Nathan Libranda

Hello all! I am a college student in rural Arkansas, USA. I come from a Chevy and Ford truck family. My first vehicle was a single cab 2007 F-150 with a V6 2wd. I've worked on a lot of vehicles, but I am completely knew to Honda. During my freshman year of college, I rolled my truck. With a crushed cab, I drove the truck onto the car trailer and began my summer long journey to repair it. The truck runs and drives pretty much the same as before the wreck, but it is now a very ugly truck with little value. I averaged around 14 miles per gallon. After driving it for 3 years, I decided I wanted a car. My budget was pretty limited so I set out to buy a car with decent gas mileage and decent looks while also being fun to drive. My first choices were a CJ-5 Jeep or a 90s-2004 Mustang. Neither of these vehicles are very economical or practical for a college student. As my car new-to-me car fever raged, I discovered ChrisFix's youtube video where he buys a Honda Del Sol. I immediately fell in love. A cheap car with good gas mileage, somewhat cheap parts, decent reliability, a targa top, and can be made decently fast? I had to have one. And so I set out to buy my first Honda. It is a 1993 model. I was told it was only the S model, but upon registering and insuring it I discovered it is actually the Si model. It has 301,000 miles on the odometer and it's running & driving. It needs a lot of work, but I'm really happy with my new project. As I am new to Honda's, I will most likely be seeking out help with some of the technical stuff.

Short term goals:
Make the car ready to daily drive and ready to work out of as I am a pizza delivery driver.

Short term problems:
Cracked windshield, loose shifter, leaking seals, and squatted rear suspension.

Long term goals:
Make the car fast and good looking. I want this car to be reliable and appealing both inside and out.

Long term problems:
The worst paintjob I have ever seen in my life. This thing is an eye sore if you are closer than 20 feet away. The pictures hide this flaw very well.
A very noticeable amount of body rust. I will be fixing this before I get it painted.
While it does run, the engine is not the healthiest in the world. Not sure if I will be rebuilding it or swapping it yet, but something will be done.

I have already ordered a windshield replacement. The main issue is the rear suspension. The rear tires seem to have negative camber. They are nearly rubbing the fender wells. The issue is the inner corners of the tires are badly worn. They wear much fast than the rest of the tires. The front wheels seem all normal. I don't know if the rear wheels were modified to have the negative camber on purpose of if the coil springs are just extremely worn down. I will have to fix this issue and buy 2 new tires before I can start driving this regularly. This project is budget limited so progress will be slow, but I will be uploading updates.

Pics below!

civichxtreme2

Good luck, looks like a solid starting point, get it caught up on all its maintenance (timing belt, water pump ETC) and she'll be ready to work. And yes, that paint job is god-awful.