SHG_EasyE

Hey guys! wanted to post and let everyone know Im still alive lol. The car is pretty much all back together now, and I dropped the wheels off for paint last week. Hoping that everything will be good to go by next week and Ill be driving her again!

Im going to try and upload all the photos I have tomorrow and update this bad larry

k-series

Any reason for paint over powder? (Looking great as always, btw!)


Steve

SHG_EasyE

Two tone and decals... I bought PPG epoxy primer, gold base, blue base, and clear. Then Mike and I made custom replacement decals. The shop that did the work http://extremerestorations.com tested clear over the vinyl decals before application and there was no reaction. So the two base colors and decals were applied then cleared over. Would have been impossible to do with powder.

I also got Opti Coat 2.0 to seal the wheels up but I will have to wait 30 days to let the clear breathe before I can apply it.

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So here is the update as promised... Not as detailed as I usually am but things are crazy with trying to finish two cars at once along with work and life in general.

Ill kick it off with the interior assembly....

When installing the parking brake and cable bracket I decided to go with a beefier bolt for the brake handle. The new style bolts have a thick tapered flange and theoretically will make for less flex at the mounting points.







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I also completed the installation of the new bluetooth head unit, with complete wire loom and tucked seat harness.



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Here is where I needed to trim material off the rear interior side panels to clear the new ITR aluminum floor brace. It sits prouder than the oem beam so the plastics dont fit properly without modification.





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I also did some more felt dot buffers for the rear plastics to cut down on vibrations



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Infinity reference speakers installed in the rear:







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And finally, the day Ive been waiting for... to see these damn seats assembled and ready to install!













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And just as exciting was to see the brake setup back on the car... The new color scheme is on point, and I couldnt be happier with the outcome. The new Fortune Auto 510 shocks are also installed and all the suspension in torqued up ready to go





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The rear end of the car also got a refresh in the form of a serious cleaning before re-assembling the bodywork, a fresh coat of paint on the tow hook, and installation of the new custom extruded aluminum crash beam.











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And how the car sits now awaiting the new wheels and tires to finally hit the road again!

^Sammy]!.

Amazing Evan just amazing!!

skipunk4

Can't wait to see the RG's all finished up and installed

gramkrackers

Car looks awesome, can't wait to see it on the ground!

SHG_James

Looking good dood! Can't wait to see the new wheels mounted.

tepid1

Fresh brakes like that make you almost not want to drive the car.... lol

SHG_Riley

iTrader: (2)

Seat brackets look so damn good, and that brake setup is fireeee!

racing_reject_001

you+ ep3 game= murdering it! i love this car man proof these cars even have potential keep up the good work!

<StevieG>

Id love to see a facelift on your car now evan!

wle05

iTrader: (2)

what size is the piping on your buddy club exhaust?

SHG_EasyE

It's 60mm, slightly smaller than 2.5.

Thanks for the replies too guys. I'm trying to find time to update both this and te DC5 thread. Hopefully this week I can get everyone back up to speed...

ChadB

What set of wheels did you go with now? Car still looks amazing .

*supersonic*

Hey man just out of curiosity... Where do you do all your work? DO you work for a shop?

MRStokes

Wow!

I've enjoyed reading this thread over the past few weeks and looking forward to more updates to inspire me further.

gsxremep3

Super SSM!!!

WhiteSlips

Why you no has pics of Advans mounted yet? Can't wait to see that with the giant brakes!

SHG_EasyE

I picked up a set of gold Advan RG1's in 17x8.5 and 17x7 staggered. I had them refinished as well hopefully I can upload photos this weekend!

I do some work at my job and some at home. Depends what it is and if the car is mobile or not. Whenever it's on jackstands it's at home though. I work for a race team where I'm a fabricator, designer and also do chassis setup.

Thanks man, hope I can continue to inspire once I get some time to update the thread!

Soon man! Been super busy with all the projects but I've been chipping away with processing the recent photos

SHG_EasyE

So as promised (hoping it doesnt fall on deaf ears) here is a small condensed update of whats been going on with the EP!

The last couple months have been a nightmare to say the least. Ive put about 26 miles on the car driving to and from the shop to do alignments on the car.

So finally after getting the wheels back from paint (which is another clusterfck ill enlighten you guys on) I was finally able to do a rough alignment and get the car on the road for the first time this year. On the drive to the shop I was experiencing a clunk coming from the front struts. It seemed to be happening over dips in the road (extension), but not on large bumps (compression).

Once I got the car back up in the air at the shop I realized that with the new springs I had even less droop than before at only 3/4" from static ride height. I assumed that the clunk was the strut reaching full extension over dips and that there was not enough negative travel (droop) to allow the wheel to follow imperfections in the road. I completed the alignment and corner weight and parked the car again until these came in:



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They are 6k Swift assist springs with a maximum of 1.6" of travel. These springs are designed to provide a spring rate in droop so that the wheels are able to keep solid contact with the road over larger imperfections where the perches are no longer settled on the main spring. I set them to 1" of extension at full droop to supply roughly 1.75" of droop from static ride height. After re-installing the front struts and doing ANOTHER alignment, I now was hitting bump stop over almost every little bump in the road. The strut unit was simply too short to provide enough travel with a reasonable amount of droop, which in my eyes is a design flaw by Fortune Auto.

I got to taking some measurements to see how much room I had forthe longest strut assembly possible between the top hat and axle boot. I then dis assembled the struts and examined full compression of the bare shock with bump stop, and then without, to make sure I was not bottoming internally, and to see how much buffer room I had to trim the bump stop as well as modify the length of both the body and shaft. After crunching some numbers I decided I could increase body length by 30mm and shaft length by 20mm.

After exchanging a few emails the guys at Fortune were incredibly helpful and welcoming, sending me pre paid shipping labels for both the struts from my civic as well as the set for the DC5 race car, no questions asked. They rebuilt the struts to my requested specs and had them back to my door step in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS! Turn around time that is literally unheard of in the shock industry.

Ive installed the revised struts but have also been waiting on the second half of this fiasco.... the wheels.

After receiving the wheels from paint I saw that one of the decals (under the clearcoat) had been applied wrong, and they had also damaged the fresh paint when installing the tires for me (same shop that did the paint). They agreed to repair the wheels but I had to wait a couple weeks for the clear tu cure so it could be sanded down to make the repairs. While I had the wheels for these two weeks is when I went through the strut ordeal. Fast forward to 3 weeks ago, when I dropped the wheels back off to the shop for repairs. I was told it would be a week. Now after 3 weeks of not having time all the way to screening and dodging my calls I finally confronted them by calling from a different number ans posing as someone else until I got my contact on the phone. Long story short the wheels will be ready tomorrow and Ill finally have them back in my possesion

Here are a few photos I took while I had the car at the shop. Wish there were more but Ive just been too discouraged to even document the progress recently











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Some good news is that amazingly the changes I made to the car for this season had a substantial impact on curb weight. The car is 138lbs lighter than last season! This was accomplished by the new pair of seats with 2nd gen lightweight SHG seat brackets, lighter wheels, lighter shocks, aluminum rear crash beam, and DC5R aluminum floor bar. Weights shown are with a full tank and 165lb driver.

^Sammy]!.

Looking great as always Evan....sucks you had to go thru all that B.S

[ej]Jonathan

wheel setup so meaty!

egvera89

the car is coming out great.

ReedMann

iTrader: (11)

The Advans look great on your car!

DaveSi677

Still one of my favs... can't to see how she does on the track!

Make sure to get a GoPro mount in there!!!