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So in this post we're now into July and August of 2005.
The welding of new quarter pieces to fix rust was complete and now it was time to begin body work. We used Duraglass body filler along with 2K filler primer and lots of sanding. I don't have a picture of each particular section we fixed, so here's a few to give you an idea of what the process looked like from various stages.
An example of what all the welding and grinding yielded, plus the initial application of Duraglass (passenger rear quarter):
After lots of sanding (passenger rear quarter/wheel well):
Next came several coats of 2K filler primer (and more sanding) on the passenger rear quarter/wheel well:
I also decided to shave the radio antenna (in hindsight probably wish I wouldn't have), and the lower windshield pillar on the driver side got a similar Duraglass/2K filler treatment:
And some final shots of the rear quarters (passenger):
Driver rear quarter:
Pictures of paint coming in the next post! Finally!
Alright time for some paint pics! So if you've been following along you'll notice that I went a bit out of order...we actually sprayed the engine bay before doing any of the body work on the car that I've covered so far. So this post finally brings us back into order, with the painting of the engine bay. The motor was pulled, and most items covered and/or taped for primer and paint. Thinking back it would have been nice to completely restore all the hardlines/clips at this time but back in 2005 all the painting and body work was a big enough project and I didn't have the money or the know-how to do those types of things.
Engine bay fully primed:
My friend spraying the engine bay (I was watching from outside the "booth" that we had set up):
Picture when we had to roll the chassis out for some sandblasting when doing the body work:
Alright time for some paint pics! So if you've been following along you'll notice that I went a bit out of order...we actually sprayed the engine bay before doing any of the body work on the car that I've covered so far. So this post finally brings us back into order, with the painting of the engine bay. The motor was pulled, and most items covered and/or taped for primer and paint. Thinking back it would have been nice to completely restore all the hardlines/clips at this time but back in 2005 all the painting and body work was a big enough project and I didn't have the money or the know-how to do those types of things.
Engine bay fully primed:
My friend spraying the engine bay (I was watching from outside the "booth" that we had set up):
Picture when we had to roll the chassis out for some sandblasting when doing the body work:
These pictures are so cool - I can't believe you pulled things apart that far! I'd be scared...
Here we've made it to August of 2005. This was a summer-long project, and it really wasn't finished until about October but we'll get there. The body had been painted (not many pics from this part) and the bumpers were next after that.
Shot of the driver side of the body. Notice the old "Darknights" poster in the background- this was from an import show I attended in Toronto, Canada sometime before I even thought about doing all this work to the car. In fact, I didn't even take this car just went with some friends. I think it was the previous summer, summer of 2004.
A close up of where we did a lot of the body work:
By this point we've reached late August 2005. The bumpers and body were painted, and all that was left was the doors, hood, fenders and trunk. I had ordered some JDM thin side moldings from ICB at this time and we put the piece on that goes on the rear body:
Trunk getting a little wet sanding. My civic came with an OEM spoiler with third brake light. We painted the spoiler and I still have it but decided I didn't want it on for some reason at the time, so we used the trunk from the donor car shown earlier in this thread which didn't have holes for a spoiler:
And here's a shot of the doors with a little 2K filler primer and some sanding going on to fill the dings:
While the other pieces were being painted, I ordered wheels and tires and cleaned up the suspension and wheel wells a bit. Suspension shown is Tokico blues with Skunk2 adjustable coilovers and an SPC front adjustable ball joint. Here's a picture of the front suspension and wheel well after caliper paint, knuckle paint, and rubberized undercoating:
I decided to go with some Mugen MF-8 knockoffs from Rota (Rota Circuit 8's) in a 16" size with 205/40/16 Toyo Proxes tires. Here they are on the rolling shell:
That's pretty much it as far as photos for the complete color change. I don't have much of the hood, fenders, engine installation, or interior installation steps because after the photos in this post were taken, I went back to college for the fall semester and wasn't with the car anymore so my buddy took care of all that while I was at school.
Next post will be the big reveal!
Last edited by wxman94ej1; 05-05-2017 at 06:40 AM.
Reason: Added suspension info
Really happy with how everything turned out. Unfortunately, I was still attending college for the rest of the fall/winter/spring so the car was essentially parked until summer of 2006 when I was able to drive it more.
The car pretty much remained the same for 5 years following completion of the color change in October of 2005. During this time, I finished my undergraduate degree and went on to graduate school. I drove the car during the summer of 2006 only a little bit, and then again in the summer of 2007 a little bit. Here are some pictures from the end of summer 2006 before I parked the car for the winter:
The car pretty much remained the same for 5 years following completion of the color change in October of 2005. During this time, I finished my undergraduate degree and went on to graduate school. I drove the car during the summer of 2006 only a little bit (photos from previous post), and then again in the summer of 2007 a little bit. From summer of 2007 until October of 2010, the car remained mostly parked (three years!). Occasionally my dad would drive it but unfortunately I had moved far away for graduate school and was unable to take the car with me. The good news was that I was able to save up for the next phase of the build during this time, which I had decided would be a motor swap. I did a lot of research on where to source a motor and hmotorsonline (HMO) came up repeatedly as one of the more reputable places so I decided to use them. Since I was going for sort of an SiR replica-style build by this point (still essentially JDM themed), I decided on a JDM B16A engine.
In early 2010 I moved to Colorado after graduate school and during the summer of 2010 I started putting together an order for the motor. In October of 2010 I placed an order from HMO for the following:
Remember- the car is still in New York at this point and I'm in Colorado. Fortunately, my friend who painted the car in 2005 was willing to do the swap for me. So I had the engine shipped to New York where the swap would be done. Here are some pictures of the motor as it was being prepped for shipping at HMO:
Nice! I should look up my tranny code and see what I find. I think it is a regular old LS tranny...
Yeah in hindsight an Integra (non- Type-R) would have been a decent choice because of the 5th gear ratio. At 70 mph on the highway my S4C runs at 3800-4000ish RPM in 5th gear. It is fun around town though!
The swap to a B16A went well. At the time of the swap other things were done including:
Timing belt
Water pump
Shift linkage (required for swap)
Throttle cable (required for swap)
Axle shafts (required for swap)
Motor mounts from Hasport were used. I chose the EGSTK kit, with 62A urethane inserts. This was the "softest" configuration I could order, labeled as "Street".
I thought I had some pictures of them unloading the motor off the semi-truck, but I can't find them. Anyway, here's a blurry picture mid-swap (same as current avatar):
And here's a few pictures from November of 2010 after the swap was complete:
Oh yeah! I bet Dustin can find you an LS 5th gear and maybe we could swap it in. 4th I think is 1:1 for all, and you might as well leave 1 - 3 alone...
Oh yeah! I bet Dustin can find you an LS 5th gear and maybe we could swap it in. 4th I think is 1:1 for all, and you might as well leave 1 - 3 alone...
Probably. I think LS transmissions are pretty common in general, so I'm not worried about finding one. Maybe down the road sometime.
04-07-2017, 11:11 AM
re: Wxman's 1994 EX ABS Coupe Build Thread
