued with the same issues. I am almost positive mine is leaking internally, my pedal was not this soft last year when I refreshed the brakes. I am sure you have better things to do than replumb the brakes to a front/rear split and swap that prop valve for an SE-I one so hopefully it doesn't cause any issues.

I specifically look out for headlights that work for leds, but don't look all crazy and out of place. My current ones are total cheapos, the projector doesn't even house the bulb, and the socket leaks, but they have a glass lens, I think I will open them up and put a whole projector housing pod in them. If you are going to stay halogen I would do a quick rewire of the headlight switch and send the current through relays, currently all of it goes through the stalks, its extremely dumb. I have a diagram on my cars thread, but I also wired it for DRLs, https://www.3geez.com/forum/3geez-accords/141416-87-dx-sedan-project-log-2.html If you don't want DRLs, I think you can just omit CR1 and the red wire for the parking lights though, so it would not require a diode to keep from bypassing the ignition with the parking lights, if that makes any sense.

Oh snap! That's a really good point, I can see what you're saying about the wiring there. It's been an upgrade on and off my mind, and to be honest, I think the ones you have right now are a pretty nice blend of understated and functional. I'll add it into the truly chaotic realm of things I think about for this car!

Ahhhh, that's a fair concern! There's a ton of unknowns in this build (like a TON) and a proper shakedown test will definitely be in order. I'm content with the current one as is, but if a repair is necessary, I was thinking of going the Snooz route and getting one of those variable Wilwood setups, then tucking all the lines under the car and cleaning out the engine bay from it. And lmao, yeah sorry this thread is 100 fueled by my non-coherent train of thought, so no worries if there's a detail or two that slides by.

Jinnai

10-14-2020, 02:08 PM

Wow, I'm a little envious, especially of the armrest. I can't justify the cost of the one on eBay. I'm selling the front part with the tape holder in it though, if anyone happens to want one.

B0CKS

10-14-2020, 08:46 PM

Wow, I'm a little envious, especially of the armrest. I can't justify the cost of the one on eBay. I'm selling the front part with the tape holder in it though, if anyone happens to want one.

Shoot me a PM ;)

Dr_Snooz

10-18-2020, 02:47 PM

Alright... I'll bite, why are you pulling 5th gear sets? Also I might actually take you up on that, my 5th syncro goes cronch.

Mine too! It just started and I HATE it!!

A cowl induction hood that’s as low key as I can think of, and still a proper addition to the aesthetic of the car. Thoughts??

I like it!!!

B0CKS

10-20-2020, 08:44 AM

I like it!!!

Thanks a Snooz!! In that case I’ve got some good news at the end of this post! And I’m sorry that it sounds like 5th gears are failing left and right, I’ll be sure to make a point of picking them up whenever I stumble across them!

But let’s get to it! Let seeeeee… things that aren’t photographed that happened? Got my Air Ride all rewired to meet up and tuck nicely to the new fuse box location, and it sits pretty darn nice! Ordered a whole bunch of tiny things needed to get everything working, it felt like a tax, but hey, comes with territory.

Then, smallest baby update, I built out the Conquest wheels in Sketchup purely to aide in the distribution of dopamine in my brain bucket. Looks soooo good to me. I’m currently sorting out the dilemma of either 205/50r15 Proxes or Potenza’s. Still gonna be some time, but still love the vision.
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As for the biggest change of this week, I made a 500 mile round trip across three states (this time headed West Bound, instead of East Bound towards Ohio) and drove to Chicago to pick what I suppose has become a rare part. I assumed they were more common, but I suppose not, and after looking for one for the better part of this year, I found a reasonably intact 1987 Prelude Si front bumper skin. (EDITORS NOTE: I was planning on using a First Gen (pre-facelift) Integra front bumper with the wings of the bumper trimmed back to fit better. I did like the look, but I think this bumper is closer to my personal aesthetic, and it also is more of a bolt-on part, which saves me a small headache of getting those wings to be straight.) It’s not in the best shape, but with paint coming for it, it should end up pretty nice. I want to give a quick shoutout to the gone-but-not-forgotten HondaMonster, who pioneered this swap, and give credit where it’s due.
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I put it on the car soon as I was able to extract the support and foam, and I was able to hang it up and see for myself what I thought.
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And I’ll be honest, at first, just loosely hanging on the car it looked pretty big and chunky, and not being used to this car having front overhang definitely threw me for a bit of a loop. BUT after pushing the car outside and being able to step away and absorb the actual proportion, it totally sings. Looks SO good in my eyes, it just pulls the whole car down so close to the ground, and makes it feel properly planted. Couldn’t be happier- this photo is now the background of like every device I own lmao
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Here’s the content promised for Snooz, some underhood scoop action! In short, I need some way to control the airflow coming through the scoop to make sure it flows into the intake, so that the filter isn’t just sucking hot engine air, but actually fresh air from out of the hood. So, where do we start? Easy! In CAD. (Cardboard Aided Design!)
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And then, after cutting a big misplaced hole in one of my spare hoods I learned a lot about location, and what supports I do and don’t need to protect for.
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After that, I went into CAD (Computer Aided Design) and built out the part in Sketchup, flattened it, printed out and rebuilt it in CAD (Cardstock Aided Design) using some leftover paper from an abandoned paper model from a decade ago, so I apologize for the camo.
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I then dropped it back in the engine bay, and I gotta say, it’s really growing on me, it’s a very functional part, and while I was really dreading adding a huge box to an engine bay I spent all summer gutting, but I think that it speaks for itself in necessity, so I’m rather okay with it. I made a few more tweaks and will probably be reprinting a box, but this is 90% of what it’ll look like, but silver!
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So, last comments? I’ve got a hard deadline to do all my prep work for turn-key; my mechanic and I set up an evening date Saturday November 7th to wrap up a few things I’m hesitant on, and then after one big sanity check, we’ll turn the crank and see what it does! Fingers crossed I have everything done before then!

Man, I have no clue what's causing these images to go sideways, but AAAA :banghead:

ShiRen

10-20-2020, 09:53 AM

B0CKS

10-27-2020, 09:24 AM

I've been racking my brain trying to think how I can deliver cool air to my bike carbs, but I can't bring myself to cut into the hood, even on my beater. This man here actually has a functional hole in his hood.

Btw, might the reason your pics are sideways be they're 4:3 portrait and the forum defaults to landscape? I don't really see a way around it if the forum forces landscape... Or just start shooting square :dunno:

Holy cow, you're totally right. 3geez doesn't like portrait mode, which makes perfect sense. You MAD GENIUS :O I'll try and resist the ultimate iphone owner's urge from here on out.

Hahaha, it helps when you have a few expendable ones! The hood I'm drilling into was destined for scrap as is, so I'm honestly glad I get to have the excuse of giving it a second shot here as a learner burner. That said, the junkyard will only set you back 50 for a hood if you find one, and those carbs gotta breaaaaaaathe!

B0CKS

10-27-2020, 09:30 AM

Since I know how everyone is patientlywaiting, here’s some updates! Spent yet another weekend away from the barn, but I’ve tried to be productive anyways, which means a lot of clicking! I was able to get a few very minor things done, did a little bit more wiring work here and there, I’ve been burning cash to wrap up all the small things before turn key, so wish me luck!

I took a night and got a few front end puzzles sorted- one of which being the bumper foam support. I thought I’d use the Accord foam, and it turns out to be a little wide, which then led me to edit it with a Sawzall at 1am. Then, after actually sitting down and doing a think, I realized it’d make sense to try and get the Prelude foam to fit the Accord bumper support, and to my amazement, there’s two stubs that are used to locate the Prelude foam in an OEM application, and hack those off, and the foam fits the Accord support perfect! The bumper wraps around it very nicely too, maybe usurpingly, but good on you Honda! Here it is taped up in place, looking good! Glad to have it there. The other thing that I swapped in were the Prelude turn signal harnesses- they have a disconnect after a quick cord, which should aide in making this setup plug and play.
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So, I hate to admit this, but I’ve given up on my set of original Fog lights, they’re very far gone, and sourcing parts has led to spent cash with no results, but I didn’t want to give up on the concept. So I figured I should play my ace- some of you may know Joe Tysdal from around the Facebook pages and maybe the forum, he had a lead on a set of Accord ones with amber glass, and I’ve kept it in my back pocket for a long time, assuming 500 dollars wasn’t going to be in the budget for a long time. But, after reaching out, I was stunned to find the price was barely over half that, and so I’m anxiously waiting for the seller to box them up so I can take them off his hands. The reason he IS willing to let these go, is that this is he has, no button, no harness. But if you recall, I have a harness! (And just bought an OEM Accord fog switch), so this setup will be plug and play. Freaking EXCITED.
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Side note right here, but here’s a great topic change- so how am I going to hang these fog lights? There’s no bracket that fits an Accord bumper support that matches Prelude location, so what next? CAD!! Chopped up my cardboard the same night as the foam trim (and these brackets fit the foam without flaw!) The next step is taking all those, and bringing them into illustrator.
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In that case, lets just get that done! Here’s a sneak peak of some behind the scenes of getting all this together, this freaking confusing array is a lot of how my workspace looks while getting brackets done. Lets start with the foglight brackets, if you look on the far right, you can see the cardboard scan, then to the left of it- the finished vector work for them, that small artboard represents all the things I’ll be cutting out of 2.6mm thick steel, the other items on it being the cold air intake box bracket, which reaches across the back of the airbox, to under the AN fuel feed line, to the back of the intake manifold. I’ll have to make a post about it once it’s on the car, I think it’s really cool! There’s also a heater core line valve bracket, but that’s whatever. The large white box holds some stuff, version 2.0 of the airbox (still gotta print that out and make it), in the bottom left, and then, across the top, the adapter blade that will take the holes from the Prelude bumper surround, and then take a second set of holes that match up to the Accord location. I’m going to write this out, so it won’t make any sense, but the cool thing about this closeout blade is how I’m attaching it the Accord support. There will be a row of “solid” hardware that simply clamps on top and bottom the Prelude bumper flange, then to attach it to the car, rather than using bolts, I’ll be using bumper quick connect hardware (image 2!!) in a couple points. So, to take off just the bumper plastic to access things like the battery, all I have to do is pop off two buttons at the top, and the sliders at the back of the bumper will allow me to pull of the cover. That easy! Lastly, to address those big circles that I’m guessing you probably noticed if you read all this, I am indeed considering making some turbofans. I can’t help it. It’s too fun. These would fit the cowbells. The attaching style (seen in that crumby sketch on the right) is really basic, I’m thinking I’ll make a bracket that reaches into the hole of the end of each cowbell that acts like a clamp (with a rubber gasket so they don’t get scuffed), and then bolt the disc to those four brackets at the end of each spoke. And, just for fun, print out the biggest dimple die and press the centers to have that flange.
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Here’s some more 2am thought garbage. I know I’m already doing the “DOHC” in the fender trim, so this concept would be omitting that idea for something else. But in short, I was playing in photoshop and illustrator, and was also thinking about my old EF hatch with that rad door text, and was curious if I could spin it for this car. The short answer is yes, technically I could make a- in my personal opinion- kinda cool vinyl to slap on the side, but as rad as I think it would look between the carrozerias, cowbells, fogs, and other details, it’s a little too loud for me, and I’m still trying to stick to subtlety. But hey, who knows, maybe a few years after the car is done, it might be fun to slap it on for a while.
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Okay, understandably, this is another ADD fueled post, I’m waiting on a lot of parts to ship, and with being away from the car for a large chunk of time means all I can do to “progress it” is to orbital work on it, which means ironing out ideas that either do or don’t have legs. I expect a fair amount of things I create I’ll ultimately walk away from, but I love designing this stuff, and I’d rather try and it and dislike the look, rather than shove it out of mind without question. I don’t expect a ton of big changes coming this week, but I’ll try and get things done!

ShiRen

10-27-2020, 09:52 AM

B0CKS

10-27-2020, 11:44 AM

From the looks of it you'll design a whole lot of things, its amusing to see what pops in your head whether it gets put on the car or not. Like the fog light brackets, I don't think any of the rest of us would even think to use CAD lol.

Hahahahaa, that's a really good point! It's funny, I didn't even consider making them by hand lmao, I mean I know my fab skills won't get anywhere if I never use them, but I'd rather cut to the chase and use high quality parts if I'm able. But yeah, lots and lots of files going nowhere fast on my my computer. Speaking of, I know I designed a set of turbofans for my Civic's TE37's that were going to be all clear, and cut from plexi, maybe got a little carried away on that one, just like so many of these projects!

B0CKS

11-02-2020, 07:34 AM

Its been another week in 2020, Halloween was a blast and my deadline for turn key is all of this weekend away! So I’ve been in a bit of rush trying to get all my final components sorted, I’m now in the weeds of trying to make things work, over just trying to make them fit.

First thing on the list is and was a fuel system refresh. I got a new fuel pump and swapped it in, I have no idea if the previous one was good, but I’d rather take the new unit as this car is- well, new at this point- and that means as few exceptions as possible. I’ve still got to take of the tank-mounted fuel filter at some point this week, but that chore will be done once I slide the car over to the lift bay.
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Replacing the pump wasn’t all that hard all things considered, half of the time spent was on emptying out the trunk of 2 full center consoles, 3 sets of Carrozzeria’s, plenty of 3D printed spoiler chunks, more stereo equipment and pop up fogs. I did actually enjoy it. And, seeing the trunk empty and clean was a pleasantry I rarely treat myself to, good to know it still looks decent.
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Another troubleshooting issue I found myself sorting is the hood latch. I’m not sure if I’ll be running a hood for these first few drives, but it’s good to learn what does and doesn’t work. I was having no luck with the cable, it kept on wanting to be too long, and after some head scratching, I found that the bracket was allll bent out of whack, (left one in the image) and so yet again, the eye sore of my parts car did me wonders with providing an intact, and better part.
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I found myself spending another night figuring out my lighting circuits in the car- and there’s still some time go. This sounds silly, but here’s what was holding me up 1) I didn’t plug in the steering shaft harness’, which was an easy enough fix 2) I assumed it was a toasted relay at first, but it turns out I was missing a large set of grounds that needed to be bolted in. 3) turns aren’t working, 4 ways are. So that’s still an open ended problem, and the running lights are currently kinda intermittent. And, I still need to swap out my reverse button harness on the transmission to be the right one for the Rywire harness to get that circuit working. But! I’ve got my most important headlights up and running, so I’ll just look like a jerk if I take this thing anywhere and can’t get my turns working in time.
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And, more importantly, with my air ride rewired, I threw a battery in the car for the first time (if the previous image wasn’t enough proof lmao) and found that my large fuse box panel and ecu bracket were actually functional, and they worked so well, I didn’t even have to try and stop a sudden and outrageous electrical fire! So I’m quite proud. But anyways, the air ride WORKS. I found and killed a few leaks, and then jacked the car all the way up at maximum PSI, then left it for a night and found that it holds air well! Sweeet! So, for the first time in three years, that car looks like it can do jumping jacks- I’m thrilled! There’s still a few things I’m waiting to fine tune, I’ve got to recalibrate the car, which needs a functional engine to provide juice for so the car can automatically reach it’s programmed heights. I’ve also got to lower the coilover sleeves the next inch or inch and a half to make it properly low, and so I can start learning how I’m going to have to make room for my UCA’s! I’m also waiting on a “dump valve” so that the air exhaust isn’t as loud, but also dramatically slows down the descent of the way the car airs out. Should be a little bit more classy over just a PSSSSHHHT PSSHT. But anyways, here’s a little clip for your viewing pleasure!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA7JOniZ44I
As a sequel to last weeks update, here’s a whole bunch of plans made physical for the large SendCutSend lasercut order that’s coming! As you can tell, there’s lots of marks, some cuts and edits that all need to be made to each part, V2.0 of the airbox is about to become 3.0 and rebuilt, which should be pretty fun! In terms of fit and finish, everything looks properly promising, and most everything else it ready to go.
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And this is minor news at best, but my AEM hydrophobic net arrived for the CAI, and it looks great IMO. Can’t wait to hide it entirely with an airbox!
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But that’s most of this week! I’m very much hoping I will be posting pictures of this car outside of the driveway and barns for the this first time in four years this coming weekend! Wish me luck!!

ShiRen

11-02-2020, 07:43 AM

B0CKS

11-02-2020, 08:28 AM

Turn signal issue sounds like the switch for sure. Take the stalk off and see if you can get the switch to work with a screwdriver. Iirc I shoved a tiny bit of paper in the slot that the stalk goes in to make it happy. If you haven't already, that whole unit probably needs a good cleaning and some new dielectric grease.

That's a really good point! The thing is, a lot of the stuff on this car I never got to test since I bought the car since I never drove it. I pulled my other stalk off the other call a bit back, definitely worth starting there!

Jinnai

11-06-2020, 01:07 AM

I took B0CKS armrest :P
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/484526318839660545/774179653866094632/IMG_20201024_195406112.jpg

I'll probably try to get around to making a post about it, but basically I chopped up some cloth and foam from the cheapest headrest on ebay and reassembled it as best I could:
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/484526318839660545/774187915269898270/IMG_20201106_005400883.jpg

I know it's not the smoothest reupholstering, but I'm happy with the cost, and it's sturdy and fuzzy. Thank you!

B0CKS

11-06-2020, 12:07 PM

Jinnai! Dude that looks so good! Way to already have it back to looking great, looks like it made it in one piece, and I love that you used that fabric, gonna look great in place! Nice work!!

B0CKS

11-06-2020, 12:09 PM

Turn signal issue sounds like the switch for sure. Take the stalk off and see if you can get the switch to work with a screwdriver. Iirc I shoved a tiny bit of paper in the slot that the stalk goes in to make it happy. If you haven't already, that whole unit probably needs a good cleaning and some new dielectric grease.

Dude you were 100% right. I owe you a drink! There's more to it, but I tore down my turn assembly, gave it a thorough clean and put it all back together, and it's all good, works like new! I'm slowly starting to learn that "broken" and "dirty" are close synonyms in the world of tech. Thanks again for the pointer, wouldn't have ever really considered it otherwise!

B0CKS

11-12-2020, 01:47 PM

Well, it’s been a whirlwind of a week and a half, and only a metric ton of things have happened, enough to justify posting twice! Lots and lots and lots of small stuff happened, a few big things, and- as ever, my attention span has been bent five different ways, so there’s going to be some random junk in here, as is tradition. So I’ll do my best to recall most of it, with fun images included for those of us who HATE reading.

Let’s start with the mail! What cool boxes are coming/arrived lately? Well, for starters, I got my quick release bumper hardware in! Basically a threaded peg with a button that fastens onto the bumper. For ebay stuff, they feel great, and fit nice! I’ll mount two on the top, then two on the bottom, should be a pretty clean install. The paper is a mockup of the lasercut piece I’ll be making to adapt the Prelude plastic to fit the Accord support!
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Then, from the motherland of Japan of itself, I (overpaid) bought a fog light switch! The since the Prelude button won’t fit my application, I was able to score this one!
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And hey, speaking of; what about another thing that showed up in the mail on the same afternoon! Sure! I did not expect to be doing this, but I was able to pick these up for (what I’m positive is under market value) 250 bucks, branded correctly with the right words on the front, and even cooler? They’re Ambers!! I’ve been kinda aware of this set of lights for some time, but finally reached out to the owner, and was stunned to find out they were in the price range of attainable, I assumed they would be out of budget for some time! Way too geeked about them!
10446
Very exciting here- a box from my favorite company, SendCutSend (wait, it might be Honda. TBD) showed up!! This pack of 2.6mm thick steel is the answer to all the heavier- weight reliant parts I’ve been designing! The large arm with an elbow is the the airbox backer, the small center piece is the mounting bracket for my heater core valve (exciting, I know) and the last two- well we’ll get to them next.
10448
Those two other brackets and their respective triangles are my custom made fog light brackets! While they’re just laid in place in place, both of them have since had that triangle (adequately) welded in and then both powdercoated my favorite black. They feel PLENTY sturdy, and fit better than I hoped!
10447
Since I have no clue how to leave well enough alone, I couldn’t help but sneak a peak of the near-final look of the front end of this car, and threw the front end on and MAN, I can’t describe how much I love how this coming together. The Prelude bumper just packs a restrained punch of chunky and aggressive, the Integra lip finishes off the silhouette so well, and the fog lights and Manarays look so rad and technical- I can’t get over it. Couldn’t be more excited about the way this parts-bin car is falling into place!
10449
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And, while we’re at it, my sister and her cat dropped by- and I guess I took the best picture of my entire life. Glad I got that out of the way!
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B0CKS

11-12-2020, 01:49 PM

Reaching back to the topic of things I’m pouring out way more cash on than I should be- specifically on things I didn’t expect to be buying until after the car was painted, I guess I’m going Coil On Plug Honestly, on my factory rebuild I’m not expecting much of a performance change, but I really love the aesthetic of coil on plug and the performance appearance and have been planning to do the upgrade for the better part of a year, but I do know that distributors are a weak link in B-series, and being able to mostly swap out that system is a great thing! Now why am I buying them now? There was a deal that was a little too good to pass up! I was expecting to spend roughly a grand one just the components needed for this upgrade, and this purchase included what is a considerably valuable item- a P28 Hondata S300 V3- which will soon be replacing my V1 S300! This setup set me back an honest 850, but considering that ECU alone is roughly 500, I’m happy to pay it!
10452
And in terms of menial tasks, I’ve done lots, like LOTS. New OEM fuel filter, new crush washer for the gas tank, fresh gas, painted my battery tray in weldable primer, cleaned, swapped cases and rebuilt my turn signal assembly, rebuilt and swapped out some components on my gauge cluster, tidied up my wiring harness’, cleaned out both barns, sold and shipped parts, re-aligned my whole car to now be somewhat level and have equal amounts of caster, gave the deck lid a night’s worth of attention and learned a lot about where my air ride is happy and upset, the list goes on.
10453
Oh! Here’s something fun, I actually wrapped enough projects to have “down-time” and while being stalled for things for to do, I decided I would re-attach my collection of Carrozzerias (I uhhhhhhh, I have six.) and do some sorting and planning. I have one “complete” set that I’ll be able to restore back to factory, but I’ve been forming plans to give the spares to have a second wind, so that when I do have a second “rad” vehicle with a package shelf, I’ll be able to adorn the second with a matching pair of my favorite rear speakers, even if they’re not totally factory spec.
10454
Then this isn’t “huge” news, but I tested up the wiring I did a few months back that spliced into my taillights actually WORKS. There’s a few bulbs that are toast on the ones I have plugged in, but they look great, I absolutely love the color of and amount of light they emit. Just another thing that makes me excited.
10455
And alright- straight ADD? Sure. I had a spare hour in a car to let my mind be dumb and do it’s thing. And here’s what I came up with. While I have an exacting battle plan to make it, the answer is NO, not gonna do it. But just to doodle it in, I designed the Accord “Aero-Mask” a fictional Honda Access item that floats over the front bumper (in clearance of the headlights) and is a stone chip guard. Inspired from the 1G CRX hood wind deflector thing, that thing is sweet. I mean I guess it just looks like bifocals, and would need to be opened up a bit from the bottom to let air flow through to the top of radiator, but I’m having fun. A few lasercut brackets, a large sheet of heated and bent plexi, then some frosted vinyl, and then boom, maybe less stone chips.
10456
10457
Last note here, but I’ve been beating my head against the wall for final wiring. I’ve gotta sort out the fan and starter switch, and I’ve patiently waiting for a friend to drop by sometime and clear the last of the fog in my head, and that was supposed to be last Saturday, which coincidently was supposed to lead to turn key. So that didn’t quite go as planned as our schedules didn’t line up, but we’re getting there. So, after dropping nearly half of the wiring out the dash I got the car TO CRANK UNDER ITS OWN POWER YESTERDAY. I mean, it doesn’t count, the way I had it wired if the battery had both terminals on, it would crank. That is wrong. But it DID, and I’m still a little amped about it. We’re SO CLOSE to driving it!
10458
But all that typed out (only took like an hour!) I gotta go fix a leaky injector and try and look at wires harder. Hopefully an update comes quicker than this one did!

