Risotto, the 94 Civic EX challenge build/delivery car

Today was a pretty productive day. My wife took one of our cats for a walk 

While I worked on sanding, taping off, and painting more of the car. Both sides (not including the doors) are painted back to the rear bumper/trunk. 

I have a new door to install on the drivers side. It was $25, probably cheaper than fixing the big dent/rust/scrapes on it. Tomorrow I’ll work on painting the back of the car. 

Turns out the EX couples do not come with a rear sway bar but the EX sedan does. So some day soon I’ll head back to the junkyard and grab the rear sway from a sedan along with all the hardware. It’s only 14mm but for $15 and change it can’t be beat. 

So yesterday I finished work early and the wife and I went back down to the junkyard to grab the rear sway bar from the '95 EX Sedan there.  Turns out half the bolts were missing on one side, and when I went to the other side to unbolt it, I snapped the first bolt.  So we packed up and just walked around the junkyard for a minute, checking out some of the cars.  I'm honestly considering going back to some of the junkyards and picking up some spare parts, cleaning them up, and reselling them on FB Marketplace.  There was a set of 18" AMG rims there in great shape, and it would have cost me about $120 for all four.  Or I could get a Honda valve cover for $30, paint it, and sell it for $100.  Stuff like that.  

ShawneeCreek (Forum Supporter) said:

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.

Springs arrived today.  Thanks again!

Dusterbd13-michael (Forum Supporter) said:

Its a 94 civic  embrace your inner ricer and bring this for radwood in blue and white. Complete with wing, neon, and fart cannon!

Big news:  I sent this picture to my wife as a paint idea.  Her reply?  "Let's do it."

Picking up some green paint after work today.  Also since they're so cheap on eBay, I think I'm going to try to put some neons on this thing.

Good man. Better wife! 

Its gonna be rad!

Excited for paint

infinitenexus said:

Dusterbd13-michael (Forum Supporter) said:

Its a 94 civic  embrace your inner ricer and bring this for radwood in blue and white. Complete with wing, neon, and fart cannon!

Big news:  I sent this picture to my wife as a paint idea.  Her reply?  "Let's do it."

 

Picking up some green paint after work today.  Also since they're so cheap on eBay, I think I'm going to try to put some neons on this thing.

Oh, that will be fun. Do yourself a favor and get a roll or two of this stuff, or other 1/4" wide masking tape. It was invaluable for masking the eagle on my van. It will allow you to make those nice smooth curves of the splashes.

That van is so awesome!  I definitely have some 1/4” tape. I’ve been planning this paint for a while. After some thought we feel a little eh on the paint job above, so I started pushing the flames again. She finally said “do whatever you want, honey,” so I took that as a yes. Right now I’m thinking white with electron blue flames, and a partial layer of silver flames underneath. Similar to this style, but different colors:

I also want to try to incorporate space for the car number/class letters on the side/hood. Tonight I’m going to try to work up some ideas in photoshop or maybe Forza

Got a decent bit accomplished this weekend. I started swapping my driver’s side door for a fresh one and after about 15 minutes of dealing with all the wiring in there and realizing what a pain it would be to swap everything over, I decided to keep my door. I took a wire wheel to the rust, a hammer to the dents, and well, it’s passable. So I painted that, painted the roof white, and then started cleaning the trunk area. It had 25 years worth of oil, dog hair, and dirt so of course that took a while. Then I just started spraying the inside area white. 

Also wandered around a junkyard today and snagged some adjustable rear camber arms from an integra.  I purchased something else and forgot I had the camber arms in my bag, and after paying I grabbed my tool bag and realized it.  so I told the lady whoops sorry forgot these, and she asked what they were.  I told her adjustable camber arms, which of course was nowhere on their parts list.  So her response?  “Oh whatever, just take them.”  These cheap ones are only $20 brand new on eBay but hey $20 is $20  I just need to repaint the adjustable part from faded beat up red to electron blue  

Then once the paint dried a bit, we took it for a little trip to an empty parking lot and snapped a picture. It’s looking much better 

Its almost to the point where we can start enjoying it. Budget is around $1530 so far, and my to do list is getting shorter:

change timing belt/water pump

buy shocks, install with eibach springs

finish painting interior white

buy exhaust (and that silencer that goes in the muffler)

have my e30 rims installed for daily driving (not for challenge)

install rear sway bar

find two more 15” wheels and wrap them with 225/45R15 tires for autocrossing and the challenge

Lightly sand the entire car with 600/800 grit, then hit it with some clear coat

offset racing stripe?  Some kind of custom paint. 

Install interior neons

install under car neons (gotta get that 90s riced up look)

Probably not going to be many updates for a bit, but at least it's for a good reason.  The Wife and I have been wanting to move down to Florida near some family for about a year now, and looks like it will finally happen.  We're planning it for August, so that means zero money spending on the car until that happens, and we'll be driving the Civic down there in a month or so to park at my dad's house.  Driving a gutted car 1,000 miles, sounds like fun to me.  At least the suspension is still stock.  

