94preludeguy

If you're new to this thread, let me explain. If you've been here before, welcome back!

It all started with an EG Coupe I got on craigslist for $500, knocking the price down to $400 after parting out a few things. I rebuilt the car from the ground up over nine months and did a straight trade for a 1994 CX Hatchback with a B18B1 swapped inside. I've started to rebuild this car from the ground up as well. This thread is to document all of my progress and open discussion for other Honda enthusiasts.

I'm proud that this thread has hit over 40k views! I appreciate everybody that is showing interest in the build and I feel like the more it gets bumped and viewed the more I'm going to work on it. So thanks again, you guys rock! It will take some time but I'd like for my build to be one of the highest viewed threads on Honda-Tech. (Atleast 1992-2000)

Here are some shortcuts to keypoints throughout the build.
Page 3 - Coupe gets a new paintjob
Page 6 - Coupe gets traded... Now B18 Hatch!
Page 11 - Updated pictures and progress
Page 14 - The start of yet another Turbo build...

And so it starts...

I found this little gem on craigslist for $1000. Army guy bought the car and his wife freaked out. I texted his wife and she told me come get it that night for $600. Found a few things else wrong, agreed on $500. Started to regret it right off the bat but now I'm glad I went through with it.

It's a 1993 Civic DX Coupe. To my surprise, there was a Z6 already swapped! The wiring was a mess, which I have completely re-done. However it had no bumpers, no fenders, no hood, a broken passenger door, etc. Interior was a mess and missing just about everything. Had some ricer blue racing seats. Came with a p06 ecu. Like I said, the wiring was a complete mess. I've re-wired just about everything on the car by now. The headlights were messed up, the core support literally has two giant chunks cut out, that will be fun to fix later down the road. Entire trunk was stripped. Passenger door didn't latch, so it kept flying open. No seatbelts because of the racing seats, my roommate literally almost flew out of the car.

I could go on and on. It was constantly overheating, heater not working, no radio, etc. Here are some pictures that may explain the rest.















Very rough indeed. What have I gotten myself into?! The main reason I bought this was because it had a clear Kansas title and the car itself only had 134k miles. That along with the fact it had a Z6 swap with an S20 as well made it even better. It also came with an aftermarket clutch that still works nicely, a short throw shifter, cross drilled/slotted rotors, a nice shift boot and **** plus a couple other small things. Upon further investigation I even found an oil return line drained to the pan. This thing was boosted at some point.

I've got a lot of long work a head of me. See more in the next post below.

94preludeguy

So first things first I had to clean the engine bay up a little bit. I degreased everything and proceeded to start the re-wire process. Everything was completely haggard it seemed like. Radiator fan re-wired fixed my issue with the car overheating. Had to re-wire both headlight harnesses to get them to work correctly as well as both turn signal sockets. The VTEC wiring was a complete mess. I checked the ECU pinouts and surprisingly they were all correct. I cut all the wires, pulled them through the firewall and re-soldered everything and ran new wiring. VTEC still isn't working but I have the wire for my knock sensor just chillin so I'm pretty sure that's what my CEL is from.



Fixed the heater by un-bypassing the heater core and buying a new heater hose. Cost me like $2 to fix. Replaced many fuses to fix other small issues. Had to do a lot of chemical work to get a lot of overspray and masking tape residue off from one of the previous owner's fantastic body work. Based on my last mistake, I decided to take my time and mask the car off well before I painted. Boy am I glad I spent the extra time/effort to do so now. At this point I have started to paint the car. I painted everything except the passenger door since I had to replace it anyways. I also snagged a stock P28 ecu for $60 and sold my P06 on eBay for $40ish after shipping and fees.

94preludeguy

So the car is painted and one color for the most part but it's still missing a lot. Since the door was still having issues with latching and not staying shut, I hadn't driven the car at all. I had owned it for a month and felt that I hadn't done a thing with it. Sure I had fixed a ton of piddly ****, but the car didn't feel anymore complete. I live in a college town in the middle of nowhere in Kansas, it's hard to get parts around here. I finally was able to bribe my girlfriend into driving me to Kansas City in her car so I could get some parts. I found a guy who wanted my racing seats, he traded me his stock eg seats that are in great shape + $30 on his end lol. Worked out for me.

