12/1 compression doesn't run on 93 octane pump gas, at least not for very long.
12/1 compression doesn't run on 93 octane pump gas, at least not for very long.
Remember Cousin Eddie's guideline for Honda ownership, rule number 1.
Every Honda with a cam belt requires immediate belt replacement unless there is irrefutable proof that it's been done recently.
Rule number 2. Go ahead and change the belt and do the water pump at the same time regardless.
In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :
This is my rule for all belt cars.
I probably sounded grouchy with the cam belt post. But all of the painting this, and new wheels that, and suspension whatevers go down the drain when that belt packs it in. At that point it's game over.
Nah, not grouchy at all. I just checked over the list of things the previous guy just replaced and didn't see a timing belt on there, so I'll definitely pick up a new one next paycheck. Thanks for pointing that out to me! A quick google shows me this is an interference motor so I'll definitely want that changed.
About to head outside to get a bit of work done. I'm going to gut the interior, everything behind the front seats, and grab a drill bit and start swiss cheesing everything. I figure adding lightness will be one of the best mods I can do with this little car.
Good news, my intake came in today! Installation was straightforward and simple, just had to make a bracket to hold it steady. I removed the rear seats and started removing the interior panels and rear seatbelts and thought hey while I’m at it, let me try to scrape off some of this old sound deadening. I’ve read nothing but horror stories about it, but almost all of mine came right off with almost zero effort
Picked up a new drivers side door today for $25. It’s currently stripped down and being prepped for paint. I removed the hood and one of the fenders as well, and sanded it down and started prepping for paint. I’ve found that cheap $0.99 spray paint at Home Depot/Lowe’s is fairly decent paint, but it’s very unforgiving - your prep has to be spot on or this paint will fisheye and run and everything else. I painted the underside of the hood white, so tomorrow I’ll work on wet sanding the top and laying down some paint on the hood as well as the fender. I might also go ahead and remove the cruise control and clean up a bit more under the hood.
Started painting the top of the hood today, and removed the front bumper and started painting it as well. Most of my day was spent doing that. I need to pick up some more of that cheap white spray paint on Wednesday and finish my new door, so next weekend the paint will be hardened and I can work on installing it.
I’m pretty sure this car was parked under a pine tree for a good long while. The engine compartment and little crevices are caked full of dirt, old pollen, and pine needles. Now that the hood is off, I’m really tempted to cover my air filter with a plastic bag, saturate everything with dish soap, and let the rain on Tuesday/Wednesday take care of it. My luck it would just rust more.
Nothing but problems with paint today. I've been using the $0.98/can spray paint from Lowes/Home Depot to paint the hood and fenders and everything, and I've found on smaller parts it's fine - my rear view mirrors look like a factory finish. But on something big and flat like the hood it's been nothing but problems. The paint doesn't cover well, so it takes a million coats. It's extremely thin so it runs easily, but at least it dries quickly. I'm sanding it all off the hood so it won't impact the challenge budget, and I'm just going to use proper Rustoleum for the hood. Never had a problem with that stuff.
The $1 black paint is fine, by the way. Much better than the white, although I've found it dries quickly yet takes quite a long time to fully cure and harden, at least on my rims.
Short throw shifter came in the mail just now. I'm going to take a sandwich break and spend some time with the wife and then pull off the other fender and get back to cleaning it up some.
Pulled the other fender off and parked the car momentarily near my hose. Sprayed a ton of dish soap all over the engine compartment after wrapping a plastic bag around the air filter and sprayed it down with a hose. Definitely got rid of a lot of dirt.
My header came in today! Installation is on a brief pause as I’m picking up a set of car ramps and a nice hydraulic jack tomorrow.
Once I finish painting my E30 rims and polish them up a bit I’m hoping I can trade them for the factory vx 13x5 rims. They weigh 9 pounds each, perfect for drag racing. I’m pretty confident I can get some more konigs cheap to add to the pair I currently have. I’ve seen a few sets on Facebook marketplace but they’re either too far away or cheap but not challenge budget cheap. Maybe I’ll luck out and find someone that wants to trade for a pair.
infinitenexus said:Also my google-fu tells me that with my planned mods I should be able to hit a mid-15 second quarter mile at the challenge. Not great but then again this is a 1.6 liter motor with a bad bore/stroke ratio so I'll take it.
These days and with your budgt you could have been in the 12s with an ebay turbo kit. Since you already bought an intake and header, if you have money left over I run a 150 shot of NAAAAWWWZZZZ. It's period correct and all.
Bought a hydraulic car jack for $15 and some steel car ramps for $15 early this afternoon, then installed my $48 eBay header. Fitment was about 95% spot on, just had to pull on an exhaust pipe to line everything up. No leaks, fortunately. And since I still have the stock exhaust, no increase in volume. I’m just waiting on the solid shifter bushing to get here and I’ll install the short throw shifter. Also picked up a few cans of rustoleum. Tomorrow I’m going to start sanding, taping, and painting under the hood proper.
