brokenEK

So I have a '99 Civic Hatchback. It's lowered, gutted, and missing a bunch of stuff. To make a long story short, it's been sitting for...about 4 years now. It is missing a bunch of parts (it was stolen and recovered), it has bad wiring, and pretty much no interior.

What would it take to get the car running? I'm pretty sure initially it wasn't running because of the wiring so I'm wondering if something as simple as a new wiring harness would work. But the fact that it's been sitting for so long makes me wonder what else is wrong with it.

I'm been wanting to just get rid of the car and start fresh with a new used car, but lately I've been thinking it'd be a good project car. Personally, I'd like to start with just the shell and build it up from there. How hard/costly would that be and what are the bare minimum parts needed just to get it to run?

Thanks for the help!

v!taminb16

it all depend's be more specific on what you want to do

MantiSWhite

Elaborate for us. You could also just try the new wires anyways just to see if thats the problem.

brokenEK

Well the car has been sitting for about 4 years new. About a year of that time the car has been outside in the rain, so I'm not sure how good the engine is (part of the time outside the car had no hood). After about 2 years I completely gave up on the car and didn't care much of what happened to it because I figured it was a lost cause. Stupid me.

Plus over the 4 years I've given up on getting it to run so I've tinkered with all sort of stuff so there are parts missing or broken and I'm not really even sure what is missing. I've moved houses once and somehow not all of the parts made it to the new house. I was just going to junk the car and cut the loss, but I've really start to get that "itch" of fixing up cars (it's probably been about 5 years since I've really done anything with cars) and am wondering if it is worth putting the time and money (which is tight) in to this car or if it'd be better to just get rid of it. I do like the car and would like to get this fixed and running if possible.

Ultimately I was thinking it'd be nice to just strip it down and get rid of or sell what I can for parts and just keep the chassis and rebuilt it up from there. I'd like to get a better engine, I haven't decided, but I was thinking a B16 or even a Prelude motor. At this point in time I am not worried about comforts or extras or anything, i just want the car to run and the brakes/headlights to work.

I did think about getting a new wiring harness a while back, but money is tight and since I was going to sell it/junk it I didn't want to invest the money in a harness and have the car still now work.

And as for the money being tight, if I decide to work on the car I will save and invest the money in the car so it's not really an issue. But if it was going to cost a good $5-6,000 to fix it may be better to get an older Honda that runs and work on that.

Thanks for the info.

bpkmrtoes

pretty sure you can get a running car for less than 2000 bucks.
swap in a single with new harness for less than 1500.
new ecu and seats depending if you need them or not.

really all you need is.. a driver seat, the steering, the dash with cluster, new harness, another motor, wheels, brakes, and suspension.