Jinnai

11-12-2020, 02:06 PM

Very cool! I love JDM options. Where might I look for such things? Do I need to know japanese? :)

ShiRen

11-13-2020, 05:17 AM

The mask... I don't know how I feel about it, but odd catalog accessories, fictional or not, make me feel tingly.

B0CKS

11-14-2020, 09:32 AM

Very cool! I love JDM options. Where might I look for such things? Do I need to know japanese? :)

Buyee.com is a GREAT place to look! It's perfect for what you're looking for. It's a Importer that lets you browse all of yahoo actions (basically our ebay) and then takes care of getting items shipped here. Go surf around on it and find good stuff!

The mask... I don't know how I feel about it, but odd catalog accessories, fictional or not, make me feel tingly.

Hahahaha, finally someone puts it into words! I mean, the Air purifiers, map lights, coin trays, rainguards, fictional plexiglass masks, they're not too aesthetically pleasing, but rare and desirable odd stuff, and I'm so in! Couldn't agree more lmao

B0CKS

12-02-2020, 06:46 AM

Well. It’s been a minute.

The “turn key date” has been kicked back, and kicked back, and kicked back. I was going to save posting stuff until the car was running, but it’s been too long, the car is just sitting, and well, I’ve been doing what I can to get it all sorted, but we’re still on hold. Here’s what’s happened in the ~20 days since we last talked.

I almost bought a 54 Bel Air! Stumbled across a great deal, condition, patina, overall example of one the dream cars of mine and was painfully close to going out and buy it. But I let it pass, much to the joy of my Accord, and getting it done within my lifespan. But let’s get going on real updates that actually exist, beginning with the projects of orbital importance.

Got my 3D printer into its box after like 7 months of it just not being in there and wired up to it’s new and (greatly improved) heating plate. This will allow me to reliably print more robust, weather enduring prints- talking about spoilers specifically- out of good, but more troublesome filament.
10467
Then, let’s talk lasercutting. I’ve designed the third iteration of my airbox, and minus a mockup, it should be good to be shipped off. I’ve also made a bracket that surrounds my outlet power in the center console as well as protected for the two heated seat buttons that will be living there in the future. And, shown here, is a mockup of my very tightly packaged answer to my Carrozzeria question. I’m basically facing the music that getting an original set of these things with decent foam is just not really in the cards, especially after dumping in more cash I care to admit into them. And, honestly, I plugged one into the car (with the best condition speakers I had) and it was pretty darn underwhelming. So I’ve come up with this plate for a set of component speakers I bought forever ago, fits the very tight (and unique) cutout that the Carrozzeria uses without any need for cutting or trimming the actual plastic. So, not my first choice, but reliable sound and a sweet box to hold them in is a win in my book. The plate will be powdercoated black, so it should all blend, neat.
10468
Wiring is the next thing I’ve been doing battle with. I’ve been learning a lot, which is really hard on the gears in my head, but I do feel like I’m getting less scared of one of the black boxes that terrorize me in terms of working on cars, which is admittedly a good thing. I spent one night building the gauge cluster adapter, depinning and using the harness that came out of the dash of the B-cord so that I don’t fry anything I can’t undue with the harness I want to protect.
10469
So installation aside, this plugs directly into the Rywire setup, and feeds the dash important info like tach, oil pressure, maintenance lights, check engine, and other fun stuff. Honestly, for some moron who can only almost use a multimeter it looks decent.
10470
Then, harness number two is the main power harness. Carrying the important job of sending the starter signal and ECU power to the Rywire harness. It’s currently the bane of my existence, as if I have both wires plugged in, only the ECU gets power, and if I unplug the ECU wire, the car will crank. About that multimeter work I have to do….
10471
But let’s hop into the sweet meat and potatoes of this post with the Coil and Plug setup! Showed up plenty quickly, and I’m very excited!
10472
And straight into the weeds with the holdup, I spent nearly four HUNDRED dollars and bought what is called a EPM (engine position module) by the company I renown, AEM. This hockey puck is a freaking gun in a knife fight for a shaved buy, it reduces the need for a the huge, blocky distributor, and getting it in place is a breeze, and four wires later, it should be wired in.
10473
This is where it gets kinda funky, after much reading, dismay and confusion, I came to learn that the AEM EPM does NOT play nice with any Hondata, and is only designed for fully standalone applications. SO, that sucks. I have to compromise, or spend upward of 3k to make it work with a totally new wiring setup (which is not in the cards). And well, so be it. I returned the hockey puck. But here’s the thing, in my haste to offset the cost of the EPM, I sold my distributor and spark plug wires that I thought to be obsolete. Which isn’t relevant information until I point out that the distributor that came with the COP setup is totally gutted, and is missing some CRUCIAL parts I’d need to harvest from the other distributor. So I shot my own foot really well and now gotta wait another half week before I can make a car with spark, not to mention I also purchased fuel injectors that I recently flow at 280CC instead of the factory 240CC, so now I gotta spend that cash as well wait for them to show up ACK.
10474
Oh, and I powdercoated the billet cover black, it’s not going into that engine bay all chrome like that. No sir. Plus the milled surface of that aluminum is going to fade fast, and it’s not worth the maintenance. So next time you see it! And, it turns out that the female connectors for these coil packs are quite brittle, and upon receiving them, two of them were disconnected, and so, 10 dollars and a week’s worth of shipping later, replacement connectors have been installed!

B0CKS

12-02-2020, 06:48 AM

Alright, time for a Black Friday exclusive post! Time for some 200% ADD content.

With the Accord down for the effective count, I spent some time (and, a grand total of 30 bucks) distracted. Black Friday means some pretty wild deals for the pick n pulls here, the yard I went to was half off EVERYTHING. I was hoping to find some cheap tread, but ended up entranced with this 3G civic that was in the yard, and- my brain rapidly justifying my actions- I pulled the front upper end off it. Setting me back an INCREDIBLE SIXTEEN DOLLARS out the door, I was stunned.
10480
IF I ever do get to own one of these gen Civic/CRX’s, the recessed headlights look 200% more good than the flush headlight models on this platform, so I kinda wanted to grab these and put them in my back pocket for an eventual highly hypothetical situation. BUT, what the heck should I do with them in the meantime? Throwing these fragile plastic parts in storage seemed like no fun, and they’re big, and fun to look at when they’re not in some dimly lit corner. The answer to that was clearly MAKE A LAMP. With some zip-tie ju-jitsu and a pair of hastily made brackets It’s all one piece.
10479
Then, I took a whole bunch of supplies we had around the barn (and never use) and built a simple wiring harness, enough to get everything to be powered by one simple source, with an RF remote to dim and activate along with a 12v wall outlet power supply that’s coming in the mail at the moment.
10475
And, powered up, tada! It emits light, is a single chunk, and was a great way to kill a late night in the barn. It was a lot of fun spending a night doing something that put the skills to use, but had no real importance, just make it work!
10476
BUT. The fun didn’t end there, before I wired it up and made my brackets, I did the right thing and took a few components off my car and…
10477
Well, it fits nicer than it should.
10478
Obviously, no, this is not what I have any intention of doing, but I gotta say, I like the concept a lot more than I’m allowed to. Maybe on some 500 dollar gambler car I’ll make the illustrious E-AT Civic coupe with a bunch of crappy metalwork, but until then, we have these pictures to chuckle at. :)

ShiRen

12-02-2020, 07:11 AM

B0CKS

12-09-2020, 12:42 PM

Gosh DANGIT, time keeps on happening, and I keep forgetting to write these things, stupid fundamentals of the universe messing with how lazy I’d like to be.

It’s been a minute- some stuff happened, other stuff, well- didn’t. The car is in a very weird state at the moment, as there’s some stuff I’m simply dreading fixing, and other stuff I couldn’t be more excited for, and so my motivation to actually do things has been coming in waves, and then rushing out. So what’s the big holdup? Still wiring. I DO NOT LIKE IT. I don’t have a great understanding of it, and when it doesn’t work, I have no idea how to fix it, which means that I just need to do more wiring, so I can learn the “why” when stuff is broken. I can’t wait. So the overall “car” progress has been real slow. But ADD around the rest of the car project while pretending not to see the main glaring projects has been very good, at like an all time high really.

Let’s start with the mail, after watching for one for a (long) time, I happened to stumble across a Facebook post in a 1G CRX forum with a guy looking to buy a car cover, and there’s a handful of comments, some tags, others irrelevant. One guy comments and has some for some 80s Hondas, and so- I reach out to him, ask him about some details, and much to my amazement, he has one- for a 3G Accord, more specifically, an Accord Coupe, and before I knew it, my PayPal was open and sending him cash. And holy COW. I’m so excited about this. I haven’t fully unwrapped it, but here is an effectively new, with manual and everything, Accord Car Cover. WAY too cool. Haven’t had it on the car yet, but boy am I excited.
10502
10503
What else? Lets see here, I got wind of a program that uses older Xbox Kinect Cameras to do some (very primitive) 3D scanning, so I went for a gamble on Facebook marketplace, and found one that happened to be new in box for 10 bucks, and went to pick it up, and happened also be literally given 26 Xbox games, most of them the biggest names Xbox had, most every halo game, CoD, GTA, Borderlands, all the hits, felt like a huge score!
10501
But in first place, HOLY CRAP. I had no idea the day would come, but I am currently waiting on an audio device of my dreams. Let’s throw some background into this; the Panasonic Cockpit is a rare piece of novelty Car Audio equipment that takes the standard radio, Cassette deck and then a humble amp, and then puts them on the HEADLINER OF YOUR CAR. There’s a few different versions, the RM310, RM610, and RM710 being the most desirable. I’ve seen some 310s on eBay for sale, one new in box for 1600, another one currently for sale for 1100, and much like the car cover, I happened to stumble across an extremely rare RM710 that was new in box, with a guy waiting for responses at the bottom of an older thread on some wing of the Lotus forums. And after some incredible discussions, I learned that he only wanted THREE THOUSAND, FIVE-HUNDRED dollars for it. Not to mention shipping from France, so let’s add another 500 for shipping and call it fair. That was about two miles out of my price range, so I went back to scrolling eBay empty handed, when a RM310 popped up with 400 dollars at the starting bid. Let’s cut the week of wait time out, and just say I was able to score it for a clean $570+ some shipping. Roughly half of what any other one of these is commanding. Consider me starstruck, and from the looks of it, in great shape too! Supposed to be here tomorrow, I’m sure there will be pictures to follow!
10500
But I gotta say, between this and the Carrozzerias, I absolute love the 80s tech feeling this car is taking on. I’ve already started to get my brackets planned and a game plan for wiring. Can’t WAIT.
10499
And actually- that leads me very nicely into the other half of these posts- design! With Cockpit coming, I have to sort out what to do with the OEM radio location. I don’t want to put another radio there, as that’s redundant- and probably going to result in a wiring nightmare. So, What should I do with this space? First assumption was switches, but in all honesty, I don’t really have anything that needs more switches than what’s already available, second guess was more gauges, but there’s nothing I could find that didn’t just look ricey- so that was a pass, then my brain switched to audio tech. I need something that would look 80s esque, but be a primarily aesthetic piece. The closest fit I could find for what I’m looking for is this Calcel VU meter-faced amp. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Old-School-CalCell-CSA-102-160-Watts-Equalizer/124427953992 Clean and free of the over-shaped garbage that seems to clog up so many radio, I found it’s subtle look was a good fit. Unfortunately its just SOOOOO BLUE. Which is a color I’ve been trying to avoid (and have gone pretty good lengths to) keep out of this build so that its consistent. So I’m hesitant, although I’m still stumped on a better option. But that didn’t stop me from going down the rabbit hole of VU meters and spectrum analyzers, eventually finding this “AK7115 Spectrum Analyzer” a very clean and simple unit, https://www.ebay.com/itm/164503448957 with the easiest wiring I have chances of coming across. It’s biggest issue? It’s too small to properly fill a single DIN slot… which well, you know me, I took an evening in illustrator and clicked away, then here’s the result:
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I think it may still be a little too modern for this Accord, I’d have to round out a few edges, change some finishes, but this is the top two that sang to me (worth noting, the area on the right would be storage for the IR remote for changing the style of the Spectrum Analyzer), and I think they have a good thing going, but I’m hesitant to flush funds down the fully custom hole when I still think I could find something off the shelf that could fit the bill, and *actually* be period correct.
10498
So I’m not sure yet. Still considering my options.

B0CKS

12-09-2020, 12:43 PM

But next up in the canister for design work is laser cutting updates! SendCutSend recently held an open ended Sticker contest, and as I can’t help myself, I doodled some up in Illustrator and entered, and much to my surprise, I won! And am flattered to have made a small impact on their fantastic company, and have also already made quick plans on what I’ll be spending my 100 dollar reward card on! That, of course, is the huge file from a few posts back, including the airbox, Prelude bumper adapter, Carrozzeria adapters (and a Turbofan for the cowbells, because why not), but a few of these parts needed to be updated for a final check before I send them off, so here’s the final iteration of the airbox, in Cheeto orange next to its predecessors! Everything fits right after a few small tweaks, the design feels tight, and it’s ready to be cut as a final piece!
10504
Then, mentioned in the last post, here’s the finishing bracket for the center console, the outlet closeout, again in blaze orange. The two large holes are for heated seat switches! Then, those two horizontal slots under them are tabs that fold back for mounting this plate. Not a bad lil setup! I also finally built the wiring harness for this, so it’s ready to be a plug and play piece once the car eventually comes together!
10505
I think that covers the big stuff, as for things in the works, I’ve got the new distributor wired in, I’ve started work on a custom cut kit of Paint Protection film for the front end of our cars (along with a small piece to cover the rear top corner of the quarter panel- for the spoiler!). And my 3D printer is officially back up and running, and after kicking out some PLA prints, I’ve loaded it ASA and have completed my first large scale UV and temp resistant part! Still needs some dialing in, but I’m very excited about how its going! And last off, after literally talking to a guy for six months, I’m happily picking up a very clean set of third gen Prelude Si hubcaps… for future builds!
10506

Jinnai

12-10-2020, 12:52 AM

Oh man, I love the panasonic cockpit so much too. I'll need to make some more ebay saved searches cause wow what a steal.

Dr_Snooz

12-12-2020, 10:00 PM

Epic! So much win!

B0CKS

12-17-2020, 11:41 AM

Wow speak of the devil, I wouldn't have gave it 2hrs more before I made and posted a "Honey its time for a build update post" meme just for you. I find it extremely strange the aem cam position sensor is incompatible with Hondata, or what I assume to be anything that expects the factory optical sensor... like why wouldn't it just use a factory optical sensor? Has aem squeezed more resolution out of it? Did anyone ever need any more cam position resolution? Im sure there is a market for a cop set up on Hondata or equivalent that does not use a gutted factory dizzy.

Totally completely off topic, but have you considered a speedo and tach swap? I have been wanting to get rid of the cable speedo for a long time and you are going to be able to peg our tach. I bought a eg cluster banking on it working, I will have to get the speedo working with an arduino. I will share the code ofc, but I am also using the arduino for fuel level and you have trans options that can actually drive the speedo provided you wire it up.

I swear I’ve typed a response to this at least once or twice, I just never get around to finishing it lmao! But I have thought about it, but I’m on the fence. With the Prelude speedo cable I’m running right now, that cable is nearly 100% out of sight, so there’s a part of me that says if it aint broke, don’t fix it, but on the other hand, the Rywire harness does have a VSS plug that’s just hanging. So that aint great. But Yeah, definitely got the problem of redline staring at me right in the face. I think I’m going to simply ignore it until my car works and it starts causing me problems lmao.

Yeah, I’m 3 sorts of bummed, I had been working forward on assumptions, but I guess that AEM only saw a business case for it only if it promoted the rest of the AEM system, I’m sure there’s a reason for it. AEM uses a 24 crank signals per rev, over I believe the Honda factory 12, which is a total cluster. But yeah, strong agree, there’s a ton of unused space in the distributor that is all of useless, and thinking about how a “tucked bay” is practically a common Honda goal, the demand is certainly there. The thought’s crossed my mind to go reverse engineer one make it smaller, 3D print a mold, and lost cast my own out of frustration at AEM. But there’s bigger fish to fry lmao

Oh man, I love the panasonic cockpit so much too. I'll need to make some more ebay saved searches cause wow what a steal.

Definitely worth the time! I’m still reeling from it, right time, right place! Happens once every blue moon!

Epic! So much win!

That deadline of having the car done just keeps moving back and back! So many fun things to do! :D

B0CKS

12-22-2020, 10:11 AM

Alright, lets go! Time for an update!

I have some COOL STUFF. This post isn’t loaded with huge changes, but I’m still trying to get barn time in through the days. First and foremost, the COCKPIT IS HERE. Made it intact and looks to be in faaaantastic shape. I haven’t quit geeking out over it for like a two weeks straight. It’s literally in my line of sight right now, and it’s VERY distracting.
10526
Pardon my dusty appendages, but that gives you a quick jist of how it’ll hang in the car. LOVE all the knobs and switches, and I’m very excited to get in place.
10527
That excitement found it’s vent in the form of brackets, as soon as I got in my possession, I started making marks, measurements and rough ideas. Its going to replace the rear map light, as well as utilize the mounting screws- so you can see that I was pulling measurements there.
10528
Then, as for the front, there’s two screws that hold the seatbelt warning light/rearview mirror surround in place- I’ll be grabbing those, as well as one of the rear view mirror screws for what should be a solid trio of points. I’m running with a thinner gauge metal for the front, so we’ll see how it feels once it’s bent up and in place, but I think it should be okay for the amount of contact points and bends it’ll have. The two pieces of orange paper show the final design for these brackets- the rear will be 2mm thick, just like the original Panasonic bracket was. I also put in a HUGE lasercutting order to SendCutSend, so these brackets- updated fog light brackets, the airbox, the Prelude bumper adapter, my center console closeout plate, those speaker adapters and other small things are all in the mail, can’t WAIT for them to show up, gonna have a huge powdercoating session! And thanks to a few gift cards from some great contests from SendCutSend, that entire order set my wallet back six bucks- freaking LOVE their company!
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And, just to mention it- I won’t be messing with the cockpit at all for functionality- I bought another amplifier- a Kenwood KAC-M1824BT- this will be mounting under the driver’s seat- and is essentially a floating head unit. The reason this specific amp was selected because of it’s Bluetooth capability- It doesn’t push out enough power to move a subwoofer, so I’ll be linking it to the Rockford Fosgate sub amp I already have wired in. Basically- the cockpit will provide AM/FM/Cassette input, then this Kenwood amp will handle Bluetooth and swapping sources, it will also be the main signal sender for the speakers, then the RF amp will send the sub signal. WHICH MEANS, that I’ll still have an open head unit. I’ve been mulling, and re-mulling over the concept of that fancy spectrum analyzer from a few posts up, but there’s a part of me that would like to just be done with it, and buy a blockoff plate, but there’s also yet another idea to turn it into a phone cubby, since I’m already using most of the storage the vehicle has. And if I’m going to make it a phone cubby, I might as well throw a wireless charger pad in there just for fun. I dunno. Lots of thinking, not a lot of decision making.

But anyways- where were we? Oh right! Stuff. Also as promised from a couple posts back- the Prelude hubcaps made it! They’re in GREAT shape, and I also picked up some decent 14” steelies so that when the time comes- I’ll be ready to have them good to go. But, for the time being- more stuff in storage! Just like those Cowbells! (which I promise I haven’t forgotten about!)
10530
Then, went and undid some work the other night- I directly spliced an aftermarket male radio connector into my dash harness a few years back, and well, I’ve since learned about jumper harness- and considering that the radio seems to be a fluctuating system for this build, I need it to be an interchangeable/common connector I can find more if it comes to it. So I pulled the dash and got wiring.
10531
And, so I did that and my mechanic (Mitch) and I are FINAAAAAAALLY finally time to get some hours into this car, so after getting the harness back together, I reinstalled the dash and gave the car power and blew the main battery fuse. And with the fantastic help from Mitch, we’ve started to go through my homemade fusebox frame and sort out issues, which has been fantastic, although I certainly wouldn’t describe it as photogenic. So- we’re working through that in the mornings, and it’s been really good for the car. Picking up lots of things I didn’t know. But yeah, don’t really have a photo for that- so here’s the engine bay!
10532

So until next time, and Happy Holidays! I hope you're all enjoying a great break after this insane year.

Dr_Snooz

12-24-2020, 09:43 PM

AM/FM/cassette??? This is for retro appeal, I assume.

B0CKS

01-04-2021, 11:59 AM

Hey! Hope you guys had some happy holidays! Mine were great, and being back in the office already is a bummer, but I’m excited to share the pretty large batch of updates that have been brewing- there’s plenty!

Christmas- in reference to the car- was great! I greatly appreciated my family being willing to sponsor a couple items I’ve pined for for some time! The two largest items are a refurb’ed brake booster- one that doesn’t have the rust that mine so proudly displays, can’t wait to get it in the bay once it’s all painted! The other awesome gift is a set of floormats that have been on my mind for an easy few years! These black mats are plenty simple, and I think always help interiors look deep and bring the colors out to the surface!
10546
Mocked up in the interior before they hit storage- I think once the Prelude seats are re-upholstered to have the center be black- the mats should really sing with them. And make the brown/burgundy sing all the better.
10547
And on from that- I finally got around to fitting the car cover! It fits INCREDIBLY, and is well worth the price, it’s in great shape, and I’m stunned to have it! Very much a rare part at this point, and I can’t wait to one day lift it and show off the completed car.
10548
With a pretty wild twist, I went junkyarding over the break and found myself with a whole trunkload of great parts! I was amazed to find a 2G Prelude, 3G Accord, and modded EK Civic all untouched in the lot! The 2G Prelude offered a practically new OE radio and rare EQ, a shift knob also in great shape, and the pull-em-when possible-2G front UCA’s. Oh! And a nice set of Si Front turns (story time!: The one’s that came with my bumper are both a little fubar, and I was able to find someone who was parting out a 2G Prelude, so I scored those, and then this 2G showed up in the yard… so now I own six. When it rains, it pours I guess.) Then the EK Civic was a pretty wild twist- it was a silver hatchback much like the Beanis I happened to own a couple years back. This one had suffered from a head on collision and was discarded by the owner before he parted it out- rather incredibly, I found a handful of really nice parts- the most notable being the barely-used Tein Flex Z Coilovers, that run about 850 out of the box, and these are like new. So I’ll just be flipping them! I also pulled the NRG adapter from the car, roughly a 100 dollar part, and should may stay in the nest if I do carry through with my next build. But anyways, I need to sell a LOT of this, so this should be the first and last time you see most of it! But yeah! Awesome day at the yard, and I found a crisp dollar in a puddle, which was very nice and fun.
10549
Then the real beans of this post comes in from my large lasercutting order from SendCutSend- much to my excitement! Lets start with the easy stuff, like this here speaker adapter! As I’ve mentioned a few times previous, the Carrozzeria project has been ever-ongoing, but this is the breakthough part that should solve the big headache. And I cut four of them- so I’ll be able to retrofit another set for my next car! Pretty sweet IMO.
10550
And, small as it is, here’s the center console closeout bracket- slides in and finishes off the outlets pretty nicely! It’s not too complex- just a couple bends and some powdercoat, but makes the outlet a lot more flush. The two large holes are for the eventual seat-warmer switches, and will be filled once I’m at the stage of re-upholstering, so for now- holes! Oh! And since it didn't make it into this update, I also updated the fog light brackets- they now hold them tighter into the bumper!
10551
Then, possibly the brackets I’m most excited for- the Cockpit! I was really pleased with how these came out- a few simple bends in each and they really took the form they needed- there’s a few small asterisks that came with each, but nothing that isn’t imminently solvable. The front bracket grabs a total of five screws from the cockpit, then three from under the rear-view mirror. You can see it in place here.
10552
Then the rear bracket is seen here in position replacing the maplight- it grabs two screws from the ceiling, then four downturned studs allow the cockpit to get seated.
10553

Ope! Split post! Seeya in a sec.

