AztecEGhatch

used to drive a 94 aztec green cx, ls/v




Sold that, even though I wish I held onto it and decided to get this trans am. Such a fun car with the ls1 and t56, took it to the dragstrip a couple times and shows n ****.. Then this ******** runs a red light in front of me one morning and the car was totalled and my face hurt.



so after more than a month of going back and forth with the insurance company trying to get a fair settlement I did and the search was on for the next car. I wanted another teal bubble cause I just ******* love aztec green, but I couldn't find the right one (almost got a one owner si for $1200 but it sold in like 2 hours after posting)

I always liked the 4 door integra style more than the hatch, hell I just like sedans. So I had to pick this one up when I came across it on CL. '94 GSR 5sp, only 107k miles, 2 owner old man driven. And it was cheap.

The day I bought it.



cleaned up a little



First things first, drivability. Mechanically the car was fine, owners grandson was a mechanic who did the timing belt and a good tune up before selling it (plugs, wires, oil, gaskets blah blah) But the clutch felt terrible and the shifter had way too much play in it

so i picked up this guy along with some energy suspension bushings and a new master cylinder and slave cylinder



Did not take pictures of the bushing/shifter install and you all know what master/slave cylinders look like so heres a picture of the console I guess



ditched the POS sony xplod and put in this pioneer double din I've had in my last 4 cars



and then I clay barred and buffed the car, removed the pinstripe with an eraser wheel and sanded out some scratches. Also gave the trunk, engine bay and door jambs a thorough wash, went over the seats with fabric cleaner, shampooed the floormats along with detailing the interior



Then I decided to go low and slow on this one, keep the engine stock for a little bit because its a daily driver, my only car right now, and I go on several road trips a year.

felt nice buying new parts for once, and yes I get car parts off amazon



Wheels arrived on time, I was trying to get this done by Honda Day Englishtown this past August.



Unboxing was fun! so fresh!

15x7 +38 Enkei 92's




I decided to mount the 195/55's off of my fat fives because they are pretty new and the car came with steelies & snow tires.

I couldn't resist and had to mount them on my monster truck!



Coilovers and HID's finally came, a week before Honda Day!! and I work full time so this meant doing all this work after a long *** day in the shop.



Will post more later going to class now

AztecEGhatch

I decided to go with the F&F type one's for several reasons. I am on a tight budget, college, and cs-ii's are still on backorder I think. If not then damn I should have got those. But I'm happy with my type 1s, the ride is awesome for a daily driver, still very comfortable and I don't track this car at all so I don't need a performance-oriented coilover. Put a couple thousand miles on them with no issues yet so I would say they are a good entry level coil over.

Installed the fronts in my garage with limited hand tools (all my tools were at work!) and it took about two hours with smoke breaks.



but the rears, holy **** the rears. the bolts were so seized I broke my breaker bar (and fucked up my hand) and said **** this I hate working on my car in my driveway/almost 100 year old garage and i decided to take it to the shop I work at and let my co-workers have at it with the impact guns.

Installed the HIDs before finishing the rear struts. 5000k they look way blue-er in the pic than they actually are.



I bought Blox lower control arms for the rear. I bought them because I knew my lca bushings were shot and only had 2 days till honda day. They on sale at import dps for like $90 so i swung by and bought them (about $200 for honda bushings only) I don't have a picture of them because im embarrassed to have blue blox lca's under my car lol.

Left side came out fine with an impact gun but one of the right lca bolts was so seized in the bushings that it was turning but not moving and bending the tab on the hub it threads into! So we cut that bolt but the bolt for the strut to lca wasnt moving with the impact. The speed sensor wire was ran through the strut though so we had to cut the mount off the old strut. What a pain in the *** those bolts were!!

Finally done!




Took the bumper off, wetsanded and buffed the headlights



And I made it to Honda Day!!





I know its not a show car, but have you seen some of the stuff at Honda Day? yeaaa I'll pull right in.


Summers over! back to school **** yea!!

My roommate's 96 ls, same color combo I wasn't copying I swear! haha



Front LCA bushings now shot so I picked these up, still developing a plan to install these in my back yard

Brice.Hayden

iTrader: (15)

Looking good. I'd love to see a JDPengineering front lip on this. Car would be perfect.

AztecEGhatch

My plan for this car is fun and functional. No stickers, no window tint, no excessive camber/stretched tires. Nothing trendy. Just a clean, timeless looking exterior and I will eventually boost it or go k series. That won't happen until next summer when I'm working again.

It does need a complete repaint. Due to bad delamination on the roof, early/developing on the hood. chips, dings, dents and scratches.. but the worst is the trunk rear bumper were repainted and the quarters were repaired at one point in time. I work/study collision repair so I know it was a minor accident that didn't tweak the structure of the vehicle at all, nothing to be concerned with other than the paint work is sub-par. Most people don't notice but I can tell the color difference, where they broke off the clear and a fisheye or two. You can also see there was a repair around the rear wheel wells. Whoever did it did not restore corrosion protection properly and it rusted out where all hondas are vulnerable.

However I'm not painting it yet, not until I have the time to do it properly and another car to drive while its apart. I will buy a rust-free parts car and section in the quarter panels properly.

But this semester Im in my last paint class so I wanted to take advantage of being able to paint at just the cost of material with a top-of-the line shop and tools at my disposal.



So I decided to paint the roof because it was the worst panel and I would not have to blend into any adjacent panels.

I didn't take a before picture, but this is pretty much. I had only sanded with 600 at this point



I ended up sanding with 400 to get all the bad clear off, the color was faded bad as well. It went to the oem sealer quickly.

There were three small dings I repaired and forgot to picture the repair. This is after priming them with primer surfacer. I am using all Dupont products on this.