Which leads me to my next conundrum: I had planned on painting electron blue hot rod flames on the front of this car, but today I learned the wife actually doesn’t like that idea at all. I still want to do some form of custom paint job, and she likes that thought as well. Base color will be white, accent color will be electron blue. Any ideas? I can paint pretty well, I’m just kinda out of ideas.
Also one of the wiper arms is rusted to the bolt it sits on. I was able to undo the nut holding it all on, but the arm itself won't budget, not even with some motivation from a hammer. I'm going to pick up some PB Blaster today and cross my fingers that it'll help. I need to get the cowl off so I can clean out under there, it's a horrible mess.
Wiper arm removal tool. About 15 bucks. Mine is an OTC 4676.
Hammers on wiper arms and shafts are a recipe for disaster.
Rockauto will sell you a nice kit that includes timing belt, water pump, belt tensioner and seals all in one box for 68 bucks.
Thanks! I'll pick up both of those. That wiper arm remover will be a godsend.
No pictures but yesterday the wife helped me sand everything down and we finished painting the hood, front bumper, and both fenders white. Also taped off the engine compartment and started painting that white. I was fretting about it a lot and my wife reminded me to relax, it's a challenge car. It's raining today so I can't really do anything to it, and I'm still waiting on that solid shifter bushing to come in the mail.
I've been really searching for suspension parts lately, like a set of coilovers. I haven't found any good deals - the only thing cheap I've found is cheap coilover springs on stock shocks, and I obviously don't want that. Sets of actual coilovers still go for hefty prices. I was able to find a set of new Truhart shock absorbers that are designed to be used with lowering springs. They have excellent reviews and a lifetime warranty, and some searching led me to a post from 2015 on here where someone said Truhart is usually the same as Skunk2. Well, $187 for shocks with a lifetime warranty designed to work with lowering springs is by far the best deal I've found so I'm probably going to go with those, and some cheap coilover springs. I'll only be lowering the car an inch or so, so I won't be beating on the shocks too much. Then I need to try to find a big rear sway bar for an affordable price, and two more rims to match my Konigs. I still think that'll be easy to find, I find full sets of Konig Heliums all the time for cheap, I just need challenge level of cheap. Patience will reward me, I think.
I've got some old Eibach lowering springs from my del Sol that can be yours for the cost of shipping if you want them and they'll work. I'm tired of them taking up space in the garage.
Any other parts laying around the garage? Also, what's the cost of shipping? I was planning on getting some eBay coilover springs for $40. Shocks and a rear sway bar are my biggest focus with suspension, and subsequently the hardest to find!
So today we went to two local/semi local junkyards. As expected, most of their Civics were '01+, so pretty much useless to me. The rest were 96-00, so also fairly useless. I did manage to get some nice pretty blue spark plug wires, which will match our white/blue color scheme for a total of $6.40, as well as a plug wire loom (which my car was missing). One car had some big (8.5mm I think) wires on it but nothing I did would budge them from the plugs, they were stuck solid. We found precisely zero 92-95 civics at these two lots. We did, however, find a 99 civic with rear disc brakes, but as I went there to start unbolting them, some weird old guy was constantly chatting me up about the wiring harness and I finally left just so I didn't have to deal with him bothering me. Guy was annoying as berk. Fortunately for autocrossing, the rear disc brakes add basically zero braking over the drums and they weigh more, so no sweat. I found another 96-00 civic with some Integra GSR rims but I put a breaker bar on the lug nuts and stood on it and they still didn't budge. Damn. I don't need any extra rims for this car but I could have gotten those for dirt cheap, painted them, and resold them for a good profit. Guys go nuts for GSRs around here. Tomorrow morning we're headed to another LKQ junkyard down in Glen Burnie and they have a 95 Civic EX, so I plan on taking the intake manifold, throttle body, and cylinder head. I'll be porting them and if I do well, tossing them on Risotto. If I go that far then I might also pick up a pair of A1 pistons, which will bump the compression up pretty high, and try to install those. With all of that I should have around 130+whp, which is my estimate because all of that with a cam will give me 150-160whp. Not bad for a 1.6 liter engine with a bad bore/stroke ratio. Also not bad for an engine that puts down about 100whp stock. Along with an estimated 200lbs of weight reduction total (once I'm done with the sunroof), that should make for a reasonably fun autocross car. And awesome gas mileage!
I like this build. Great challenge entry. 3 of my cars from my reckless youth were 90's Honda's, a 94 Integra, a 98 civic and a 97 civic. So I've got a soft spot for sure.
are you planning to keep it around as a beater daily, or just a beater, after the challenge? Because if you're not, the stock internals will do fine up to 200ish hp on a cheap turbo. Or 250hp for a few challenge runs.
infinitenexus said:Any other parts laying around the garage? Also, what's the cost of shipping? I was planning on getting some eBay coilover springs for $40. Shocks and a rear sway bar are my biggest focus with suspension, and subsequently the hardest to find!
No other parts unfortunately. But it looks like I can fit them into a Large Flat Rate box, so it's only $18.30 to anywhere in the country. Shoot me an email at my username dot racing at Gmail if you want them.