B0CKS

01-04-2021, 12:02 PM

You can see what both brackets are doing here, along with trimmed rearview mirror bezel. I chopped off the back half (the one that displays the seatbelt warning lights) and should do a good job of tucking a few wires, along with tidying up the view of all this from the front.
10554
So without further ado, here’s how it hangs! Fits GREAT- I couldn’t be happier, it tucks between the visors like it was from the factory, and follows the roofline with barely an issue.
10555
And, while we’re talking about it- I made some calls about the stereo system that I’ll be able to update soon, but we have fed power to it, and it does emit some cool lights, we’ll be finding out how well it sounds before these next couple weeks are wrapped up. The harness to wire this monster is a whopping 13” feet long, and I was amazed I was able to reverse engineer it without too much of a fight. That said- it is huge, and without a sheath to hold it, and the way its haphazardly ziptied to a random selection of pillars and bits, it does look pretty sci-fi at the moment. I’m geeked, across the board.
10556
Ope, and one more update- I decided to dump fourteen bucks and buy one truly non-essential part- this here custom air-freshner. I can’t tell you why I love it, or what I’m trying to express, but I find it perfect for the build. Nice.
10557
Continuing on our endless endless lasercut journey- The front bumper adapter came out pretty nice, unfortunately for my wallet, I think a second revision will be in the works to get everything properly- perfectly fit, but I did learn a lot with this iteration. The Black part is the lower bracket that clamps onto the lower flange of the bumper, and the green is the upper- eventually to be painted white.
10558
The biggest issue is the alignment of the wheel well of the fender to rear bumper corner- it’s tough to see, but the bumper is pulled too far forward to be a seamless transition, much to my disappointment. But the quick releases- while they’re a bit clunky- are working as they should, but they certainly need lower attachment points to prevent bumper sag, which has been a bit of an issue with mocking this all up for the first time! BUT, I am pleased with this part and think I’m onto something that should be pretty clean once it’s all together. Other than some redesigns, I think what may also change is the hardware- I really like the feel of the allens, but they really want to grab your attention as reflective as they are- hood on or off. Black may be too dark, maybe there’s an workaround or middle ground I could find. TBD.
10559
Then, FINALLY writing up the last two parts here- the airbox! It too- upon struggle and discontentment- while need one more round of work to be called done. But for starters, I finally swapped out the IAC bolts for threaded rods- which means I could now slide on a part I made a while back- the rear airbox support bracket- it fits REALLY nice, and is nearly entirely hidden from view, which does everything it needs to wonderfully. Huzzah! Scratch one off.
10560
But the airbox itself- now that it’s made out of metal, is going to need another iteration. I was hoping to flange over one side and spotweld it on, leaving only the fourth side of the box to be a bolted on feature- but after much wrangling (and, well acceptable amounts of frustration and thought) I think I’ll be redesigning this part to have bolted on sides from both the left and right- making bending, assembly, and powdercoating all a much simpler process. I’m sure you’ll see what I mean in the future!
10561
Happy 2021! Can’t wait to see what it brings!

B0CKS

01-04-2021, 12:04 PM

AM/FM/cassette??? This is for retro appeal, I assume.

Yup! Much like a lot of things on this car- I just think it's neat, modern functionality sometimes takes a back seat. But that said- I am working out a secondary amp to power the speakers that has inline bluetooth capability- allowing the Cockpit to be my quote on quote head unit- then the modern amenities will be tucked as best I can.

Jinnai

01-04-2021, 10:20 PM

Hnng, that Cockpit is incredible!

B0CKS

01-05-2021, 12:39 PM

Hnng, that Cockpit is incredible!

Thanks so much!! I'm still in disbelief that there's one in the car- never- ever thought I'd see the day!

Dr_Snooz

01-07-2021, 05:05 PM

More cool stuff. Do you have plans to change the color of the roof console at all?

B0CKS

03-08-2021, 10:35 AM

More cool stuff. Do you have plans to change the color of the roof console at all?

SNOOZ! It's been an eon, I just finished my journey of falling off the earth and back- just catching up!

I think the console will be staying the same, what's likely to change is the headliner itself- still undecided if I'll be finding some factory vinyl to overlay or if I'll be going to the great beyond from stock, but I'm content with the neutral gray of the cockpit I think! :D

B0CKS

03-08-2021, 10:38 AM

So…

Suddenly its March! I guess I should have mentioned this, but I made a personal little vow that the next post I’d make on this site was after the Accord runs. And I mean, I was so close during New Years right? Well yes, but actually nope. But hey! Spoiler alert the car does indeed NOW RUN. HYA. Still got a lot of cash to spend and things to fix, but the huge hurdle of turn key is BEHIND US. January and the better part of February was all spent in the weeds sorting out little thing after little thing after little thing. Wiring being crossed, torque specs, blown fuses, you name it. Seemed like it would never end!

Let’s start with the fuel system. What was wrong with it? Everything. Like nothing was right. But that’s fine! I know how to fix things. First problem I ran into? Leaky fuel rail. So, tore that out, rebuilt the thing, and so the first issue was fixed!
10615
The second issue that popped up was a very large puddle of fuel forming under the back of the back of the car- leading me to one of few final “black boxes” of parts on this Accord I haven’t fiddled with yet. That was the gas tank. Never looked into it other than seeing the bottom of it, so it was time to drop it and figure out what was causing this headache. So, as you can see here, after spending some time disconnecting all the random fuel and vacuum lines this car surprisingly has, it was time to drop the tank.
10616
And, well, the top of it was in nice shape! A quick initial clean, and it’s looking promising, no rust holes, a peak inside revealed some debris, but no lacquer, or dead things in it.
10617
So, it was time to do that thing- take all the brackets and anything tiny and sandblast them thoroughly, and throw them in the powder coating oven. With the brackets cleaned up, I picked up all new fuel hose, figure it’s just good maintenance to replace ~30odd year old fuel line in practice, and with all new hose clamps to slide on as well, I was feeling pretty positive on how this was all cleaning up:
10638
What was actually causing the leak was the fuel pump bracket- turns out the replacement pump I purchased has just a liiiiittle too much height to it, so the plate that mounts the pump to the tank was cracked open, so when it was torqued down, it was still staying open, then spraying gas off the top of the tank. So, ultimately I didn’t need to do a complete tank drop, but I think it was worthwhile to get my learn on about that system. So we buttoned everything back up, tried turning the key to get it to run again, and found that we were getting some coughs of life out of the number four cylinder, some on the number three, and so on. Those numbers correlate to what cylinders are closest to the positive pressure side of the rail, and after thinking upon it, I came to the conclusion that the pump was not up to the task. So, cracked open the rear panel again and installed an AEM 50-1000 fuel pump, significantly boosting the fuel pressure to a more than necessary number. It’s loud, but it works, so no problems there.
10620
So there was also plenty of wiring gremlins to sort out, I took a solid three main 70Amp fuses to locate one of my wiring issues, found that the fuel cut off relay wasn’t happy because I no longer had an ignition coil, the coil on plug setup & distributor didn’t want to play nice, and plenty of other little issues of what went wrong, but here you go, after blood, sweat, tears, confusion and chaos, here it is, my rotary powered Accord:
88 Accord First Start - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDaWVZABOLY)
We’re still a little bit of time away from a first test drive, clutch cable is currently “too short” and won’t let me go into gear while the car is running, so we’re sorting that out currently. That said, the engine has been broken in with a proper 20 minute run, and the idle has cleaned up some with that. Still gotta set ignition timing properly though. We’ll get there.

So what’s next? Lets talk about the other HUGE development for this car- that’s right, I’m now in debt! How much, can’t quite say, but it’s somewhere around 12,000 dollars, and due before year’s end. That’s right, I’m lined up with a paint shop to begin the ROTISSERIE RESPRAY of the Accord this June, so I’ve got a LOT to do, and not nearly enough time to do it. Wrecks n’ Restorations is a shop currently out of Rochester Michigan, and after a shop tour, a handful of calls and conversations, are fully willing to cut our and repair all rust, fabricate everything I need to make this car lay frame, as well as build the cowl induction hood scoop I’ve talked about so much, fully undercoat the bottom of the car, as well as a proper respray in good in NH-512 Polar white, so I’m geeked, and pinching my pennies as fast as I can. I set up a few sheets as pointers on what the car needs, and trouble areas it has to save some headache, and am more than excited to get this project freaking GOING
10621

B0CKS

03-08-2021, 10:40 AM

With that massive deadline hanging over my head I’ve made a complete list of everything I need to do to the Accord in the next couple months. There’s a lot that’s going to be getting done while the car is gone, but in that leaves me with a lot of ideas I’ve had that need to get cemented ASAP so I won’t be drilling holes in fresh paint! So what sort of stuff does that include? Well, this:
10637
My phone is getting long in the tooth, and the next upgrade will probably be something with that witchcraft of wireless charging. And after thinking and thinking on it, I figure the best (and, well, probably cheapest) answer as to what I should do with my open factory radio slot is make a cubby for it. It’s simple, and the car doesn’t have much real storage space, I’ve crammed everything into every corner and hatch of this car, so some genuine storage wouldn’t be a bad thing at all. But, I can’t leave well enough alone, and have since designed a way to house the above guts of a wireless charger into the bottom of specifically shaped 3D printed part. Ya know.
10623
Also! Got the second 87 Integra lip I need to splice in half for proper fitment on the 2G Prelude bumper. A noble sacrifice!
10624
Other small news includes more stereo wiring, built the Panasonic Cockpit harness, and also rewired my dash harness back to a factory radio plug, so I could build the jumper harness from the factory radio to this Kenwood amp, used to run the four speakers. The Kenwood, not sure if I’ve mentioned, is my effectively modernized head unit, allowing me have Bluetooth, along with the ability to switch input to the cockpit, a pretty, which is pretty exciting, sometime you can have your cake and eat it!
10625
And while we’re talking tunes, I’ve somehow sorta blossomed into stereo equipment, repairing my Dad’s record player from his college years, and also getting into cassettes, you know, like a real nerd would. I had a total blast designing backer cards and playlists for a few hours of tapes, each one being a genre of music I enjoy, as well as a year I think fits it best. Nerdy, really nerdy, I know.
10626
I’ll admit that the tapes I bought are from Walmart, and all sound like garbage, they were definitely intended for recorded voice or something, so all of them sound like garbled trash, so I’ll have to spend some big bucks and remake them later, but the Cockpit their intended for isn’t exactly up and running yet either, so I’ve got time.
10627

B0CKS

03-08-2021, 11:09 AM

Actually, come to think of it, I actually recently got another things that uses tapes. It happens to be a 1987 Civic. 100% Out of the blue, but I am once again, overlaiden with Hondas. Did not see it coming. Allow me to regale you with this story, that’s all of literally one week old.
Last Sunday, I’m going through the Facebook bilge- same as ever- a while ago there’s this guy who made a post about selling an 87 Civic hatch, 1000 obo, says he’s moving and has to get rid of it. Don’t make too much of it. Well Sunday night comes around, says he’s moving out Thursday, car HAS to be gone before then, FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE. And well, I’ll be honest, the 3G Civic pages are about as active as this forum, there’s posts and activity, but no crazy rush, my comment, and one other guys make it to the post. I shoot him a message, tell him I’m into Hondas, send him some pictures of the car I’m supposed to be talking about in this thread, and we get to talking. To my amazement, the odometer reads 80K, the engine has been rebuilt (and still unfired at the time I’m writing this) and probably the straightest, most rust free Honda I’ve come to know. The catch? He’s three states south of me in Kentucky. So I call Wednesday off and make a trek down, bringing with me the wheels the Civic didn’t have and some tools. Grab a U haul once I’m in town, and pick it up. Can’t turn down a free car.
10631
10632
And MAN, I’ll be honest, for FREE, I couldn’t be more blown away, this car very much has come value, and it’s nuts that I own it. The haul near the end was brutal, but I made it back in one piece, and the car really is in incredible shape. It’s an auto, and the previous owner says he broke the front pump of the trans when he mated the motor together, so that’s what halted the cars progress. Understandable. The car came with everything that’s come off of it, and so after getting the front end loosely back together, it looks far more respectable (and yes, long term readers, I picked up those Si Hubcaps a couple years ago and had them on the car known as the B-Cord, and they’re coming out of storage yet again to look sweet on this car) and really complete the cardboard box that makes me love these cars
10633
And if I haven’t mentioned it, the interior on this car is near spotless, featuring the 3 spoke steering wheel that I adore, factory radio and awesome brown on brown action, it’s in great shape, and only needs a few pieces of plastic and a few tears in the driver’s seat addressed to be practically new.
10634
As it turns out, I have access to most of the plastic I need. Actually nearly everything I need to bring this car back to life. If you scroll up and back some, you might remember I laughingly put a 85 Civic front end on my Accord, and it turns out that the feces filled, mouse infested rusted wreck of a car that’s currently sitting in a junkyard is an absolute diamond in the rough. I made a list of everything that I’ve found that’s broken, scuffed or beat on the Tan Civic and went with my fists clenched and nose pinched last Sunday, and had a blast making a huge junkyard haul, this photo taken shortly after I had finished pulling perhaps the most crucial part from this blue hatch, the manual transmission.
10635
That’s right- I’m manual swapping the Civic, which I think is a great idea, top to bottom. Now I’m sure you can tell by looking closely, but here’s what I pulled from the yard. Complete manual conversion (trans, flywheel, clutch ((buying a new one, don’t worry)), pedal cluster, cable, and shift linkage) optional rear mudflaps, optional passenger side rear view mirror, weatherstripping that was crumbling on the Tan car, A pillar trim- same story, two functional center dash vents (both toast on my car), new upper timing cover (one on my hatch was rattle canned gold), front bumper (tan hatch has some teeth missing, and both the turn signal lenses were toasted), and everything I need to convert it to the cooler-looking recessed headlight look of the pre-facelift car. Not totally necessary, but I think a nice thing. I’m so geeked at how much that was bad on my hatch was good on this car. I’m just too excited. And I should mention, all this, plus the new clutch that’s in the mail right now has only set me back 300 bucks. Really, really not bad all things considered, I can’t imagine trying to source all this otherwise, especially for that cheap!
10639

B0CKS

03-08-2021, 12:13 PM

Okay, honestly, I know I just made a stream of posts, truth is- it’s been like a week since I drafted them up, but I hadn’t found the time to post! And well, since time has passed since then, I’ve got MORE UPDATES.

It’s all Civic based, but I mean, it’s a third gen, and it’s been the only thing occupying my frontal lobe, so Imma write about it. Plus its ultimate purpose is meant to be sacrificed on the grand altar for the paint budget for the Accord, soooooooo- technically?

Anyways, enough preface! I’ve been ramming information through my skull on this car, and admittedly, my home grown crash course has not revealed everything I needed to know. For starters- no front end swap is gonna be possible, so that’s a bummer. The stamped header panel is way more different than I thought, so no beans. Shoot, was really looking forward to those recessed headlights. Past that, it turns out that the swapping the pre-facelift bumper is also a hassle and underwent a complete redesign, meaning I need a whole bunch more brackets to using a bumper with all of it’s grille slats intact. Really makes me appreciate our Accords and how interchangeable all the parts are. So moving from the front end, here’s what’s under the hood, obviously the coolest thing is a complete vacuum delete and a Weber, but truth be told, since the plan is suck as much currency as I can out of this car, I’ll be reverting back to the original rat nest of vacuum lines and strangled factory carb and selling the Weber. Just more bang for buck.
10640
Come last Saturday I started in on the Manual trans swap! Had a great early morning start and enjoyed a clean barn, some peaceful tunes, sun beams and simple wrenching getting familiar with this painfully clean Civic, I wish I could live that part of Saturday every day!
10641
And well, complications came fast, like very. Dropping the transmission wasn’t anything too serious, and pulling off all the rust free bits were a breeze. But that was almost the exact same time I found out the crank shafts were transmission specific. AAAAAAAAAA. So, took a minute and ripped some hair out, but amazingly enough, one of my Dad’s friends who was around to lend a hand amazingly already knew someone who was not only into these cars, but after a quick phone call, has a spare manual EW motor for parts, that he said he’d be more than willing to hand off his crank… FOR FREE.
So with that sorted (amazingly enough), that means that doing a crank swap will entail an engine pull, so we got back to it and dunked the auto trans into the auto trans hole so we could pluck out the motor, then set the car down, unplugged the last few hoses that were strung to the motor and gave it a tug from the top. Enjoy the corny photo of yours truly & friends with another kill. We happened to take the same one with the Custom Cruisers 455 a week earlier. We enjoyed poking fun at how much of a smaller catch this was than the big fish V8 from the days prior.
10642
So, engine out, it meant it was time to see if I really did land myself a freshly built motor or if I had picked up snake oil. Turns out the previous owner was true to his word, brand new gaskets, new oil, fresh filter, belt, water pump and you name it adorned this motor, we were blown away at the newness of practically everything.
10643
But the next thing to do was correct the sins of the previous owner’s paintwork, the purple spray job was factually a sin- there was no prep work so it was literally falling off the top, and the gold timing cover was scornful, so, after more hours than I kept track of, the valve cover was fully stripped of both factory paint and rattlecan with a half-pound of aircraft remover, and the junkyard timing cover cleaned up great to replace the gold plastic. The black powdercoat looks factory fresh, and all the cast brackets already caught their time in the sandblaster and oven, the AC and alternator brackets are now also that clean black.
10644
In the same vein, the crusty, kinda rusty pedal cluster also received the powder coating love, here’s the factory part, honestly not in bad shape for the environment it existed in, but clearly has room for improvement.
10645
Few hours later, and here we go. More full black powder goes to use, along with a less worn set of pedal pads happily donated from the B-Cord. Feels great, and barely reminds you of a the decade of mouse piss it lived in. Just gotta do this to every part that comes off, and before I know it, this Civic will gleam like it should!
10646

So that about wraps that up! There’s small stuff I’m glossing over, but it’s been a wild couple weeks, that’s for sure. And while I’m hauling away at the keyboard, there’s also been serious consideration for a K20 swap. And by K20 swap, it’d be just that, nothing more. No lowering, no cool wheels, just a total sleeper build with the ability to lathe 13 inch wheels to nothing with ease. I priced it out, Cheddas is just about to come out with new K series mounts, Insane Axles has the axles covered, my friend who’s been cordially helping with wiring on the Accord would be more than happy to build the harness, and so all I’d need to specifically sort is the exhaust and a parts car to source a heart from. Unfortunately, the rate of return doesn’t make sense, building this car as cheaply and as factory as possible gives me roughly the same rate of return as does building this car out, with a 1/3 of the cost involved, which is far less of a gamble when the core goal of this car is to turn it into cash for the Accord. So huge darn, in another life.

Dr_Snooz

03-14-2021, 09:30 PM

Do you ever sleep?

B0CKS

03-15-2021, 09:16 AM

Do you ever sleep?

More than I'd like. :rofl:

B0CKS

03-22-2021, 10:40 AM

Truth is, I am currently fully distracted from my Accord. So I apologize about posting like solely about the wrong third Gen Honda in advance. Just been having a total blast with this car, really excited to get it on the road in these next couple weeks!

But I’ve been HAULIN on this Civic, lots and lots of little jobs squared up over this past week. Some small stuff like installing the front pair of new Rockford Fosgate speakers, fixing rattles in the both door’s B-Pillar trim, another great junkyard haul checking off a ton of little things that I’m hunting down (Unbroken dipstick, some trim, front crash brackets and supports, the works!) And have been refinishing parts left and right! Which is great on this budget build! Let’s start with that- refinishing! A whole bunch of stuff has gone through the sandblasting and powdercoat process, seen below are the main front bumper crash brackets (I’m converting the front end to a pre-facelift 85 front bumper) and so the side brackets, and larger main brackets went from junkyard rust to a clean, even sheen of satin black, along with a scraped up battery tray, clutch cable bracket, a few lasercut bits, the works! Been a blast making all of it new again. (get it??)
10664
Then, the boss battle of the aircleaner was also put through the process- holy cow- this thing had like easily a couple dozen parts to remove from to rip off for sandblasting prep, it was nuts! But it was fully sandblasted and caught a clean layer of powder, along with the cap, I was able to keep the 12-Valve sticker intact as it was removed and re-apply it (with the help of some spray adhesive) to give it that nice factory look.) really like the way this came out! The EGR vacuum release was also lightly sandblasted and sprayed with GM Satin black (not shown in this photo) and is a perfect match for the part! You’ll have to wait until the car is back together to spot it!
10665
Also paint stripped the Brake booster from it’s ugly, porous gold and gave it a fresh layer of black, should look good for the time being!
10666
There also came the problem of the flywheel, it needed to be refinished, and with a spout of redneck engineering along with the urge to save a few bucks, the image below was a thing that really occurred, we took the wire wheel off one of grinder stands and got enough hardware together to build this non-concentric monstrosity. After a bit of sandblasting and some steel wool, we had a nice clean surface that should be able to withstand the insane amount of 62.23 horsepower this engine will be throwing at it. If it looks stupid, but works, it aint stupid.
10667
The largest project of the weekend was tearing down the transmission for an inspection (check out that shiny flywheel! Success!)- and well, it was an adventure. After a bit of battle, it came apart!
10668
And due to photo constraints (and lack of focus) we’ll just skip to the good stuff, and not show any of the teardown, and instead focus on hand grenade that was this trans. I believe I wrote about the dilemma we found while aiming to swap out the transmission, the lack of input bearing on the flywheel? Yes? Well we tore down the transmission and found the input shaft to have a bit more wobble than we liked, and a pretty silver slurry of junk down in the corners of the transmission, definitely some metal shavings and chunks. WELL, it turns out, the lack of the outer input shaft bearing put more stress on the inner main bearing than Honda intended in the 130K miles the junkyard car this trans came out of, and killed that bearing. There we seven ball bearings left over in what I can only assume the original 12+ that were originally in the bearing. At some point, it had started shooting those out into the rest of the gears and getting mauled, which was probably the reason that blue hatch was taken off the road originally, as I’m sure the transmission was making some awful noises with a rattling input shaft. Well anyways, we needed to pull out this toasted bearing to replace it with a good part, and so, after finding out our strongest bit didn’t even dent the out ring, we took the 7 bearings (back out of the trash), loaded them into place, then spaced them out evenly across the bearing races. Then, we took any hardware we could find, shoved them into the gaps to prevent the bearings from rolling, then took a drift and hammered on the main race, and like clockwork, the bearing popped out without issue. Absolutely HUGE win!! Saving that tip for the future for sure!
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With the transmission gutted, the next step was to put it back together and plug it up (blue tape being used as a stand in gasket for those dying to know) and brought it over to a friend’s who very recently got his VAPOR BLASTER(!!!!!!!!!) up and running! What your seeing below is the result of a couple of hours of blasting, resulting in a part with a practically new, bare aluminum finish!! It looks AMAZING. Not at all like a cheap part that spent the better part of this century covered in mouse crap and dirt!
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And, another angle, just to show off how good a job we did.
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So it’s not functional and loaded with gears and shafts just yet, gotta wait for a new bearing to show up- but in the meantime, I’ll be restoring all the brackets, wiring, and (fingers crossed) zinc plating the hardware! Which would be SUPER sweet. But with that coming together, and intake manifold gaskets I need also coming in the mail soon, we should be on the uphill of reassembly very soon! Been having a ton of fun with this project!

