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Little background story: My first car was a 99 em1 milano red and i ended up getting rid of it for my 2011 civic si in 2012, ive been searching for another one ever since. In 2014 i became serious about purchasing a 2nd vehicle and i was on the hunt for either a EBP EM1 or an S2000 needless to say its alot easier to find a clean S2000 and that's what ended up happening. While i still continued to search for EM1s never exactly found clean ones somewhat close by and reasonably priced, i would search craigslist for them about once a month or so and one sunday just happen to say ehh let me just check around and bam the car was posted 5hrs ago and i was all over it, made arrangements for the next morning and brought it back home.
Car Info: So the car is a 2000 civic si Electron Blue Pearl, 94k original miles 2 owner all stock down to shift ****, radio/cassette,exhaust,intake etc just the way i always wanted it. Also has full oem lip kit and previous owner had another trunk with the oem optional wing along with 2 sets of floor mats, 30x oem oil filters. Previous owner also had a folder with receipts for recent work on the car including timing belt, water pump, clutch master cylinder, slave cylinder, valve cover gasket, spark plugs, rotors, brake pads, all new fluids in motor and tranny, new spark plug wires, dizzy cap and rotor. battery, battery tie down/rods.
So with the car being stock and so original i really dont want to do much to it and i enjoy seeing it stock but however i do want to refresh the car so i've made a few part orders with my local honda dealer and still have a few more things to order but so far i've gotten all new window moldings, roof moldings, door pillar moldings, side mirrors glass, exhaust axleback, exhaust tip, H and CIVIC emblem for trunk, clutch master cylinder, clutch master cylinder reservoir/cap/bracket, sunvisors, hazard switch, valve cover gasket kit, spark plug cover, numerous new bolts.
Once seeing the car and going for a test drive their was two things that really stuck out to me and it was the car wasn't really loud but i could tell had a exhaust leak and also when engaging the clutch the clutch master cylinder was making a popping noise. So first thing i did was order a new axleback exhaust from honda and was a very easy install no rusted bolts or anything came out very easily about 30 min install id guess, Secondly ordered all new oem clutch master cylinder/ reservoir/cap/bracket. Didn't want to do the CMC right away because its mid summer here and i really don't like working on cars in the heat and i've only driven the car about 5-6 times since i've bought it so didn't really see the need to do it right away. But anyways ended up doing the CMC about 2 weeks ago took maybe an hour and a half with all new reservoir/cap/bracket. Sooo much smoother and enjoyable without popping noise. The CMC that was in the car was an exedy oem replacement and only had about 1-2k miles on it so i would say avoid buying at all cost lol.
Another thing that bothered me was the valve cover it was redone im guessing while the timing belt/water pump was being done and it doesn't look bad but its just glossier then the oem finish and the wrinkle is a bit thicker so i ended up finding another b16 valve cover locally and sent it to this powdercoating company in NY that i was referred to and i looked at their photos and their wrinkle black finish is on point so sent it out got it back in like 10 days and it looks amazing, haven't installed any other parts reason being i wanted to tackle the dirty jobs before installing all the pretty parts in the engine bay last thing i want to do is put new motor mounts in which i should be ordering soon and can finally start digging into this build.
End goal for this build is to remain mostly factory with the exception of a few things, coilovers not sure which yet, set of regamasters or possibly waiting to see what happens with the new M7s rumored to be releasing and lastly a set of ek9 red recaros because i can't stand the oem si seats. Doing this build thread because i did one with my s2000 and its nice to look back and see the progress.
FOLLOW MY INSTAGRAM @dwayne_fa5ias2k for more content and see my s2000 build
When i first saw the car and came back from the test drive Finally at home Needed a good cleaning/ vacuum
Before After
Before After Before degrease/wash After
Last edited by dwayne_fa5ias2k; Oct 22, 2019 at 01:50 PM.
Also forgot to add before i even owned this car i was buying parts for it, about 3yrs ago i ordered 2 ebp front lips hoping i would one day own another and also about a month before i finally found a clean ctr steering wheel. Attended the honda day event in NH a couple weeks after i got the car and stopped by autofair hondas booth and picked up a oem hood bra/front bumper cover and set of black floor mats probably never use either but for the price couldn’t pass on them
Back with a new update finally put in my last big order of parts a couple weeks back and picked it up today. Ordered the 3 main motor mounts, fender liners, radiator overflow tank/hose/cap, windshield fluid cap, AC line caps, oil dip stick, power steering tank bracket, radiator hose clamp and bracket, driver side ebp door handle, ebp trunk garnish, interior trunk panel, rear Si emblem and more numerous bolts and nuts.
Last edited by dwayne_fa5ias2k; Sep 14, 2019 at 01:17 PM.
Thanks man i appreciate it, really wanna get into this build but at the same time im thinking of just holding off until i get my own house/garage to do this instead of just doing a lil here and there seeing as i leave the car in a storage unit
Welp that didnt last long, decided to atleast do the motor mounts got to the tranny mount and driver mount , while taking them out i had to remove a few things that i had bought brand new so replaced them while i had them out. radiator hose plastic clamp, power steering tank bracket, intake lid box bolts
Today i decided to install the new hazard switch, driver door handle. While doing the hazard switch i noticed that the cruise control switch has a clear plastic piece on it which comes off. My plastic piece wasnt very good and i took it off, however it leaves a somewhat sticky residue even after wiping multiple times but so much nicer looking and i dont really plan on using cruise control to often. Also while having the door panel off to do the door handle i decided to use the shin etsu grease on the seals and tracks and what a difference still have to do passenger side but makes for a good reference to before and after lol
New vs Old With cloudy plastic piece Without plastic piece New door handle vs old
Didnt get much photos but ended up finally having time to do the rear motor mount, also picked up a used exhaust manifold shield, trying to see what i can do to get it as close to brand new looking as possible lol
Didnt get much photos but ended up finally having time to do the rear motor mount, also picked up a used exhaust manifold shield, trying to see what i can do to get it as close to brand new looking as possible lol
I have a feeling hi temp exhaust paint will be your friend for restoring the heat shield.
Would you sell me whatever one you don't want to use?
not sure exactly what im gonna do with the other one ill have to see, theres one on ebay right now from TAE used auto parts thats where i just got my second one from
So heres how the exhaust manifold cover came out. Hit it with nevr dull first to clean it up a bit and see just what that would do, then hit it with 1500 grit sand paper then followed up with 3000 grit and finished with more nevr dull. Its not perfect but as good as im gonna get it i think. Will have to see how the other one comes from powdercoat.
Look into the citrus rust removers . There's a lot results on the bmxmuseum on it. I have also seen evaporust promoted lately on a few car sites. I have never used it before . The results looked okay. I wasn't as wowed. People also do a cap bath on chrome and it doesn't harm the decals . I haven't seen it used on automotive.
Look into the citrus rust removers . There's a lot results on the bmxmuseum on it. I have also seen evaporust promoted lately on a few car sites. I have never used it before . The results looked okay. I wasn't as wowed. People also do a cap bath on chrome and it doesn't harm the decals . I haven't seen it used on automotive.
I used the evaporust before, it worked extremely well on my crank pulley and various odds and ends. The only problem is it does need to be coated with something after the evaporust treatment. It flash rusts pretty quickly.
Other exhaust manifold cover should be done from powdercoat tomorrow also dropped off the front oem strut bar to get redone black , also found another ek9 steering wheel in better condition so i grabbed that and will be selling my other one, and got a little order from honda, nuts for the strut bar, two nuts for the post mount, A/C line bracket and bolt.
EM1 Refresh
