Bagged B18 '88 DX Coupe Build!

[B0CKS]

So if all goes well, work- due to all the apocalypse going on right now- work could close! How great would that be? Just being locked up in the barn for a couple weeks? Amazing. Incredible. Truly fantastic. But that’s not gonna’ happen, but eh- a girl can dream!

Anyways, got some barn time in! And in half an hour- pulled the dash out of the Accord! It might be cheating since all the big stuff was already loose, but I thought it was fulfilling regardless! Now, why would I do such a thing? (considering I JUST got it together?) Well, I’m currently in conversation with Jays Performance Tuning Solutions (JPTS) about having a Plug and Play, Mil-Spec, Tucked, Show Quality harness setup built for this car. So full Tucked Type R harness complete with single bulkhead connector, and then full cabin harness tuck, so the headlights, motors, wiper motor wiring, etc. etc. etc. all look fantastic. Altogether it should set me back two, maybe three Accords, but the concept of a perfectly clean, brand new install would be fantastic!


So that’s reason one, reason two is a bit more fun! I’ve been habitually loading every compartment with functional details, and so this is pretty self-explanatory- but I’ve modified the glove box compartment to fit a small, emergency fire extinguisher! I really like this car, and if I didn’t have a fire extinguisher, I know the thing would certainly take the opportunity to self-immolate. So by having this around, there’s less of a chance! Basically trimmed out the back of the glovebox, to give clearance to the object itself:

And then, since there was absolutely no way the two self-tappers going into plastic were going to hold that weight, I trimmed out a metal plate and slid it between the dash and ducting, so the plastic is sandwiched between such that plate and the mounting bracket. The final touches are going to be adding 3m double sided tape into that mix to halt vibrations, as well as finding another volunteer glovebox to trim out. This one works well, BUT, I found the area I trimmed out could actually be shallowed up a ton. The height from bottom of fire extinguisher to glove box cutout could be about 2 inches shallower, which would be a welcome change!

And so this photo doesn’t do a good job showing it, but I know you’d think the back of the glove box missing would be a big deal- but nope! It’s actually almost an invisible change once you have it in car position.

DETAILS.

[Dr_Snooz]

Well, whatever you come up with will be awesome, I'm sure.

[B0CKS]

I had no idea I’d actually get what I was looking for. It’s almost the end of week one while working from home with the now well spread Corona Virus lands on our shores! But I’m set up to work a grand total of 300 feet from the barn, and I’m pretty content.
I’ve gotten a few hours in to do a few things to the Accord, nothing too earthshaking, but still making steps! The fire extinguisher is well in place, so that’s done at the moment, but still gotta cut out the next glovebox to shrink down that rear distance.
Then, got the doors hung! It’s wild to see this car as a near enclosed for the first time in… three years? Looks like a total starship to me, I know it was four bolts, but I’m so geeked to see this have the concept of potentially coming together.


Then, tore down my GSR trans (again) to pull the guts out, then packed up all my transmission goodies into boxes, and shipped them down to Tall Pines Racing for an initial glance, then a complete build!

And speaking of shipping transmissions through the mail, my YS1 transmission case showed up! Gonna wait until the internals are considered worthy, then send that down! And they came in a cool box:


Then, in barn news- with some help- we pushed out all the rides, swept and cleaned up the place, much to the pleasure of my brain cells.

And we also got some fantastic new barn swagger courtesy of my older sister, really sums up a lot of our approach.

Also, I got to find out I’m a hoarder.

Till next time! Stay safe!

[Dr_Snooz]

That's a lot of corner lights and eyebrows, LOL.

[B0CKS]

That's a lot of corner lights and eyebrows, LOL.

Hahaha, it matches with my 3 1987 Prelude steering wheels, 4 sets of steelies, 3 brown center consoles... 7 front seats... oh no, what is wrong with me??

[B0CKS]

Updaaaaaaate! Being back home in the barn has been great, making some pretty decent headway and a handful of big projects!

But let's start with the small stuff! First off, got the second glovebox trimmed down to better fit the fire extinguisher- the if you look on the right, that's the first one I cut, and you can see that lower cutout edge is noticeably deeper then than new one- we got to keep all that material in the back, which will make this very functional, and I think- pretty cool!

