Bagged B18 '88 DX Coupe Build!

[InAccordance]

Very cool! I snagged an OE armrest from the junkyard a few years ago. I didn't intend to use it, but grabbed it knowing that they're only getting harder to find. Now that I'm daily driving the car again, I want it!! I just need to get the cushion recovered because it's nasty right now. I have a set of cupholders too, but the place they would go is currently occupied by my gauge cluster. They'll just stay safe and sound in my storage.

want want want

[Dr_Snooz]

Sorry. Not today.

Happy Thanksgiving though.

[B0CKS]

Very cool! I snagged an OE armrest from the junkyard a few years ago. I didn't intend to use it, but grabbed it knowing that they're only getting harder to find. Now that I'm daily driving the car again, I want it!! I just need to get the cushion recovered because it's nasty right now. I have a set of cupholders too, but the place they would go is currently occupied by my gauge cluster. They'll just stay safe and sound in my storage.

Same reason I pulled mine! They're not making new ones! But now that I've had mine in the car for a few days, it makes a huge difference! You have me beat at the cupholder section- still gotta source a set of those!!

happy belated thanksgiving to you too!

[B0CKS]

Big news! (a little late, but still!)

The B18 is IN PLACE, HALLELUJAH, It's a super tight fit, but it's finally in its new home! This is mostly just going to be a photo post, but in terms of things checked off the list, I rerouted all the sub, air and other misc wiring coming out of the firewall to run along the the passenger side of the interior and now under the PS fender, making it super clean, -I also plastidipped the top of my battery -it's an optima red top, and it was just SO RED in there, so now it's nice and muted, letting the gold and brass show through great! Oh yeah and I also started wrapping some of the harness in really good looking mesh loom (taking a note from Anthony Calabek's book)! That said, some other stuff happened too, but here's pictures!!:










AWESOME. Now to make it work!

[Dr_Snooz]

Woohoo!!! Go go go!!

[B0CKS]

Hey Strangers! Time for a bit of an update! There hasn’t been any massive changes to our favorite projects, but enough small things have happened that there’s a handful of things I wanted to document! I’ll start with the-never-before-seen, Coupe parts car! I’ve run into around 20 3geez in junkyards in my three years of wrenching, and so the first time I’ve found a coupe and its an 88’ huge bonus! It’s white with a pretty brown interior to boot! So, I’ve pretty much been the only one pulling from it, but so far I’ve grabbed:
-full beltline trim (quarter panel, door panel, and fender)
-Both Turn signals
-rear driver side taillight
-Rear glass trim surround
-A shorter-than-carb’d- FI Throttle cable (hat tip to Dr Snooz)
-Front shock Fork Hardware
-Chrome Headlight surrounds & hardware (mine are all toast!)
-the plastic clips that hold the lock arm to the door handle, since mine were toast!
- Gauge Cluster surround (mine was toast!)
-Roof filler trim
-And the “I didn’t know existed” rear flip down coupe seat! No one told me about this feature! What have I been doing this whole time!?
So while not all of it is necessary, I’ve been happy to have a lot more coupe specific parts that I couldn’t find anywhere else! So here it is when I first found it:

To today:

And so, back to the main show,
The car has been making little steps, I picked up a SE-I Armrest for the rear half of the console as well as a clear windshield washer reservoir cap (just doesn’t match the gold and black of the engine bay, so the blue had to go!)
The core support has been sandblasted and put through primer (time to sand!), the rear seat pivot brackets have been drilled and installed, and the Cheddas Traction bar has finally been sorted out! (the adjustable links I received were too short, so I got ones twice as long and now we’re all good!)

And so, the last glaring problem? Engine mounts. I have no idea how anyone else had had such luck with the Innovative swap kit, but mine has been rough from start to finish. The engine has three connection points (one for each side and a rear) and while I was able to get both side mounts to bolt up, the rear did not align with the holes, so I assumed that was fine, and tried to install axles, only to find that the whole engine was shifted too far to the passenger side. So I unbolted that side and the whole engine retracted to roughly where it should be, although the rear center mount does not line up with the holes (still) and the passenger side mount needs to extend back that way for it to be able to bolt back up, because it would appear my transmission is somehow too skinny for this to work! I have a plan to rectify this, but for spending $500 bucks on this kit, I have been massively disappointed.
So here’s how the passenger side mount currently looks:

And here’s how the rear center looks:

I’m not thrilled about the mounts, but what I am excited about is finally having an engine, bags, and for the first time ever, all four wheels on the car! The vision is sloooowly coming together!


