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Hi all, if you haven't yet seen my "Introduce yourself" thread...I'm new here and I've introduced myself.
Disclaimer: I decided to join up on Honda Tech and share my build (which is still in progress) and share my journey. I've been posting up my progress on Facebook but there's nothing that comes close to sharing in a public "like-minded" space like a forum where you can help others and they can help you. I'll get this thread up to date slowly...For a little while you'll be out of date sorry!
Firstly I'm sorry for any die hard Hondamaniac's for what I'm about to tell you...This project is taking a 1964 Honda S600 and swapping a Motorcycle engine in. If it helps at all, I'm actually keeping in Honda with a donor CBR1100xx Blackbird engine. It's funny because I actually struggle to work out what group of enthusiasts I belong to. I get frowns from the Blackbird community for stripping down (clipping the wings if you like) of one of their birds and same from the Honda S community for pulling apart and I guess not restoring to original one of their cars. Well for that I say I'm actually saving both.
How? Well the Blackbird came to me with no fairings, wheels some terrible modifications, rust and and a fair dent in the frame I suspect it came off the road and was mucked around with by a kid building a cool "streetfighter". It was beyond restoring. The S600 was already modified before it came into my possession. A blue 1200 Datsun engine, 4 speed manual and a Ford Anglia rear end! So it's not my fault ok! But it did make the perfect platform to start from. I too don't like modifying original classics.
Next was to strip the car down (from what little there was to strip) so as to separate the body from the chassis. Also just to put it out there.... Yes it's not the best shed to be working in with the dirt floor however this will be concreted soon. At this stage I'm not too worried as I'm mostly doing the dirty dusty work and it's actually worked out well. The paint dust and rust has just blended into the dirt rather staining the fresh concrete!
still a long way to go! Good luck with your project and keep up posting. There are too many unfinished projects on this site.
I appreciate it that you share your story on the forum. The facebook-groups might be entertaining but you really cannot follow any story there - it all just goes down the drain as other new posts come in...
It makes much more sense to share here.
Can you tell me the ID-number of your car for the Registry?
After some long debating and many of YouTube videos trying to settle on what engine to put into the Honda. One thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to keep the "heart" Honda. I was keen to do something a little different than the usual engine swaps where common practice is to use any of the main brand 1,000cc bikes. I came across a build over in the US that used a VFR800 engine. For the non-bike aficionados this uses a V4 4-stroke 16-valve. Very throaty sound and with an open exhaust at full throttle it almost has a highly tuned V8 sound. The only real downside was power output, only 100hp and 75nm torque versus around 165hp and 120nm torque you receive from most 1,000cc inline 4's. After quite a bit of searching and only finding overpriced VFR800 engines which still required wiring looms and computers I reverted back to the more common 1,000cc. So the hunt began for a CBR1000RR donor bike.
Quite randomly one day a CBR1100xx came up on Gumtree (our version of Craigslist for you Americans) which was half pulled apart and half vandalised by what looks like a teenager who wanted a cool Streetfigher. I worked out a deal with the seller that he keeps the new fenders and wheels and I take the rest. It was actually a bargain.
All it needs is a little cleanup but it starts and runs well. A little rough in low revs but at this point I'll blame old fuel and perhaps a tune up. One thing I didn't consider until talking to the previous owner is that I've saved a lot of headaches going for this 98' model. Being a carburetor engine I wont have to worry about fabricating a new air box and getting our the air ratios correct.
For now, it's undercover but I'm glad this step is ticked off.
Another update for today... I'm going to try and get this forum up to date as quick as I can.
After taking the body off I took the chance to do a quick assessment of the chassis and clean up which created no nasty surprises. I also measured up the rear and worked out a plan (in my head) for removing the leaf springs. This will come down the track but I've always had plans to run adjustable coilovers on all four corners and a 3 or 4-link set up on the rear. Also whilst it was off I removed the engine and gearbox which I had sold.
Body back on for now I started the massive job of stripping paint. This time (versus versus other times) I've gone for the wire wheel on an angle grinder. Fairly fast going and although dusty it's certainly not as messy as using paint stripper. Actually I forgot to mention, this is a budget build! It's not that I don;t have the money to spend it's more a proof of what can be done for very little. It's just a matter of getting stuck in and doing as much as you can yourself. I say this because you're all probably thinking why didn't I just sandblast the body...It's a cost thing.
And as you can see it's always fun (I think?) removing paint and seeing what lies beneath! All done the passenger side is a long dent which was covered by caked on body filler. Now it's hard to photograph back when I say caked, it's literally a tin of filler per panel! Talk about weight saving!