I'll probably have my painted E30 bottlecaps installed and wrench on the rear sway bar but otherwise I'm just going to focus on selling parts to get some cash back in the budget, and packing up some spare parts.  Hopefully I can still make it to the 2020 challenge; The Wife and I want to very much so.

Good luck with the move. 

Even if you don't get the Civic done in time, come to the Challenge to spectate. It's a whole lot of fun and you'll get more ideas, meet everyone, and get a better feel for the event.

We're definitely planning on attending.  Hopefully we can compete as well, so I can blow all your minds with a blistering 15.5 second quarter mile.  I don't think I'll do much more to it this year other than possibly throw on the springs/shocks/rear sway/camber arms.  This move is going to take all our time/money, but at least then I'll have an entire year to basically build a race motor on the cheap, get used to the car and figure out the suspension/handling, and maybe learn to weld.

You need a battery powered blue tooth speaker for the trip. Use a phone and Pandora.

It has a nice CD player with a USB port, so I can just stuff a thumb drive full of music in there.  And it has one working speaker.  I need to poke around some wires to see why the passenger side front speaker isn't working.  The seperate tweeter is, but the main speaker is dead.  Once I get that figured out it'll help.  

Today's plan is to bleed the brakes and if I finish all my other crap, do some deliveries with Postmates.  Time to start making a few extra bucks with this little car.

Small update here. Had the E30 rims finally installed. Bad pictures but it looks a million times better than the stock steel wheels. 

We’re taking it down to Florida this weekend to make the move easier. After that and once we get settled in, I’ll install the springs and shocks. 

Trip down to Florida was fairly uneventful. The cheapo Chinese header has a leak so I could smell the exhaust whenever we had to slow down. The flange on it isn’t flat so I’ll need to either grind it flat or buy a better one. The only real downside to the trip was the a/c started going out in Virginia. I think I just need to recharge the coolant. But driving through the Carolinas in 92 degrees with no a/c SUCKED. Other than that the car did great though!  Great gas mileage the whole trip. Ran like a champ. Pretty loud inside because it’s gutted but that’s expected. 

So we're sitting here in south Florida, chilling at my parents' place at the moment (they just retired so they travel all the time) and I noticed the insurance on the civic is pretty cheap.  If it doesn't sell soon, and if I started getting UI payments soon, I might just have to take it to an autocross, or better yet a ralleycross.  I just need to buy a helmet and I'm good.  Might as well get some use out of it before I get rid of it!  Also I should find someone cheaper than Geico for insurance for this car.  It's just sitting here, I might drive it once or twice a month to an autocross, I'm sure there's someone out there that will insure it for super cheap.

I'm sure it's crossed your mind but if you're in an area with a postmates, you could still use this the way you originally intended. It's not costing you much and whatever you get out of it in sales may be offset quickly. Admittedly I don't know the ROI of delivery apps. 
I don't know your situation so I'm just posing the question! 

Maryland unemployment insurance is the slowest garbage ever. I've been waiting weeks on them just to process my claim. My wife is getting hired at a pretty nice job, so that will help, and in about a month I should be starting school - using my GI bill so I'll have some cash. That'll help big time. 
 

so last weekend The Wife and I were corner workers for some road racing at Sebring. I was worried she would get bored but the opposite happened - we're now members of SCCA, and she bought an SCCA sticker for her car, and if no one wants the civic then we'll probably build it up as a track rat. She also agreed to a Gulf oil paint scheme!  I drove the car around today some, too. It's really a blast to drive, but the exhaust leak in the header kinda ruins that. I just need to fix or replace that and I can start beating on the car. 

Finally a nice little update instead of just me rambling. I pulled the E30 bottle caps off the front and installed my race wheels, and it looks much better. Now I just need some on the back!  

I still need to lower it also. I just need some cash and the right deal on a decent set of shocks. I like the side by side comparison of the stock 185s next to the 225 Hoosiers 

I had that itch and wanted to do something to the car so I continued gutting the interior. I removed the headliner, exposing the sunroof mechanicals. I can see why people say this stuff adds 50 lbs 

In the near future the plan is to remove the entire sunroof assembly and replace it all with just a piece of tinted lexan permanently mounted. That'll save a lot of weight up top. But that'll have to wait a bit. Tomorrow if it's not too humid I plan on removing the carpet. Then it'll be almost completely gutted. 
 

also if anyone wants to buy my old E30 bottle cap rims with 4 good tires, 185/60R14, hit me up. Located in central Florida (Sebring), $200

Today I unbolted the seats, poured simple green on them, and sprayed them with a hose for ten minutes. Initially the water coming out of them looked like chocolate milk since it was so dirty. Pretty gross. I do like the stock seats so I plan on keeping them, at least until I can get a proper racing seat for cheap. Then I found $1.51 under the seats!

