$200 EG Sedan project

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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Mon May 01, 2017 2:15 pm #425441 With starting 2 new businesses I've been really tight on money so there is no way I can currently afford to actually install the K swap the way I want until I see some return on my investments. I also need to still figure out a way to get the swap home from my friends shop :lol: jsut something else to take up space with the TSX.

The $200 Civic is no longer a $200 Civic. I spent the weekend going all out on the front suspension components. With the weather and heat I just wanted to get the work done so I will try to snap some pictures tonight.

I'd like to say it was a pretty successful weekend and I can't wait to drive the car again.
-I installed a new power steering rack, however, I remove all of the power steering parts and lines and filled and looped the rack. I found it on Amazon Prime from Detroit Axle. Included outer tie rods, inner tie rods, boots, rack, FREE SHIPPING, and a lifetime warranty. $176.99

-Both new front axles. Old one literally crumbled and fell to pieces when I pulled them out. New GSP units from Amazon Prime as well. Driver's $46.74, passenger $46.02. Free second day shipping.

-Also installed a full energy suspension master bushing set. Haven't installed the rear suspension yet that's for next weekend. For now I installed all the front lower control arm bushings, and the upper control arm bushings as well. $have to double check the price but with rear trailing arm bushings it was around $170.

- Everything was so messed up, dirty, and broken in the front end that I missed diagnosing the passenger wheel bearing being totally shot. I placed an order with my local Napa for a KOYO bearing and should have it in my hands in a couple hours along with some new lower ball joints. Hopefully I can get this installed on my lunch break today. Also will finally force me install the brakes I bought for the car and have been avoiding doing.

That's all the important stuff. If you want to hear about the weather and brush fires I've been dealing with keep reading.

My area has been subject to some pretty large (by Florida standards) brush fires over the last week. My subdivision was threatened by a 30+ acre fire, set by some young kids, a few days ago. Had to leave work early and luckily managed to know a back way to walk to my house as police had closed the road to allow the fire department to work.

Wind was blowing toward my neighborhood and with just a 4 lane road between a 30 acre fire and the neighborhood the fire department was so worried about the fire jumping they were spraying the front of the subdivision with water and had asked all of us to turn on our sprinkler systems (or use a hose to wet our lawns).

This weekend was another brush fire over 70 acres burning just a few miles away. Temperatures were up in the 90s with ridiculously high humidity and no rain and all I've been able to smell for a week straight is smoke. This morning it looks like the fire is up to 90% contained so hopefully this cold front brings much needed rain for us this week.
Last edited by EconoBox on Mon May 01, 2017 2:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Mon May 01, 2017 2:26 pm #425442 I forgot to post the worst/best news about the Civic.

I've been having oil consumption/ oil leaking issues since I bought the car. New PCV valve, and all the top end seals have helped but not eliminated the issue and the car is still drinking 3 quarts or so a month. There are 2 obvious leaks left that need addressed, one is the oil pan gasket the other is the corners of the head gasket on the distributor side, a known issue on this motor.

I finally managed to have some free time on lunch last week and hooked up a compression tester. I'm trying to find time to run a leak down test but the tester is always tied up at work and as helpful as the techs are I don't want to get in the way borrowing tools they need.

Cylinder 1 - 185
Cylinder 2 - 190
Cylinder 3 - 100
Cylinder 4 - 200

Well Cylinder 3 is obviously an issue. Those numbers were a dry test on a warmed up engine. I went ahead and added a cap full of oil to cylinder 3 and did the compression test again and the numbers stayed the same at 100 psi. It looks like the car may have a burnt exhaust valve and the smoke in the exhaust is likely just valve seals. The spark plugs were caked up with very light oil residue and overall didn't look bad at all except on cylinder 3. I do have the header off from doing the steering rack over the weekend and I haven't been able to get a good look down to the back of the valves in cylinder 3 but the valve stems I can see are completely caked up with carbon/oil build up so I'm thinking I'm on the right track. A friend already donated a D15b7 head that he said he has no use for and has just been sitting in his garage. It has been decked, had a valve job, and new valve seals installed. Still going to be over $200 in gaskets and parts to do the timing belt at the same time (might as well).

