toEknEEg

before i purchased the swap, i had found lots of valueable info about the swap. but there have never been a how to on it. i had no idea what to do, or where to start. so im making this one for everyone, and helping those about to do it because there were tricks that i shoulda been told before i did the swap. well here goes.

i first purchased the swap from importautosalvage.com . they are great, superior to others. i got the RS brake booster, master cylinder, and proportioning valve. i also got GSR front spindles, upper control arms, caliper, rotors, lines, and for the rear i got the rear trailing arms, lines, ebrake cables, rotors, caliper. it had the abs lines cut but i just left them there since i dont have ABS and dont plan on having it.

some tools i used: 17mm, 14mm, 12mm, 10mm sockets and wrenches, knuckle separators ( looks like a pitch fork with two teeth i guess), hammer, grease, cotter pins, needle nose pliers. GET FLARE NUT WRENCHES. brake lines are fragile and WILL strip if not carefull with open end. i mean it... i cant stress it enough. i dont have the greatest garage, i have only one tool box full of tools. if you got the basics, you will be ok. gotta get some more tools though for the motor swap next month

FLARE NUT WRENCH


first off i just wanna say that i took these picks AFTER the swap was finished. i was too frustrated during to take pics, no manual and i was running in to problems everywhere.

ok, too start off with the front. the two red circles are 17mm bolts with cotter pins. the axle bolt is 32mm. i suggest doing this first, cuz it is a bitch. i used a 2 foot breaker bar with 2 foot steel pipe with two people sitting in the car. its crazy. then the two green are 2 17mm bolts that you get too in the engine bay. i also unbolted the shocks, dropped the suspension and when you loosen everything, the upper control arm will drop.



the two 17mm bolts are on knuckle joints, remove the bolts. then you have the wedge a knuckle separator in there. i dont have a pic cuz i borrowed it from a friend. if you hammer the bottom of the bolt, you will ruin the threads, and you will have to replace the whole assembly. the wedge goes where my fingers are, hammer it in and it will pop out, literally. then do the same for the one just under the rotor.


then we go to the rear, the rear trailing arm has three bolts, 17mm are circled in red. then the upper control arm is bolt on with two 14mm bolts. then a 14 just under the rotor, holding the rear spindle on the control arm.



then the e brake cables. this is where i got my cuts...lol. follow the ebrake cables to the ebrake itself. you will see it is held on by two 12mm bolts. i moved the exhaust heat sheild with two 10mm bolts to get to it... this is what cut me, that damn heat sheild and the dust sheild behind the rotors. i have about 5 long cuts from them. this is the pic of the ebrake lines when it gets to the interior. pull them up from under the car and its 2 12mm bolts holding them down and the just pop into the pulling thing.


now for the engine bay stuff. the booster is held on the firewall with 4, 12mm bolts, i suggest using long sockets getting to them. this is a really tight fit but i got it done. then the two brake lines going into the master cylinder, use a 10mm flare nut wrench to get these. then in the green, just pull them apart. they just snap in and out. then with the prop valve. there are 6 lines going into it, these are 10mm as well, again use a flare nut wrench. then there are three 10mm bolts holding it onto the firewall.




i know some of you are wondering about bleeding. i wasnt sure about bleeding either until now. but what i did was leave the fluid there, changed everything, then bleed them. when finishing, you need to bleed the master cylinder, undo the two lines going to the master cylinder, then fill with fluid. pump til you see no to little bubbles rise when release the brake pedal. i did it about 30 times. then i bleed all four corners in the proper order, about 100 times each. i hear stories of people starting up there car and pedal drops to the floor, that wasnt gonna happen with me.

i hope this helps people like me that have no technical background and just wanna have fun doing it. i find that i ahve a lot of common sense and that is why i feel i pulled this off. if you got some, it can come to you quickly, some of us need manuals, which is fine, but this was just the way i did it.

now for the review, i love them. i took the car to 100mph and slammed on them, the speedometer could fall faster than it can go up ( for now, D15B ) lol... but yea, im getting my car ready for sebring this july. as you can see i already got rotors and ss lines, just need pads.

well i hope you guys can get something out of this. here are some updated pics of my VSM EH2. enjoy !

handa

gives you !!! I might be doing this in the future if i plan to not do the 5 lug nuts conversion.

btw....very clean car!

toEknEEg

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by handa &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> gives you !!! I might be doing this in the future if i plan to not do the 5 lug nuts conversion.

btw....very clean car!</TD></TR></TABLE>

yea the 5 lug will be the same. try to keep posting here to keep this up, i think this will help out a lot cuz there has been quite a few brake questions out there. thanks for the comment !

Jonny G.

Great how-to bro! So the brake pedal did not drop to the floor after you bled the system?

Pikachu

Very good write up. I did the front GSR brakes but never touched the rear. Thanks!

xJ.SLOTHx

nice write up and clean hatch

Ricey McRicerton

the third writeup on this in the past couple of weeks. Between this one, mine and the one by =gameova= nobdoy should have ANY questions.

=GAME=

right on ricey next person who ask will be slapped. j/k

btw nice write up TOE

hadehatch

nice write-up.. i did the same thing except i didnt have the master, booster or prop valve.. i will be adding those soon.. the pedal is really low right now but it does stop on a dime when I need it to..

I just miss the high pedal and its weird when I drive another car.. usually press the brakes a bit to hard the first few times....

I would recommed doing it all at once..

Alpinestar

very nice writeup...and lovely hatch

Fuster_Cluck

Nice write-up

toEknEEg

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Jonny G. &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Great how-to bro! So the brake pedal did not drop to the floor after you bled the system?</TD></TR></TABLE>

no i bled it alot so that i could get all of the air out of the system thus creating pressure. my pedal is pretty stiff but the initial bite isnt what i hoped... pads will fix that though

thanks for the comments fellas !

samus

very nice how to bro! that RS booster is 15/16 right?

GoT HaTcH

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Hybrid93Hatch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Nice write-up </TD></TR></TABLE>

FLCivic

looks like that picture was taken in the BJ's or Lowes parking lot off of Lake Underhill in Waterford. I thought the apartments looked familiar in the background.

Snail EK

nice

RELprojects

Much props for the how to. I just bought my mastercylinder/brake booster today just waiting for the 40/40 prop valve.........

ek4hatch

toEknEEg

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by samus &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">that RS booster is 15/16 right?</TD></TR></TABLE>

yea it is

kingSfit

car looks clean nice job

sloweg6

good write up looks clean aswell

miahmouse

nice writup, on the money with the flare nut wrench part...

sohcvtec1995

great write up . You should have been at the Dennys/ Bennigens meet last night.

EGtoDC2

WOW! thanks for the info and the pix, it will make my full stripdown of the brakes much easier

And your car is EXACTLY what i want my hatch to be. I've already got silver paint, but I'm soon going over to Monte Carlo blue. Very subtle, but extremely clean car!

B18C_eg

for the front suspension, besides the obvious bigger brakes, is there any difference in between the GSR and civic CX components? ie knuckles, upper and lower arms