After stripping off all the paint I then moved my attention to quite a large amount of tar that was liberally applied in the engine tunnel and floor pan (sorry no before and after). I think I mentioned in the last post, stripping weight down has been as easy as just removing all the body filler and tar! I was relieved to not find anything nasty under all the tar and it was actually very satisfying to remove. It basically chipped off with a chisel. The only thing I did find which I already knew about was what appears to be an access hole for something in the engine bay via the passenger foot well? Made me laugh a bit... Tip for the day, if you can't reach a bolt via the conventional manner just cut an access hole! You can sort of see this on the right hand side.
Onto brakes. Which just a bit of background of me I work for a brake reconditioning/new wholesaler. Specializing in reconditioning Master Cyl, Slaves, Wheel Cyl, Boosters and Calipers. It makes this part of the project so much easier. I have endless amount of parts, machinery and know how around me. I manage the E-Commerce and Cataloguing side so most lunch breaks and after work sees me out the back "on the tools".
I think I mentioned before I wanted to go 4 wheel disc brakes not so much for the stopping power as much as it was just for looks. Of course this car will weigh very little so consideration has to be taken to braking power as most options will be probably too much! Skipping a whole heap of research I've settled on 34mm single rear handbrake calipers of a Holden TS Astra and a 247mm solid disc off a 206 Peugeot. The fronts will be a 54mm single pot sliding caliper used on quite a few Holden's from 1978-1991 and a 266mm disc off the 206 Peugeot again. Discs are new and calipers will be rebuilt at work (which you'll see shortly.
When I started the project I found that someone had half converted the front right to disc. There was only the bracket and dust cover installed but the unique design were both the shield and bracket was all-in-one was perfect. It wasn't original but the hunt was on to find what they came off! A massive task you could imagine. Ended up stumbling across a photo which led me to another photo of a side by side comparison of early Toyota brackets. FOUND IT! I know knew what I was looking for and looked into Toyota further. Found a handful of reasonably common early Toyota's I could now hunt and ended up finding an RA40 Celica which was being parted out. I felt like I found Gold! Instead of using these on the front I decided to use these on the rear as act as a direct replacement of the drum break backing plate. Only worry at the moment is the distance between mounting bolts is huge. I may end up welding custom brackets straight to the diff housing.
Bracket from Honda front right. Comparison photo found. RA40 Celica brackets test fit. RA40 Celica brackets painted and mounted.
Discs mounted and test fitting Astra Calipers
Last edited by Honda S; 10-21-2019 at 08:09 PM.
Reason: Added photo
Sorry for the slabs of text in these posts! I'm trying to just get you all up to date then I can just add as I go.
Front Brakes: During all the research I was on a LocostBuilders forum where I found a thread full of front uprights off various cars. Measurements included! I thought I may be able to find a complete assembly that could almost just bolt straight on with disc brakes and all. I found that a car here in Aus called a TE Cortina which is so far removed from this little Honda had uprights which on paper should just bolt in. I picked up a pair of complete uprights with discs and calipers for only $150 aud which was a enough of a bargain to give them a shot. Bolted straight in! Well... I did have to make some custom tapered bushings to go on the lower ball joint. But that was all!
Only cons with this option was the assembly was heavy and an odd design where the hub bolts to the face of the disc which then pushes out my offset and front track quite some distance. I decided this was ok as I've solved other headaches like being disc brake and has the same stud pattern as the rear (4x108). I already have the wheels so really have to stick with the PCD. I'd just have to design some wheel flares to fit the wheels under.
After fully reconditioning the whole assemblies including the calipers I decided to forego the idea as they really are too heavy and I really didn't want to flare the guards either. So back to the drawing board and back to the original Honda uprights. I'll be able to sell these pretty easily. Currently I'm working on the drawings for the hubs which will have the correct PCD of 4x108. The Engineer who has to sign off on the car said it's a NO for cross-drilling hubs. But that's ok as I can make these hubs fit everything I have including wheel and disc bore diameter and offset. At the same time I'm designing custom brackets to bolt onto the uprights, but more on this later.
Cortina hub assembly bolted straight in. Reconditioned Cortina uprights and hubs. Dust shields mounted. Calipers reconditioned. Calipers reconditioned.
By the way the last few posts wasn't exactly in order but I did arrange these in order of parts/section of vehicle versus how it was posted on Facebook.
The Windscreen: I had two windscreens that came with the vehicle which 2 of 2 were broken. The not so broken windscreen actually had a stamp on the bottom right corner with the manufacturer and a date of Sep 2017. I thought this isn't too old and I should be able to get a new one. A quick Google search of the manufacturer and contacted them who although be a wholesaler happily sold me a windscreen.
