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I sourced all the hardware from McMaster Carr. Great resource.
JIS overlaps (for most specs) with DIN or ISO flanged for most sizes I think. I think the m8 is a special one since it uses 12mm drive rather than 13. I wanted to keep the car as simple as possible so went with the JIS spec for the m8 hardware. Went with the standard ISO/DIN m6 hardware as you get a slightly taller head and wider flange.
Went to grab a new seat belt today as the original DS belt was frayed into oblivion. Turns out the passenger side isn't quite interchangeable. Grabbed a black one that was almost new (compared to mine) from a DC2 (LS coupe I think). The sedans have the sliding seatbelt on the b-pillar which I don't think fits. Got the belt, put everything back together to find that the new belt buckle, combined with the seat slightly further left doesn't clear the trans tunnel. Because this car is already beat as hell, I just took a hammer and made a little indent on the tunnel.
The heel plate makes a good bit of difference in seating position. Went for a quick drive afterwards and it's certainly a bit easier to heel-toe since your foot starts higher up on the brake pedal. I'm on the shorter side so the added height helped with seating position quite a bit. Also, now that all the rusty under-dash parts are painted, I won't get tetanus if I move my leg wrong. Light grey also looks better than that rusty orange color.
Halfway through cleaning off the rear section of the interior floor. I'm honestly confused as to how all this dirt made its way in here.
All that's left is to clean the rest up and maybe find a single SRS dash without the airbag hole.
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Also, I finally got a new hood prop clip thing. Every time I went to the junk yard, they were either broken or brittle as hell on every single car. Finally dawned on me that I should buy a new one that wasn't made of brittle 90's plasic. Better use of time and money than trying to look for a non broken one.
Last edited by reconsiderit; 01-14-2021 at 08:30 PM.
Played with tire pressures a bit and ended up at 28 psi cold front and rear which feels pretty good. Zero'd out the front cross camber at -1.5 degrees each side. Going to add a turn's worth of camber in the rear when time allows.
Took my camera with me on Friday's cruise out to the coast. Some of the roads are still fresh from last year's repaving and haven't been too torn up by the cold yet. So much fun.
The interior is fantastic. No longer feels like I'm sitting in an old, dirty car with an interior that was creaky and falling apart.
How did you determine 28 psi was best? Contact patch?
Borrowed a pyrometer from a friend of mine and coupled that with just general feel of the car. The 225's on 8" wheels are a bit much. I think going down one width might've been a bit better. There's a bit too much give with the sidewalls with this combo which leaves something to be desired. Going down might eliminate a tad bit more of that vagueness in the steering feel but I gotta install sways first to see how that affects the feel.
Another thing that I didn't think of when buying this tire setup was that this thing only has 70hp. (from the factory, 25 years ago) It's difficult to get these tires up to temp.
Been a bit busy so haven't had much time to work on it, but taken it for a couple drives lately. Worked on stripping any surface rust from the ITR sways and spraying them rattlecan black.
The last owner sprayed the subframe brace with black spray paint. It was pretty cracked so I took paint stripper to it and will probably just leave it as is. Had to track down the old style paint stripper with methylene chloride since the new, safer stuff is pretty much useless.
Gotta finish taking the door apart so I can send it to paint. All the rubber seals and bits of trim still need to come off and the small dent is going to need to be taken care of.
Hopefully, the maaco single stage urethane should be enough. The car is kept inside so it shouldn't really deteriorate from sun exposure. That said, the paint on the rest of the car is oxidized into oblivion. I need to find time to compound the entire thing.
Was quoted 400-800 to respray and work the dent out of the door, so I started searching for another door. Luckily, found a matching CX hatch a couple hours north of me that had just been put out onto a junk yard two days prior. Was 250 miles round trip and pouring rain the entire time I was pulling the door, but for a damn near perfect replacement, it was plenty worth it.
The joys of not owning a truck. Had to wipe the entire thing down til it was spotless and wrap the corners and edges in foam to fit it into the back seat of my LS.
Threw it on and polished the paint marker from the junkyard off with meguiars ultimate compound. That stuff works wonders. It's doesn't polish up quite as well as the lexus base+clear I'm used to but this is pretty amazing for a single stage paint job found on an economy car from the 90's. Considering it was oxidized to a straight up matte white before this, I'm happy. Now to tackle the rest of the car.
Also snapped the very top door sash trim clip when transferring it from the old door; Turns out its a discontinued part that's $5 with $18 shipping. I'll try the junkyard first.
Also, if anyone wants that door card, lmk as I'm tossing it at the end of the week. It's almost spotless. The cloth might need a bit of a cleaning.
Started working on some dashboard stays today. The dash kinda bounces due to it being completely gutted since it no longer sits on the heater core or any of the vents. I've seen a couple builds here and there with these stays so decided to finally make some. Bought some 316L tubing in 1/2 and 3/8th OD since I wasn't quite sure what was being used in most of the ones that I'd seen. Flattened the ends and drilled some holes to latch them to the stock mounting points and the panel nuts below the radio. So it turns out that those panel nuts aren't sized for m6 screws so they were a bit stiff and ended up breaking off more of the dash. Going to drill through a thicker part and just use a regular nut on the other side when I get a chance to work on this next.