Started to hit up the junkyards. Got most the interior pieces I needed which would attribute nicely with the newly acquired seats. Got all of the exterior trim pieces for the windows, side moldings, side skirts, etc. I found a set of fenders in pretty good shape, got those for $30 or so a piece. Got the back bumper for around $40. Guy I've boughten parts off from a local forum hooked me up on a door in great shape for $20. I used all the parts from my old door and it worked perfect. Now that I had most the pieces, the paint process could get wrapped up.

I failed to get any pictures of it in progress. What it looked like without any paint and six different colors from all the new body parts. I rolled it primer black without a hood for a while. Here is how it sits today as of 10/20/11.













In my opinion the car is turning out great. I've got like maybe $800 into it now. Gas mileage is real shitty I need to figure out what's going on with that. For VTEC not working it pulls real well. Forgot to mention I also snagged an EX cluster which is nice. The car came with some Pioneer speakers w/ tweeters in the front that sound pretty good with the headunit my roommate hooked me up on.

I do plan on boosting it next spring/summer since I have the bike to get me around now. I've already got the return line that's welded on the pan as well as a 1G BOV. I'm planning on running a stock DSM side mount intercooler in the engine bay where the intake goes and making a duct to scoop air from the front bumper. It will work out nicelt and be ultimate sleeper. But for now I'm all talk and I'm becoming broke between fixing this car and bike up without a job. All the money from my GSR is disappeared now.

Anywho if anyone's interested feel free to subscribe and keep up. I'm planning on updating as I go especially if I end up boosting. The steelies are temporary until I get some money and/or find a good deal on some wheels I want. I think the car might be lowered always, it's sitting on 13's and it's low as-is and the springs on the car are green, not black like OEM should be...

I'm thinking about painting the steelies white for now. The orange is ugly. Thoughts?

egsleepercivic

no knock sensor on a stock z6 , pull the code

d15bvtechatch

iTrader: (2)

good deal! i love the orange steelies tho. lil tlc kool beans

Secondly, WTF happened to this car before you got it!??? gottt dawg that thing is hurtin

93civtegra

deffinate good dd for the money and it looks good for what you put into it!

CivicxTree754

Good job so far on bringing her back to life. And def. get the knock sensor taken care of so the vtec works. Good luck.

StreetsideStig

Good work so far! Are you in Lawrence? (College town not too far from KC.) My office is in KCK.

kmoua

Wow turn out pretty nice for wat it looked like before

ManOverboard

I'd ditch the orange rims, very obnoxious with the red bumper. Flat black will look better. Or just get a $100/stocks and polish em. Good looking build, doing your own bodywork is always a good thread.

DelsolVted

im not to far from u. im n horton ks. u good a good deal and not to bad lookn now. wish i had a coupe sometimes nstead of my delsol. keep up the good work

Knuckles91

SUBSCRIBED! interested to see where you go with it! =]

94preludeguy

Thanks for the positive comments guys. I got flamed a lot more on my old CRX thread it's a nice change. I'm down in Manhattan at K-State, not Lawrence. Also I'm pretty sure I know where Horton is. But yeah I'm planning on painting the bumper, hood and wheels asap however I'm stuck and stranded in Kansas City again because of this stupid car.

I ran out of gas yesterday and couldn't get it to stay running after I got it filled back up. I cut my losses and towed it like 30 miles... Changed the fuel filter and I drove it 23 miles no problem. I was getting ready to head back home and bam, same goddamn problem as yesterday! I don't know what it is.. the car starts, idles, then dies after idling for a while or as soon as you give it gas. It is really pissing me off. I had CEL 3 and 13 with one map sensor.. Then when I plugged in a different map sensor, I got CELs 3, 6, 10 and 13. Could the code 6 have ANYTHING to do with any of this?