Prior to this I had already stripped the windscreen frame down removed all roof clamps, weather strip brackets and smoothed over screw holes. Why you might ask? Well I'm going for a"discreet custom" style on the Honda....excluding the loud and brash motorcycle engine, but more just styling. There will be no roof, no side windows and no bumper bars. All assemblies and associated parts removed which lends well to weight saving and an overall "clean look". As a side note, the doors will even have the opening for the glass closed up as if there were never any side windows to start with.
Arrived. Safe!
Frame in primer. Painted! Windscreen in, still wrestling with chrome trims.
Last edited by Honda S; 10-22-2019 at 07:27 PM.
Reason: Fixed image
Last couple of updates and we're up to date on here!
I was talking to a local contact for these S cars who also introduced me to them and it came up in conversation he had some non-original seats. They came out of an S600 that was being restored back to original and he only wanted $150 for the pair! Couldn't not have a look at these! He said they were in new condition and he wasn't wrong! I actually had some original parts I wasn't going to be using and had no bites when they were for sale, asked if he wanted to trade and the deal was done.
The funny thing about this car is now these seats completes 90% of the interior!
Most recently I've been working on the modified front end. After deciding to forego the Ford Cortina front end I now have to design new hubs essentially as a clean swap going from 5 stud to 4 stud. If you missed it earlier, I'm going 4 stud as the rear was already 4 stud and it was harder to convert the rear end to 5 stud than it was the other way around. The other considerations was the options. Honda decided to use a fairly uncommon PCD of 5x130, equally Ford was using a 4x108 (current rear end) which also isn't common. So I could go either way however I learnt a 5x130 PCD is used by Porsche, Bentley, Lamborghini just to name a few...I definitely wasn't about to commit myself to those wheels/brakes and the costs associated! 4x108 isn't much better however early Ford, Peugeot, Citroen, Alfa's and some others used this PCD, still very limited choices but cheaper. It means I can purchase Peugeot discs for the front and rear brakes which are cheap and available.
I've drawn up all the front components to scale on the computer as I can model everything together. It's annoying to have to make new hubs but it does give me the opportunity to design everything to work together as if it was all original parts. My engineer wants the hubs made from a 305 grade steel easy enough, and I'm having custom brackets made up for the calipers I'll be using.
Today at work I found my calipers, both front and rear. Fronts are from a Holden Commodore. A fairly common car and same with caliper being used across quite a few models. This also means a good range of pad options!
Rear’s are from another Holden. A TS Astra or for anyone in the Euro’s a Vauxhall Astra. Again fairly common caliper and sorts out the handbrake at the same time.
First steps is strip down and clean up...
Commodore calipers before clean up. First clean ready for sonic wash. Painted ready for re-assembly. Astra calipers before clean up. After first clean.
Not a whole lot done to the car of recent. I’ve been work on our house too just putting in the new kitchen this week. Some work has continued at work though finishing up the calipers I’ll be using. They are now fully painted with new pistons, seals and pins...basically brand new now.
Ok so it's been a while since my last update however it's not to say nothing has been done! Mostly I've just cleaned up lots of the little stuff for the front end whilst I waited for the engineering shop to complete the custom front hubs, modify stub axles (collar where the dust seal sits for hubs) and make up 4 little metal cups for the upper and lower ball joints. I also took time to dismantle the steering rack and throw it through the ultrasonic wash and rebuild (sorry no before and after photos).
It was a tense but exciting day when I picked up the hubs. They looked amazing but was all my measurements correct? Pressed in all the bearing shells and slid it over the axle....it fits! And most importantly it doesn't scrub. The original hubs design was a little odd. It had an oil seal/dust seal whatever you'd like to call it which press fitted to a collar at the base of the stub axle. In most cases it's the opposite, the dust seal is press fit into the back of the hub. I couldn't find another dust seal the same as the original anywhere so whilst I was making these custom hubs, I decided to make the design more conventional. Makes for a more serviceable classic in the end.
I was able to find off the shelf sway bar bushing would you believe for the S600. With that I had the original clamps sent off for plating too. I also found off the shelf a new steering coupling (not pictured). It's not for the S600 however all dimensions where correct except for the thickness which didn't take much to resolve.
I've definitely spent more time on detail work than I thought I was going to but I guess whilst I wait on things I'll always keep the project moving. I've now taken all the goodies home with me and starting to put it all back together.
Just re-posting this one as somehow it posted in someones introduction thread!? Mods hasn't moved it yet. Update from December 24th.