Dr_Snooz

03-23-2021, 08:45 PM

Oh it's so clean! Now if it blows up in the first 300 miles, you'll win the coveted Dr_Snooz award.

Honda#1

03-27-2021, 02:00 PM

B0CKS

04-19-2021, 12:15 PM

WOW!! That's amazing!! Keep it up!

Thank you!! I couldn't have said it better myself! I'm doing all I can!

- - - Updated - - -

Oh it's so clean! Now if it blows up in the first 300 miles, you'll win the coveted Dr_Snooz award.

Hahahaahahahaahahaa, I'll send you my address pre-emptively!

B0CKS

04-19-2021, 12:19 PM

Yo! So how many eternities has it been? Seven? A thousand? (oh, almost literally a month.) Whoops. I still frequent around here, but never find the time to type! Maybe it has something to do with the moon phases? Stock market? Chinese New Year? Has the groundhog seen it’s shadow this year? I’m not sure. I should just post more.

Unfortunately, this is going to be more of the “Wrong” 3Gee- my Civic! Work has been going fairly steady on it, the goal is to have this (and my moped that’s been sitting for a year) both wrapped up by the end of this month- then I’m trying to schedule all of next Month as Accord readiness month, which is going to be the BIG PUSH to get everything done on the Accord before June! So much to do!!!

Going way back, let’s review what I’ve gotten done! I’ve got the manual pedal cluster in place, after a few install mistakes, I now know I have everything I need properly in place! And it looks great down there, even if you can’t see diddly.
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Then, looking to the right side of this image, I’ve drilled the two necessary holes for the shift linkage, as well as made a simple closeout part for the auto shift cables! That’s nice to have wrapped up! The main hole here is still too large for the shift linkage, so I’ll have to devise some plan to close it out to prevent noise and water coming through there, but I’m sure I can figure something out!
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A small detail here, but I’m proud- got the harmonic balancer through the powder setup, and then took some white pinstripe paint (that I bought for the Manaray refinishing project forever ago!) and marked up the timing marks! They pop so NICE.
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And, hopping into transmission land here, it’s been a journey and half making everything work. I believed I mentioned it last post, but the main input shaft bearing was TOAST, so I had to get a new one- and oil seal for the shaft, which is always fun, because I love NOS Honda parts! Also, check out the four speed shift knob! It’s from an EF, not an EA, but hey, it looks sweet, so no problem!
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Getting the replacement input shaft bearing in was amazingly easy, I threw it in the freezer for a few hours, and with one solid thunk from a rubber mallet, the bearing dropped right in. What was most likely the reason that blue Civic ended up in the junkyard has now been repaired! And good for another ~120000 miles? Sweeet!
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So with that all fixed up, the next step was to get the trans together! A friend of mine wanted to get to know more about how physical transmissions work, and didn’t want to make an hour and a half drive from Detroit to Lansing, so we met in the middle at my apartment and assembled it there! I felt pretty cool for being fully prepared and actually grabbing all the tools we needed for the build, plus it’s always fun to get up to car s*** on carpet. Feels fancy.
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And I’m sure this type of image is getting old, but the endless powdercoating never stops, here’s a handful of parts that went through the cycle!
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This is a fun detail of the auto swap, the reverse light switch is triggered by the shift arm in the center console on auto cars, and on manual cars, it’s done by a button (seen below) at the end of the transmission. So I tore down the main engine harness, took a matching engine harness connector I had snipped out of the blue Civic, wired it in at the same place the rest of the engine connectors went, wrapped that all in sheathing, then cut a hole in an unused grommet and fed the wiring through there under the carpet. In short, I’m really proud with this perfectly OE appearance install- felt nice having everything blend in and work perfect! Still need a pinout for the auto shifter to wire it in at the console, but that’s just learning some colors!
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B0CKS

04-19-2021, 12:24 PM

After much contemplation and consideration, I’ve decided to go with a DeVac for the factory carb, something that’s always been just out of reach on my Accords, and even though the Civic Vacuum harness is very near complete, it’s an absolute monster- and there were a bunch of things that just weren’t quiiiiite there to be make for a clean install. So, goblet of wine, marble table, a screwdriver and some very helpful youtube videos and the carb was torn down pretty quick!
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Next step now that the carb was prepped was join the trans with a new clutch, throwout bearing, “resurfaced” flywheel, and pressure plate! Looks good to me!
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With all that done, it was time to drop the motor in! So, put on some nice, loud ambient tunes, cracked open the door with some nicer weather and patiently got in by myself! Had a great time!
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The next step was the vacuum delete, I had already built and installed my blockoff plates, then ran the new four vacuum lines I needed, as well as plugged all the open ports on the carb, and with the air cleaner assembly back on, it still looks like a proper engine bay, and much less of a headache than the factory chaos!
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But, in a cruel turn of events, we found a lot of slop in the shift linkage, turns out the ball joint found in the base of the transmission that connects the shift linkage to the selector forks didn’t seat properly, so, teardown is a go. (I’ve noticed that with every Civic I’ve owned, I’ve ended up doing this. The Beanis- a 99 EK had an axle issue that was at one point troubleshot by removing the trans, the 88 EF had a clutch cable issue that was resolved after a trans drop, and now this! I’m cursed.) We got it sorted as well as buttoned up a few other small issues we found, so it was worthwhile, but certainly a pain! We also learned that I’ve got brand new 88 CRX HF calipers on it, so the 87 pads I bought for the brakes were not useful. :beat:
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But with all that knowledge and toil gained, we’ve got to the point of putting in the battery and giving it it’s first crank! The neutral safety switch is currently open, so no go for a startup, but I did get to see what the status of the lighting situation was- and well, we had 4 dead bulbs in it, the right passenger rear turn and running light was out, as well as the front left running light, and the right bumper-mounted turn was also dead. But we were happy to find a lack of wiring issues, there’s something funky with the turn signal/wiper stalk wiring, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a teardown gave that the life it needs! The interior lights all did what they should, same with the wipers (editors note- we also powdercoated the arms to be a fresh matte black, looks SO good!) and even the radio does everything we could ask of it! Not bad at all!
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So there we go! Hopefully the next update includes a lot of photos of this thing outside of our driveway!
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P.S. Been taking the downtime I find myself having outside of work, the barn, and a social life to take on a little side project of designing 4x100 wheels for no... particular ;) purpose. Been having a blast with it, currently only got like 8 on the line, but shooting to make a portfolio of about 30 ish before some sort of big debut!
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Dr_Snooz

04-19-2021, 07:39 PM

Trans teardown mounted in the car. I think there's medication for that.

ShiRen

04-20-2021, 04:32 AM

You start talking about vacuum deletes and I start howling and foaming at the mouth. The way god intended. My wife can't resist me when I crank my car over for 3 minutes on a moderately cool morning.

Shane86

05-07-2021, 01:40 AM

Amazing build more updates lol

B0CKS

05-11-2021, 07:32 AM

Trans teardown mounted in the car. I think there's medication for that.

Man I sure hope there is. Felt like a really exotic form of torture, way better than the everyday waterboarding and death by guillotine.

You start talking about vacuum deletes and I start howling and foaming at the mouth. The way god intended. My wife can't resist me when I crank my car over for 3 minutes on a moderately cool morning.

Lmaooooo, I'm hoping (like PLEASE) that the manual choke install has this sorted. But if not, ZUGZUGZUGZUGZUGZUGZUGZUGUZGZUGZUGZUGZUGZUGZUGZUGZU GZUGZUGZUGZUGZUGZUGZUGZUG

Amazing build more updates lol

Hahahaha, alright! Just finished up another draft! Here we go!

B0CKS

05-11-2021, 07:35 AM

Hey! Definitely not to the point of constant Monday updates, but things have suddenly really ramped up suddenly for the Hondas!

Let’s talk Accord stuff first! There’s a lot of things I need to sort STAT for paint, so let’s find em out! The first (and admittedly, SUPER exciting) thing I’ve been working on is sorting out a supplier for all my 3D printing needs. The printer I have has chosen the life of being pretty darn unreliable, so I’ve decided to outsource the prints I need, so I can get them reliably, and for pretty reasonable prices! Saves me a lot of hassle, and to be honest, I don’t know how much time I want to spend troubleshooting printer issues on such a closing deadline! So, after reaching out in a handful of 3D printing groups I’m in, I’ve found a great guy with a rather massive printer, happy to print nearly anything I need! The spoiler I designed a while ago is Priority A- I’m going to be having it painted body color, and so I need to get it to the shop in time to be sprayed! I originally designed the part to be printed in five chunks so I could fit it in my printer, but found that with his in use, we only needed two. I originally designed a pretty cool key and lock system, but with these two parts I’ve decided to subsidize them for the use of two 12”+ long rods, mine will be printed to join the halves, but once I’m “producing” these spoilers to be sold, we can use 1/2” wood dowels instead!
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So, I’ve still got plenty of work to do, I’d like to make an instruction booklet, design the clear vinyl quarter panel corner protectors, and build a series of kits to get these done, I’ll also be finishing the part myself, so that’ll take some time too! But the guy printing this kindly infused the center, and once that’s dry, we can ship it along with a bit of other printed stuff! Very, very excited for that!
10773
But honestly, even though I’m freaking psyched about all that coming together, Sunday was certainly the highlight of the week- because I got to buy one very, very big tool that I’m more than excited to use. I had to wake up at 6 am, pack a Suburban full of junk, hook on a trailer with a couple friends and head 250 miles South. Why? Because in the middle of Shirley Indiana, I was getting a stellar deal on a never-been-used, DirectLift 3000 lbs capacity BODY ROTISSIRIE!!!!(!!!!!!!!!!!) And got to haul it all the way back up to Lansing. These normally retail for about 1200 new, and minus some dirt, and maybe a hundred in gas and food- buying it for 800 bucks was hands down the best deal I was going to find in the time we had to sort one. It’s a quality kit, and looks like it will be more than adequate for the shell of the Accord and a ’71 Pontiac Lemans later on down the line. Can’t believe this is actually happening, seemed like such an ethereal idea that’s actually falling into reality, just gotta keep on wrenching to get to the next stage!
10774
Now the CIVIC, on the other hand, has been very upset about existing, although it’s been fun ironing out details and sorting out it’s final little issues before it can be a full on car again. Let’s start with some more basic stuff, the leaks! There were a couple small mistakes I made putting it together, one was a simple fuel leak, didn’t have a plug fully seated, and once I got that sorted, no more gas was pouring out from where it shouldn’t have! The other was a rather massive coolant leak, turns out the o-ring on the rear coolant tube was toast, so after a bit of a teardown, I got that repaired too! Yay. Also had to roll out the Accord to get the Civic in the bay, I love how much they aren’t the same.
10775
I also finished my wiring on the manual trans swap- got both reverse lights wired, so that sorts out pretty much the final lighting issues I need to on the car! Whoo! I also looped the neutral safety switch, which allows me to start the car with ease- but that said, gotta lock in the habit of starting the car with clutch in!
10780
The next issue was well- interesting. After those repairs, an 80 degree day came around, and I discovered that my car had morphed into an IED, the engine, intake and exhaust manifold had filled up with gas that it was literally brewing out the carb- which is BAD. Like VERY BAD. Because not only would that really easily hydrolock the motor, if there was any chance of spark, my car would most likely level a city block. Well, that’s a little dramatic, but I’d probably be dead, so same difference if you ask me. SO, had to figure that out, and after staring and a few phone calls, in my vacuum delete haze, I found a simple cap on the firewall plugging a random line. That line happened to be the gas tank vent tube, so with that plugged, the gas in the car expanded, pushed into the fuel line, and then lifted the float with all it’s pressure and flowed into the carb, and subsequently the motor, and in massive quantities. So I then drained all the oil (and gas that mixed) pulled the plugs and let them drain, added a new load of break in oil, cranked the motor (and unloaded a ton of gas from cylinder 3) then threw the plugs back in and wiped all the sweat from my forehead. Jeez. Interesting episode.
10781
With that done, there’s still more carburetor chaos to go through, upon trying to start it, we found that the two o-rings at the top of the float point were toast, so fuel decided to start pouring out the top! Woo! We fit two o rings in to replace the dead ones, and then found that they were too large to fit the hole- after doing a really good job hand tightening it has hard was we could, so dangit. Had to the head to the junkyard yesterday and pick up a carb top to just swap out the whole chunk, so tomorrows task will be finding out that I’ve bought bought some junk, and need to wait another few weeks to find one that works lmao.
10778

B0CKS

05-11-2021, 07:42 AM

Okay, Im splitting this off into another post! Too geeked to not share, even though we still got work to do! I’ve been away from the barn quarantining to due to a possible Covid scare, but I’m fine! Right before this breakout, I was able to find a 3D SCANNING SERVICE! Ya know, FOR PARTS. Which is AWESOME! The main reason I was looking for one was for the hood scoop project, but more updates on that as we go. I wanted to do a trial run on two parts I’ve been wanting to get scanned for… well years at this point- and it’ll take some real eagle-eyed fans (well, I mean, anyone who reads this is probably in the know) who can recognize the parts I got 3d scanned.
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If you guessed: very fragile two-piece armrest lower and a doorhandle bezel nested inside it, you’d be correct! Starting with the armrest, this is my community service, I’ve got the full, one piece part in my Accord already- so I won’t be needing this, but I’ve wanted a 3D printed solution to these since forever, so I’m happy I can finally get this data together. And, with a supplier for printing coming in right on time, that would let me outsource the part I dread most and make it a pretty easy thing to get these spread into our group. I should also mention that I don’t have an upper for this part, but the very kind member of the Facebook group, Robert Ettinger is shipping one he has, and letting me scan that- which I am eternally grateful for! Clearly the missing part of the puzzle. And as for the top and clip, I still have the chunks from the one I had that exploded, so I can reverse engineer those from there. One more note- if you look closely at the model vs the scan (scan is grey) You’ll notice some different angles and surfaces from one to the other, that’s because I’m optimizing this part so it’s as print friendly as possible- reducing the use of supports means it uses less material, which = less print time = lower costs! GOOD.
10785
Then, the thing I’m more proud of than I should be? Is this second part. History lesson first- I bought component speakers like two years back and have been trying to figure out how to integrate the 1” component speakers for a long time. I designed answer A a long while back, with a separate, similarly styled bezel that mounts right in front of the door handle, which is clean, but still aftermarket. So- after a long conversation with my Dad like a year+ ago, here’s an idea we came up with:
10784
Really straightforward, I know- but I needed to get the doorhandle into 3D if I wanted to make it work- and the ability to do that finally came around last Monday with 3D scanning! Once I got the bezel in data, I lined up my model for the tweeter surround, and worked on combining the two! I think the result is really pro- these two parts interlock around the tweeter- and then use the factory hole to mount, and a tab at the front to swedge into the door card, that should result in a nice, tight fit! I’ve left design clearance in the part so the dark gray part can be wrapped in fabric- ideally from the cloth found just right beneath it in location- the factory speaker cloth! This would allow for a rather factory looking part, of course, if you’re a fan of the more technical look of the plastic on its own, that can be done too!
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Oh hey! And I’ve been designing more wheels. 15 down, 15 to go! It’s some work!
10782
Alright that was all overdue, but I’m hopefully getting the Civic to run tonight, then going to California for some junkyarding. Toodles!

Jinnai

05-11-2021, 08:30 AM

Dr_Snooz

05-11-2021, 05:44 PM

It just keeps getting cooler! Thanks!

B0CKS

05-21-2021, 07:48 AM

3D scanning? I'm very interested in replacing some parts that are completely destroyed by the sun. How might we go about getting a duplicate of the vent in the top of the door? There's a few other parts that just get obliterated.

Oh, also, I love the tweeter idea, it will look really smooth when put all together!

Oh snap! I was thinking about those! And probably the seatbelt surround too right? Maybe, they'd be a pain to sand, but I'll put it on the checklist of possible parts to make! I know Snooz also has an armful of parts he want's to see back in circulation, sooooooo...

It just keeps getting cooler! Thanks!

Thank YOU Snooz! Trying to nail down and freaking finish all the loose ideas that I've blathered about since forever!

B0CKS

05-21-2021, 07:49 AM

Hey! Had a freaking whirlwind weekend, and we’re back with a few updates!

First off, I went to California last weekend! Friday afternoon to Tuesday, and had a fantastic time catching up and exploring the place I’d love to call home in the future! Pardon the corny photo of the us, but Angeles crest is crazy photogenic, too bad I mucked it up with my ugly mug on the left there. I’d love to share a ton of photos I took, but this blog is about Late 80’s Honda Accords, and the file count limit has me holding back.
10806
But ANYWAYS. Let’s talk Accord! This post is gonna be a whole blend of the content and chaos going on, so this post is gonna be kinda ADD in direction, so you’ve been warned! The biggest item of the week is that my first batch of 3D printed parts came in! We’ll start with the speaker risers- the wedges you can see under the Carrozzerias on the rear package shelf there. I’ve talked about them before, but now they’re printed in durable and tough ABS, and fit to finally be a finished part! I got to give them a good sand last night and they’re really nice parts. There’s a few details I’d like to add to them, but it’s fairly subtle stuff. I think I’m going to add a period correct Pioneer logo to the front of each wedge to make it a more unique part, then lasercut a stainless steel spacer to place between the speaker and wedge to break that large front slab up some. Little stuff, but that’s the muck we’re rolling through right now.
10807
The printed part is yet another iteration of the center console armrest pocket. This thing has been the multi-role space since forever, and well- I finally settled on this being its use. The two inputs there are the subwoofer control knob and the Bluetooth amp controller, letting me toggle between the Cockpit and Bluetooth input. I flocked the top (might need to do it again) to have it match the console and I think it gives it a really pro look for being a kinda simple form. Yeah?
10808
And lastly, lets talk about the largest part- the spoiler! So while I’m freaking GEEKED to finally be seeing this, it looks like there wasn’t enough crown in the design to match the curvature of the trunk, so while this print was 250 bucks I’d love to get back, I think there may be one more round of surfacing before I’m truly happy with it. If you look close, you can see the ends want to bow away the car, which means this design is too flat. I’ve already updated the data and moved the corners 10mm forward (1cm just doesn’t sound like a worthy change, so 10mm it is lmao) and that should have it fixed. This part is freaking SOLID though, I’m super impressed with the print quality, but the fact that is just isn’t quiiiiiiiiite there is a real kick in the teeth.
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And so that’s about it for physical updates on the Accord at the moment! In terms of digital work, I’ve been refining surfaces for the door handle/tweeter combo, it still needs some work to be called a finished part, I’ve got a few more wheel designs I’ve been poking on, and then there’s a (very) small part I’ve been meaning to hammer out since forever, so here it is. The PCV outlet going to the airbox. This little detail mounts below the cold air intake in the airbox, and is my engineered answer to the bung on the CAI arm that I deleted. I realize that this photo tells you all of nothing, but I’ll install it and clear up it’s purpose soon.
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Now let’s talk Civic- it’s been inop since last week- we got it running decently this week and started the break in process, and then found it didn’t want to do any sort running the next morning. It’s still got the tank vent issue oddly enough, and so it’s been a bit of headache. I may just throw in the towel and let the pros handle it. We’ll see. But! On a brighter note, I got to go junkyarding in California and pick up some very nice Cali-grade bits for it. While the 86 that was at the yard was pretty trashed, it had exactly what I was looking for! The logo on the valve cover being one (look how NICE it looks!!) a very clean, factory 4 speed shift knob, and a rear-defrost button that DOESN’T stick. Not some crazy haul, but really nice to be getting the final lil things picked up.
10811
Spiraling out some more, here’s some wheels that AREN’T for my car! I promised my best friend back in February that his birthday present would be a set of hard-to-find 1994 Beretta Z28 wheels for his Fiero, and every time a set popped up, they’d be a good price, but around 400 miles out of reach, so when a Beretta dropped into a yard only an hour and a half away, I had to jump on it! The tires were plenty toast, and were kindly removed by my friend who works at a dealership, and a new set of tread is currently in the mail, much to my excitement! They should be freaking SWEET, can’t wait to see how they look on his car. I’ve always loved the wheels and think they’ll be the perfect application for his factory+ build.
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Also also, I just wanna gush about this- but my daily driver- a 2013 Sonic, is due for some maintenance, it’ll need a timing belt ASAP, a new strut, and some other junk, but that’s not important. What IS important a random link a friend of mine sent me the other week. ZZPerformance, a leader in aftermarket parts for the Sonic, Cruze, and other commuter grade Chevy’s was having a sale on body kits. Wait, sale isn’t the right word. My friend sent me a link that one of their body kits for the Sonic specifically was marked down from $280 USD to FREE. Let me reiterate, FREE. Just pick it up or pay for shipping. And well- ZZ is located in Grand Rapids, an hour and a half from me, and about ten minutes away from my brother. So! I placed an order, expecting to get punked the whole time. And well, against literally all of my expectations, look at this photo below. Freaking full on, GM Spec “Dusk” bodykit. It’s brand new, in perfect condition, and literally cost me no dollars. None. Zero. I have no idea how this happened, but I guess my DD is going to get a randomly sweet upgrade in the coming months. Or I could just sell it and shovel into the Accord moneypit instead. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
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So. Yeah. Sorry for the split post into all the random nether regions of the barn, but hey, it’s what’s going on, and this youtube channel is always desperate for content, so I guess it’s just showbiz baby.

Also! Learning exactly from literally none of my mistakes that I was just talking about- we just finished our refresh on the 71 Custom Cruiser, tore out the block and trans, refreshed the whole interior and engine bay, anyone wanna see?

Jinnai

05-21-2021, 08:38 AM

Wow, why can't I ever get a free body kit!? That's so cool...

For the 3D scanning of parts, if it helps, I can take the parts out of mine and send them to you, if you can get someone to scan them.

B0CKS

05-21-2021, 10:37 AM

Wow, why can't I ever get a free body kit!? That's so cool...

For the 3D scanning of parts, if it helps, I can take the parts out of mine and send them to you, if you can get someone to scan them.

No stress! I've got more than my fair share of a hoard- I'm pretty sure I've got duplicates and then some of just about every interior part at this point. :toilet: But I really appreciate the offer!! Thanks for being willing to help with getting parts reproduced!!

Man I know!! I'm still waiting for the catch!

Jinnai

05-21-2021, 11:30 AM

B0CKS

05-24-2021, 06:17 AM

Psh, it's purely mercenary :) I had two identical accords, one with tint and one without. The one without tint, all the plastic bits of the interior were trashed, turned to dust, and the one with tint they're okay for now, but I don't have a garage and I see the damage creeping in. They'll eventually need replaced at this rate.

Man! Kinda neat to see the science, it's surprising how that saved your interior parts. But yeah absolutely! The door handle bezel's I had are also doing the same thing, and there were quite a few chunks on the Civic that needed the same process, it's amazing how they just want to turn to dust.

And yeah! If there's demand, it's not too complex a part to make, so if I can muster the motivation, it's definitely in the realm of buildable!

B0CKS

05-24-2021, 06:19 AM

Yo! Only been a minute, but I guess I got another 8 photos to upload- so let’s get through it!