Second, tore down the other rear speaker for restoration, got the outer plastics sanded, and sandblasted and repainted the grilles, but we're still looking for the correct color match for the plastic. I have the logos recreated in illustrator, and transfer paper, just gotta get paint!

Third- in barn news, I went through to the dark-musty-storage-container area of the far wall in the barn and cleaned and organized that with some shelving, it's sooooo much better! A huge relief!

And then onto cool stuff, I got a few parts "Vapor-Blasted" at a small shop half an hour away, and MAN. This is crazy! I wish I had better before pictures, this literally takes any part and makes it look absolutely new. everything looks one hundred percent more better, and I'm so pumped!

So I couldn't help myself, I really wanted to get a sneak preview of what all this would look like, so I busted out the valve cover and mocked up a couple parts, and DANG. This I'm absolutely in love with how this is coming out!

I then noticed that the great guy who powdercoated this valve cover did a pretty rough cut when he milled off the letters, so about an hour working from 150, 220 to 400 bringing all the details down to smooth,sharp and glorious, where they should be!

And in the same night, I got to powdercoat my first part! We're just getting our setup up and running, and the results are amazing, we found a fantastic ink black replacement, and there's going to be a loooooot more where this came from!

So come to last night, and I'm taking on a pretty huge task here, ripping out all the noodles out from under the dash! Which is a pretty scary deal, I really hope I remember where everything goes, there's just sooooo much more than what I had expected to be in to this harness. The plan is to remove it and have it stripped of most of the unnecessary plugs, and reassembled with the the B-series harness, to make the whole operation a fully plug and play B-series OBD2 setup. Wish me luck!

That's most of it! But it's Saturday, and I'm itching to go swing a wrench!

[Dr_Snooz]

Cool!

[B0CKS]

Cool!

Thanks! Glad I'm not alone! Got a lot more done tonight, a handful of Accord brackets went through the powdercoating process (bumper mounts, a few under-dash parts) and I'm hoping to get the pedal cluster restored tomorrow, and any other bracket I can find or think of!

Also, got most of the harness labelled up, feels nice to have a slight better grasp on it!

[Fixedit]

I am always surprised at the level of detail and care taken to make this build so clean! It's gonna feel unreal when you get this thing all put back together

[B0CKS]

I am always surprised at the level of detail and care taken to make this build so clean! It's gonna feel unreal when you get this thing all put back together

Thanks soooo much! Been really geeked to have found ways to ramp up the level of clean these past few weeks, and I’m beyond excited to be bringing parts to a true, show quality grade! There’s certainly tons to do, but I’m starting to check off assemblies as all clear for the initial assembly, I’m super excited!

In terms of examples, check this out! I got to keep my word on rebuilding the pedal cluster, tore it all the way down, gave everything a sincere scrubbing, all the metal a good sandblast, and then re-lubed all the springs and bushings, and I’m honestly blown away at how this part came out, this is straight up racing grade, eat-off-of clean, rugged stuff, something I could only fake with rattlecans previously, which means lots (and lots) of respraying is coming up, but that’s a-okay if this is the result! Check this out, here’s the original pedal cluster:

And then a single night later, it became THIS. Exposure is certainly fighting me here, but the main bracket is this perfect pure gloss battleship gray, it looks and feels flawless, and the pedals provide a contrast I couldn’t be happier with!


And this exercise has been on a primarily invisible part, which has made it a really great, forgiving experience, and in that vein of learning, I decided to take care of all the metal bracketry under the dash and give all of it that same, pure coating. The results are fantastic, and even if the work isn’t going to be seen, I’ll happily know that I have quality parts I can rely on!

And the backside of the dash does look pretty sweet with it’s new gray parts. And on that topic, I finally wrapped up the dashboard assembly! Got the new glovebox laid in place and trimmed out an extra notch in the back of it to make the extinguisher release a little more finger-friendly, glued back in the chunk that was knocked out by my buddies knee when I drove into a tree four years ago, and so it’s a wrap! Now, the sub, rear suspension, pedal cluster, and dash are all assemblies I’m happy to throw on the road! I'm excited to keep checking these off!

