nateasham

Starting off a little about myself and the car. My first introduction to Honda’s was my 2000 civic SI automatic. Don’t hate but the only other option at that time in my mind was a 5 speed cavalier. I jumped on the civic all excited for 160 hp and NOT wanting the cavalier. I enjoyed it but it wasn’t what I expected and soon found out why. Canadian SI’s don’t get B16’s, it only gets a D16Y8, boo. Wanting more power I searched and searched till I realized that there really is no tuning solution for an auto. So not wanting to fall for the same mistake twice and not get what I wanted I started my search again, but this time for a del sol I was strict that it must have a b series when I bought it and searched and searched till 7 months later I found this.

It’s a 97 del sol (I think it’s an SI) with a B18C5 swap and a 97 civic front end swap. At first I didn’t really like the civic front on it but it has grown on me to the point where I'm now keeping it. Maybe redoing it for the 99/00 SI front because I love the fogs that year and despise the 97 year fogs.(in my opinion fogs HAVE to be directly under or wider than the headlights to look good)

at this point i have had the car nearly 2 years but The first thing I did when I got it home was to replace the badly corroded battery cables.
GROUND

POSITIVE


then it was on to figure out what this little Infrared receiver on the side of the center console was to since the owner I bought it from didn’t know (his best guess was part of the alarm/starter system which it was not and the alarm also doesn't work.) after following and unhooking I pulled out a million color underglow/ interior glow kit.

wow all of that was under my steering wheel. Interior half is good and works out of the car, all 4 underglow tubes are done for, one still kinda turns on. I was planning on reinstalling this at some point but have been leaning against it now for a while, which is why it isn’t back in yet.

Then the car sat
And sat…
…………and sat for nearly a year,
Because I was hearing a click on the driver’s side front whenever I hit a small bump I thought it was a bad ball joint and it concerned me. I was too broke/cheap to have it looked at. Then one day while I was telling a buddy of mine why it was sitting I kicked the tire and heard the click again. After 30 more seconds of kicking the tire we determined that the driver side front wheel was only missing the brake pad retaining clips. $5 later no more clicking. So insurance and registration down and I started driving it.

then i realized that the tach was obviously not right for this car and redline wasn’t right so I “knew” I had to go custom. (not realizing a cluster swap was all I needed, or that the s2k swap was as easy as buying a conversion harness) I purchased a set of gauges from Http://www.speedhut.com I got a 300 km/h speedo with turn signals and high beam indicators, a 10,000 RPM tach, and a quad gauge with oil pressure, water temp, fuel level and volt. Once I received them i mocked up a bezel out of cardboard for them. That got us here.

I sent out the mock up to form tech machining to be made out of aluminum, and polished to a near mirror finish.

Using a 12v house adapter I picked up I turned on the gauges to see I get this at night.

Now I just need to wire them into the car, I'm trying to locate the clips to be able to make my own gauge cluster conversion harness so that I don’t have to cut the clips off/ splice into the stock gauge harness. But having trouble finding that so its been on hold and I've been sucking up the stock cluster for a while now.

and that is all that there is to show so far.
The end goal for the car is about 500-800 hp it’s a summer/weekend car that will see a few runs down the ¼ mile. I am leaning towards a Kmod k24 with 6 speed, yes I know I can get that power out of my b series for less, its been a personal debate for basically the whole time I've owned the sol.

Things coming up in the “near” future will be koni/gc suspension, and I am debating over whether or not I do a 5 lug conversion on it at the same time. I think 5 lug looks much nicer, and bigger brakes to fill my rims/ help the car stop. Yes I know there are cheaper options than a 5 lug, but if I do the 5 lug it would be more for the looks and my personal preference than for just stopping ability. (I know it’s a bad reason to do a mod). Next is working on the body overall its in good condition there is only one rust looking bubble in the back quarter panel. A few minor paint chips on the side and hood. A few tiny dents in the trunk lid and one side the side skirt has been installed with silicone and wood screws, its stable but looks like crap so that will be cleaned up too. i will have more pictures to come as i keep working but this is likely gonna be a 10 year plus project so the progress may be slow.

Del sol B series swap FAQ Turbo Build FAQ Power to Manual Bushings How to Depin Common Connectors

nateasham

questions i have about the project that i cant find answers to:

1- how much paint should i purchase to paint the whole exterior, interior (carpets/plastics removed), engine bay, trunk and have enough paint left over for painting parts to match/ future body touch-ups? as you can see who ever did the front end swap didn't do a good job on the paint, heck its barely even a crap job on the paint. yet to top it all off on the driver side it doesnt even stop at the end of the fender like on the passenger side, it extends on to the driver door.

2-are any front tower braces especially 3 point ones not compatable with a k24 in a del sol?

nateasham

one MAJOR question. are there any common mods/ upgrades that should NOT be done prior to doing a k swap? for example i want to do an engine bay wire tuck/brake line tuck. my thoughts are this should wait (along with engine bay paint) until i have all the k swap mounts and such and am ready to swap motors.