The Civic finally got a wash- it’s been sitting outside since I got it, and being that we basically live in the woods and it’s late Spring it absolutely SNOWS pollen, and the thing had picked up a pretty solid coat of grim, so this was a much needed clean- and it looks EONS better than it had been. A polish would really liven it up, but still!
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We also put some time and further thought into the Carrozzeria speaker wedges- and well, it let me to buy these two towers for literally only ten bucks. And yes- you probably noticed that that’s not exactly the most regular car part- but here’s the thing. I only needed one very small part from the towers.
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And that was the badges at the top of the grille! The speaker wedges looking pretty slab-tastic when viewed from the front of car looking back, so I want to the break that wall-of-a-front-end up with some details, and after skimming though ebay (which had surprisingly thin pickings) we were able to only find one badge that fit the bill for having the correct logo, and in the correct size- but they only had one, and it was 15 bucks- which means a quick search for Pioneer speakers led me to score this pair of empty towers! I couldn’t be happier, and so I plucked the badges and mocked em up (check out that thumb!) And they’re perfect for what I’m looking for! This car sure leads me on weird adventures.
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The next checklist item I needed to square up was the airbox- and step one was fixing a goof I made while designing the part. This thing has been through ~5 iterations of getting things to be a proper fit and design, and when I ordered the final part- I forgot to include the three necessary bolts to mount the box to the support arm. So I made a quick template that included the holes I needed and threw the box on the press to correct my goober.
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So with that done, what I needed next was a big handful of rivnuts, while you’d think it’d make sense to have the whole thing welded up, it turns out I need to be able to crack open the box for assembly and service, as seen below. The dense amount of rivnuts makes the part look pretty uhhhh, metal- for lack of a better word, but function is certainly outweighing form in this department.
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Pardon my disintegrating photo quality, my Iphone is kinda on his last legs, and a new phone isn’t in the scope for quite some time while the Accord is going to be sucking every spare penny out of my hands for a while. But anyways- this fuzzy photos shows the whole assembly in place and sealed- The next step will be marking up the hood for where the inlet hole goes, and finishing all the weather sealing for the top and edges of the box.
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Last on this quick list of things I’ve been wanting to button up is correcting the bumper fitment by adding the second two of four quick release points to the Prelude bumper. I bored out the two factory mounting holes to fit the two buttons (see those red arrows?) So now there’s two buttons on the bottom, two mounted to a lasercut sheet on the top and the two slides in the corner, making for a firm mounting system that I’m quite happy with.
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To see the real difference, and how necessary these points were, here’s a side by side of the bumper with just the two upper points holding it on (left) and a photo of all four points holding the bumper (right), which is a huge change from making this car go from slack jawed to tense. It needs a little bit of tweaking, as the passenger side corner is riding just a little higher than the driver, but the release buttons are adjustable, so I don’t doubt it’s a solvable problem. Really geeked about this little change, it’s been something I’ve been dreaming of fixing for months now, and I’m really glad to see how clean this install was. I’m also really excited about this system because it’s very easy to replicate, so if this bumper is one day biffed and needs to be replaced, I don’t need to spend lots of time using fancy locators to make a replacement bumper fit.
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So yeah! Expect a lot of these future posts to be things we’ve seen before, just doing the final do-dads needed to make these systems functional.

ShiRen

05-24-2021, 09:11 AM

B0CKS

05-24-2021, 10:00 AM

Youre building a racecar after this right? I wan't to see this level of off the meds ADHD put towards a weird 300+hp, aggressively stanced, fat tired car with equal amounts of weird parts and overcomplication. I would take the baton, but I would probably have to live in my garage to keep myself focused and my wife would leave me.

:lol::lol: I mean, I'll admit there is one idea that I'd love to get around to, something that's been floating around my head since right before I bought my first Accord- a 2JZ powered 1975 Plymouth Valiant Sedan- widebody, four bride racing seats, big ole BBS wheels, and all the chaos. Now this wasn't specifically supposed to be that exact build, but I threw this together (freaking half a decade ago) as a fun play on the idea. if I ever (lmao, as if) finish the Accord, I'd love to sling this together. Get all of the jank out of my system that I've been trying to hold of on this thing. :rolleyes:
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ShiRen

05-24-2021, 10:40 AM

Thats strange, very large, and 4 doored lol. I go back and forth between naturally aspirated 2jz 280z and a high compression naturally aspirated 20b fb rx7 with an rx8 trans and 3 link Ford 8.8 rear end. I have clearly thought about the rx7 more, the 280z will probably only fall through if I can get my stepmom, who's name is Sunny, a Nissan Sunny, which I will shoehorn a bored, cammed, and carbed l28 from the 280 into. I would have to keep it with heat and ac though... the l28 will take up about 90% of the engine bay of a Sunny lol. Every time I think of that I look at my pile of Accord parts and the ADHD cycle continues.

B0CKS

06-25-2021, 05:27 PM

YO. It has been a hot minute! But I finally got this site to get working on my browser again and I swear I’ve been busy! Hope you didn’t assume I died or something.

Let’s start with the big picture- I was supposed to bring the Accord in, rotisserie and all to the body shop this month, and considering that today is the 25th, you can probably figure out that that’s coming a bit later. I talked to the guy who runs the shop and he’s saying that they could use the extra time, and frankly, with more detail coming in these next sentences, so could I. There’s a lot of stuff I gotta do yet. This pushed back deadline is good and bad for obvious reasons- 1, I get more time to do more that I wanted to do to the car, but also makes the project run forever longer. But- as of today, I’m buttoning up some huge projects for the car- we’re talking some 3D printing and lasercut, like a LOT.

Here’s a list the things I’ve gotta get printed or cut in the very near future. 1) The Positive Crankcase Ventilation adapter for the airbox, 2)Door handle speaker Bezels (and grills) for both sides of my car (3) Lasercut speaker risers for the Carrozzerias (4) Yet another iteration of the Fog Light Brackets (5) Repositioned hood prop adapter for the hood (6) A base for my Bluetooth Kenwood Amp to bolt to (7) Gotta 3D print what is hopefully the last iteration of the Spoiler, which has undergone a remodel since I got the last print made. Then LASTLY, and possible most importantly, is the HOOOOD SCOOP. It has been an absolute balls to the wall to get this done in time, and I love how it turned out. And it also happens to be most of what I’ll be posting about, because frankly, It’s really all I’ve been up to in terms of Accord.

Starting at the very base of the project was getting the hood scanned, I could model all I want without it, but it wouldn’t give me accurate results considering how tailored I want this part to turn out. So, I hauled it an hour and a half out to the East side of our state to have the same, reliable guy scan it, and here’s what we got. If you look closely, you can see the shape of a rectangle in the inner structure of the hood. I took a sharpie and taped it to four corners of the airbox, then closed the hood each time in each corner, that give me an accurate pinpoint of where the edges of the airbox were in relation to the hood. And since I was getting this 3D scanned and no way would sharpie points show up in scan, I took some rope caulk and made that rectangle there, and not to pat my own back, but it showed up great in the scan and was a pretty clever way of turning my physical data into virtual.
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The next step was sketching. Probably the most sketching I’ve done for a project for fun since college lmao, but here’s how it broke down. The top row of sketches was trying to sort out the main part breakup for the scoop, how parts would be loaded, and a few guesses at what they look like. You can see the top left was having a lasercut grill load into the back of the printed scoop that lived on top of the surface of the hood, the middle an idea that the printed hood scoop shape was an upside down U that would meet a grille that loaded up through the bottom of the hood, and then the top right option was pursuing the idea of taking out a large portion of the hood, giving a big ole’ ramp to run down and into the hood itself. Ultimately, between part count and trimming, the one that would be adapted with the least struggle was the top left, and I think it’s a sensible call. The next step was styling, the middle row of sketches, which was just a prompt to go a little nuts and see if I could think of some mind-blowing way to make a super fresh inlet, but ultimately came to a pretty simple solution. I really wanted something that would look like a rare **JDM** fancy part, that wasn’t overstated, and ended up taking inspiration from the 2G Prelude grille that I’ve also got on the car, which placed me with the enlarged lower pair of sketches. The decision there to either use a Type R emblem on that or not, we’ll touch more on that later. So we ended up running with the idea of the top left sketch of a loaded grill, I figured I could use a printed grill instead of a lasercut one, allowing me to add some real form to the part.
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I’ve got a ton of work in progress snips of data as it came to be, but let’s just cut to the chase. I get 8 photos, let’s make em count. I surfaced the 3D scan pretty easily to be some nice, workable surfaces, then designed a multi-part hood scoop. But before I get into the nitty gritty of how it all works, here’s some beauty shots of the data:
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Looking from the ground up, here’s the shape of the final 3D print for the hood scoop. Worth noting is that all I’m supplying to the body shop is these printed parts, and they’ll be fabricating the front form that this scoop will slide into. So, as you can see- there’s basically two main halves to the scoop, the “air guide” in black, and the “hood inlet” in white. The Air guide will surround the hole we cut in the hood for the airbox, making all the air the box pulls is fresh, coming from the cowl induction scoop, and will also be a large driver in holding the part in place. If you squint, you can see those little orange circles- those will be the fasteners to hold the scoop to the hood.
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Then, here’s something that’s totally unnecessary, and frankly, I’ve kinda dragged my feet on it for most of the time, but-it should be neat. Every time I bring this project up with someone, they’ve all kinda had the same idea, putting a badge, emblem or some other easter egg in the grille to make it “pop”. I think I’m still selling myself on the idea- I really like subtle modifications, and this whole exercise has been a lot of adding… stuff- to the car. But, I mean, might as well make it a more advanced, interesting part if I have the ability- and well, I do. It’s now or never. Eventually we landed on the idea of putting Type R in the grille (as seen in the sketches), as a pointer to what’s under the hood. The thing is, as a Honda guy, I know there’s a big stigma about slapping the Type R badge on non-true Type R cars. I’ve seen plenty of EK Civics with a D series under the hood and a big ole TYPE R on the side, and frankly, I don’t want to reinforce the stereotype. Honda never made a third Gen, Type R Accord, and my goal was never to make a “what if” version of the Accord if the Type R nomenclature had existed ~five years sooner. But the thing is, if I pop my hood, I’m very, very proud of the engine that’s in the car, and well, it’s a Type R motor- that’s just a fact. So as you can tell, I’m torn! I think- if you’re reading this- you can probably have the same argument, and will land on one side or the other. What ultimately sold me on the concept is a couple simple reasons, one- it’s hard to see. You have to be approaching from the passenger side of the car looking forward to even catch a glimpse at it, it’s not like I’m wrapping the car with a livery. And two, it’s the entry ramp for the air to enter the motor, and since it’s a Type R motor which is freaking sweet, I suppose I could celebrate that some. Anyways, rant over- let’s get back to talking about making this thing come together. After some research, I was pointed to a cast Type R badge, which is sweet, it looks like it should work really nicely, and so I designed the grill to have an inset plaque for that cast badge to live on. Should look sharp. And hey, if this treason, might as well make the most of it. The next thing I was talked into should actually be pretty sweet, you’re gonna have to squint, but see those two little white rectangles there in the vertical grille slat? The width of the slats was actually carefully designed to package grain of wheat lightbulbs- with just the barest clearance to allow me to light up the Type R badge, and make it be just barely lit at night but still celebrate the emblem, al la U.S.S. Enterprise style. And guess what, if it turns out it just bothers the crap out of me because of silly exterior lighting, then I’ll just unplug it, and we’ll be all good and dandy! I’d love to know what you think- am I going to far with all this, or this jewel of detail what makes the difference from a regular build?
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So, here’s everything that I need to make the scoop come together, and man, I did not expect it for this to be that depth, but here we are. Something I haven’t fully explained yet is the grill, so lets touch on that real quick. The main plan is to print the air guide and inlet on a standard, FDM printer (like what you normally think of when you think a 3D printer) the grille, due it’s complexity and shape- isn’t a good choice for a FDM style printer, so instead I’ll be going with a powder Nylon SLS printer, allowing for a highly accurate, easy-to-prep-for-paint part, without having to worry about removing a thousand layer lines in each channel of the grates. Which is good! So what I did to package the grille between the two parts, was allow enough room for it to slide into the air guide, then alan bolts will go through the air guide and thread into heat-set fasteners in the inlet, and sandwich the part between both halves. By dividing up the scoop into these parts, I get great control over where paint breakup goes, and finishing. If I printed this as one part, painting the grill black would require masking, and shooting anything behind those slots would no doubt end up with ghosting, so now I can have one part that’s meant to be in shadow moderately finished, and then go to town on making the inlet a perfect, class-A part without having to worry about overspray or anything of the sort. I think it’s smart. Also, those two rods at the top of the image are the Bulbs and leads, I just got them in the mail, and they are SOOOOO SMALL. It’s nuts!! Anyways, just cuing up to get it all printed, so hopefully in these next few weeks I’ll be getting parts, and posting about it here. I’m so PUMPED.
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That’s the hood scoop! The it was a total line of cocaine to bust it out over the last ~month, but I gotta say, I really like the way the design shaped up, and will be sure to keep this thread in the know once it’s done.

B0CKS

06-25-2021, 05:35 PM

So that’s the big stuff! I’ve also been working on tidying up other models, I made a Prelude CenterCap base for Robert Ettinger and his wheels, I’ve been tweaking the door hand speaker design some (really close to having it done! I decided to also add a little slot for a grain of wheat bulb into that too, because I bought like 50 bulbs and I wanna use em.) as well as cranking out another handful of 4x100 wheels, I’m at a collection of 24 at this point, six more to go then I get to go through and PUBLISH that project. Which is really exciting! Glad I’ll be done with that, feels like it’s been dragging on. In other news, the Civic RUNS, and DRIVES. Ended up dropping it off at a shop, and they sorted out the final details it needed, and holy COW, that thing is a blast. I’ve still gotta get it registered in my name, but I’ve been taking it out on little scoots just to feel ALIVE, and the thing is a blast, and also already has a buyer! Who’s happily paying exactly what I need to meet my goal for paint funds, so everything is coming together PERFECT. WOOOOO! Anyways, I still need to do a real photoshoot of it at a neat spot to make my peace with it, but in the meantime, here’s evidence!
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Oh yeah! Got my hands a couple sweet tools, one of them is heat-shrink labeller- the Accord is going to get a LOT of harness work while it’s out for paint, so that came in just in time to make everything look real freaking pro. The other is a plastic welder! Which is perfect, because I have a collection of Integra lips I need to d̶e̶s̶t̶r̶o̶y̶, or rather fit the Prelude bumper, which involves cutting at least two in half and then welding them back together and then smoothing out. Should be fun. The item in the foreground was a test strip I cut from a half toasted one I’ve had in storage. It works well and feels pretty tough! So I gotta do make that lip and also drill a bunch of holes in my bumper to mount it before it goes to paint. Lots to do!
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So that’s it! Hope you enjoyed a much belated update, and I’ll catch up with more info once I got it! I’ll leave you with this freaking sick gif my sister made while I was learning about airbox alignment. I’ve watched it about five million times at this point. I’m so impressed with how well this project is coming together.
https://ibb.co/H4LtFgw

Dr_Snooz

06-29-2021, 07:10 PM

88AccorD4Life

08-15-2021, 06:57 PM

Amazing build, haven’t been on this site since 2003!! I was only 17 lol. I’m 35 now and ended up with another 3g I can’t believe it. Only reason I did it because it was a rare se-I sedan with literally no rust and only 123k. But anyways can’t wait to see the next update, at least it running. Just spent hours going threw the pages of this thread. Lol. My names Tom, talk soon.

B0CKS

08-16-2021, 11:41 AM

Bro! Don't sweat the Type R badge! On a clapped out beater, an impressive badge looks ridiculous and fools know one. On a cherried out custom ride, a subtle nod to the beast under the hood is entirely appropriate. Even an unsubtle nod is appropriate. No one is going to look at the Type R badge on your car and think you're fronting.

As is practically tradition, sorry for the slow response, but I always appreciate your input Snooz! I appreciate you keeping a level head, I've been churning on what you said since you posted and... you're spot on. I think you're right, might as well have a little bit of fun and celebrate something that's at least kinda cool- right!? :lol:

Amazing build, haven’t been on this site since 2003!! I was only 17 lol. I’m 35 now and ended up with another 3g I can’t believe it. Only reason I did it because it was a rare se-I sedan with literally no rust and only 123k. But anyways can’t wait to see the next update, at least it running. Just spent hours going threw the pages of this thread. Lol. My names Tom, talk soon.

Tom! It's a pleasure meeting you! I wish I had such cool veteran status, that's awesome that you're back in the community! I'm flattered that you took the time to scroll through this unhinged project- much like you, I'm also more than excited to one day let this hit the road- but paint is next, and trust me, it's going to take plenty of patience on both our ends! :) And I'll go in and out on activity as life determines, but I always have this thread in the back of my mind, so updates will be sure to keep coming! :D

B0CKS

08-16-2021, 12:30 PM

Blog!? BLOG! Been an eon, time to type!

It’s been an odd month or two- I did a lot of… well not a lot, then all the sudden everything happened- and It’s been pretty crazy even keeping track of all the updates! I also passed the five year mark of being a 3gee owner, crazy how much has happened in half a decade! Here’s to hoping I eventually finish this before I celebrate a full decade!

Anyways, let’s start wiiiiiiith… not Accord’s! How about the Civic! Its chapter has come to a close- but not without a fantastic few weeks of travel- I put ~500+ miles on it after I threw a plate on it to enjoy it before I handed my friend the keys and title, fulfilling the complete quest of the car. But my girlfriend and I did get a chance to take a beautiful evening and shoot the car, and frankly they’re some of my photos I may have shot… ever. The weather was beautiful, cassettes bumping, and company great. Really fantastic time altogether, it will be (and is already) missed!
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So I’ll certainly be missing the car, but it did exactly as I had intended and filled in that final chunk of change I needed to paint the Accord, so I guess logic beats out emotion yet again! Oh well! In other news, I went to Mackinac Island with some friends, Cedar Pointe another weekend, a wedding for a friend of mine, attended the “largest classic german car gathering in America” and also a “ClamShell” wagon meet in Ohio, so I definitely had a few ‘lax weekends here and there. Very good times though, met some really cool people, and had a great time seeing some really cool stuff.
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But finally getting on track here, the Accord has… really transformed since my last post! Here’s a baseline of what the Accord looked like when I last posted:
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Still pretty recognizable? Well let’s get going on what’s been going on since then! I’ve COMPLETELY gutted the car, these photos are outdated already as we’ve been straight HAULING on this thing. Two friends came over last weekend and dropped the drivetrain and both subframes (with ease! Everything came apart great, the front subframe and engine were literally only about an hour of wrenching. Couldn’t be more grateful for their work!)
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And then the better part of the evening was mounting the car on the rotisserie!!! Unfortunately due to having too much ground to cover, only one photo will have to justice! (but if someone want’s more, I’ve got like 10 images of possibly informative photos for anyone else who wants to take their car for a spin. :lol: )
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Just for proof of concept, we also wanted to see if the Accord could stand the test of its own weight, and much to our surprise, it rolls with ease, but MAN, it’s stressful flipping this thing over!
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B0CKS

08-16-2021, 12:33 PM

And as mentioned, there’s nothing left to the ride! Glass will be removed once it hits the shop, but I feel like this photo of the car upside down really shows how far we’ve gone. I’ve removed both the factory and my sound deadening that I installed a few years back (great way to blow 60 bucks and a week, but oh well!!) But more importantly, show you all the light bleeding through the holes were we removed grommets- brake line grommets, every plug I could see, e-brake lines, this is about as far as I’ve ever seen anyone go into the depths of 3gee! I’m just hoping my plastic bag and numbering system for organizing all these parts doesn’t get too complex, because MAN there is a lot to keep track of!
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And speaking of doing things twice- that I’m embarrassed to add is this here hole I blew in the firewall yesterday, like a BIG one. Basically, I deleted the torque arm bracket last summer while cleaning up the firewall, and then went to design and make a bracket I could replace the one I ripped off. Went to drill the holes, and got a pretty big tear in the thin metal built almost entirely out of welds. And after looking at it, I had to admit that metal work just wasn’t up to par with the longevity I need to get out of this car, so I figured we’d start fresh and rip gut everything that’s awful, install a clean slate and work from there. I’d do it myself, but I don’t have the time, and the car is ideally being dropped off at the body shop this week, so we’ll be leaving this one to the pros!
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Okay, one more image of the body I have to throw in was the cleanup process, when we flipped the car over it was practically a metallic rainstorm of dust and debris that had been piling in every crevasse and floorpan after being in a working garage for ~5 years at this point, and so the wise. Dad-powered decision was to bust out the leafblower shortly afterwards and give the thing a good dusting. Check out that cloud!!
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And in “stuff” news- a new 3gee hit a yard lately, and I had the joy of harvesting an impressive amount of hardware out of the interior in preparation of the eventual re-assembly, along with some other cool stuff.
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The “main score” was a pair of power window harnesses for the doors- I’ll be honest- I’ve got a pair of left and right manual mirrors, but something about the idea of fancy options suddenly grabbed hold in my skull, and now I was just itching to install some fancy, futuristic technology that lets me move some panes of glass without becoming a parabola and reach across the car. So I dusted off my door harnesses and spliced in the new wiring, and it was pretty painless! Still gotta crack open the dash wiring, but this is doing plenty in the meantime!
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Let’s see- I also got a great haul in terms of lasercut parts, amp trays are in, (hopefully) final design for the fogs are done, scoop support (we’ll get to it!) and a few little odds and ends also arrived in the mail! Then you can also see a few misc. E-brake brackets also got that special powdercoated coating! Should make a pretty enjoyable install once it’s time!
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In terms of random junk, I bought some R888Rs! If you’re not familiar, they’re a pretty sweet tire made by Toyo, and in ever-so-elusive 195/50/R15 size- which is exactly what I’m looking for with for my set of Conquest Cowbells, a project that will come to light soon after the car is done! And these still have a good amount of life left, and the were a good deal, so I figured I’d just keep these around for mockup or spares!
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But, BIG UPDATE? I got a huge 3D printed parts haul, while it includes a few parts for other people, we’re concerning ourselves with the SCOOP, AND SPOIIILER! The big stuff is FINALLY here, and in it’s final form!
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B0CKS

08-16-2021, 12:36 PM

The spare hood has been absolutely kicking butt with its final role- being a horrible workbench. Wait. No, that’s not it. Right- being a great cadaver for learning about the hood scoop and how it interacts with the print. I’ve got a messy amount of holes drilled, as well as learning about fitment! I’ve still got the SLS grille as well as a more refined exterior inlet coming, but I’m still able to do plenty at the moment!
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Gen… III(?) of the spoiler is also here, and it’s fitting really nice! I won’t go and say it’s OEM perfection, but I’m still quite pleased it with it! I’ve officially located and drilled holes in the trunk for access and bolt holes, and it’s been a project making everything work, but it’s been quite rewarding!
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And, my fingers are starting to hurt, as excited I am for this project too- so I’ll keep it short, but we’re making good progress in the modelling department too- the armrest is coming along great! I’ll only attach one WIP image for now, but here’s how it’s shaping up! Not a ton to remark except for on the base- you can see the grid there where the hardware goes through, should result in less breaks at the base. Take note Honda- you might have something to learn! :lol:
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Oh yeah! And I’ve been scouring junkyards I haven’t dropped by lately to see if there’s anything worth snagging for the car and guess what!? I’ve been scoring some SICK, FREAKING, HOT GARBAGE, for GREAT PRICES. Check out my freaking cool collection of THREE CRV tables!! (I literally found a fourth on Saturday, but that’s going to be going to a buddy!) I already had one, but MORE IS BETTER. WOOOOO. I also now randomly own TWO(!??) Pontiac Aztec coolers! And a freaking Aztec Air Mattress, something I’ve never heard of before!
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Alright! I really gotta hit the barn and poke more holes in my car. Till next time!