And so final notes before the next month hiatus, I got a quote to re-upholster the Prelude seats, SE-I armrest, and rear flip down seat, and that is ~1500 bucks, so it’s time to start saving (again!) but that will be massively cool (to me, and I hope you!) in the future.
And speaking of the future, I picked up the first part of a project I’m very (very) excited to take on around May this year, these are 4x100 14 6.5 genuine Volks Rays TE37’s. Cannot wait to do this! Honda for life!

[Fixedit]

Awesome! Thanks for the kickass update, nice work getting all those parts from the junkyard Coupe! What's this other project you mention at the end?

[Dr_Snooz]

Great update! Looks like you have some drill and ream work ahead of you for those mounts. I can't speak to the Innovative mounts specifically, but more generally, isn't it funny how things work these days? When I was younger, you always searched for a solution you could buy, rather than making your own. Thirty years ago, the Innovative mounts would have worked great and costed less than if you bought the materials and tools and learned how to make your own. Now it's the opposite. You could have bought a welder and steel stock, then watched YouTube videos and made mistakes until you had really good mounts for less than what you paid to be disappointed. You're still going to end up fabbing on these to get working motor mounts and you paid a fortune for the privilege.

Bummer deal. Hope you come up with something brilliant.

[B0CKS]

Great update! Looks like you have some drill and ream work ahead of you for those mounts. I can't speak to the Innovative mounts specifically, but more generally, isn't it funny how things work these days? When I was younger, you always searched for a solution you could buy, rather than making your own. Thirty years ago, the Innovative mounts would have worked great and costed less than if you bought the materials and tools and learned how to make your own. Now it's the opposite. You could have bought a welder and steel stock, then watched YouTube videos and made mistakes until you had really good mounts for less than what you paid to be disappointed. You're still going to end up fabbing on these to get working motor mounts and you paid a fortune for the privilege.

Bummer deal. Hope you come up with something brilliant.

Haha, too true! Everything seems quite on hand these days, matter of fact, we just upgraded our barn with a new welder not too long ago. And all the knowledge on how to do design it yourself and build is a few taps away! Really is an interesting point!

I think I've got a simple fix in the works, but as usual, reality doesn't always line up! We're finally done with our mechanical restoration on our 1967 Olds Delmont 88, so the Accord and the 1965 Corvair hardtop are currently loaded back into the barrel, I hope to keep the updates coming!

[B0CKS]

Awesome! Thanks for the kickass update, nice work getting all those parts from the junkyard Coupe! What's this other project you mention at the end?

Haha, thanks for staying tuned! I'm doing what I can! I feel more than lucky to have found a coupe, Michigan is not a place known for these cars! And speaking of, the next project is gonna be under wraps, but the idea is a cross country road trip to find a rust free vehicle! I'm impatiently waiting until May!

[Dr_Snooz]

Oh, you have to post about that Corvair for my sake. One of my won't-ever-happen-in-this-life dream projects is to put a 911 engine in a 2nd gen Corvair. It would be wicked sick.

[B0CKS]

Oh, you have to post about that Corvair for my sake. One of my won't-ever-happen-in-this-life dream projects is to put a 911 engine in a 2nd gen Corvair. It would be wicked sick.

Hahahaha, hey Snooz! I'll get photos up tonight, I took some awhile ago but haven't carved out some space in the day to upload them! I haven't forgotten, honest! But a 911 powered Vair would be all types of insane, I've grown up in a family really big on those cars, and so I know a handful of people who've thrown midship V8's into them and I can guarantee they're nothing to laugh at! :O

[B0CKS]

Alright! Seeing Calabek's Aerodeck coming together has me all inspired, time for an update! I'll be starting off with the daily driver, (known as the "B-Cord", with the big huge mega project being the "A-Cord"- its a complex system.) It's been trooping through all kinds of salt and cold this whole Michigan winter, and I only had to rip the whole front end off once to fix the headlight! That's pretty good!

Other than that, it's actually handled the winter pretty well, while it does have a ton of "old car issues" it hasn't left me stuck once, and jumps through snow surprisingly well! So nothing but good news on that front, my girlfreind and I even ended up taking it on a little photoshoot to celebrate some nicer weather and good lighting, check it out!




And her faaaar better photos! (please pardon the dweeb of a model!



Next up, A-Cord, what you guys are really here for!