As well as about a million pounds of dog hair. Overall, the interior was pretty disgusting. Looking back I probably could have purchased a better civic for the same price. Such is life. So then I pulled all the carpet out. 

I've always read about how horrible the asphalt/tar underlayment is, and I've seen countless photos of people using blowtorches, dry ice and a hammer, and other methods to remove it. Maybe it's because I have a 25 year old economy car, maybe it's because I'm in sunny central Florida, but it came out very easily for the most part. I mean, I could pull it off in huge sheets with just my fingers. And it came off in big sheets. 

there were a few places it was a bit tougher, and where there was some sort of tan-colored rubberized glue goop that was hard to scrape off, but I pulled out a $12 harbor freight oscillating multi tool with a scraper attachment and it came off like butter. Literally like butter - came right off but there's grease all over that needs to be cleaned up. But, the car is almost gutted now!

so tomorrow I'll try to simple green and scrub the interior to get the last of the tar goop out. Then I can start sanding everything. After that, my next project will be removing the sunroof assembly and creating a panel from lexan/plexiglass. I still need to remove the door panels as well but this car has power locks and windows so I'll have to deal with the wiring. Also I'm hoping on the 1st I'll have the cash to buy a welder - I found one for $129 at harbor freight. That's sufficient for me. Learning how to weld will be fun, I've always wanted to. 
 

Removed the sunroof today. Probably weighed a good 40 pounds so that'll be a nice change. 6 10mm nuts and it was off, just had to unclip a few wires and 4 drain hoses and it was out 

I had an idea of how I was going to replace it, but then I noticed how the flanges were on the roof of the car. Just straight down 

I grabbed some large pliers and bent the lower part of the flange up, creating a sort of shelf. I then removed the glass from the sunroof and it just sits nicely on that ledge. 

That's just to keep any water from getting in the car, or if someone passing by at night is snooping around there won't be a giant hole in the roof. 
 

As to how I'll finish it, I plan on grinding the lip off completely and screwing the plexiglass down around the perimeter, with plenty of silicone around the screws and edge to keep it water tight. I think I'll toss a layer of window tint on the inside surface as well, to keep the Florida sun from cooking my head. 
 

From there, really my next step is to start sanding the car down inside and out and prepping it for a real paint job. From what I've read, if you buy a quart of rustoleum white paint at Lowe's they can tint it whatever color, so if that's true then I can get a nice gulf blue for dirt cheap. But before I paint the car, I have to buy a welder and fix the rust spots, and that has to wait until I get paid on the 1st. Now if someone would just buy my E30 rims, I could use that money to buy another 2 Konig Heliums, and have a full set of super lightweight rims. I think I'll try to just sell my spare cylinder head and I take manifold as well. 

Just sold the old stereo and front speakers for $20, ka-ching!  I just realized I don't have any form of receipt so I guess I'll just screenshot the facebook messages.

Today I finally feel like a real GRMer. Last night I found a great deal on suspension parts so my wife and I drove three hours round trip to pick them up. A guy had a rusted integra that he was parting out. I scored some H&R sport springs with Bilstein shocks for $120. Pretty stoked about that. I've been worried this whole time how I was going to find decent shocks at an affordable price, well here we go. Hopefully I can install these today!

spring rates are 330F/280R. Once I install the rear swaybar along with these, the car should handle fantastically well. 

So, this morning I set out, excited to install my new suspension. Here's the before picture in the front:

might as well go rallycrossing!  Install up front wasn't too bad, once I figured out that I had to remove the fork at the bottom of the shock in order to do it. And here's how the front stands after the shock/spring install:

looks a lot better and I know it'll handle great. Although the car is now low enough that getting a jack underneath can prove difficult. 
 

and here's where the problems started. Here's the before picture of the rear (I know, the rust is awful)

I sprayed some PB Blaster around and put my wrench on the bolt holding the bottom of the shock to the lower control arm and puuuuuuushed:

yep. The bolt sheared right off. So I unbolted the control arm as well and removed it along with the shock/spring assembly. I had to use a hacksaw to cut the shock off. Then I was able to twist the remaining bit of shock off the sheared bolt. Then I was left with this:

I tried my best and used every tool I could, but that remaining bit of bolt simply will not budge. So it looks like I need a new lower control arm. I can get one from a pick and pull 100 miles away for $20, or I can get two brand new ones in a bright shiny color with new bushings from eBay for $44. Looks like I'm going that route. 
 

Until that comes in, I'll try to be productive with some other stuff. I believe the A/C compressor is done so I might as well remove the whole A/C assembly and save myself another 40 pounds. Minimum weight for the car in E Prepared is under 1800 pounds if I read the SCCA rulebook correctly so I might as well get to lightening!