ShiRen

08-17-2021, 09:46 AM

Why are you collecting random SUV accessories?

Dr_Snooz

08-17-2021, 07:30 PM

Super cool! Loving it ALL!

B0CKS

08-24-2021, 08:05 PM

Why are you collecting random SUV accessories?

There's only one Accord in one of the ~6 junkyards I frequent, so secondary, fun objectives get to take some priority! Just gotta itch that car-guy-hoarding itch somehow or another :lol:

Super cool! Loving it ALL!

Always appreciate your enthuaism Snooz!! Getting pretty well into the thick of it these past few months! :cheers:

B0CKS

08-24-2021, 08:10 PM

Okay here’s my attempt at getting back on the horse of updating this blog more frequently- let’s see how I do!

So! The big push is OVER. In short, the Accord is at the body shop! Made it a-okay! But here’s a breakdown of events- we spent a good chunk of last week working on installing a winch on our car trailer- something we’ve been planning on doing for years (I bought a winch in… 2017? 2018? In preparation for this project) and we’ve finally bit the bullet and got the burb wired to accept it, made a thick metal plate to bolt the tongue box and winch too, made a fairlead mounting plate, and a few other doodads and got them all sorted and functional- the deadline being getting the rotisserie and car onto the trailer without having to do a ton of labor pulling the thing up using the tried and true ratchet strap method. So, wrapped that up Thursday and spent the night getting the car fully situated on the trailer, using no less than 13 ratches straps, microfibers, two blocks of wood, jack stands and the engine hoist to lift the car into place. Doesn’t look like a lot, but boy did we have some anxiety about the way this thing would ride.
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Fortunately, the hour and a half drive Friday afternoon was all sorts of pleasant, and went without a hitch, the car, rotisserie and trailer all rode like they were a single part, and the shop conveniently had a forklift that we used to pull the car off the trailer, making it a breeze to unload. Once unloaded- I got to give the owner a tour of the car, what needs to be welded, cut, sanded here and there, so on and so forth. The quarter panels- like any Honda, are the dicey part of the body- and while I know this car is pretty solid, they’ve got juuuuust enough corrosion in them to be kind of sketchy. So, after talking a bit on how to approach them- here’s what we concluded- we’d have the complete bottom of the car and rear wheel wells media blasted! Which is awesome- no more worries about rust, and we’ll fantastic adhesion for undercoating, and clean metal for it to bond to. Which is neat- but is an easy ~1500 addition (for blasting alone) addition to the budget.
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And well. That means I need to get to making some cash, the rate the body shop will eat up my savings is darn quick- so I need to act quick and do what I can to make or pinch cash where I can- so I leapt into action and do what my mind does in neutral, shop for Honda’s.

…and in short, I introduce you to the Z-Cord. It’s an 89 LX Auto Sedan, not a particularly fancy ride, but for the price of a mere 600 bucks- and a convenient four hours away from me, with crappy photos and ugly wheels, this pretty quickly became a pretty great candidate for either a simple flip or a new Daily Driver. Word is the car spent some time in California, and has a pretty clean body to prove it- well, surprisingly nice for a car in Northern Michigan. It doesn’t have spark, and the previous owner replaced most of the components related to ignition in the hunt for the answer, and so frankly, there’s the last little 10% that doesn’t check out, and that’s what we’ll be tracking down. Here’s a pair of the photos from the listing, showing the exact quality of photo I’m talking about.
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So, as you can tell, it’s going to need some TLC, I’ve got paint on the way for the bumper, and pretty much every part I need already sitting around the shop. But here’s a few photos of the car I can pack into this post showing the state of the car, the first thing to do was blast off all the grime it had accumulated from sitting- so pardon the liquid clear coat- that’s a little shinier than the actual car- but the paint is healthy, and I can't wait to give it a polish!
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The engine bay is complete and appears pretty healthy, AC is all there, cruise, and power steering are both right where they should be, and word is still out on whether or not I’ll be keeping the previous-owner-installed subwoofer wiring.
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The interior is in great shape for being a car that had life in the south, and is very complete. And I need to mention that yes, I added the full center console, if it came with that I’d be buying lottery tickets too!
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And lastly, here’s a sneak peak at the choice of wheels I’m hoping to roll around on- a set of Prelude 14” hubcaps I picked up practically a year ago for a project of exactly this scope. Really already love how they look, if only in mockup form.
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So what’s the plan for this car? First- get it running, and learn about what maintenance this car does or doesn’t need. Then, bodywork is the big ask for this thing- it’s not rusty but a few years on Michigan roads and the car will start going pretty quick, so there’s a few spots I want to nip in the bud- specifically the rocker panel has a genuine hole, and the trunk has a wart that needs to be squished now. Then, obviously the bumper and headlights need to match the rest of the car. In terms of modifications- I’ve got a few spare Integra lips sitting in storage I’m planning to fit to the front end, the Prelude wheels, and the first draft full 3D printed spoiler I’ve been debating about adding on just for fun. I figure I won’t be doing much else with it, might as well put it to some kind of use! And maayyyyybe pick up some lowering springs if I fall in love with this ride. The big debate is whether I sell this Accord or my daily driver Sonic to fund the A-Cord, I could get roughly ~1000-1500 in return for this car, or shake all the money back out of driving the Sonic and sell it for ~3500 and just go back to being a strictly 3G guy. Who knows what the future holds! I’m just as curious as you guys!

ShiRen

08-25-2021, 04:05 AM

Your cheapo car looks better than my car and all I feel is pain

88AccorD4Life

08-25-2021, 06:37 PM

Glad to see the civic was a fun experiment and still sold it later. tons of work as always on the accord! I see the new accord can be a daily, not sure if I would want to daily it and just flip it. its nice to have newer vehicles to daily and keep the oldies for the project. It always gave me peace of mind although having a car payment sucks, I needed it because I always had to travel since I was 19. I've done all that old car traveling and breaking down days enough, lol.

I have been going threw mine like crazy since I got it a few months ago. I took a road trip and picked up some period correct old school rare OZ Starlight wheels 15x7 +32 with tires in mint shape, just missing center caps which is typical and rare to find. One day lol. I only paid $375. worth 8-900 without center caps and 13-1400 with them, id say score! I'm new to being on a computer and forum again, sorry for the punctuation and grammar or run off sentences lol.

anyways not to jack your thread lol so on mine I have done a full tune up and valve cover gasket. I also just ordered on rock auto (Gotta love them)

Moog upper front and rear control arms with ball joints
Moog front lower ball joints
Couple motor mounts
Rear rotors&pads
pass. axle
Rear oem mudflaps off a member on the forum.

hoping that's it for a little lol, covid has changed a lot for me this past year, I have a hefty car payment too on my 14 is350 f sport I just recently purchased. love it btw. I need to pace myself since I'm currently out of work and bills will catch up. I will try to get back into the forum groove of things again. posting pictures I'm sure will be a nightmare lol. I have tons. I'm sure we could touch base on another format lol. well talk soon, Tom.

88AccorD4Life

08-25-2021, 06:43 PM

B0CKS

09-01-2021, 06:59 PM

cAlright, there’s going to be a record amount of hands in this post, so brace your eyes as necessary. We’re running low on where to put junk!

It’s been a week! Spent last weekend camping instead of being productive, so I’m looking forward to making that up this coming weekend! So pardon the lack of productivity in this post, just trying to keep up with the weeks!

Let’s start with the Z-Cord! So this thing had to be trailered home ~200 miles for lack of spark, so Thursday night, a buddy of mine, my Dad and I all sat down to figure out what the issue was. We figured we should throw a spark plug test light between the coil and distributor first, if it does have spark, then there’s something up with the distributor, if it doesn’t, then there’s a possibility that something was up under the dashboard, so, start in the middle, work from there. Test light didn’t give us any spark coming from the coil, so next thing to check was 12v signals going to it from the key, so we tested the plugs coming from the main wiring harness under crank, and they had good signal! So, we take a wild guess, walk back to the B-Cord that’s been sitting outside for ~2 years (without a hood) and grab the coil hanging on the car, pull the brand new coil off the Z-Cord and swap it in and turn the key. SHWOOOOM, starts up in a quarter crank. Couldn’t have happened faster. High five’s all around, car runs great. Has some squeaks from who knows where on the road, brakes are kinda soft, and there’s probably all of a quart of scorched ATF in it, but it still shifts and gets on just fine. Personally, HUGE WIN. We all got a great laugh out of taking a 30+ year old part, throwing it in haphazardly and instantly fixing the issue. Feels good. Also, took a moment to grab the nice camera and pop off a couple shots of the car looking good with the new hubcaps and a wash, pretty geeked about this ride.
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Oh yeah- there is a catch- turns out the 14” steelies I picked up are off a Mazda of some sort, and don’t let the prelude hubcaps totally seat, so I’ll have to find a new set of wheels if I want to run these, so it’s gonna be on ugly 13’s for now! Shucks!
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Two rattlecans of clear coat and “Seattle Silver” Paint also showed up for the car (eating a hundred bucks!), so I figured the headlight doors would be good test panels for paint match, so I removed them, sanded, etching prime, primed, painted then cleared the door, aaaaaaaaaand basically- it’s close. It’s definitely got a tone or two to be correct, but I suppose that’s just how paint (especially metallic) is going to be. I’m pretty content, and I’m sure they’ll be 95% better than seeing rust and mismatched panels all around this car. Yay bodywork! I think I’ll take Friday off and go to town fixing this all up.
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That’s it for Z-Cord! A-Cord is out at the shop (duh) and currently the owner is out on vacation, so not much word yet on status. Buuuuuuuut! A very cool box arrived! (finally! Ordered all this in like July) All my SLS prints from Shapeways! Let’s start with the small stuff, then get to what I’m really nerding out over! The airbox needed a couple details, I protected for a Positive Crankcase Pressure vent hole, but needed a good answer to fill that hole, I modelled the part out (seen on the side of the box, and data a few pages back here), and it fits great. I’ve got a slot in it to allow for a slice of an air filter to slide in so that we don’t blow garbage out, or suck anything in from the bottom of the box, and a little tab to allow for weatherstripping to complete it’s loop around the main circle! I’m happy with it! The bung on the bottom (or bunghole, for Snooz) is a drain fit to an M14 thread, nothing complex, just a water drain if the scoop gets a little too thirsty.
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Then, part one of two (technically of four) of the pair of tweeter housings came in. This grille goes in front of the door handle and will most likely be wrapped in cloth ultimately, but I actually really like the look of the bare, 3D printed mesh. Fantastic quality part!
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Then, the BIG STUFF. The main parts for the hoodscoop came in! I ordered a new inlet, and got the grill specifically printed in SLS nylon, and WOW, they are CRISP. I instantly dropped the whole contraption on the spare hood, and I LOVE the way it fits the shape of the hood. It’s seriously very tight. And the grill fits between the duct and inlet great, the badge fits well, overall I couldn’t be happier. All around, super cool.
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The next step was test the one little secret feature of the scoop- the LEDs! Now worth mentioning now is that the grill is going to be BLACK. Not white! I’ve got a can of SEM trim spray ready to go! And the inlet is going to be sanded and painted NH-512 just like the rest of the car, So the light leak is a problem we’ll be dealing with shortly. I’m also thinking about adding some resistors to the circuit to dull it down, these bulbs are pretty potent! But that’ll wait until we paint on the part.
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I’m SO happy with how nice these parts are coming out, It’s a very subtle look- even with the lights, I think dulled to a nice low light, it should be a pretty sharp detail. If it turns out I hate it, I’ll just unplug em anyway lmao!
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But yeah! That’s this week in the books! I’m probably going to go wrench on a Corvair tonight, so toodles!

Dr_Snooz

09-04-2021, 07:32 PM

(or bunghole, for Snooz)

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/PowerlessForcefulBrownbutterfly-size_restricted.gif

I lolled!

That R-badge is a nice touch. Very nicely done!
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=n31q1fQ3&id=93CFE212C1DC011519316A57EE39AFE3451717B7&thid=OIP.n31q1fQ3uwbGiKGTQN9l3QAAAA&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fthumbs.gfycat.com%2fPowerle ssForcefulBrownbutterfly-size_restricted.gif&cdnurl=https%3a%2f%2fth.bing.com%2fth%2fid%2fR.9f7 d6ad5f437bb06c688a19340df65dd%3frik%3dtxcXReOvOe5X ag%26pid%3dImgRaw%26r%3d0&exph=250&expw=330&q=Coffee+Spitting+From+Laughing&simid=607993642107888612&FORM=IRPRST&ck=F86FE4DD10CEB598F4F51827028A5A09&selectedIndex=4
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=n31q1fQ3&id=93CFE212C1DC011519316A57EE39AFE3451717B7&thid=OIP.n31q1fQ3uwbGiKGTQN9l3QAAAA&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fthumbs.gfycat.com%2fPowerle ssForcefulBrownbutterfly-size_restricted.gif&cdnurl=https%3a%2f%2fth.bing.com%2fth%2fid%2fR.9f7 d6ad5f437bb06c688a19340df65dd%3frik%3dtxcXReOvOe5X ag%26pid%3dImgRaw%26r%3d0&exph=250&expw=330&q=Coffee+Spitting+From+Laughing&simid=607993642107888612&FORM=IRPRST&ck=F86FE4DD10CEB598F4F51827028A5A09&selectedIndex=4

B0CKS

09-22-2021, 11:28 AM

Hey! It’s been like two weeks at this point! I’ve started writing something like four times over for this, but just can’t find 20 minutes of filtered concentration, so here’s to trying!

Last week was a lot of fun on the car- I got it up on the lift for the first time, and knocked out roughly ~4 pounds of sand and rock from between the exhaust heat shield and underbody and other small crevasses- definitely stuff that was picked up in the deserts of California considering how dry and sandy it was. I also gave the underside a good scrub then added a fresh layer of undercoating- there were a lot of places that been biffed or rubbed off over time, and a jet black underside alwaaaaays looks clean. Also threw a lil lick of paint on the muffler- it had a ton of roadgrime layered on it, and I figure we could improve the look pretty easy for a bit. Can’t hurt!
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While the car was on the lift I also put all four 13” steelies (that came with the car) through the sandblaster! And gave them a lick of fresh silver paint. With the 14” prelude hubcaps not fitting on the steelies I have, I wanted to look at least decent in the meantime, and I personally think the silver steel wheel has always been a great look- on any car.
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The one other project that was mended while the car was on the lift was the rear bumper, it had been pretty well ripped at some point, and the bumper was pretty deformed from that tear. So, I tore it down after I had it off and spent some time with the plastic welder stitching it back together, and it’s far less noticeable than the damage it had before. I’m still not sure if I’m going to be restoring that area, we’ll see how much paint we have leftover once more visible areas get their spritz.
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The next day involved a lot of rattlecans and masking as were going after the enjoyable project of restoring the vertical door trim, wing mirrors, and beltline trim! You can see a fresh layer of SEM Trim Black near the glass, and just how much it pops even with the masking paper still on it.
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We still need to spray the rear bumper and that tiny little back piece of edge trim on the driver’s side, but that is SUCH a good difference! Takes off years of wear. Also, I’m normally in favor of pulling trim off the car to prevent overspray- but what I learned with these door trim pieces is that the clips are behind the crash support structure of the inner door (unlike the coupe! Guess the coupes are just better lmao) , And I don’t have the inventory of clips that I need to support pulling off those clips and replacing them. Maybe there’s some technique- I dunno! Also! You can see the other headlight door is painted from this angle! Came out decent!
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A few days after that I got to frolic in a junkyard and found most of what I needed for the car- a replacement piece of beltline trim for the driver’s door (the front rubber part was catching on the fender and had been ripped off. I took a glove, put it between the door and fender to push out the fender back to alignment and fixed that problem!) a few pieces of weather seal- the upper driver’s weather seal that spans both doors had a good sized hole in it, now it won’t! The other piece is for the front bumper- the one that’s on the car has overspray- this one won’t! Lastly a replacement regulator and another taillight, the one on the car had a decent little chunk missing from the bottom corner and was bothering me! Not a bad haul for ~25 bucks! Also grabbed fluids for a trans flush and oil change!
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And this isn’t exciting, but here’s a photo later in that night with all working rear bulbs and the replaced taillight after a fluid change, and I was happy to find that neither the oil or ATF had any metal flakes or garbage in it, which is very reassuring! The ATF also helped the car shift some, which is good to see- I also got some fuel/carb cleaner and loaded it into the tank and some directly into the carb, which I thiiiink makes a decent difference! Good to be checking things off!
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B0CKS

09-22-2021, 11:29 AM

Moving on from that- we have bodywork! The front end needs a good amount of work- and starting with the biggest chunk- the front bumper is the elephant in the room. I removed the front license plate and found some damage around the mounting locations, and so to deal with that I pulled a bumper that was just up and sitting in the rafters (how convenient! I believe it came off the now A-Cord who knows how many years back) and frankly, it’s in GREAT shape- it seems like so many of these bumpers have a corner scuffed up, and it was pleasant not to see concrete scrapes nearly anywhere on this. I ordered some flexible primer and after a quick sand, threw that down, then masked off the black and sprayed that! What you see if evidence of that work below. I wanted to spray black first and without overspray- I don’t want black fades to show in the final bumper paint, and if I happen to peel up any tape and pull paint off- I’d much rather have black rip up over paint if I have to correct! But anyways, SEM black is cool!
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Moving on from that- I also sandblasted two spots on the car- the passenger side rear lower door had a growing spot, so that has to go, this shows the bare metal after sandblasting (not pretty I know) right before it caught etching primer, I did the same with a bubble in the trunk!
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Then the largest rust repair task on this car I’m fighting is in the lower rocker, I cut out all the metal there and have the outer side replacement metal shaped, and just need to form the part that goes into the wheel well, then weld it in! Pretty exciting!
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Lastly, there’s one more problem that required the welder- the driver’s door. Not sure if I mentioned this, but the car came with the door gutted, the motor missing and the regulator out- the root problem seemed to be the sheetmetal in the door giving out. I pointed out the holes that are literally cracking with those two lil red arrows, which is not ideal!
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So I ordered a new motor, grabbed a spare regulator (to be safe) and got out the welder- it’s not pretty, but the cracks were all drilled out and then welded (and of course, subsequently ground lmao) giving much of the rigidity back to the panel. Woo!
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The thought crossed my mind that there is a weld-free fix on this- and like all things I love, it requires some loose cut paper and lasercutting! I could make a sandwich plate that would reinforce the panel. This is the first time I’ve seen this failure on a 3gee door, but if I did lasercut these parts, does anyone else want one?
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Lastly, no real updates on the main Accord project! It’s being media blasted at the moment (which is SUPER cool) and I’m planning to visit the shop once it’s in epoxy primer where all the undercoating once was, but it’s going to be slow moving for a while! But I gotta keep content coming, so the Z Cord is going to be in limelight for another couple months!

B0CKS

09-22-2021, 11:31 AM

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/PowerlessForcefulBrownbutterfly-size_restricted.gif

I lolled!

That R-badge is a nice touch. Very nicely done!
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=n31q1fQ3&id=93CFE212C1DC011519316A57EE39AFE3451717B7&thid=OIP.n31q1fQ3uwbGiKGTQN9l3QAAAA&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fthumbs.gfycat.com%2fPowerle ssForcefulBrownbutterfly-size_restricted.gif&cdnurl=https%3a%2f%2fth.bing.com%2fth%2fid%2fR.9f7 d6ad5f437bb06c688a19340df65dd%3frik%3dtxcXReOvOe5X ag%26pid%3dImgRaw%26r%3d0&exph=250&expw=330&q=Coffee+Spitting+From+Laughing&simid=607993642107888612&FORM=IRPRST&ck=F86FE4DD10CEB598F4F51827028A5A09&selectedIndex=4
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=n31q1fQ3&id=93CFE212C1DC011519316A57EE39AFE3451717B7&thid=OIP.n31q1fQ3uwbGiKGTQN9l3QAAAA&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fthumbs.gfycat.com%2fPowerle ssForcefulBrownbutterfly-size_restricted.gif&cdnurl=https%3a%2f%2fth.bing.com%2fth%2fid%2fR.9f7 d6ad5f437bb06c688a19340df65dd%3frik%3dtxcXReOvOe5X ag%26pid%3dImgRaw%26r%3d0&exph=250&expw=330&q=Coffee+Spitting+From+Laughing&simid=607993642107888612&FORM=IRPRST&ck=F86FE4DD10CEB598F4F51827028A5A09&selectedIndex=4

Glad you like it!! Definitely been growing on me. It's actually pretty surprising just how tucked away it is, certainly going to be an easter egg for a lot of people!

Gotta speak in a language you'll understand! :D

B0CKS

09-22-2021, 11:37 AM

So.....about pacing myself lol....I also seen you mentioning you have some spare integra lips? I see there a little tuff to find or you can order threw Honda websites. Would you be willing to sell one?? I just repainted all the moldings and that would be a nice touch. also removed the 32 year old pinstripe, what a nightmare. My next purchase is the $140 Full poly kit for the car, comes with front poly sway bar links and caster bushing (torque rods or whatever in the front lol) then all ill have left is looking like yellow speeds for me on Black Friday sales lol. KKK I'm done..

Hey Tom! Sorry for getting back to this so late! If my archaic forum posting isn't sign enough that I need to get better at social media, I don't know what is lmao! I do have a couple spare lips! Do you know which type you're looking for?

But anyways, dude you've got a killer build! SO many nice parts! Sounds like a really proper build- yellow speeds and those OZ's are gonna be like bread and butter! And for a song too! Nice man!! I'll try to keep better touch, good luck with the wrenching!

B0CKS

12-17-2021, 01:02 PM

Time to blow off some DUST. I have not updated this in WAY too long, which is a huge mistake, because I have been nothing but busy! It’s been a crazy couple months since I typed anything here, and it’s been SUPER exciting to see projects moving forward at such a good pace!

