willimo

Hi;

I lurk here a lot. I post occasionally. I have learned a lot, and have been inspired even more by the builds around here. I also understand that my build is pretty much just exciting to me, and won't be so exciting for anyone else. Regardless, I am going to start my build thread and hope that maybe a couple people look at it and comment, too.

I have a lot of respect and inspiration from some folks around here, and while it's unfair to name some and forget others, I will say I am really inspired by the folks over at SHG and I hope that I can come even remotely close to building a car as nice as theirs, and will do my best, working slowly and carefully. And I mean slowly. I finally have the opportunity to do a ground up build and I am not going to squander it by trying to get it done in the two weeks before racewars or whatever.

I have a '96 coupe that I daily, it's been my sort of "project" for ten years. The idea is to get the chassis and interior ready on my hatch and swap all the hotrod parts off the old coupe - cleaning them and refreshing them as I go - until I have a full project.

I got a not stellar but not terrible deal on the shell. It had been someone else's abandoned project so it came with some extras. It had doors with power windows and locks off of a 99 Si, and I am a little worried about the wiring that had been put in - the seller maintained it was all done but no telling until the body electrical is all put together. But, bonus it has seats from that Si and double bonus it has the instrument cluster. So, awesome.

I used to always contend that you have to have a clear purpose for a car. While I autocross my coupe, and I love it, I realize I am not a fast or a good enough driver to ever really be that competitive so there's no point in making a full on stripped down autocross car. So I want to make this car into a nice looking, very clean, fun to drive car with a few nice amenities. Sort of a "resto-rod" Honda.

Anyway, here are some low quality and boring pictures:

The day I rolled it home. My coupe parked behind.


It has a big ol' dent in the side. Oh noes! That's ok, those blue doors need to be taken car of, so it's going down to the body shop anyhow.


Sort of taking things apart. There's no step by step to this, just pictures taken whenever. The guy who had it before me painted the bay black. Damnit!


I pulled out all the sound deadening (not pictured) and will have the trunk painted too.


Bonus cluster! And '99 HVAC, which I will be ditching for an OEM '96.


All the other body parts and my garage full of parts and interior parts and my to do list and whatever...






A few of my Coupe, or what I am now calling the "test mule." It does 15.1 quarter mile on street tires and at 5,000', and I dyno'd it at a recent fun day and it made 160hp and 126ft/lbs which I wasn't disappointed about.






Quick rundown of my plans:

LS-Vtec motor that's in my coupe.
B16 tranny that is in my coupe, with:
--ITR LSD - which I have along with the ring and pinion.
--LS 5th gear - I hate going on the highway, 75mph runs at 4200rpm. Boo.
Eventually I want to put in some Skunk2 cams and intake manifold - nothing fancy.
I have an eBay Hi-tech replica header.* It's a nice piece, though.
Custom 2.5" exhaust with a Cherry Bomb resonator and '06 Si muffler (haha!)
Working on a mini-tuck harness, just cleaning it up, sleeved in nylon expandable tubing.
Also, mini-tuck fuel setup, ideally all black.
S2000 clutch master
Ground Control coilovers with Tokico shocks - they're a lot oversprung but they work great.
--TBD other shocks later.
11" front brakes setup by Fastbrakes, EBC Redstuff, from coupe.
Rear disc brakes from an Integra, EBC Redstuff, from coupe.
'99 Si brake master and proportioning valve, from coupe.
949Racing 6ULs.* I have two that are 7". I need spacers for them to fit over my front
brakes which sucks, and 8" look like they will require me to pull the fenders. Any ideas?
Falken Azenis or Khumo Ecsta XS, undecided.
Cheap eBay front lip.*
New front fog lamps
SiR headlamps - no black housing or anything.
--HIDs
--Headlight harnass tuck.
Stockish interior but with recovered armrests.
--I would love at least one Recaro SPG.
--SiR steering wheel - with SRS because I want to keep the option open to daily this car.
A thousand other little things.

Thanks for looking! And if you read, please comment. Or not.

*I want to nip it in the bud now - I have mixed feelings about the "real parts" v "fake parts" debate. One one hand, I completely understand how much R&D goes into development, and respect that, and to that end I buy real parts as much as possible. As much as I can afford and as much as I can justify. However, some parts such as wheels, headers, and lips - I just cannot justify spending the money some people seem to think is appropriate. To me, these are wearable items. I don't want to spend $150 on a Honda front lip that I will ruin on our crappy streets, or $500 on a header or $1500 on wheels. Well, I do want, but I can't justify it. So I do my best, ie the 949Racing wheels are inexpensive and fantastic. In any case, I want to be up front about it, and not "fake the funk" and not try to purport to be anything I am not, because I am nothing if not a champagne dreamer with a beer budget.