Mirrors disassembled



bag & tag! don't loose those fastners!

AztecEGhatch

This is the 73 mustang my group and I are painting. The owner is a teacher for the ford program and has spent over 15 years getting this car together. you'll find a modern dohc ford v8 under the hood, I think its out of a lincoln mark viii.




Primer blocked down




mirrors took some sanding to level out, 400 grit again.




I always scuff with a gray scotch-brite and scuffing gel as a final preperation step (besides cleaning/tacking of course) This knocks down some of the DA sander marks and when yo u scuff in the same direction it helps the paint lay down well. I also scuffed the smaller/odd shaped parts of the mirrors that could not be sanded with a DA



Now its time to mask! started with some lift tape, or appeture tape, to lift the windshield trim that could not be removed without removing the glass.



All done! I papered the sunroof and backtaped along the drip rail. Backtape basically means sticky side up so the plastic can stick to it. the smaller pieces of tape keep the tape from folding and sticking onto the roof.



Into the booth she goes!

I only use plastic to wrap cars, its waaaaaay faster, easier, cheaper, more affective than taping paper all over the car.

Just bag the whole car then cut out the parts you want to paint along where you masked and tape it down!



After a thorough solvent cleaning and wipe down with the tack cloth I laid down the sealer.






Ran out of time today and no ones in the paint shop till next week so no real updates until monday when I should be spraying base and clear.

AztecEGhatch

Thanks, never heard of those lips till now. Thanks now I want one! haha

ballistic1350

iTrader: (7)

Quick mover, wish I had access to a body shop. You should throw some spacers on with the wheels, flush them out. Looking good so far

TypeRfit

iTrader: (6)

Always a good day when another Db owner is putting in work.

Brice.Hayden

iTrader: (15)

Had one on my 96 LS. It's my favorite lip for that year.

Sorry for the thread jack(car was stolen and never recovered)

AztecEGhatch

Thanks, yeah its only been in the paint shop since monday and theyre only 3 hour classes so I was runnning around like a crack head lol. And yeah im thinking of picking up some spacers, what you think, 5mm? more? lol



good fit, that lip made it on my wishlist

ballistic1350

iTrader: (7)

Can't tell size you need off hand. I'd just go measure and go from there.

speedjunkie_g35

Your running +38 offset on a 7" rim so I would say 10mm up front 5mm in the rear as far as spacers.

Looks good. I wish I had the space to do my own body work!

AztecEGhatch

Thanks. And yeah there's plenty of room to do body work I love going to school here. Theres also 3 other mechanic shops, a diesel shop and an aviation shop

paint & body

AztecEGhatch

I found some time between classes today to go in and spray base coat. At 6 I am going back to spray clear.

Scuffed the sealer even though I was still within the 24 hour period before you need to. I think the metallics orient nicer on a scuffed surface



Now its time to mix up. I made 12 oz of DuPont waterborne paint. We spray waterborne base and solvent-borne undercoats and clear.




Dupont waterborne wet-on-wet application which means I was able to spray both coats of base without having to wait for it to flash between coats.




A lot of people don't like spraying waterborne base because it lays down splotchy and orange peely.



But once it flashes over it flattens out and looks nice



More to come later tonight

ballistic1350

iTrader: (7)

Well with that setup you might as well paint the whole car! I'm pretty jealous not gonna lie

AztecEGhatch

Yeah I probably should have, but this way I'll be able to drive the car sooner and not have to worry about other people scratching/dinging my car..which happens a lot in college

AztecEGhatch

Went in and cleared yesterday, thirsty thursday got the best of me last night but heres an update

spraying clear:





Stopped by today and unwrapped the car, came out pretty good:

HeLLa iLL2ndGen

looks good so far.

Ej8_KiD

nice job on the roof man!

AztecEGhatch

Thanks guys! Haven't been posting my progress because I've been super busy with school but I've made a lot of progress on the front end

Roof done:


Decided to buff the whole car again:




And of course it was raining

AztecEGhatch

Next thing on the list is the front bushings, they were clearly shot so I bought the Energy Suspension front control arm bushings and shock mount bushings

This thing ******* rocks, Snapon 18v 1/2" cordless impact. Rattled off rusted/seized bolts with as much force as an air impact!


And this is the terrible work space in the back alley of my house, the one paved part I could clear off to have a level place. Car was on jack stands for like 2 weeks!

note: in this picture its resting on the scissor jack, the cinderblocks are there as a failsafe and theres no vehicle weight resting on them


Pass side disassembled:


And this was the condition of most of the bushings



Will post more tomorrow about the frustrating process of removing the old bushings without a press and finding more front end parts to replace.

Tdro561

Looking good! Love the route you are taking with it.

Brice.Hayden

iTrader: (15)

Paint looks amazing. I love that green.

AztecEGhatch

And the fun part.. burning out the old bushings









Didn't take pictures of cutting out the rest of the bushings but I got em out with enough fighting

Attachment 528616

using a scissor jack and fire escape to press in the uppers. can you say ghetto? lol
and thats my roommates teggy in the pic not mine

AztecEGhatch

I noticed my two torque mounts (the front lower motor mounts) were shot so I replaced those too




And the sway bar bushings looked newer but the links looked real old and I broke one taking it off for the bushings so I picked up two new links



Hit all the components with some black epoxy before reinstalling



Coming back together after a week and a half of being apart





Picked up a type R replica lip for real cheap and ordered eBay adjustable upper control arms (camber kit) so I can get my alignment right because Im starting to eat up my tires with -3 degrees of camber. I know the eBay kit is junk but Im planning on buying Blackworks control arms around Christmas time