The problem is should I waste the money putting another head and all the gaskets on or just deal with the embarrassing smoke until I can afford the K swap?
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Fri May 05, 2017 5:28 pm #425770 Everything apart:
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New wheel bearing and ball joint ready for the new hubs to be pressed in.
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Everything back in except knuckles.
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My hubs finally showed up last night and I finished getting the car back together. Didn't take any pictures because it was late and I wanted to finish. Did the best alignment I could with some boards and a tape measure and the car feels so much better! Must be pretty close to what this car felt like new in 1993.

What all I installed:
Powerstop Ceramic Pads
Centric Blank Rotors
Moog front lower ball joints
Koyo (OEM) wheel bearings
DuraGo (From Amazon) front Hubs
GSP Axles
Detroit Axle re manufactured power steering rack (lifetime warranty!)
Detroit Axle outer tie rods
Energy Suspension master bushing set (all of the front is installed now)

This weekend I'm going to inspect the drums and wheel cylinders and install the rear trailing arm and lower control arm bushings. Should make the car drive even better. Then I'll flush and bleed the brakes and get an alignment at work Monday. Overall I can tell you properly installed polyurethane bushings are a must have upgrade.
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Mon Jun 19, 2017 7:01 pm #6906933 Started my week of great... got a flat right around half way between work and my house. Quick call to AAA and I ended up getting to work only a few minutes late. I have no spare but I was expecting this to happen in the near future. The previous owner had a mix and match set of bald used tires on the car and I was just being cheap and seeing how long they would last.

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I got online and logged in to my tire vendor to pick up some new tires to slap on the car... but somewhere along the way I got distracted on Facebook market place and picked these up for $260 delivered! I just nicely told the guy I didn't have a way to pick them up but I had cash and he said he was willing to bring them to my job and drop them off so I would have a car to drive home.

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Nice little set of 15 inch Rota Slipstreams with 205/50r15 Kumho Ecsta tires. Its a huge improvement in ride quality and handling. Now I want to lower it...
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By teal_dx
- Wed Jun 21, 2017 3:27 pm #6906934 Slips with tires for $260?!?! Nice work!
I love how the center of the steelies only have rust where there were holes in the wheel cover :lol:
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Tue Dec 19, 2017 3:07 pm #6908518 Haven't been on in a while!

Well no big updates.

The automatic in the $200 Civic finally went out. Got 12,000 miles out of it and the clutch material in the torque converter finally washed out and has clogged up all inside the transmission. So I finally did it... It's nothing fancy. Just a JDM K20A base Integra engine. Shopping for transmissions now. Hoping I can track down a reasonable deal on a 6 speed.

Picked it up with my friends Tundra a couple nights ago.

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I'll post some more pics once I have it on an engine stand later this week. Once I get a transmission I can start ordering everything else. Just don't want to order K20A2 transmission parts and end up getting a good deal on a Z3 trans.
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Tue Dec 19, 2017 3:23 pm #6908519 Just like everything else I will try to do this as low cost as possible without cutting corners. I will be using a Hybrid-Racing bolt in shifter and cables, I will be using K-Pro, and I will be using Hybrid-Racing billet mounts. As far as the rest I will be using as many OEM or DIY parts as possible. This engine also came with a good AC compressor so I will be adding the HR AC kit to fix the AC in this car. Money permitting there are a few performance things I'd like to add before the engine goes in but my priority is getting the car running again. Sharing 1 car with the wife isn't easy when you work 30 miles from home.
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Tue Dec 26, 2017 2:34 pm #6908526 Yea it's going to be a lot of fun surprising people in traffic, I could never pass anyone with the D15b7!
I'm more excited that my car won't be smoking out the exhaust any more.