[B0CKS]

Finally making some serious progress on the B18, my last couple weeks have been spent in the engine bay! We'll start with the final transmission side engine mount, it's been the bane of my existence for months on end at this point, so having this puzzle solved is a huge weight off my shoulders! The mount basically was too short and reaching too far forward in car, so the arms were cut off of the main mount, extended and rewelded together, and then dropped in place, and with a little bit of convincing, the engine is now hanging all on it's own! Wooohoo!


Another fun project has been relocating the coil pack, as most of you know it sits atop the passenger side strut tower, and is a visually cluttered design. So I've taken the liberty to relocate the pack to the inner-side stamping of the passenger headlight stamping, and with it's close proximity to the radiator, has the potential of getting too hot and misfiring, so we're currently crossing our fingers that the heat shield we fabbed up is enough of a heat sync to keep it happy! And while it was designed to be compliant with the OEM catch can, I found out the Cheddas Traction bar does not allow that one to fit, so I picked up an Ebay Special Overflow Tank (nicer quality than I expected!) and built two brackets to hold it in place, using a already existing hole in the front end and lower valence hole!

Now, with paint dry and aforementioned coil pack and catch can installed:

And you might have noticed a little bit of loom wrapping the wires leading to the distributor, and that's because I'm going out of my way to make sure as many harness' I can find Are wrapped up to make a clean monochrome look in the engine bay, another hat-tip to the Gold-Standard that is Anthony's Aerodeck! And that project is going well, other than the engine side wiring itself, a good amount of it is already cleaned up!


So that's most of it for this update, there's a couple pretty cool things lined up for the future, I picked up Alex Garcia's (from the FB page) shift linkage from his B-series swap along with a Cupholder and SE-I armrest setup, so I'm looking forward to those, and I'm ironing out the final details to have Apache07x's carbon fiber hood shipped all the way up here, and I'm beyond excited for that. And in that same vein, I think I've cracked the code to upgrading our 3geez to actual hood struts without having to raise the hood, and only minor modification to the body! Sweeet! 'till next time!

[Haru]

thats dope!

[B0CKS]

thats dope!

Haha, thanks a ton! Glad to see other people enjoy my strange obsession!

[B0CKS]

Oh, you have to post about that Corvair for my sake. One of my won't-ever-happen-in-this-life dream projects is to put a 911 engine in a 2nd gen Corvair. It would be wicked sick.

Alright, made it! As requested, here's Corvair photos (on the 3geez forum, blasphemy!) They're two '65 Vairs, the first car is a essentially factory restored blue turbo convertible, with a stick, and sitting on MotorWheel Spyders! And the second is the car that we're working on restomodding right now, the red coupe! My Dad has owned this car since the early eighties, so it's quite an important vehicle! We're in the process of ticking all the new car options, such as a full swap to fuel injection (from quad carbs!), adding AC, power windows, a Chevelle center console, custom package shelf, leather seats, cruise control, and full stereo system, but keeping the look overall very stock so to the untrained eye, it's just a really nice air cooled ride! That said, here's the duo!:


And here's some details on the blue car;


And some of the red coupe;


Some more detail for the center console, the Corvair doesn't come these!!

They also don't come with this custom package shelf we made ourselves!;


And in a nutshell, those are two (of... like seven) of the barnmates the Accord(s) keep company with!

[Dr_Snooz]

OMG! That brings back some memories! I was maybe 8 when my brother got his turbo Corvair. It was his dream car and he had a license plate frame specially printed up that said "I eat Porsches." Sadly, it never ate even one Porsche. It never ran right and he couldn't figure out why. It spent most of its sorry career sitting in his carport while he rode a moped to work. He finally sold it in disgust and has paid others to work on his cars ever since.

Thanks for posting those up. Your other cars are looking legit too.

[Haru]