I towed it again last night with my dad's car and as soon as we got it back in the garage, it was idling and staying running, not dying like it was. WTF

It's like the car is "choosing" when it wants to run. I just don't, ****ing, get it. I'll probably be uploading a YouTube video and making a more diagnosed thread after I do some search whoring.. But yeah hopefully it's an easy fix and I can get back to class soon... Already doing horrible this semester and missing more class is the last thing I need right now.

StreetsideStig

How's fuel pressure? Have you checked the main relay? They go bad in these pretty often.

92lxsleeper

make sure your using the fireall map sensor. i did this same swap in a eg sedan, and i could never get it to run right with the z6 throttle body. swap a b7 throttle body on it, and use the firewall map, and that should take care of the map sensor code.

XSboosted10

Definately will be a great dd once everything is fixed, wish I could find deals locally like that.

furious94ls

Nice work so far, hope it all works out for you.

94preludeguy

Alright well I took my igniter out and replaced it with an NEC one that was tested good. I drove the car for about 30 minutes or 25 miles and the problem hasnt came back yet. I was having starting issue but it was just my dizzy being off adjustment because the bolts weren't tight. Now also have two spare igniters and a spare coil FTW .

However trying two different b7 map sensors I am still getting a code 3 and code 13. Any possibilities why? The other codes have not came back. Also the car is not overheating but the gauge is getting very close to the H. Noticed it more once the heater core was connected again and I got s hood for it.

94preludeguy

Checked the wiring, turns out pin 17 for the map sensor was moved to pin 5, for whatever reason. Also pin 19 for map sensor voltage was twisted with no tape. So I soldered and covered it. CEL is completely GONE! Yes finally a car without a CEL on all the freaking time.

B_Ray

nice progress man! This is definitely a "from rags to riches" Thread.

D Griff

Well maybe "from rags to cheap k mart clothes" for now, but it's definitely improving, glad you got your electrical stuff worked out.

Tommay

Deff. a good start from where you were! Congrats on the progress so far

Brycen

Damn looking good man.We kinda of got the same situation.I paid $500 for my 93 DX but not as bad as this one you got.Just had a bad head gasket and possibly a bad 02 getting hesitation in lower RPM's but not CEL.Looking good thought.Keep it up.

94preludeguy

Thanks guys!

Not much recently, it's starting to get chilly here in the midwest. I managed to get the bumper and hood finished up. I'm an idiot and sanded way too much on parts of the bumper so the plastic looks all messed up. Like a really rough texture. I probably should have used 150 grit instead of 80 grit. Oh well not a big deal it's only noticeable up front. For the moment I am tapped out financially. I have some store credit and stuff to return for more credit at the junkyards so that's the only way I'll be able to get the rest of the parts to finish it up. Really all I need is a glovebox, rear deck lid and all the trunk moldings and stuff.







I even convinced my girlfriend to help me do some sanding while I was painting and prepping.









Might be done for it. I've got a guy interested in it for $2k, and I've also got another guy interested in trading me his 94' hatch for it. We'll see. Either way, I'd only trade/sell to finally get a hatch. Otherwise I don't mind keeping this thing around. 14/15" wheels and new windshield as soon as I get the cash!

94preludeguy

Figured I'd update again. Haven't done anything too extensively lately except for the fact that the orange wheels are gone! I found a set of 14" steelies with almost new Douglas m+s tires for $60. There is some slight rust on two of the wheels, so I'll need to do some prep and shoot them with some black paint when the weather cooperates. Got a great deal though and proceeded to travel ~1,000 miles over Thanksgiving. Averaged 36mpg when I was driving all highway. City/Highway has been about ~32mpg consistently. Very happy with how the car is running. Doesn't seem to be burning/leaking oil however I haven't checked in a while. I'm pretty set on keeping it. I think I'm going to get rid of my bike, get a hatch for a DD and boost this thing eventually.

Next major thing I need to do is replace the windshield. I'm just completely broke right now unfortunately. Also the car is lowered on something the springs are green and looks like more of a drop with the 14s on there.