I found a 6 speed transmission I just have to go look at it and pop the case open to see if it's worth the $600 the guy wants for it. It's also an 05-06 Type-S trans so it will require the VSS signal converter which is an additional cost to consider before I pick it up.
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Tue Dec 26, 2017 2:56 pm #6908529 The car is currently sitting in my work parking lot, because the transmission went out as I pulled into work a couple weeks ago.

I was bored on lunch break one day last week and got the engine ready to pull (hoses, throttle cable, wiring... etc.). AAA won't tow the car with the engine out or I'd make my life 10 times easier and finish it on the lift at work. Hopefully this week sometime I'll call and have it towed home so I can get the bay emptied out and clean up.

I'm going to eventually paint this car once my TSX is up and about again. So I think now will be the perfect time to go ahead and spray the engine bay of this car. I have a couple color options sitting on the shelf in my garage and all I would need to buy is some clear coat. Not going to shave and tuck it just looking to clean things up a bit.
1. Black Cherry Pearl (Lexus, Toyota, Scion color)
2. Cement grey (think clear coated primer)
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Thu May 31, 2018 1:57 pm #6908610 Progress with the sedan has been slow.

I finally have a stack of parts sitting around for the K swap and it motivated me to put some time into the car over the 3 day weekend.

I'm still a couple months away from having everything together for the K swap but I'm getting there.

Finally pulled out the tired old SOHC engine. Trying to sell it locally, hopefully someone buys it soon for some more K swap funds.
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Pressure washed the engine bay after spraying it down with some Purple Power. No idea what the previous owner had spilled on the paint (guessing brake clean) but a lot of paint was gone underneath all the dirt and grease.
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After pressure washing the bay I started removing all the unnecessary brackets. This drill bit is your best friend for this part.
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This mount has to go.
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After drilling the welds out. You may notice the last weld on the top of the frame rail (closest to the firewall) wasn't drilled out. Honestly I don't have any tools that could reach it. So I drilled out all the other welds and the with my hands wiggled the mount bracket side to side until it broke free.
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Now to go back with a grinder and clean all of this up before applying some paint. This is just a daily so I don't think I'll bother painting the whole bay. Will probably just buy some red spray paint and cover this up.
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Also removed this little bracket to make it easier to drill out the mount bracket.
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Been documenting everything step-by-step so I will probably put together a nice simple K swap guide to share. I still have to drill out the the torque mount bracket under the passenger frame rail will probably get that done tonight.
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Thu May 31, 2018 6:00 pm #6908611 Forgot the photo of the mess in the garage.
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Also update on my TSX. The car is completely prepped for paint. Just waiting on my painter to have the free time to get around to it. Also picked up a set of 19" 2018 Accord Touring wheels from work as rollers for now while I decide on the new wheels. All of the bolts for the car are here now as well. Anything visible will be replaced with these (door hinges, fenders, inside gas door, hood bolts... etc.). It's been almost 2 years of this car sitting I need to get a move on. Really miss driving the TSX. And with all the new horsepower its going to be a whole different animal.
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Tue Jun 05, 2018 12:29 pm #6908612 The parts pile is growing!

Skunk2 Alpha K swap header and Alpha radiator.
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Karcepts EG radiator bracket, and some eBay lower radiator mounts from VMS. keeping AC so I didn't want to chop off the OEM mounts and move them... and the Hybrid Racing radiator that sits in the condenser brackets is about double the price of these brackets and the Alpha radiator combined.
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Some OEM style hoses from Napa using part numbers recommended on forum pages. I'm sure some cutting will be involved .
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2002-04 RSX Type-S Engine harness
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Brand new OEM shift boot
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Also picked up a core transmission. Its from a 9th gen SI so it's not useable (could actually use it with a custom rear engine mount) for the swap but the internals will come in handy.
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The reason it was at work and got replaced... no second gear.
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All I really wanted from it.
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Still need to find a reasonable price on a transmission that will be easier to use. Once I have the transmission I'll be able to order the shifter and linkage. Hopefully I'll have some more of the smaller parts by then for the fuel system and the AC.
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