Thought I had one side done tonight til I snugged it down a bit much and broke the plastic tab the panel nut was sitting on. You can also see how there's not much of the dash left as every time I look at it wrong it cracks a bit more.
Pretty basic stuff. The flattened part of the bend isn't holding any of the weight of the dash so real thin tubing like this works fine. Still drilled it as close as I could to the bend to make it as strong as possible though.
The bottom mounts to the stock point that the original support mounted to.
Was quoted 400-800 to respray and work the dent out of the door, so I started searching for another door. Luckily, found a matching CX hatch a couple hours north of me that had just been put out onto a junk yard two days prior. Was 250 miles round trip and pouring rain the entire time I was pulling the door, but for a damn near perfect replacement, it was plenty worth it.
The joys of not owning a truck. Had to wipe the entire thing down til it was spotless and wrap the corners and edges in foam to fit it into the back seat of my LS.
Threw it on and polished the paint marker from the junkyard off with meguiars ultimate compound. That stuff works wonders. It's doesn't polish up quite as well as the lexus base+clear I'm used to but this is pretty amazing for a single stage paint job found on an economy car from the 90's. Considering it was oxidized to a straight up matte white before this, I'm happy. Now to tackle the rest of the car.
Also snapped the very top door sash trim clip when transferring it from the old door; Turns out its a discontinued part that's $5 with $18 shipping. I'll try the junkyard first.
Also, if anyone wants that door card, lmk as I'm tossing it at the end of the week. It's almost spotless. The cloth might need a bit of a cleaning.
I gouged my driver door card down at the bottom with my boots - Still have it?
Hastily threw the car back together and took it for a quick rip through the hills. Was reminded that the headlights aren't great. Ordered some headlight housings and will be tearing it apart to fit an HID system into it.
A lot of bits came off in order to revive the paint. need to throw the side skirts back on once they're polished. The rocker plugs are also gone for some reason so I'll need to spray the inside of the thing down with boeshield and buy some new plugs.
Wasn't all that happy with how slow Meguiars UC was cutting so purchased the M105 which, to my disappointment, doesn't cut anywhere as well on dried, baked, sun damaged paint. It's more of a compound for fresh paint that needs to be corrected I suppose.
Hopefully the wax helps revive the paint a bit. Anyways, the paint is still pretty ****. It's just less **** than before. lol.
Also polished the tailight tint off. Much better. Just need to finish the other ones and seal it.
Was given an air box from a USDM TSX. The Accord Euro R motor will be going in and I'm trying to use as many OE bits as possible to keep the engine bay sensible and unassuming for obvious reasons. With the trans and washer bottle out of the way, I think it should fit.
So between housings ($55), projectors ($270) and ballasts (~$150) , you have close to $500 in lighting! Better be a nice improvement!
New housings ($70) + Two complete headlight assemblies from the junkyard ($80) + Misc ($50). ~$200 for a whole lot safer driving experience. Will most likely be using e36 or TSX HID systems as bases to build off of since they're somewhat widely available and towards the compact end of the spectrum.
All said and done, it shouldn't be too much. I'm not too big a fan of TRS since its marked up a ton. Sure, they might've put a lot of time into designing kits that indeed plug and play, but I don't quite need that and am willing to take a dremel and epoxy to some headlight housings. The other thing too is that I've seen some decent lighting parts from china that are similar or identical in spec to TRS and wouldn't hesitate to buy. Shouldn't be too hard to track some of that stuff down on taobao or aliexpress.
New housings ($70) + Two complete headlight assemblies from the junkyard ($80) + Misc ($50). ~$200 for a whole lot safer driving experience. Will most likely be using e36 or TSX HID systems as bases to build off of since they're somewhat widely available and towards the compact end of the spectrum.
All said and done, it shouldn't be too much. I'm not too big a fan of TRS since its marked up a ton. Sure, they might've put a lot of time into designing kits that indeed plug and play, but I don't quite need that and am willing to take a dremel and epoxy to some headlight housings. The other thing too is that I've seen some decent lighting parts from china that are similar or identical in spec to TRS and wouldn't hesitate to buy. Shouldn't be too hard to track some of that stuff down on taobao or aliexpress.
Very cool! What housings are you going with?
If you are going to do a write up like the rest of your hatch project, I will wait and learn...
I wonder if I can find a TSX w/ front end intact at the local boneyard?
New housings ($70) + Two complete headlight assemblies from the junkyard ($80) + Misc ($50). ~$200 for a whole lot safer driving experience. Will most likely be using e36 or TSX HID systems as bases to build off of since they're somewhat widely available and towards the compact end of the spectrum.