_
Last week I managed to finally get the lower arms finished. I can't recall if I previously mentioned what the plans where for these but just in case the job was to bore out the back of the arms where the torsion rod would be. There reason is I'm going to run coilovers in the front (and rear) and wanted to do the job the right way by fully converting the front end. I didn't want to have a torsion rod trying to do what the spring is trying to do at the same time. Ok there is a work around and it's not that necessary however I had the time and the machine to do it...so why not?
Drilling out the lower arms. Painted and baked. Finished! Ball joints re-assembled with new parts and bushes pressed in.
also did you know the S600 torsion bars are heavier duty than the S800? the antiroll bar the same.
so don't throw the torsion bars away, someone with an S800 will make use of them. (I already have them on mine as well as coil-overs)
are you using the original shock absorber mounting points or going more outboard?
I guess you have seen this s600 which sold recently > S600 Kawasaki?
there are loads of gallery pictures showing how they mounted the front shocks. I have mounted mine in a similar position to make it more direct acting. (original mount is more than halfway to the chassis so effectively halving the effect it has)
(all my pictures are missing at the moment as Photobucket is broken)
Interesting. I'm not entirely sure what chassis I actually have. A local expert I think told me it was an 800 chassis based on some square tubing on the chassis (I think that's what he said). Anything original I'm not using is donated to him actually. Not a huge market for S parts. I'd rather them be kept rather lost and forgotten. Despite what I'm doing on this build I really am a lover of 'original' classics.
I have seen that build and I did suss out a lot of those photos...has proven handy actually. And I have really considered the mounting mounts. I was going to use the original points just for simplicity but You make a good point.
Back to some body work. Finally got my welder set up which has allowed me to crack on with jobs I needed a welder for. Started replacing rusted panels and removing the seams that join the panels to the rest of the body. These seams are usually dressed with a chrome strip however due to rarity and cost I decided to remove them all and spot weld them back together which it turn really creates some cleaner lines and a sleeker look.
I had one replacement panel off a donor car for the rear quarter of the rocker panel so that was easy, but I didn't have the replacement panel for the front. Sorry about the lack of before and afters photos by the way, I was on a role with fabricating. Me being budget and all I cut the passenger door skin (which was dented and needed replacing anyway) and with some Art Attack inspiration (anyone in Aus remember that show?) and cardboard I made the template, cut the sheet metal and shaped it over an old heavy trolley (yes, I did that). Despite never doing this and the tools I used I'm pretty dang happy with the outcome.
A light skim of body filler to smooth everything over and some high fill, it's really stating to come together.
I'll move back to the front end shortly so I can roll the car out and concrete the floor!
Rear quarter. The panel that came with the car basically fixed all of this up. New panel in and some filler. Early days as I discover a lot of filler used! The reveal! I guess they thought "eventually it'll stop squeezing through the hole" New panel welded in. First layer of filler prior sanding. High fill sprayed prior a light sanding. The panel closest to the camera was also rusted out.
Small update, well actually I did achieve quite a bit over the weekend with more bodywork to the front nose however I'll save the photos for when it's finished. What I did manage to complete was the lower arms. All I had to do was make up some brackets and weld them to the chassis but sometimes the simple jobs don't give you that motivation to actually complete the job. But its done and works perfectly.
Now I can measure up for new coilovers. I've decided for now I'll use the stock mounting points as I'm not necessarily chasing suspension travel. It'll be interesting to see how it goes but for now rather making more work I'll just get it back on the road as is.
you have an S600 Chassis. it has extra mounts and the handbrake tubes in the chassis. the S800 is 5 link so the rear axle wouldn't need be mounted on leaf springs, which I suspect was done that way to easily replace the complicated S600's chain drive rear end.
so you should have the heavier duty front antiroll bar.
Ah thanks it has the number AS285-100 stamped on the frame, is there a way to work out if it's the original frame to the body?
Next big job once the body is taken off is to set up 4 link and coilovers on the rear. The alignment of the axle is slightly forward in the wheel arches, pushing the wheel out of center. I'll be able to fix that whilst I'm on the job too.
Very exciting this weekend to finally have car on all 4 wheels and push it out of the garage! I could have done this couple weeks ago but I was distracted by bodywork. It's a good motivation to see i'm actually getting somewhere.
You can see I have plenty of rear end clearance! I believe the rear end is from a Ford Anglia so the leaf springs are almost under no load. The axle is also a good inch or so too far forward of the wheel arch. I will set this up properly as a 4 link/coliover rear end so will address these issues then.
P.S the red stickers on the rims will be going and the mustard yellow isn't my colour choice!
10-13-2019, 07:41 PM
Honda S1100?