Yesterday, I also got to take a minute and got the dead-pedal in place! I pulled this little thing off an Accord a few months back, it’s the first one I had ever seen, so I’m super happy I snagged it! As a true option from the factory, there’s a reinforcement stamping that I don’t have, and three weld-nuts that also weren’t included, but I made due with three riv-nuts, and it after giving it a few stomps, it feels plenty rigid, now to take it out and powdercoat it!

Then, in the last update of this wall of text, I caught a message from Tall Pines Racing, they’re halfway through cleaning the case I sent them, and MAN, I can already see this all coming together, and I’m soooo excited at how clean all of this is going to be!

Stay safe and keep wrenching!

[Dr_Snooz]

Are you paying someone else to do all this powder-coating or do you have a set-up of your own? Cause if you're paying someone, well that's gotta cost some bread.

[B0CKS]

Are you paying someone else to do all this powder-coating or do you have a set-up of your own? Cause if you're paying someone, well that's gotta cost some bread.

Haha, it's a DIY setup! My Dad and I chopped up a plastic cabinet and turned into a spraybooth, and got a little 150 dollar smoker oven that's been doing great. We have around...800 into all of it? So it hasn't paid itself off yet- but there would be absolutely no way pretty much any of this would get powdercoated if we couldn't do it in our cave!

[B0CKS]

And hey! Guess it’s time for an update in the weird world of quarantine. Between getting my office hours slashed in half, as well as living and working from home, I’ve been able to get a good amount of barn hours in this past week! This is gonna be a long post, hold on!

I guess let’s start off with all the small stuff- and running from the post overhead about powdercoating, the things that have gone through the cabinet this week were 1)dead pedal bracket, 2)throttle cable bracket and 3)engine bay brake line brackets (and the fun and funky hanger that I bent to hold them! Wee!). On the list of things that are up soon: there’s one more dashboard bracket I missed that needs to magically become gray, and then I’ve got the frame side transmission mount that’s going to be all wrinkly fresh before too long too! Then it’ll be time for the alternator brackets, and power steering pump brackets to get sandblasted and refreshed!

Then, I’ve unfortunately been really lazy on the 3D printing front, and wanted to dust off a bit of work there, so I got to tackle something that’s been bothering me for a while, the spoiler edge. When I first mocked up my spoiler, the corner wasn’t too hugging the edge as it should be, and left a sliver of air at the top corner. So! Remodeled it based on a ton of guesswork, made a quick print, and I’m happy how this sits! Should be printing a full section soon to see how it all works out, but then I should be done from a modelling side!

Making a big jump from that, I’ve been trying to figure out the rest of what I’d like to vapor blasted next, and it seems that the pumps and motors of the engine bay are the real big items that will be coming up! So both headlight motors, the wiper motor, and power steering pump will all get blasted to look like new, and then the caps of the headlight motors and wiper motor will all get sandblasted and powdercoated ink black. Should be sweet! But to strip down the pump to be cleaned I had to take off the pulley, and why is it that I always learn about reverse threads seconds AFTER I finish absolutely chopping a nut in half and destroying a pulley? No idea. At least it gives me something fun to look for in a junkyard once those reopen.

And, update from out of state! Tall Pines Racing has been still working busily on my transmission, and with the most recent update being in the case, both halves are looking brand new, which I couldn’t be more excited for! And as much that’s happening to the trans, I got word that the Shop that’s been building the motor is down for at least a month for quarantine, so it’ll be some time before the block comes together, darn.

But in the meantime, I’m working on getting the car back to car-like where I can, so the car has recently grown a bumper! And I found all the hardware for the filler panel, so I’m happy to get that in!

And then, in a bold and all around scary move, I’ve finally gotten to see what the car is actually going to look like with the Manarays, and I’ve come to find things just a liiiiittle lacking in terms of dialed fitment. Currently, the rear UCAs are 100% cambered in, so that’s part of this. But there’s about an inch from the edge of the tire to the corner of the wheel well, and I’m hoping to close that up a bit, since I’m that kind of guy. Not some sort of nasty flush or something, but just push the wheels out to where I want them. So it’s going to be a bit of a push all over. I’ll be removing some of the rear camber (you never hear anyone say that! That’s a nice change of pace) most likely getting ~5mm spacers to push it out, and doing the nasty task of making room to come out. But you can kinda see how sub-flush they are right now.