All said and done, it shouldn't be too much. I'm not too big a fan of TRS since its marked up a ton. Sure, they might've put a lot of time into designing kits that indeed plug and play, but I don't quite need that and am willing to take a dremel and epoxy to some headlight housings. The other thing too is that I've seen some decent lighting parts from china that are similar or identical in spec to TRS and wouldn't hesitate to buy. Shouldn't be too hard to track some of that stuff down on taobao or aliexpress.
And just to be clear, not trying to be argumentative - I do think HID would equal a safer driving experience than the factory mid-90s lighting.
Looking forward to seeing how you do this - what housings you bought and how to get TSX HID inside them, and how the wiring goes...
Purchased a K20a last week. Swap is planned towards the end of summer once I have the handling all sorted out. The ITR sway set should be going in this week with the new control arms. The ES poly bushing kit that came with the cheap LCAs that I bought do look like they've been through hell and back so not sure how long I'll be keeping those. I want an LCA set with adjustable sway mounting points.
Since the shift linkage needs to be dropped to throw the front sway in, I went ahead and bought some stuff for the shifter since the d-series will still be there for a couple more months. Picked up a $30 k tuned rep shifter and a set of ES poly bushings which should sharpen up the throw and move the shifter closer to the wheel. Was also able to grab a limited hyper teardrop from battlecraft this past Monday which I'm pretty excited to throw on. It's one of those parts that I've wanted ever since I've owned the car. It's finished in a blasted black ano so it'll probably pick up scratches a bit easy, but that adds a bit of character, right?
Planned for the week
- Rep ktuned short shifter
- ES shift linkage bushings
- Front JDM ITR sway
- Front GSR LCA
- Front GSR compliance bushing
- Hardrace sway endlink bushings
- ASR rear subframe brace
- Rear ITR sway
- Rear GSR LCA
- Hardrace rear sway endlink bushings
- Alignment (again...)
Hyper teardrop + knockoff ktuned shifter. Not bad. The shifter is decently solid for 30 bucks, but super soft set screws. They've gotta be replaced at some point if I keep adjusting this thing. I don't like buying knockoffs like this since I'd much rather support the enthusiasts that've put time and money into designing these, but with the k-series swap coming in a matter of months, I wasn't quite ready to drop a couple hundred on something I would end up in the parts bin or needing to be listed on ebay or craigslist. I'll for sure be buying a hybrid racing shifter for the k20a though.
Old shifter hardware. The studs were keyed into the upper shift linkage and due to the rust weren't holding anymore. The nuts were also rusted into oblivion and almost had to be removed with a pipe wrench.
Was about to reuse the rusty studs since I couldn't think of any low profile external hex bolts I had lying around. The design needs low profile hardware as it sits against the trans tunnel. Then I remembered I purchased some wafer head torx bolts for the body so used those. Same head height but with a fastener head that holds properly. The bolt is a plain 304 sts screw so not sure how strong it really is, but for this application, I doubt it matters much. Also added new flanged nuts with black oxide coating from mcmaster.
Before. Rusty mess with tons of slop.
Repacked with grease and new hardware all around as well as poly bushings. The old lower boot was torn up so I'll need to grab a new one asap so the grease doesn't pick dirt up and destroy the bushing. Finished with a quick spray of boeshield to keep anything from rusting any further.
Front and rear sways installed. Rather than going straight to the ITR rear sway + ASR brace, I grabbed one off a GSR and threw that on first. The car doesn't yet have the power to straighten itself out with a blip of the throttle, so a bit of understeer is preferred so I don't wrap this thing around a tree. A bit of weight savings too I suppose.
After taking it out for a quick spin, the car is so much more stable. The wandering under hard braking and throttle lift is almost completely gone. There's also gobs more lateral grip compared to not having any sways in the car. It's got true go-kart handling now. I haven't pushed it to its limits yet but once I get more seat time in, I'll be making more adjustments. The other thing I'm inclined to do is to grab some adjustable rear arms and pair it with the ITR sway. Swapping positions on the arm is a whole lot easier than swapping from one sway bar to another.
Also used the rear mounting provisions from the ASR kit rather than just a flanged nut. Force is spread out much better this way and there's less stress on the subframe. Though, maybe a bit overkill. It's not like the GSR sway is going to tear anything out.
Not a good sign when the hardware you pick up from the junkyard is less rusty than the one on your car...
Old bushings were absolutely shot. Makes sense why the rear end seemed to wander quite a bit when it was unweighted through a corner.
Nice this is on my list as well, how’s the exhaust clearance? I have 3”, thinking I’ll need to take it to an exhaust shop for customization.
Once you finish the conversion with the sway, do you mind posting some pics? I'm trying to imagine how much clearance I'll have for future modifications to the rear end. Seeing a lot of people run into clearance issues with certain combos of arms, sways, and roll center correction hardware, I feel like a turndown muffler before the rear subframe or a side exit exhaust might be what I want.
I'm planning on building a 2.5" exhaust for the k-series once that is thrown in with the piping from the site below. Do you have a pre fabbed exhaust or was it something done in-house by a local shop?
01-13-2021, 09:49 PM
Re: Reviving a rice rocket - '95 CX hatch build thread