Damn dude, nice corvairs!
I have a 1960 900 coupe ive been working on for (ashamed to say) 10 years. its low priority, and gets stuffed on the shelf for long periods of time. But im getting enthusiastic about finishing it again.
its fully shaved (door handles, emblems, drip rails, front trunk lock, body seams), body dropped, bagged, vent window delete, with a 63 spyder engine thats mated to a PG. They never came that way, so theres a bit of R&D involved to make it run right without detonating between shifts.
seeing how everyone is stepping their game up these days ive been getting some crazy ideas of what i want to do to finish the look.
i want to angle chop the roof 1.5" in the back and 2" in the front to get rid of that weird reverse bubble look they have.
but the crazy idea i have is i want to find a complete donor car and section about 6" on each side to widen the original quarter panels, fenders and rocker panels, but leave the doors recessed to give it a gt touring car look. i also always hated the way the pinch rail looked at the bottom of the rockers and thought it would be sick to recreate the upper body line protrusion along the rockers that also wraps around the rear and front and ties into a molded spoiler.
i know it sounds insane, but thats kinda the image of it i always had in my head since day one. at this point im just saying screw it and gonna go for it. my family owns a collision repair shop and i can do all the metal work, but i know knothing about using filler and sanding and painting and all that.
im looking for a cheap roller to sacrifice for the body panels. they had one at the junkyard near me, but they nickel and dime you to death over there and its cheaper to find someone whos fed up with having a broken down one sitting in their driveway and just want to get rid of it.
i just need to stop dicking around with my 3g so much and focus on it.
however i have too many cars that have a higher priority and it seems impossible to get to sometimes.
my garage right now:
1998 camaro drag car that just got a new motor and needs to be tuned.
1962 volvo amazon. v8, t10 4 speed swapped, LSD canyon carver.
1970 class 11 baja bug that ive been collecting parts to do a subaru engine swap.
1986 shelby charger. working all the bugs out. just want to stance it and cruise it.
1996 land cruiser. low miles got it for free. needs a front end.
2006 dodge ram. needs an engine.
1960 corvair . needs a lot
1987 accord lxi. needs almost nothing, but i want coilovers.
2003 hummer as a daily driver.

as you can see i have a problem. hahaha

[Calabek]

Wow, thanks for the rep, hahaha.

Sucks about the mount kit, I was actually looking at the same kit but they wanted $600USD for it (which is about $1000 AUD) and then he wanted another $400 for shipping to Australia. So yeah, we went the same route of custom making our own. Very happy to hear you've got yours hanging now! It looks fantastic!

The golden rule for the engine bay we're trying to follow; 'all business'. Anything that can be deleted/hidden/removed from sight has been. You've done really well with yours. All the small touches you're doing are really bringing it together. GG buddy

So what's left before you're belting it around the block? Linkage kit? ..?

[B0CKS]

Wow, thanks for the rep, hahaha.

Sucks about the mount kit, I was actually looking at the same kit but they wanted $600USD for it (which is about $1000 AUD) and then he wanted another $400 for shipping to Australia. So yeah, we went the same route of custom making our own. Very happy to hear you've got yours hanging now! It looks fantastic!

The golden rule for the engine bay we're trying to follow; 'all business'. Anything that can be deleted/hidden/removed from sight has been. You've done really well with yours. All the small touches you're doing are really bringing it together. GG buddy

So what's left before you're belting it around the block? Linkage kit? ..?

Hey thanks man! It's getting there! I remember reading about how you guys fabbed up your own set- seemed so wild how steep that price is! At one point while shaking my fist at that last motor mount I was thinking of reaching out to you and seeing if I could just pay some sort of massive price tag to have the guy who made your (working) mounts fab up one final one, I'm glad it didn't come to that lmao! But thanks a ton! So happy to have that problem solved, and a few dollars leftover in my wallet!

Yeah, you've done it so well! Love the look of your engine bay, it's been all sorts of inspiration (and as I'm sure you can tell by now, reference!) You've done such a great job of making an eye-catching and proper engine bay without having to resort to shiny gold tape haha, massive props! But thanks man, can't tell ya how much it means to me that you like it!

I actually have a shift linkage! It's just that I'm going to pick it up from California come May, so I just have to stay busy until then! The biggest hold up is the engine side wiring harness, I'm going to be splicing into an old A20 harness I had so that thing is totally a plug and play operation, and that's the biggest roadblock! I still have to get my two-hose vacuum system sorted haha, but that should be reasonably doable! Past the engine bay is get the brake system to watertight, re-upholster the interior and throw down some final paint! So maybe by 2028 I'll be getting close!

[B0CKS]