So, I got the grinder and ended the debate between rolling or cutting. I chopped off about 10 mils of material out the flange, felt pretty nasty doing it. The plan is weld the two pieces of sheetmetal that join there back together, and also fix the rust that’s flared up on the inside just off the top of center that I just found while chopping. But man, had to hold my breath the whole time.

You can kinda see where that left us with in terms of clearance in this awkward angle. The flange in was about twice as big at that top as it is now. I also left the bottom edges untouched, because hey, if it aint broke. But this should solve some problems aesthetically, as well as functionally- I can’t rub on it if it’s not there!

And this is going to bleed into two posts, so here we go!

[B0CKS]

Let’s move onto something more lighthearted and also less permanent than the what’s hanging over this post. Do you guys recognize these little OK Honda stickers in the corner’s of your 3G? My first Accord came with these and I thought they were pretty sweet! If you aren’t, here’s a photo I found to give you the jist:

Well, the rear glass I’m using in this car did not have those in it! So I actually ended buying a repopped set until I realized I forgotten one of my main rules for this build. NO BLUE. (Just trying to keep everything color coordinated, and so that’s an easy way to remember). So after thinking on it for a minute, I developed a solution I’ve really grown really fond of! That answer is to reverse cut them out of “frosted glass” vinyl on my vinyl cutter! They’re a really subtle touch, and lay on fantastic! More stuff I drool over.


But of course, why have one when I could have thirty? I decided to use up the whole sheet I bought, so now I have some in stock! I’ll see if anyone is interest and let some go sometime!

And also on an even more zen note, we decided to empty out the second barn yesterday for some spring cleaning (and dusting) and I decided to pour into my four years of junkyard hoarding to get try and get a little more organized. So this huge pile has been gone through and placed into those shelves, but I also found the box of hardware I found while stripping a certain Red Civic down to nothing, and all THAT also has to fit into these two little cabinets, oh jeez.

And hey, did someone say hoarding? Because while also cleaning the barn, I decided to get my whole collection of 13” wheels together and list em, because I really don’t need… any of these at this point! Goodbye steelies and shop tires! I barely knew ye!

Stay safe!!

[Fixedit]

Damn! Love the details! Really like the frosted OK stickers, are you selling them still? Also, not to negate your entire post and piranha-chop at the wheels, but are you selling those five spoke 13's on the bottom?

Also I agree with the fitment in the rear wheels that you're looking for, that'll look nice push out a little

[Dr_Snooz]

Haha, it's a DIY setup! My Dad and I chopped up a plastic cabinet and turned into a spraybooth, and got a little 150 dollar smoker oven that's been doing great. We have around...800 into all of it? So it hasn't paid itself off yet- but there would be absolutely no way pretty much any of this would get powdercoated if we couldn't do it in our cave!

That's what I figured. You're doing a lot of small pieces which fit into a smaller setup. I've thought about getting myself one of those Harbor Freight setups, but lots of other things need doing right now.

I love following your build, BTW.

[B0CKS]

Damn! Love the details! Really like the frosted OK stickers, are you selling them still? Also, not to negate your entire post and piranha-chop at the wheels, but are you selling those five spoke 13's on the bottom?

Also I agree with the fitment in the rear wheels that you're looking for, that'll look nice push out a little

Thanks man! I appreciate it! Really want that to be properly tight!

And haha, no worries, in all honestly my apologies for leaving you hang with a question! I listed the ad a bit before the post, and I've got two local guys I have to wait to flake before I can ship em out- the crap parts of trying to keep your word lmao. But if neither of them follow through, I can get the wheels boxed up!

And yeah! I've got some spare OK stickers! I'll get back once I know about the wheels so I can save thirty whole cents on shipping hahaha

[Fixedit]

Hah no worries man! I’m not even sure if I can afford them, how much are you asking? Or rather, where’d you list them, just locally?

[B0CKS]

ACK, been a minute! I’m not dead or sick, so darn.