I’ll be honest- the reason I stopped posting for a bit was because I was ashamed. Embarrassed even. Why? Because at a time when things could not be more hectic, I went out, and did a thing. Probably not the smartest thing, but a thing. I did a loop of Ohio with my best friend, car trailer in tow. For those of you who understand maps, or the general layout of Ohio- we woke up in Lansing Michigan at 4am, proceeded to drive down the southwestern corner of Cincinnati, then all the way East to Zanesville, then allllll the way north to Cleveland, then back to Novi, all in a day. Holy cow, it was so much time on the road. Going backward, let me explain my steps: In Cleveland, we picked up a BRAND NEW third gen Accord tow hitch (we recently got a pop up camper, and I’d love to do some period-correct towing with it!) for 20 bucks- when they retail for about ~250. So that was a steal, and definitely a worthy one. The stop in Zanesville was for my buddy, where he picked up a 2006 AWD Dodge Magnum RT- an absolute monster of a car, and a project that’s close on the horizon. Really excited for it, I’ll post about it once there’s more to say. And since his car drove, and I had saved a spot on the trailer, I’ll introduce you to what we have affectionally named the Gord. An 89 LX-I Coupe.
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Now. Before I get too carried away, let me make a quick list to help clear things up:
The B-Cord: Is the first car I ever bought, an 88 Accord DX Coupe in the summer of 2016, and after lowering it and replacing the clutch, I drove into a tree. It’s been on and off the road plenty of times since.
The A-Cord: is an 88 DX Coupe I bought in winter of 2016 to be the car that would receive all the nice parts from the B-Cord after it was wrecked. It’s currently in the body shop, and will be the car that stays with me forever
The Z-Cord: is an 89 LX Sedan I just bought a few months ago for a song. It needs a trans and still needs some issues sorted out, then I’m planning to sell it to help fund the A-Cord project. Basically the same fate that awaited the 87 Civic, 88 Civic, 87 Conquest, and so on. It was named the Z-Cord because it was supposed to be my last Accord. Feel free to laugh.
And now there’s the Gord. (there’s so many that now we’re abbreviating them. The Bord and Zord sound cool, Aooooord sounds dumb) and well, it’s got a really weird purpose. This car isn’t really a flip, it’s not a parts car, and it’s not a keeper- just look at the rust. What my main goal for this car is… is reference. And to help me in the inevitable binds that are coming soon. Once it’s time to reassemble the body of the A-Cord, I know for a fact that I’ll be missing hardware, trim clips, and not have any idea where X-Bolt goes, or the correct length for another, and so on, so basically, I’ll be doing some light picking from this car, and then most likely sending it on its way. But it also had another purpose, and you might be able to infer what I’m getting at with this photo (also, look under the back of the Gord and you can spot the hitch, nice!)
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This car is the same color as the Z-Cord- with a freshly resprayed front end at that, which saves me some pretty big headaches as now all I have to do is a front end swap- not a proper respray of a fender, hood, and bumper on the Z-Cord- I can just swap those parts- and we’ll get to that in a couple photos. Call this foreshadowing. But anyways, more on the Gord. This thing is surprisingly cool, and I wish it was in a better state, because I’d love to really bring it around. What really drew me to this car in particular was how clean and unmolested the factory interior was and with it’s super cool options. A fuel injected coupe with a stick is sweet- but it also has power windows and mirrors (something that will require a lot of work, but will be something I’m going to steal and put in the A-Cord because I’m insane.) and not a single tear on any of the fabric.
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But what I found really interesting, is the one modification that was done to the interior- an aftermarket sunroof. Word is is that it can open, but not close. Also this car doesn’t want to start, we were able to bump start it, and drive it around the block when I bought it, but if we wanted to make it roadworthy, we’d have to sort out a lot of stuff. But anyways, with the Gord introduced, lets get to work.
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One of the parts the Gord quickly lost were it’s 14” Honda steelies, which is very exciting, because that means I got to take my Prelude hubcaps out of storage (again) and then I got to finally mount them on the Z-Cord. As seen here. Trust me, less blurry photos are coming and they look great. And as you can tell, the front end swap didn’t wait around at all.
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Obviously, the Gord needed to have all its good panels removed, as seen here. I’m not gonna brag, but I’m starting to get familiar with these cars.
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Then bam, now the Gord looks like sin. No fancy hubcaps, and no clean body panels. A scape goat.
10963
But then BAM, look how good the sedan came out! Panel alignment went quite well, and the color match is near perfect. Went from a 600 dollar car to a 3000 dollar car in an afternoon.
10964
Then just when things started good, that’s honestly most of the Gord and its story to the present. It’s currently storage for car parts in the corner of my apartment complex, and is going to stay there for quite some time until its second use comes into bloom. It’s not a peeeerfectly justified purchase, but it’s been useful already, and I don’t think I’ll be the end of its life on this planet. Nor do I want it to be. And same thing with the Z-Cord, I got a working window motor and control box, so I got to reassemble the driver’s door which was good, but it’s kinda on hold. I was able to set up a trade for a fifth gear and rear bumper for an auto trans and ECU which should hopefully remedy the Z-Cords inability to be a car, but that trade hasn’t come together yet, so it’s in holding pattern as well. Which means I get to start talking about the other two coupes. One’s meteoric rise and the other’s tragic downfall.

B0CKS

12-17-2021, 01:10 PM

The B-Cord has been doing absolutely nothing but slowly lose parts and grow moss in a pretty much unchanging state in a dark corner of our yard. Until I got word from the Bodyshop. Turns out, there was a huge wad in the driver’s rocker on the A-Cord that had a nasty fix that I wasn’t aware of. And well, they needed a new rocker panel, and I couldn’t find an OEM one in stock, sooo, as the lights grew dim, I turned to my old trusted friend and pulled out a long, dull blade… :nervous:
10965
It now looks like this. It’s an absolute husk. Remember how I said the Gord was holding car parts? Yeah, it’s got nearly all the guts of the B-Cord in it right now, and frankly, it’s pretty packed in there.
10967
I’ll be honest, it’s been a strange mix of emotions with this car, like I’m supposed to be sad- which I am, I mean you can go through this very blog and photos of THIS very car looking like it’s just started rolling the odometer, and man- that tears me up, this car has been around for a long half-decade and has been through so much by my hands, practically feels like I’ve known it forever. But at the same rate, ever since I touched a tree with it, it seems like this had to be the fate of this car. It was blast getting it back on the road with a rattlecan paint job, but it wore quickly- and after it received more and more dings and dents, it went downhill and I knew it was kinda doomed. So it actually felt kinda good leaving no meat on the bone- literally giving up portions of the car to live on as patch panels for the Accord I plan to die in. It’s been a long journey, and for this car, its almost done.

But the thing is, the fun doesn’t end there. It’s going to be a bit of timeleap, so here we go. I recently stripped down the suspension of the A-Cord for Powdercoat, the big chunks need to get professionally done as we don’t have an oven that is that big. So, the cheddas traction bar, both factory sway bars, both crash bars, and both front and rear subframe went out to powdercoat, but I noticed something about the front subframe:
10968
I had just bought a bushing press kit (holy cow that thing is SWEET) and pushed out all four corners, but noticed one had put up one HECK of a fight. After pressing out that bushing, here’s what I found. See that big gap around the inner circle? Yeah those two seams are supposed to be welded together. This subframe is toast.
10969
And so, it turns out the B-Cord had more to give. So, within the course of an hour (we’re not counting the half hour we took for Panda Express Delivery Dinner) my buddy (with the magnum) had turned the car into a hovercraft.
10970
Tada! All the suspension was quickly yanked from the car and piled into a pretty big mess.
10971
So, give me a few hours with an impact gun, and here’s our part. Despite being slightly rustier, and in at least one wreck, the B-Cord gave us yet another worthwhile piece. All the bushings came out great, and none of the mounts showed any damage. Huge win! Dropping that off to powdercoated in the next few days.
10972
Wrapping up the final days of the B-Cord here, there was just a couple extra parts we wanted to take off the car. We wanted to try our hand at removing glass- we’ve tried once or twice and were 0-2, but amazingly my Dad and I were able to remove the rear glass in one piece! The rest of the family joined in the fray and my nephew did a great job stomping the roof in, a job only he could do.
10973

B0CKS

12-17-2021, 01:14 PM

And, since Sawzall is just the go to tool on the B-Cord, there was one more keepsake I wanted to pull off the car before it goes to the great beyond- so after almost one minute of BRRRRRRT, here’s what will be an eternal keepsake of my first car.
10974
But, all this is for a good cause- to make an another car exquisitely nice. Let’s finally get to the A-Cord and talk about how far that car has come in recent months. There’s been a ton of side projects I’ve been trying to work through while the car is at the shop, and while there’s still ever-more on the list, a lot has gotten done. We’ll start with one project that you guys are well aware with, the hood scoop! I finally had to bite the bullet and prepare the real hood for the shop to begin fab work on the added panel, so I had to get going on all the holes needed to mount the scoop for them. So, while I’m sure I’ve showed photos like this, this is the final hood, so I’ve gotta do this all right. I learned a lot with the previous hood and its templates, and started boring into the thing.
10975
Pretty nervewracking, but all the holes worked pretty well and the part fits well! Can’t wait to see the metal formed up, and I’ll be excited to share those photos when we have time.
10976
And one more thing scoop related- I got to throw down some paint on the grill dividing the inlet and duct, and it looks sharp. I’m still coming around on the badge, but it does kinda glimmer in there. Not bad if I say so myself.
10977
Next topic- I finally powdercoated a bunch of silver parts, and they’re… alright! Hood prop is on the bottom left, the coil on plug plate in the middle, and “final” airbox is on the topright corner. And well, after getting it together, I’ll be honest, not sure if I’m happy with it. It’s for starters, really heavy, it’s chunky, and having ~20 rivnuts is just kinda messy, so I don’t think this will be the final part. Instead, I’m hoping to redesign the whole thing to be an aluminum part with (professionally) welded seams and rounded edges to make the part a lot more elegant. But- I’ve got cash going to all corners of the universe, and plenty of other things to model, so don’t be too surprised to see this airbox mounted up for a while.
10978
So the next project I want to cover is all the black powdercoat- I’ve been personally blasting and powdercoating most of the small suspension parts that I can fit here- and it’s exciting to know all the details of this car will be properly protected.
10979
But anyways, here’s the payoff from stripping the B-Cord down, the final piece of a trunkload of powdered parts. I had these done professionally, and frankly, the price was really good- about 600 bucks for all seven large pieces, which really isn’t bad for the hours I’m assuming they’ve worked. I’ve literally only had the boldness to unwrap one part, so this will have to be a good enough sneak preview until they’re bolted to the car.
10980
But onto a muuuuch more tedious project- hardware. I really don’t want to use crappy hardware to bolt everything together on a shiny chassis, so I’ve started the uhhhhh “nut and bolt” phase of what has officially become the nut and bolt restoration of a base model Honda Accord. Huh. So, went out to get a quote to get my hardware plated, and it turns out, if I bring them one bolt, it’s the same price as bringing them a five gallon bucket and having four thousand bolts plated. As you will immediately infer, that means I need to take every nut, bolt, clip and weird bracket I can find and have it stripped- because it makes literally no difference to the plating company. As in EVERY, I’ve gone through and emptied out every bolt I’ve ever stashed from a junkyard, all the stuff the B-Cord, as much of the hardware as I’m willing to un-bag from the A-Cord and so on. Which meeeeaaans, I’ve spent like a solid week hunched over the sandblaster- and I’ve more than lost count of how many ten mills I’ve held in oversize rubber gloves. Turns out the Cadmium Dichromate (the cool new words I just learned) will be super dull with the finish that’s currently on the hardware, so fingers crossed that corn husk in a vibratory tumbler (four new words I also just learned) will polish these up and give a much better, glowing finish. Yay for more time and money- but DANG, imagine yellow bolts on stuff, gosh that will look good. Can’t flipping WAIT to sort all that stuff out.
10981

B0CKS

12-17-2021, 01:17 PM

Oh, also, fuel neck is gonna get plated. Prolly gonna be kinda dull, but that’s fine.
10982
Okay, so let’s FINALLY talk about what’s been going on at the body shop for the car I’ve been doing all this for. The car has really moved along since I dropped it off and it has been super exciting. Let’s start at the engine bay and keep moving. The bay has been fully welded up as necessary and smoothed, and there’s a pretty large number of clean delete plates in welded in, plugged holes, and check out the added humps that give us a ton more clearance for the upper control arms. Flipping sweeeet.
10983
Then, final paint was laid down in the engine bay, and this photo doesn’t do it NEARLY enough justice as to how smooth and shiny everything is.
10984
Oh, and here’s an odd aside- I went junkyarding! Turns out there was rust on my floorpan that needed to be fixed, and it’d be better to just find a clean OE section over having it fabbed- so guess what- BRRRRRT and the poor sedan in Ann Arbor got blitzed.
10985
See, CHUNK. The rust I had was right in front of that seat reinforcement frame rail, and amazingly, this sedan has absolutely NOTHING left from rust in the rocker, but floorpan was immaculate.
10986
Then, while yes, this is ultimately inconsequential I decided to burn the cash and have the interior sprayed. Arguably not worth it- but we’ve gone this far, might as well keep it up. And, you can’t even tell that that the passenger floorpan is from a tan sedan… or that the rocker is from the B-Cord, and so on!
10987
And lastly, paint was thrown down in the trunk after a quick scuff, and while most of this will be met with sound deadening, feels very nice to have this all as a single color.
10988
Carrying on in Polar White, I also removed the tires and fully sandblasted all four of the turbinas- why? While the paint on them was all fresh (which made stripping them down EONS easier), it was just a few shades off- and frankly, might as well do it right, I can do 90% of the work in house, so- might as well just do it and make the car that much more complete.
10989

B0CKS

12-17-2021, 01:21 PM

After a solid weekend of sandblasting, they were bagged and hauled to the shop, and caught paint within the week. Again, photos from the booth aren’t doing them enough justice, but it’s exciting nonetheless!
10990
The next step after throwing down all the Polar white we needed for the interior and engine bay, the next step was the underside. They’ve done a ton of work with rust repair throughout the chassis and got to bring the rotisserie to it’s full use first laying down primer:
10991
Then undercoating! After a huge mental dilemma of having to choose between white or black undercoating, we went with black for sake of long term repairability, as much as white bedliner would be a HUGE flex. Absolute showcar status. But- I gotta live with this thing forever, and since it will indeed be lowered and I will inevitably scrape on things here and there- I wanna make sure I can handle the bare metal that shows up without too much hassle. Anyways- CHECK IT OUT. ITS SO CLEAN. AAAAAAAAAAAAH
10992
After all this, I got the privilege of bringing the car home. Now, as you can tell, the exterior itself is in a rough primer but that’s exactly where we need it right now. The exterior paint work has barely begun. What the plan is now is to get the car to be a near drivable shell- brakes, powertrain, suspension and wire harness in, so that I can then bring it back to the shop as a near complete car, then they’ll be able to hang and align the rest of the panels as necessary, and do it with plenty of experience under their belts. So, with the car being in primer, that means I can load the car with parts as I need to while not worrying about permanently scarring fresh paint- any ding or dent it catches here in the barn can be repaired. Hope that makes sense, but it’s a very exciting chapter! Currently, hardware and wiring are the biggest projects I need to square up, along with some vaporblasting- and I maaaaay source a new gas tank. We’ll see. But that’s the car as it sits at this very moment! Way too geeked to finally see some proper gloss on here!
10993
And carrying on, Lets start with hardware- the corn cob media worked wonders on the hardware, and has just been dropped off to get plated today! Here’s the setup- bolts coming out of the sandblaster, thrown in the polisher, then vetted out after a day of polishing and hand cleaned and tapped all individually then they’re ready to go.
10994
Here's a photo showing just how much a difference the polisher makes, literally takes these from a true matte to a nice sheen! It’s awesome! And, I just finished all the polishing and cleaning at 2am last night, and dropped off the parts to get plated this morning! Hoooopefully they’ll be done before Christmas and I can spend the break ASSEMBLING.
10995
And so- I’ve got the Accord back, but no real hardware to assemble it with. I bought a couple hundred plated 10mms a while ago, so I’ve been able to install a lot of small stuff, a lot of small powdercoated brackets and the sort. And all the GROMMETS. I can’t express how fulfilling it was to be installing brand new grommets on such a clean chassis, the high is UNREAL. Worth pointing out- the washer tank had some grime and undercoating on it from its days on the road, and some steel wool really, really cleaned it up. Still has some yellowing, but considering you can’t get these new, I’m pretty pleased with how this came out.
10996
The lil black grommets really pop in the engine bay, and installing the rywire bulkhead nearly made me ruin a set of pants, everything just looks SO GOOD. Can’t WAIT to get hardware back and put the motor in place.
10997

B0CKS

12-17-2021, 01:23 PM

Moving back from the engine bay at this current moment, the interior is also catching its first parts, I restored the center console shift linkage closeout, got a very helpful hand with the fuel and brake lines and dropped in the firewall insulation along with a series of grommets and lil bits. Looking good so far, freaking in love with the contrast.
10998
Same with the rear seat area, I can’t install anything too large yet, but I’m starting to be able to go through my bucket of powdercoated parts and install them, and it’s too satisfying! I hope you like these over-enthusiastic posts, because there’s plenty more where this came from.
10999
Oh! And! I went to Chicago! A three hour drive from Lansing- why? Because PRELUDE. A 2g showed up in an LKQ surprisingly close to me, so I had no choice but to zip down there- I mean, reasons being pretty obvious. I was thankful to have found the car pretty much complete- someone else had grabbed the spoiler and wheels, but the rest was untouched! So I LEPT INTO ACTION.
11000
After a few hours in 20 degree weather I hauled home some good stuff! Factory radio and eq (score!) complete dealer optional fog light setup (with OE switch!!) and of course, another 2G front bumper. Gonna give the shop a plethora of options to choose from! This is my third!
11001
Lastly, I also picked up a bunch of fresh clips and small bits to clean things further, but I’m also excited to say that I ordered (and am trying to patiently wait for) a set of expensive Cheddas rear lower adjustable control arms, something that’s been on the wishlist for an eon or two. Oh, and also, thought I may be buying a CRX for a minute, so I scored a set of OE 14” CRX Si wheels for a decent price. Gonna have the pretty tired tires removed then sandblast and respray them. They’ll probably be a flip, but I may hang on to them for fun.
11002
So that’s where we’re currently at! Can’t wait for BOLTS. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Dr_Snooz

12-19-2021, 06:58 PM

You haven't posted in awhile, but you weren't doing nothing. It's all looking great!

conozo

12-20-2021, 06:53 PM

Inspirational...........

B0CKS

12-30-2021, 11:22 AM

You haven't posted in awhile, but you weren't doing nothing. It's all looking great!

Absolutely! Constantly got you guys on my mind, but rarely have the focus to sit down and bang out a few thousand words to keep the updates constant lmao! Glad to see you checking in, glad you approve!

Inspirational...........

Thanks a ton! Really been flattered with how much the community has appreciated this car as of late- means a ton, thanks man!!

B0CKS

12-30-2021, 11:27 AM

Yo! Got some more updates to write up! This time I'm only like a few days late, instead of having a backlog of months!

The Gord and Zord have just been chilling, the B-Cord and A-Cord are all I'm going to be talking about today, so might as well hop into the fray. The B-Cord was pretty much at its end of usefulness, and we'd known for a long time that there was no market for the car as it was, so we ended up at the point that we should scrap it (in the exact fashion of the red Civic, no usable parts, just a rusty, beat shell) and a buddy of mine had it titled it in his name for a minute like a couple years ago and was too booked to get a duplicate, and since we can't recycle a complete car without a title, we decided to do the right thing and just turn the car into chunks. So, a few hours on a brisk morning and here's what we were left with of it:
11004
11005
And, so we dropped off those chunks at our metal recyecling plant and made a healthy 80 dollars (woah), and there ends the epic saga of my first car.
11006
Orrrrrrr did it? Thought had crossed my mind to maaaaaybe keep some barn art around and sneak a chunk of the car away from the scrap yard (well, along with the firewall with the VIN on it). And so here's a fun piece of quarterpanel! Don't really have a plan for it, might hang it up in a friends barn or something! And to answer your question, yes I still have both doors for it! Could definitely donate one to the cause.
11007
And that's... I mean pretty much it for the B-Cord, I mean I really can't imagine too many more posts involving it! So let's move onto the A-Cord- what I'm always supposed to be talking about! Hopping off my last posts, I have acquired hardware and it is BEAUTIFUL. SOOOO psyched up about it! I mean, those of you with eagle eyes I'm sure will recognize some of the specific and unique hardware throughout the pile, but I'll call out some of the cooler stuff in the following images.
11008
First thing I sifted out was the e-brake linkage, which for some reason has been something that has enraptured my brain for no real reason- but I LOVE the way this looks (Still gotta tighten those bolts, I know!)
11009
Another part that is now adorned in gold, is the rear bumper support! I honestly can't believe I had just enough screws (considering the way they love to rust and freeze into place) to fully load the part. Fortunately the front end has a unique set of hardware, so I don't need to worry about that bumper.
11021
The front 2G prelude arms also got a refresh- I had sandblasted and only spraypainted the bodies, so those went through the powdercoating process, and I grabbed the cast banjo bolts (?) that capture the arm from the B-Cord and had those plated, and BOY do these look good. I don't have enough images to show the way these package into the clearance bumps that the shop made, but I can assure you, it is more than enough, another project, done to completion!
11011

B0CKS

12-30-2021, 11:31 AM

And speaking of suspension, the cheddas arms finally showed up, which, along with the hardware means the rear suspension can be fully assembled! I resprayed the rear calipers red to match the front Wilwoods (which I personally think looks a bit flashy with all the gold and silver, but I'm not complaining. A lot of powdercoated parts also found their homes with this assembly, which is great! Love seeing this come together.
11012
Still have to mount the rear sway bar, but I think that's going to wait until the car is back from the shop. Freaking love all the clean parts that show here.
11013
Now hopping onto the chassis, the gas tank received a clean then a new layer of undercoating over the old, and was subsequently mounted in the car! Takes a squint, but the plated J hooks and filler neck really pop here! Glad to have it all hooked up!
11014
Then, the front wheel wells as well as the core support also caught a can of undercoating, as much as I loved the white, there's no way it was sustainable in the long term, so I added a layer of protection onto those surfaces. Plus white behind the grille would look super weird. No thanks!
11015
Now for some BIG CHUNKS, with those and some smaller tasks complete, it was finally time for some big installations! The rear subframe was mounted in the car and looks way too cool. Again, a little flashy, but I think it has enough pop to show that it's been gone through with a fine tooth comb. I'd say it's pretty perfect!
11016
The other big project we did that night was to do a (hopefully) final load of the motor and! we rolled it out of storage, swapped the DA reverse switch for a DC2 one by tilting the whole motor at a steep angle with the lift (making all the trans fluid flow into the driver's rear corner of the trans) and removing the old switch, leaving no fluid flowing out of the case and installing the new one. I felt smart. Then we dropped the car around the motor that was onto two wheel casters, cushioned by a seat from the B-cord, got some bolts through the mounts, and BOOM. The crown jewel is in! Also, I had finally gotten a solid layer of paint onto the replacement brake booster, and I have my Dad to thank for giving it a great sand and polish. It doesn't show much here, but the gloss black really pops against the firewall. Finally filling in!
11017
So, last photo of the night, but here's the engine bay after some more fiddling, some of the larger lines are in place, the wiring harness connected, along with the core support. Frankly, some more suspension, the radiator, a few power motors and the bay should be pretty much fully populated. I'm also going to bring this up here as a prelude to future posts, but we've decided to do a brake line tuck- for those of you who know where this is- there's a power antenna mount that my base model car doesn't put to use allllll the way at the top left corner of the firewall almost behind the brake booster. The plan is to put the prop valve there, then run join the rear lines halfway with some hardlines along the inside of the firewall, and make some slim fronts! Gotta clean it all up! But anyways, here's where we're at for now! Can't wait to PEEL THAT TAPE.
11019
I want to make a little asterix here, the motor is only held in by two mounts at the moment, the rear T bracket is floating as the rear subframe is still out of the car at the moment. Now, there were plans to adapt the B series power steering pump to all the factory Accord lines, but due to a very surprising turn of events, A 3Gee Facebook member from Canada very recently reached out to me with a special thing from his parts car- and gave me a lead on a manual steering rack! For those of you who don't know, Canada got a now very rare, very base form of the 3Gee without power steering, and every car in the US came with power steering along with practically all of the Canadian models as well, so I think it's easy to imagine how tough this part is to come across. Naturally I enjoy the perks of a power rack, but would love to empty out the engine bay further, and a manual rack is a great silver bullet for keeping things functional while still emptying out the bay! From my understanding there's some custom bracketry that needs to be done to adapt it to a power steering subframe, but that's right up my alley. I figure with an alloy block instead of a cast iron one (and a general de-cluttering of the bay) there'll be a bit less weight over the front axles which should also alleviate some of the discomfort that comes with a manual rack. So we'll see if that comes through- I, for one, am quite looking forward to it if it all works out, and I'd also love to make that mod NOW, before I've got a huge install I need to deal with.