Damn dude, nice corvairs!
I have a 1960 900 coupe ive been working on for (ashamed to say) 10 years. its low priority, and gets stuffed on the shelf for long periods of time. But im getting enthusiastic about finishing it again.
its fully shaved (door handles, emblems, drip rails, front trunk lock, body seams), body dropped, bagged, vent window delete, with a 63 spyder engine thats mated to a PG. They never came that way, so theres a bit of R&D involved to make it run right without detonating between shifts.
seeing how everyone is stepping their game up these days ive been getting some crazy ideas of what i want to do to finish the look.
i want to angle chop the roof 1.5" in the back and 2" in the front to get rid of that weird reverse bubble look they have.
but the crazy idea i have is i want to find a complete donor car and section about 6" on each side to widen the original quarter panels, fenders and rocker panels, but leave the doors recessed to give it a gt touring car look. i also always hated the way the pinch rail looked at the bottom of the rockers and thought it would be sick to recreate the upper body line protrusion along the rockers that also wraps around the rear and front and ties into a molded spoiler.
i know it sounds insane, but thats kinda the image of it i always had in my head since day one. at this point im just saying screw it and gonna go for it. my family owns a collision repair shop and i can do all the metal work, but i know knothing about using filler and sanding and painting and all that.
im looking for a cheap roller to sacrifice for the body panels. they had one at the junkyard near me, but they nickel and dime you to death over there and its cheaper to find someone whos fed up with having a broken down one sitting in their driveway and just want to get rid of it.
i just need to stop dicking around with my 3g so much and focus on it.
however i have too many cars that have a higher priority and it seems impossible to get to sometimes.
my garage right now:
1998 camaro drag car that just got a new motor and needs to be tuned.
1962 volvo amazon. v8, t10 4 speed swapped, LSD canyon carver.
1970 class 11 baja bug that ive been collecting parts to do a subaru engine swap.
1986 shelby charger. working all the bugs out. just want to stance it and cruise it.
1996 land cruiser. low miles got it for free. needs a front end.
2006 dodge ram. needs an engine.
1960 corvair . needs a lot
1987 accord lxi. needs almost nothing, but i want coilovers.
2003 hummer as a daily driver.

as you can see i have a problem. hahaha

Hahaha, a classic carcaine addiction! I love your vision for the early Vair, sounds like a chop and a widebody, and that is always a good thing!! And yeah, making that reverse bubble flop around sounds like a lot of work- but a welcome result, the sedan seemed to pull it off better with that rear overhang it had over the glass! It's surprising to hear that you know metalwork and don't do much bondo, it seems like the opposite is true more often than not, although I'm positive that you can pick that skill up with ease, metal is the tough part!

Dude that is a killer list haha, what an awesome garage, I never would have dreamed of that set of cars being stallmates, sounds like you don't have much to do though!

And hey- got any pictures of that Vair? Might as well make this thread a haven for some air cooled rides!

[B0CKS]

OMG! That brings back some memories! I was maybe 8 when my brother got his turbo Corvair. It was his dream car and he had a license plate frame specially printed up that said "I eat Porsches." Sadly, it never ate even one Porsche. It never ran right and he couldn't figure out why. It spent most of its sorry career sitting in his carport while he rode a moped to work. He finally sold it in disgust and has paid others to work on his cars ever since.

Thanks for posting those up. Your other cars are looking legit too.

Hahahahaha, awwwww- that's the worst ending! I know how that goes, some cars are just doomed to sit, I think my Conquest was parked and broke more than half the time I owned it, and it was far more than I could chew, ultimately just throwing money at a shop to figure it out, only to find out it had rod knock! So is your brother over the whole Corvair concept? Or are there any plans to make a modern Porsche eater?

[Dr_Snooz]

No, he's loooong over it. He's over cars really. He just buys new Hondas and is boring. He got excited about the new Miata, bought one, hated it and sold it quickly. The Corvair was his first experience with cars and it wasn't rewarding at all, so why continue? He's really good with houses though. He bought this crappy, flea-bitten ranch-style that he spent 10 years fixing up on nights and weekends. When he was done, it was magazine quality. He brought a lot of interest and charm to a boring box house. Of course, he doesn't really do that either since his stroke. I'm not sure how old you are, but I'll tell you, guard your health. It's easy to lose and haaard to get back.

[B0CKS]

No, he's loooong over it. He's over cars really. He just buys new Hondas and is boring. He got excited about the new Miata, bought one, hated it and sold it quickly. The Corvair was his first experience with cars and it wasn't rewarding at all, so why continue? He's really good with houses though. He bought this crappy, flea-bitten ranch-style that he spent 10 years fixing up on nights and weekends. When he was done, it was magazine quality. He brought a lot of interest and charm to a boring box house. Of course, he doesn't really do that either since his stroke. I'm not sure how old you are, but I'll tell you, guard your health. It's easy to lose and haaard to get back.

Huh, goes to show how we each have our niche, it's funny how everyone has talent, it just lands in different places. And it's a sincere loss to hear that someone with a skill has such a burden, I hope he's making progress, even if they're just little steps at a time. Although one thing I don't understand is how anyone could hate a Miata, I've sat on California freeways going 100 miles an hour in one and had nothing but a smile plastered to my face, bummer. At least he's still buying things with an "H" on them, I'm sure you have some influence there, it's a start!