Progress has been in a bit of hiatus, there’s been equally a lot and a little going on, but I think there’s been enough progress to finally make a decent post! Let’s start off with the smaller stuff, then I’ll let try and get down what’s going on with the bigger stuff in this build! First off, I was lucky to score a pair of JDM marker lights from a guy who didn’t quite know what he had! They looked decent in photos, and better after a quick polish, but unfortunately have a few too many battle wounds to be used on this particular car, so I’ll be passing them on to someone who can put them to use! There’s a crack under the extrusion on the passenger’s side and the lower adhesives have given out, and it looks like the secondary silicone the previous owner packed in also gave up on it, and one at the leading corner of the driver’s side. So they’re not perfect, but they’re certainly not trash!


Then, still refining the spoiler, the small square that I printed an update or two back was close enough that it justified a full corner print, and I’m quite happy with how it lays. It looks like the initial concept of just 3M isn’t quite strong enough, so I’m going to reinforce the setup with some hardware, both into the trunk, and between each section. And I’m still not quite sold on whether this is going to be body color or black, so it’s been nice to look at each corner and see what it would look like either way. I’m open to opinions, what do you guys think?


And the big update from these past couple weeks is in terms of wiring, the cabin harness being the main thing in the scope. JPTS, the business I was really hoping to have build the harness ended up flaking out, so I decided to look elsewhere, CJ’s Wiring is booked till infinity, Monotech doesn’t make the correct style harness I’m looking for, Rywire makes fantastic stuff, and offers a near-standalone setup with their fusebox (which sounds great! The less I understand and have to build the better.) Then lastly, Wireworx has a great engine harness with good options, but doesn’t have the same fusebox setup that I’m sold with for Rywire, so I’ve gotta sit and think on it for some time. So with no real option on farming out the cabin harness, I decided I would take care and “tuck” it myself, aka rework the front arms of the harness to be stripped down, rewrapped and simplified. The big change I had to make to was taking reworking the fusebox into its new location under the dash. I didn’t trim out and resolder all the wires, just peeled the harness back and wrapped it back into place to avoid my crappy wiring. Should work decent, and I only had to extend like four wires to make it work! So that was a fun adventure! There’s a few odds and ends I need to find answers to, but eh, some progress!


Then, with the cabin harness done for the moment, it was time to put it back in place and start working out how to get stuff properly tucked away and mounted. The driver’s side harness fell into place very nicely, with only the windshield wiper motor, brake fluid sensor, and headlight motor poking into the bay, the tucked look on that side is super sharp.

Then the passenger’s side is a bit more work, the PTC relay was chopped, along with the A20 connectors and old vacuum stuff which made for a lot less wiring running down the side, and I’ve relocated the headlight motor relays to down under the bumper support in front of the battery tray to get them out from beside the radiator. I was going to have them mounted up under the fender, but then I’d have to take off the bumper as well as the fender to get to them, so it’ll be better to just remove a single panel if the need arises!

[B0CKS]

Ope, 8 image limit.

And with wiring being most of this post, the next step is figuring out what to do with the OBD2 ECU. The initial plan before it fell through was to custom loom the cabin harness to put the ECU in the OEM position under the seat meant I would need a custom bracket to hold it in place. I got designing and mocked up a decent bracket (on the left on the image below, and being printed out and “tested” on the image below that). Ultimately, I’ll most likely be going to Rywire for my harness, and if I want custom work from them, it’s going to be a staggering 2500 bucks, which I haven’t quite protected for. So I’ll be going with an off the shelf wiring setup for an Integra, and since the ECU location in an Integra is in the passenger side footwell, I’ve designed a bracket/kickpanel that pushes the carpet back an inch, but mounts the ECU to the inside of this bracket, so it’s safe! It uses the same two upper holes that I’m using to mount the fusebox under the dash, then then the lower end will held in with a few rivnuts. The field of holes on the right of it is for the handful of zipties I know I want to put into it to guide the bulk of the ECU wiring in place. And because it looks cool. I really can’t tell if this is tons of fun, or extremely boring.

(BTW, the image number on the image above is number 10,000! What do I win?)