Dark aegis

Your sol is really similar to mine, minus the front end. I really like your gauge set up.

nateasham

Thanks, there is lower cost options im over $600 into it with gauges and machined face so forging onward for individuality. the machined face is probably gonna get carbon fiber wrapped because when i test fitted it i got mad glare from the sun, guess i should have thought of that before i had them polish it. i spent about 3 hours trying each gauge in each spot i ended up with this order because i wanted the tach center and i drive mostly with my left arm, usually covering half of the left spot so speedo had to go on the right. and the tach has an option for an external shift light too but i didn't buy it as for yet.

nateasham

i got lucky today and found a cheap (under $100 shipped) used rear window regulator so I finally got around to ordering that part so i can roll down the back. i had been putting it off for a while but i determined its causing WAY too much drag at high speeds during this last weekend's 600 km round trip to Calgary for a music festival. i started off the trip with the top off but once i hit about 150-160 handling and gas millage went out the window (but not the back one lol) so i had to replace the top. I'm blaming the fact that my rear window doesn't go down cause the regulator cable is snapped so I'll be switching it out soon. (scheduled to arrive on Oct.25/14) I'm so excited, i bought it knowing it didn't work and been dealing with it for 2 years. too bad its gonna arrive just in time for winter storage.

nateasham

My used window regulator arrived from the other side of the globe this Thursday. so i went to town removing the driver seat for simple access, removed all the bolts holding the panel with the busted regulator. then with the help of my buddy Derrik as a human window clamp, we disconnected the regulator from the panel (the correct way to do this is roll down the window and pull out the panel with the regulator and window, but mine didn't roll down) from there we took the regulator off of the window took out the regulator and then lowered the window out. unfortunately Max Power Speed Shop was already closed for the evening so Friday morning i dropped off the window to get tinted. 3 hours into my work shift the shop called me with a nice limo black rear window ready. so i stuck it all back in and readied myself for test 1 of my fixed setup.
test 1 was a fail, if you watched the video you know its because i didn't have the window centered on the regulator properly so it wasn't lining up in the tracks. luckily for me the previous owner chopped about 2 feet of the fire wall out from the trunk side so i just loosened the nuts and rolled up the window till it had lined itself up in the tracks then just re-lowered it and tightened the nuts. test two was a total success.

so i grabbed the girlfriend and took the sol out with the rear window rolled down for the first time in the 2 years i have owned it, and i love it. during this short trip i outran a 83 5.0L mustang he isn't so impressed his V8 got beat by a 4 banger lol. Anyhow i returned the car to its parking spot just in time for the snow to start falling, (ya it snowed 4 inches just an hour after that pic was taken. love Alberta weather). i guess that was the last drive for this year back to the automatic daily/winter civic for 5-6 months. BOOOooooo

nateasham

Ok so an update. I sent off the wires for my gauges to Wire-Worx who is going to put chassis clips on them so I can plug and play All but two of my gauges which came with their own sensors.

I attempted my first Carbon fiber wrap job on the aluminum face for my gauges. It looked like crap. I got it looking good by my 3rd attempt.

I ordered my jdm ITR 5 lug conversion. Now to see if I can save up enough for jdm axles, and Koni/GC all before spring.

I also purchased a GoPro 4 black. I always hate trying to figure out the in between steps from picture in most DIY threads, So from now on, all my projects no matter how small will be video recorded first person view from start to finish for all those who come after.

nateasham

So my JDM ITR five lug conversion came in and looks real good other than the worn bushings and busted ball joints.

Ordered the koni/gc with extended top hats from thmotorsports. I went with real stiff F550/R500. I read a LOT of people liking them for same driving type as I intend. Even the person I talked to when ordering claims to use same spring rate and love it. Officially the most I have ever paid for a "single" part.

EDIT: link to assembly of Koni/GC setup with pics

ONEcam

iTrader: (1)

Looking forward to your gauge set up!

nateasham

Just for you here's a new pic of the wrapped gauges.



So my gauge cluster conversion harness showed up from WIRE-WORX. And it looks amazing. Way better than I had hopped for. I sent them this.


And they returned to me this lovely piece.


I'll post up a test vid once installed in the next day or so.

nateasham

So two and a half years back i took the car out to make that test video of the gauges working, before i could even make the video i crashed the car. So i collected parts and have finally started making moves on the car again. Since i was doing the JDM 5 lug/brake conversion I just installed ALL new OEM bushings on every suspension part, all 4 wheel bearings, ARP extended studs, front upper control arms/balljoint, front lower balljoint and all NEW OEM bolts for every piece replaced, the Koni/GroundControl springs, Function7 RLCA and new DSS axles. As you can see i needed a new rear bumper too.



And the front end got smushed under the nose so I'm currently drilling out the spot welds so i can put on a new radiator support. which i also got a new 2 row radiator to fit in as well as a new front bumper lucky enough i found a matching red one and lastly a set of projector headlights. then i just need to set the new ride hight, drain the 2+ year old fuel and hand turn the engine a few times to prime the oil then try firing her up again.

nateasham

Revived from death! Kinda but not really...
so hit another set back after the last message. went home to start the body work and discovered that i had mismatching year parts, i had the 99 rad support and 98 bumper/headlights. so since i liked the 99 better and i had the parts on my civic which i had by this time killed and was parting out. i opted to sell the 98 parts and do the 99 front end conversion on the del sol. so now i have all the parts for that lined up. i went to start dissembling the sol's front end and well the mugen style side skirts were screwed in, caulked over and filled in behind with some rubber like expanding foam. it took me along *** time to get that POS off. but by todays end i had managed to remove both skirts, and both fenders from the sol. tomorrow ill be hacking and slashing up fenders to frankinstien together a front end that hopefully wont look too bad. (for anyone reading this in the future i HIGHLY DO NOT recommend doing a front end conversion on your car the complication of fixing it if ever in a collision is ridiculous. a good part of me wishes id have just reverted it back to stock for simplicity but in the end i know i will like the civic front better. but i still dont recommend doing this.) i dont have a lot of money right now cause im not working (due to stupid governments locking down the countries) but that means i got the time so im trying my hardest to get this thing back on the road before summer. so hopefully progress will be a bit swifter now.

Swift

Glad to see you are sticking with it, rock on!