Anyways, till next time! Thanks for staying tuned!

bscanlan

12-30-2021, 01:41 PM

Loving the build man. You’re killing it.

ShiRen

01-03-2022, 05:38 AM

How come this guy isn't plugging all of us on manual racks??
What is the difference with the reverse switches?
Also, nice danger sign for the battery.

B0CKS

01-03-2022, 10:11 AM

Loving the build man. You’re killing it.

Yo! Thanks a ton man!! Can't express how much the support means to me. Really appreciate it!

How come this guy isn't plugging all of us on manual racks??
What is the difference with the reverse switches?
Also, nice danger sign for the battery.

I'll be honest- I have no idea how I won the crown to be gifted with such a gem as a manual rack- I mean this 100% that the guy came out of the wood work on one of my older facebook posts and says he enjoys the build and has a car that should have one. Sounds like one is all we got, and there's DEFINITELY people I'd assume he'd have gone to first!

To answer the question on reverse switches: Both the older DA integra and newer DC2 use the same two wires coming from the switch going into the trans. The only difference is the connector- the DA has two induvial circle connectors- one for each wire. A lot like those crimp on style ones you can get in off the shelf connector kits. The DC2 uses an actual injection molded plug to house both wires (and therefore, unique pins from the DA, so there's no moving the DC2 style plug onto the DA) and so does the Rywire harness. Since I have a cable trans, it came with the DA switch. Everything's a science!

And haaaa, thanks! Christmas gift I still need to find a home for. Definitely sticking there for now!

zedries

01-04-2022, 01:25 AM

I don't know what year I commented last on this thread but I just came here to confirm that the awesomeness continues. Keep it up!

conozo

01-04-2022, 10:26 AM

Please take a zillion pictures of the manual steering rack. I dont think one has ever been seen here.

Dr_Snooz

01-04-2022, 05:16 PM

...gave me a lead on a manual steering rack!

Holy smoke! That unicorn does exist! I was sure it was an urban legend. Nice score!

conozo

01-04-2022, 07:07 PM

Holy smoke! That unicorn does exist! I was sure it was an urban legend. Nice score!

Forget the JDM goodies, CDM is where its at.

Fixedit

01-06-2022, 06:15 PM

I'm so happy you have the time for this project...I love seeing this. Every corner I go around you're like "Well I went ahead and did EVERYTHING" Lmao I love it. Exactly all the stuff I'd be telling myself "I should do it this way" but would end up going the "easy" route due to time/funds. So it's satisfying seeing one of these cars get SPOILED ROTTEN Lol you're on your way to stardom with this thing!

B0CKS

01-28-2022, 12:22 PM

Heyo! Want to start this out with an apology for not logging on sooner, I caught the comments you guys made here and it REALLY means a lot. Each one brought a huge smile to my face, and seeing you guys light up about this car is something I don’t take for granted! I’ve got some updates that have been hopping in and out of my drafts folder for a hot minute now, and I think I’m finally at a good point to be caught up with both writing and changes that have been made to the car!

Let’s start with the good stuff, The main Accord has been moving steadily forward- I’ll be sure to show some photos, but the engine bay is now pretty well packed, the list of things it needs is getting pretty slim-the master cylinder, a radiator, a wiper motor and some headlight motors are most of what’s left. Definitely getting close to the final look for the car. The biggest part that was loaded into the car since last week was the wiring harness- and that wasn’t a simple plug and play like multiple other parts of the car- it needed a thorough once over upon installation, a good portion of the harness needed to be re-sheathed, wiring paths had to be decided, and there’s also other harnesses I need to integrate. But let’s just talk about the picture below. One thing I want to point out is the new path over the wheel arch- it’s been lifted up over the seam weld so that I know for a fact it won’t be in danger if (no wait, when) I bottom out the car. The pop-up foglight harness has also been integrated- fully re-wrapped and brought into the main looms. It’ll take a few P clips before it’s fully seated and at home, but it’s nice to have that inboard of the main loom and not just floating. Also, swapped on the correct distributor for coil on plug, so that’s good! Check it off. And, another thing to mention is the airbox. Been staring at it, and I think what we may ultimately do is 3D print it- frankly, it looks really clunky in the engine bay, and I having the design liberty to just make a streamlined shape that’s elegant and styled would really up the quality of the part, and while I was considering welded aluminum as a step up, a print would really be a quality move.
11065
The driver’s side harness is so much less to manage, and received the same lift around the arch, so I’ll use this photo to show off the front crash bar and fog light brackets (which admittedly are super hard to see at this point) but I gotta say, fresh powdercoat sure rubs me the right way, really geeked to see it in place. You can also see both fog lights pointing down from the their zip-tied positions on the mounting brackets, definitely useful for keeping them where I want them. The headlight buckets are going to be out of the car for quite some time, shop has the main connecting brackets to paint white, so no eyeballs until the shop gets to it.
11040
Okay so this picture shows you nothing with the black floormats there, SO, I’ll use my words to explain as much as I can. The body harness obviously connects across the firewall, and thanks to a pretty tremendous effort by a friend of mine, it is now full wrapped in loom, and can be edited as necessary. If that sounds minor; poke your head under your dash and look behind your fusebox- yeah- that ball of yarn? That’s been all cleaned up thanks to him. I appreciate it immensely. I’ve also started the integration of four more looms- the air ride harness needs to be integrated as necessary, same with the cockpit, inverter and subwoofer setup. Also hard to see, but the cockpit harness was de-pinned and fed up the A-pillar after being sheathed (that is a TIGHT environment, and running just wiring up there would have it get shredded nearly immediately), you can see it hanging from the ceiling on the passenger side (still wrapped in duct tape with the guiding wire I used to pull it up the A-Pillar)- I’m planning on cutting two holes on each side of the rear view mirror allowing the antennae and main harness poke through to the cockpit. Fingers crossed it works well.
11041
Looking rearward, there’s a new harness in town, and that’s the combination of the subwoofer and air ride harness! You’d have to go way back in this thread to see the bundle of wires that lived there originally, but let’s just say it was a bit of a mess getting the air ride harness to package proper, like it fit the space, just looked awful. But now, after rewrapping everything, that harness fits the place perfectly, the relays in each corner of the wheel liner stamping fit well, and the main bundle tucks between the brake line and seat support perfect! Very clean and tidy, just how I like it! There’s still a couple sub-harness’ left I still need to sort, but that was a big one!
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I’ve also been re-developing my foglight bracket, and to do that, I need a bumper on the car, so that was clipped into place using a (now) spare bumper and the older adapter plate I made. I’m still pretty geeked with how well it hangs obviously the corners sag without the fifth/sixth reinforcement point, but it’s all good) And I was able to drastically tighten up the fitment of the foglight into the bumper. If you look at this photo vs my first fog light brackets, there’s a HUGE difference in fitment. So I’ve ordered the final versions of those, along with a lasercut radiator lower support (as opposed to my crappy fab’d part from years back), and some freshly designed front tow hooks to make up for the lack thereof from the cheddas traction bar. So those will be arriving soon, and I’m excited to get them bent, coated, and on the car!
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Now, if you can tell what you’re looking at in this photo at a glance, holy cow, NERD. If you can’t, that’s fine! After much staring, we’ve started in on the brakeline tuck! Step one was rebuild the prop valve, so it’s now much cleaner, the factory bracket has been flattened and powdercoated, and new fittings are loaded into place to ensure a solid seal. I also added spare nuts onto the retainer bolts that hold the two sides together, there were a lot of metal shavings from when I took the two halves apart, and just to be safe, I added some extra security. This is the factory prop valve, and I’ve rotated it to live up under the top left corner of the dash, utilizing the un-used power antennae motor mount. I’m going back and rebending every line needed to make this thing fit (although we spliced the rear lines in half, saving me a lot of material, and bending hours since those work already!). I’ve still got a handful of lines to bend, and re-bend to make sure I’m happy with them, but as much as I’ve been dreading this, it’s been going fairly well.
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So something much simpler that’s been moving along is the shift linkage, which caught a massive upgrade due to the generosity from my Dad over Christmas. For those of you who don’t know- this is a Dyno Designs Tyrannosaur Tightener (which I think is a very weird motif to have for your company, but who I am I to judge), a moderately expensive- but HIGHLY worthwhile mod. This removes the part commonly known as the bitch pin and replaces it with an easy to use coder pin, along with a milled aluminum housing over the factory casting, with improved bushings. We also did this upgrade to the 87 Civic a while back- and turned the car from nearly literally undrivable to an absolute pleasure! I’ve gone through and rebuilt the main ball of the shifter, along with new rubber bushings front and rear, and the shift rods have just finished absorbing a simple coat of black paint and clear- while it’s not the same powdercoated perfection that most of the other parts received, the linkage was in good shape, the original coating solid, but just kinda scuffed up. But- between new paint, some cad plated hardware, fresh bushings, new shift linkage connector, intact boots, and that quality teg shift knob, I’d say this is pretty much a sorted part!
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Okay, before we move on, I have a very silly idea I need you guys to sanity check for me, because I’m on a perfect 50/50 split, I think I really like this, but this may also just be a little too much. I’ve kinda wanted to do this for an eon, but never quite found the right moment to leap on it, but this is my window, right now. The idea is this. Rear sun visors. Feel free to spit out your drink. I don’t need to explain it much, but basically, for no reason in particular, I just like the idea. I think there’s this super period feeling to it that would just kinda make sense for the time, an option that’s just a little out in left field, but not too far out to be obscene. I own, like at least, six sun visors. I have plenty, and the idea would just be to take two more front ones and mount them in the rear upper corners of the C-Pillar, as seen below. I wouldn’t be using them too much, if it all, so function isn’t the priority here, but I just think it’d be a fun quirk to add to the bizarre list of features (that was for you, Mr. Demoru) this vehicle has been riddled with. I wouldn’t rate it as eye-catching or anything of the sort, but just an added easter egg for those who spend a longer time staring the car down. Also, since they’re just fronts, there’s still a gap for the rear-view mirror, which means I could still use my mirror if they were both flipped straight back.
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EDIT: Sorry again for the flipped over images! I have a theory on what's up with it, just need to put it in practice!

B0CKS

01-28-2022, 12:26 PM

After much thought, I think I’m going to do this; I’ll drill a bunch of holes in my car (the photos below are evidence), throw in the four M4 rivnuts needed to hold the visors, drill the main hole to fit the retention spring on each side, and then bolt two sun visors to the car as is. So far, none of that has cost me a single extra dime. If I wake up tomorrow to a hyper compelling argument to why they absolutely can’t go there, I’ll simply install the headliner, and there won’t be any evidence that they were ever there. No harm, no foul. If end up leaning towards the thought that they’re silly enough to be fun, and I’d like to keep ‘em around, then sure! Everything’s ready to go. I dunno’- you tell me. Bridge too far? Or does it fit in with the weird Carrozzerias, Cockpit, and other oddities of the inside of this car?
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Oh! And another thing! Tires are back on the Manarays! They’ll be staying in storage until the car is fully painted, but they’re ready to go, and look STELLAR.
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That's all I've got on the A-Cord! In other news, out of the woodwork, someone is very interested in the Z-Cord! Which means I need to get on it ASAP to do the work it takes to get it done. A while back I sorted out a deal for a spare transmission from another (local!) member of the group that I was hoping to use to one of the primary issues with the car. I recently got to go over to the dude’s place and hang out, and it was really cool to spend an evening nerding out with someone who’s as passionate as I am about our platform. But, these projects take time, and it will admittedly be quite some time before he’s able to pull his, so I’ve started poking around on other routes. Another state-local member is parting out her auto, carbd sedan with a motor and trans that’s barely crossed 75k. I’d like to just grab the entire drivetrain as the Z-Cord has a comfortable 175, and make for a very reliable driving experience for the next guy. While compression is solid on the current motor, it does leak oil, and we’re pretty sure the alternator is dead, and frankly, it’ll be more of a hassle to swap transmissions over entire engines. So hopefully that pans out, we’ll see! But, with getting the car ready to go, I swapped the steelies that the car came with back onto the body (not letting go of my Prelude hubcaps yet!) as well as the factory console and gave it a wash that’s been a bit overdue. And, there’s only one thing you can do when a car is clean, and that’s grab the camera for a couple shots! So, here’s a few quick angles!
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And, since no update that I write can just make sense and be about one topic, here’s some pretty sweet results from another project that I’ve been chipping away at since the dawn of time- the tweeter project! Very, very excited to be sharing this, for some reason, playing with this 3D print in person has just been super cool. Let’s start talking details, how this works, and what I still need to change. Now, obviously, the point of this part it tuck away the tweeters from a component speaker, and I really didn’t want to have the ever-obvious holes drilled into a panel, it’d just look too cheap, so here’s the waaaaay too complex solution I’ve been poking at, I know I shared a few images of the data forever ago, so you long time listeners will recognize this. Here’s the part loosely placed on one of the doors from the B-cord, you do need to cut out a section of the panel to make it flush, but perspective tricks are enough for now! Here’s how it looks with the rest of the door- I think the theme works well with the rest of the door, for being a retro-active fix, I think it’ll blend nicely to not call too much attention to itself.
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Now, Plan A was to have the grille wrapped in the factory speaker cloth, but upon 2 seconds of trying to make that work, there’s no way that’s going to happen. I didn’t intend for the grille pattern to be visible (and I know a lot of people like the circular holes), but- if I’m not going to be using cloth, I want to redesign the grille to speak to the rest of the car better- most likely taking cues from the AC vents it lives near? But that’s TBD, I need to sketch on it!
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One of the features I’m excited to be integrating is a way to illuminate the door handle, I’m always worried that lighting can be corny, but I think this is a pretty subtle way to bring make the interior a bit fancier without being too much. I’ve designed these bezels to fit two grain of wheat bulbs which gives it a nice calm glow, but these are rated for 1.5v, and would get incinerated at a steady 12v output, and simplicity is key, I really don’t want to have to add a whole chip, or row of capacitors to try and stunt power. So plan B is grab an LED and center it in the handle. Since it’s much brighter I’m going to be reducing the size of the slit for light to leak through, physically restricting the amount of light that comes through the handle.
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B0CKS

01-28-2022, 12:28 PM

And pardon the potato grade photo, low-light doesn’t play well with my camera, but here’s the jist of the lighting with the twin halogen setup. The LED is a much cooler light, but I think won’t oversaturate the space if I control the slit properly.
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I have more photos I can share, but I’m going to make a series of changes first before this part is seen again, so stay tuned on that front!

Also, I hate mission creep! This is how it always goes. I’ve had this little murmer of a thought that’ll pass through my head some 10:30 odd time at night, it’ll rattle around for MONTHS until I somehow find an odd evening to flesh it out a little, and then the next few weeks I’ll be absolutely consumed figuring out how to make whatever part or concept I have come to fruition. And now normally, that’s a good thing! That’s what’s been my driving force for the tweeter project, and so many other odd parts on this vehicle (another example is clear turn signals for the Prelude bumper- it’s lead me down to learning a LOT about mold making and casting, as well as a bunch about resin 3D printing, at the expense of many hours of sleep. But more on that much later). But what if that same process happens on… well- not a bad idea, but something that really should not be a priority at the moment? Like, maybe over-fenders for example? That’s right. I’m not sure when or why I wanted to do this, but I’ve always liked the look of E30’s, or E36’s and some simple overfenders to fit some more tread. So- call it an hour of clicking later to come up with the idea, and MAN- I am ENRAPTURED.
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They wouldn’t be much, just two flares over the belt line on the car, keep it simple. But then, after doodling it, the more I thought about it, I could TOTALLY do that. I could 100% do that. (Not on the A-Cord, that car is far too nice to be chopping out the quarters, and I like the Manarays too much.) But, listen- I have EXACTLY what I’d need for it- I’d need to get a car 3D scanned-specifically a quarter panel and fender, and guess what I have sitting behind a barn, the answer is about halfway up this very forum post. I have the chunks of the B-Cord, a perfect buck to form panels onto. Jeez, lighting strike! There’s two ways I could go about this, I could hand form the kit in foam and have that scanned, or just scan the blank body and build something strictly in data and save myself the mess of foam. THEN, once I’ve got data made, I could probably call up my college and since they’ve got huge mills for milling students car designs, I could probably sneak a way into there and make bucks, then it’s just a problem of laying fiberglass! SEE. This is what happens, brain just starts spooling up and now I want to do this.
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So should this ever become a reality? Nah. But who knows. I could keep it in the back of my mind. If I were to pursue it, I think the build would go like this- I’d love to find an LX-I coupe (probably just a decent shell), cut out the rust, find a pre-built B20 (probably with a turbo), drop that in, gut the interior and just put some MEAT on the wheels. I could let myself cut a lot of corners, and also use a lot of parts I have sitting around to spice it up (carbon fiber hood, Prelude bumpers, spare 3D printed spoiler, you name it!) to make it sweet, and have something I’d be less worried about whipping on a track, and with a decent amount of power. That said, I’m plenty thin on cash, and more than drenched in terms of projects.
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So anyways, fun mind games- who knows what will or wont come to fruition.
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Oh and one more thing! Another project washed up on our shores, we just picked up this 2006 BMW 530 IX from a friend of my Dad’s for FREE! Long story short, Dealership wanted like 8k to do some suspension work to the car and fix other minutia, and the guy who owned the car said even fixing it all then listing it wouldn’t make him any money, and he was already moving onto a new car, so somehow- it ended up in our hands! We’re going to be tearing through the maintenance checklist and most likely flipping it for cash towards our 68 Lemans. So if you see it floating around in the background, that’s the story.
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Double also, still in contact with the manual steering rack guy. It’s Canada, in winter, and he says it’s going to be under 15 feet of snow for quite some time. Still biting at that lead though! Photos WILL come once I have them!

I gotta’ say, I know I’ve been kinda slipping with updates, they come in bursts lately, over the steady Monday posts that I had going for a minute, and that’s because DANG, if I slip at all, this becomes like a two or three hour long exercise! I’m not the fastest writer and it is SO easy to get distracted by stuff, so I apologize if I leave any comments hanging or update infrequently! I read and adore each one and this forum is constantly on my mind. Appreciate you guys, I swear I’m around!

Dr_Snooz

01-31-2022, 07:50 PM

Wide body kit for a 3g Accord? Hmmmmm......

PS: not really feeling the rear visors. But it's not my car so do what you think is best.

B0CKS

01-31-2022, 08:52 PM

Wide body kit for a 3g Accord? Hmmmmm......

PS: not really feeling the rear visors. But it's not my car so do what you think is best.

Nah, I hear you there, in and out of love with them every other day.

Maybe in some distant different future! Been shopping around a bit, and it'd be really nice to pack some 15x10.5"s wrapped in some 275/35/r15s around a CA, and finally have enough grip for all that A20 power! :rofl:

B0CKS

02-07-2022, 12:44 PM

Alright! Trying to stay up to date on this! Haven’t been near the car much this past week and am only writing short sentences, so forgive the lack of hard and fast “progress”. But, still wanna make a post so I can get a lead on it for next week!

Fact is, I’ve been crunching numbers and just saving about as much as I can, making as much as I do in a year- I’ll be able to get the car back to the bodyshop in ~September in more or the less the state that it’s in right now to get the rest of the paint finished. Which basically means I have months and months to do a relatively short list of projects, so I’m gonna be pretty spaced out on progress. So expect a lot of digital updates- I’ll have good amounts of time to model stuff, print and reprint, and hopefully square up side projects.

Which leads me perfectly to the first project, the (like…fifth) redesign of the airbox, this time as a 3D print! I think I already wrote this, but in short, current airbox is suuuuper clunky looking, a print gives me acres more design freedom, thus- it’s going for a redesign! I’ve got the math started on it, and looking from the rear view forward, here’s about the jist of the shape. Biggest change from “box” I want to make is adding chamfers around both edges, and then adding a large strip of foam to the top of the box. I think the thin tape of weatherstripping I had didn’t include enough jounce for my motor mounts (and the LUDICRIS AMOUNTS OF POWER) so I’m going the old school route and just added a fro to the top of the box. Taking notes from muscle cars, like shaker hoods, or classic Ram Air air cleaners. (my hood included for fun):
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Then as for the front- I’d like to utilize that design freedom to do SOMETHING with, rather than just a blank wall. I’ve been trying to look at factory airboxes, intake tubes, and the VTEC Valve Cover for inspiration, and would like to do something that at least fakes the look of a believable “factory” part. I don’t think I’ve found THE theme for it yet, so I need to put some more sketches together, but here’s a first barrage into what I’m thinking.
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Pointing out my favorites here, seems like first pick (a bit of a crowd favorite, according to friends and family) is this here- the side cover still needs to be removable, and while we considered factory A20 air cleaner retainers, alans, the idea with this is that it uses a bit of a rail system and a key, so all you need to do is pluck the little red guy out of the front, and the side slides forward and off to access the filter. No tools necessary! I like the simplicity, and spark of red would be a cool touch (or maybe yellow or something???)
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Second theme that I’m kinda digging is the waffle design, very much a factory look. And while its not perfectly “clean” I think you at a glance it has the right look to it, and I could probably go further to add texture to wrap the side as well. A few of these have blocks of text on them, and I’ve been getting into building models lately, and want to put decals on everything, so HYA. That said- having Honda on the airbox is kinda redundant since the valve cover says it better, and I don’t think being repetitive with it will do much good, so that detail will probably be nixed, but I do like the look for the sake of sketches.
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In third place, I was toying with the idea of putting like trans-tunnel wrap over the face to give the airbox a sorta functional pop. I like it in my mind’s eye, but it definitely goes a bit too far into showcar/racecar territory for my liking, although it’d look at home in like a SEMA booth or something. Maybe I’ll print 2 lmao.
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So I’m still I’m sketching on it, and will probably have more work to show as we go, but in the meantime- what do you guys like? Any of these stand out?

Also got some digital work in the mail, a fresh shipment from sendcutsend! Got my final fog brackets, inner radiator support, and front tow hooks! I need to bend and powdercoat all of these, but getting them is half the fun. I cut the tow hooks out of AR500 and plan to use our hydraulic press as a ghetto break to give the part a rounded bend that doesn’t stress the metal, we’ll see how it goes! All the mild stuff I can just bend with the regular press break, as we normally do!
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Since I haven’t been near the actual Accord, I’ve been in my apartment, which is were the Gord is stored, and well, I’ve decided I want to figure why it isn’t starting. In short, turn the key, and every system works, except the starter. Doesn’t even make a click. I bump started the car and drove it once, but since then it’s just sat. So, I’m on a rampage to get that sorted! I’ve been poking around to find issues with the circuit, and I think I found my culprit- this relay! Bench tested it over the weekend- and as far as we can tell- it’s toast. I ordered a new one, and need to check continuity from the relay wiring to the starter as the final leg of the journey, but I’ve got my fingers crossed that I’ve found the source.
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That’s most of it! Long term updates- the A-Cord is mostly stuck in the water while I wait for Canada to thaw so we can work with the manual rack, hopefully going to pull the powertrain out of Misty’s sedan this Saturday for the Zord, and as for widebodies, I found a guy who’s willing to scan a car, make molds and lay carbon if I provide the data to him for about 1.5-2k! Let’s me do what I know, and then takes the part I know nothing about and put it in a pros hands! In the meantime, while waiting for all this to come together, I’ve been a bit in the dumps as I haven’t been making proper progress on the car- so, I did what any sane guy would do, and took an older picture of the B-Cord and (very crudely) shopped it have the basic look of the completed car. And you know what? It worked wonderfully, I am once again motivated.
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Till next time!