Dirt McGirk

Looks rough, glad to see another midori coming to life! Good luck on the build.

elsicario12

another midori nice
Good luck rebuilding the hatch!!!

Lazybean

Good luck with this, looks like your nice and organised!

gostt

Good luck with the rebuild! Long road to come!

maxwellmercer

Very organized!

willimo

So not much going on, still, just took it down to the paint shop. I went around town and got some estimates that ranged from $900 ("But I'll be honest, it won't be very good") to $4000 (I think they were trying to scare me off). My dealership does not have it's own body shop but we have a working relationship with what is probably the best body shop in town, and I ended up getting a really amazing deal with them, and I am very anxious to see it finally painted. They did a friend's DelSol and another's El Camino and they are both just... gorgeous.

Anyway, my friend and I loaded it up on a tow dolly and we carted it down to the paint shop. After a couple of weeks they had only applied a layer of body shop dust to it, but a week later I got a call inviting me down to check it out.

Here is how it sits at the moment, they pushed out the big dent in the side and I should have taken a picture of that rear quarter from the inside. I can't imagine they used much Bonda at all - they did it almost entirely with metal.


They removed all the paint from the hood since it was pitted so badly after sixteen years of duty. Behind the hood you can see the front bumper, which I was hoping we could salvage but it's paint is also extremely pitted and a couple of the pieces in the grill are broken, so it's not even worth it. I got a new bumper for it instead. The rear bumper needed a little work but was ok to repaint.




When I dropped it off, I pointed out the one big huge obvious dent and the metal guy immediately pointed out it's friend on the other quarter. He pointed at it. I looked. He kept pointing and I kept looking but I didn't see it - I trusted that it was there and now that I see it with some filler, I guess he was telling the truth. So, that's why I'm not doing the body work myself. No way could I even find the problems, much less fix them. The hatch apparently had a couple problems, too, that I would have never in a million years guessed. They're so symmetrically placed I wonder if they were there from the factory - an artifact of the metal stamping process?




So, not a ton of progress. Hopefully next time I post something up there will be a beautiful little Midori hatch to show. After that - well, slow going as I try to start putting it together with little loving touches here and there. I know y'all don't know me from Adam and I haven't shown anything cool yet, but hopefully I will in the future.

Thanks for looking!

^Sammy]!.

Glad to see another Midori being saved

qwerty is dead

in for more!

j-r_rida

I'm subscribed

H.I CTR

looks good! Im about the same area you are now with my hatch

96MGhatch

nice!!!!! love to see a midori be saved. i wish i had another dd so i could build my dailydriven midori.

willimo

Thanks guys. I know exactly what you mean, 96MGhatch; my silver car has been my daily for ten years and and I am only just now getting to live the dream. I didn't realize how popular Midoris were until I started looking around here - there are at least three other active builds!

96MGhatch

yeah midori are pretty common and pretty rare at the same time. im thankful i got mine when i did.

willimo

The shop is taking a lot longer than I expected, which is kind of a bummer. But I'll let it be; I'd rather they took their time and for what I'm paying I don't expect it to be a priority. I originally was going to wait and make one big post including in progress pictures of the paint but I decided to share these and show the project wasn't dead. Just waiting.





I am pretty happy with the paint so far.

Thanks for looking, I know there's not much to look at yet.

xSteve_Ox

Midori is dope, I'd love to get ahold of one to build.

r_Senik

dope. cant wait to go work on my Ek this weekend that is 8 hours away from me

0Banggood

Wow , I don't know what to say ,you're organized and persistent , I hope this work out .

flyinkman

I wish i could be organized on this level. Would solve a serious **** ton of problems

trashyhatch

would love to have a Mido EH2.. but sadly, i'm sure i'll end up with Milano :/

willimo

Thanks y'all.

Your weekend is 8 hours away, or your car? Tell the dirty south, and all the pretty girls in GA, hello for me. I miss it...

We'll see, it hasn't even begun going back together. This may end in tears!

Be patient and the car you want will come to you. Don't force it. It took me years (really, years) to find the car I wanted.

ChadB

keep us posted...

elsicario12

this build is dope.

donmeca2020

nice build, so far the fresh paint looks nice!!! subscribed keep us updated

P Lew

Nice build bro!! Glad to see a Midori coming back to life