Sean
Awesome, thanks man! I'll send you an email right away.
So I went to another junkyard today, one that has a 95 EX. I was planning on taking the intake manifold and cylinder head so I could port them and build them up at home. After dealing with approximately one million vacuum hoses, I managed to get the throttle body off. I'm going to try my hand at boring it out. The intake manifold has some bolts that are damn near impossible to reach so I decided to just unbolt the head with the intake manifold attached, and pull it all as one unit. And so of course on the first bolt I snapped my socket extension. I packed it up and came back home. Perhaps it wasn't meant to be. Do I really want to deal with building up an intake manifold and cylinder head in my spare time? I'm not really sure, to be honest. Although it would be nice to have some extra power, that's for certain. I might go back tomorrow and get a new socket, extension, and try to grab them.
Oh and hey my band just released a new album today, so if you like heavy metal, give it a spin:
Another vote for the Ebay Turbo-I have one on my d16a6 CRX challenge build. You're OBD1, which makes the ECU a little more straight foreward as well.
The Bottlecaps are a good score-they're one of the few cheap 4x100 wheels that are wide enough (14x6) to hold an A7. I'm busting my hump to get a set for this year's challenge.
A lot of people have suggested the turbo route. I’ve never messed with turbos before so I would have no clue what to do. Also I’m not certain I have enough room left in my budget. But the power would be nice!
Well, this morning the wife and I went to the junkyard and I broke a tool and then we ran out of time so had to leave, and it had me thinking I should avoid getting in over my head. I don’t need to build a spare engine or anything. I’ve never even done that and I don’t know anything about Hondas. So uh, we wound up going back to the junkyard. We’re heading home now with a spare D16Z6 cylinder head and intake manifold in the trunk. I’m going to clean them up and port them. The intake manifold might get painted as well. I hope to be able to squeeze this into the challenge budget ($112), but I might just slowly rebuild them and build a spare motor with A1 pistons for whenever this one dies. I still have no idea what I’m doing but at least I’m having fun! But yeah I need to buy a book on rebuilding d series engines.
A good day full of progress! So these two bolts were rusted solid. They held the shift lever in.
So this morning I grabbed some drill bits and drilled them out. 5 minutes later, problem bolts were gone. I then ran up to Home Depot and grabbed some new ones and finished the short throw shifter/solid aluminum shifter mount install.
In this view from underneath you can see the two new bolts, the aluminum mount, and the bottom of my sweet chrome $5.40 short throw shifter. Honestly there’s no need to spend extra on a name brand part. This works great and I love how the car shifts now. Very firm and direct, short throws right into the perfect spot each time.
Then I put the now-painted fenders, front bumper, and hood on. I should have just waited for my wife to get home to help me with the hood but I’m impatient. So, a few scrapes later the hood is also installed. I’ll need to touch up that paint for sure. During. My shifter install I shredded the factory dust boot/weather seal around the base of the shifter. I decided to make a trip up to Lowe’s to try to find some rubber to just make one, since the factory part is like $20. So I drove up there, enjoying the sound of an exhaust leak and the smell of crap burning off the new header, and lots of hot air blowing up around the shifter. When I got to Lowe’s I realized I had left my face mask in my Mustang. Whoops. So I turned around and went home, empty-handed.
My wife came home then and she sat in the drivers seat eating a salad while I installed a freshly painted passenger side mirror. Fairly straightforward install, but most importantly my new mirror came with a nice fresh gasket, and I was able to cut that up and use it as a weather seal around the base of the shifter. It works great. Then we went for a drive around the block. My wife was laughing and kinda embarrassed the whole time, because we’re zipping around in a old Civic with the entire rear gutted and half of it spray painted white. I tried to impress her with the massive acceleration but with only 125 factory horsepower there’s not much there. The intake and header likely bumped that up a reasonable bit but it’s still kinda laughable. Oh, and right before that little joyride I re-tightened all the bolts around the header. Where it connected to the cat, those had come a little loose. Tomorrow I’m going to do some PostMates deliveries in it. It should be an interesting experience. Here it is now:
I need to get a nut/bolt/washer to hold the side of the front bumper up. The factory plastic bit is garbage and it’s broken anyways. Tomorrow or the next day I’ll work on aligning the hood better and continue sanding the rest of the car so I can continue painting it. And I have a new drivers side door to install as well.
Its coming together slowly but surely. Still on my to-do list is a new timing belt/water pump, filling the engine mounts with polyurethane, having my E30 wheels mounted once the paint fully hardens and my lug nuts come in the mail, install better springs and shocks, get an exhaust (and one of those silencers so its not so loud and awful sounding), better brake pads and fluid, and that’s mostly it.
If I’m able to, I plan on rebuilding the spare head I just picked up, doing a bit of porting (just gasket matching) and installed the 272 cam from Delta Cams. If that works out, I can sell my current cylinder head for a good bit. That’ll be a nice bump in power, which this car needs. I might port my intake manifold as well, and paint it a nice pretty blue to match my valve cover.
Went outside this morning and taped some stuff off and painted a bit. Just waiting for it to dry now.
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