And, in entirely-irrelevant-but-has-to-go-somewhere news; I have three A20's for parts! All three have low compression (Because reasons, I'm good at buying dying motors.) I still have two good five speeds hooked up to them, and since no one who owns a 3gee lives in Michigan with me these are probably gonna going off to the scrapyard decently soon. Anyone need anything? The third one is still the spare coupe, gonna hopefully pull that out before too long.


So, in this last paragraph of my TED talk, it comes up to updates on the motor. The machine shop found three apparently irreparable cracks in the head casting, which is a bit of buzzkill, but after searching around and clearance from the shop, I ended up dropping a grand on a pre-built head, which may save me actually save me a few bucks instead of paying my shop to build the current one. So it’s on it’s way to the shop and should be there sometime next week, and from my understanding, if the head checks out as a nice piece, I’ll be seeing my motor sooner over later! I’m super geeked for that! And then I’ve been in continuous talks with the transmission shop, while I don’t have any particular updates, they’ve got it cued up, and it sounds like they’re good to hammer away on it pretty soon!

Sooooooo yeah! Gotta sort out wiring, and turn key might be in the next couple months!

P.S. Anyone else suddenly have the urge to buy a 1G CRX or is it just me?

[B0CKS]

Hah no worries man! I’m not even sure if I can afford them, how much are you asking? Or rather, where’d you list them, just locally?

Haha, I won't be asking for much! Probably like a 100 bucks, and the last I set of 13's I shipped out to California was like 80 bucks in shipping, so it won't be too steep! Wanna work something like that out? And yeah, just locally listed! I've still got em, both the buyer's flaked! And as a head's up, I won't be sending em with tires!

[B0CKS]

That's what I figured. You're doing a lot of small pieces which fit into a smaller setup. I've thought about getting myself one of those Harbor Freight setups, but lots of other things need doing right now.

I love following your build, BTW.

Hey, thanks a ton! Sorry for falling off the face of the earth right after such a kind complement lmao

But yeah man, I hear you! Had the same argument here. I'd love to be able to cook like a 14" wheel, but that's not in the cards. And there's certainly going to be stuff we end up outsourcing, I know I'll be going out to get the rear subframe and both bumper supports done up at least from a professional. But I think there's a ton of merit in having a small setup, things that would nickel and dime you to pieces if you looked to get them all done somewhere other than your garage. And after spray painting stuff for so long, I can't upsell powdercoating stuff enough, it's the factory standard for a reason!

[B0CKS]

Oh and Snooz, if I can bother you some more, I've got a question I think you'd have some good info on.

I'm looking for a way to restore my DLO trim, all of mine is doing that great thing were it peels up and leaves just the stainless underneath it. My first guess was powdercoating, but on closer inspection, it looks like the rubber/plastic seals are pretty integrated into the part. Any ideas past trimming off the rest of flakes and hitting it with paint? I know you've had a couple good in depth threads and science on trim restoration, just wondering if it has the scope of those parts too.

Also, bought a Pioneer CA-whatever-number throttle cable after re-reading your thread on replacing your cable, here's to hoping it works with a B series!

[Fixedit]

That is a fantastic price for those but you know what I probably shouldn’t, I like them a lot but I just dumped some change into my hatchback and I ought to hold on to at least a little cash during this pandemic lol. What are those 5 spokes off of? I’m bad about rims lol I already have rims for the hatch project but I keep seeing other styles..it’s a sickness I tell you!

[Dr_Snooz]

Oh and Snooz, if I can bother you some more, I've got a question I think you'd have some good info on.

I'm looking for a way to restore my DLO trim, all of mine is doing that great thing were it peels up and leaves just the stainless underneath it. My first guess was powdercoating, but on closer inspection, it looks like the rubber/plastic seals are pretty integrated into the part. Any ideas past trimming off the rest of flakes and hitting it with paint? I know you've had a couple good in depth threads and science on trim restoration, just wondering if it has the scope of those parts too.

Also, bought a Pioneer CA-whatever-number throttle cable after re-reading your thread on replacing your cable, here's to hoping it works with a B series!

Just for you!

https://www.3geez.com/forum/restorat...ml#post1218841