That bay! Omg that bay....

 

******* bad *** phunhaus!!!!!

I love seeing your work man it is def amazing!

 

As I said before: it's about time. Too bad my skills with bending steel brake lines is only getting worse.

I know the Accord will be a contender. A racecar will always be more impressive than a street car so you got me there! If you're willing, I'd love to tackle some ideas or problems as they arise for your build.

BRAAP!

Lol, thanks. I hope this car isn't a one-trick-pony where all the focus is on only one area.

Thanks, Sammy. I'd love to take credit for it, but there are a lot of hands helping out. It's been TallKyle most of the time and for that I am grateful.

 

All the previous pictures of the interior are not completely done pending my final installation of the carpet. ACC supplies their carpet oversized and uncut so that means making the seat holes, console holes, and transferring the plastic side pieces under the stock carpet to the new one. I wouldn’t say I was putting it off, but I sure was taking my sweet time getting around to it. This weekend was finally the time to do it. I stripped the plastic under pieces off the stock carpet and sprayed a trim adhesive from 3M on the new carpet and plastics. With enough wood, clamps, vice grips and time I worked my way down each side.



While I was waiting for glue to dry I tackled the last bits of the fuse box tuck – a triangulating bracket to prevent movement of the fuse box and a battery kill switch. Luckily Honda had a hole in the firewall cowl doing absolutely nothing so it was a good point to start as an anchor. A small strip of aluminum tapped to accept 6x1.0 bolt and then drilled out left me with this:



For the kill switch I didn’t have a place in the driver’s area of the cabin that made sense given the fuse box location so I elected to move it to the trunk area. The taillight access panel on the passenger side seemed like the perfect answer. This isn’t for security so much as longer-term storage. This way the car won’t sap the small battery if I don’t get a chance to drive the car regularly – especially during the winter.



For the first time in my life I had the perfect sized drill bit!



A shot of the side panel with the kill switch means that side of carpet was done as well. Now I could get to installing the rest of the interior as I was really dragging my feet lately.



These random bits still thrown in the rear hatch area are waiting on me getting the dash ready but that will be a project for another week. For now I am happy concentrating on the rear interior.



I’ll admit – I got a little ahead of myself. I needed to see the rear of the car come together as I was finally motivated to tackle all aspects. That means I needed to see the rear seats in or suffer a motivational defeat. I didn’t even clean the rear panels aside from a wet-cloth wipe down. Rest assured I will properly clean them, even if I have to remove that damn seat!



The driver’s rear of the carpet needs to be worked a little so that those folds don’t reappear. The passenger side is great but I was so concerned about visual impact for myself that I put that on the back burner. I will be getting to it the next time.



That’s where I left it. With the seat in I got as much done as I wanted for the first time in a long time. I usually have a mental list of things I want to accomplish but never give myself a realistic – or even reasonable – amount of time to complete them. This weekend I did get to my goal so either I’m getting better at giving myself enough time or I lowered my own expectations of production! Until next time, thanks for following!

 

Great update, I can relate with your last paragraph. Over the years i've learned I need to pace myself in what I do to keep myself happy working on cars. I find if I tell myself to do 1 or 2 things at most I keep myself really happy. I tell myself it will take 1-2 hours at most for both, always ends up being 4-5 hours and I walk away happy I didn't mentally lie to myself and feel bad I didn't finish the other stuff I may have planned in the past if there were 3-4 things I wanted to work on.

 

Damn B!!!

You got far after I left!! I think we both motivate one another now because we both made huge progress over this past Sunday.

Thank you for everything you do.

As I told you Sunday, your affect on people is influencing, even on myself.

 

Brandon, miss you brahhhh. That said the car is coming along. Still can't wait to see it done!

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one. It's tough to be ambitions - even if it's unreasonable - and not get down on yourself for not getting enough done. I'm going to have to learn with future projects that they should be FUN to work on and take my time with them. That's probably humorous to read given that this car is six years and counting. . .

Thank you, good sir. I did make a little more progress since I didn't have to snake my way around your door! Thanks, as always, for your help - even if it's just grabbing lunch, lol. I think I'm at a standstill until more parts come in so I've got no reason not to focus on getting your car running.

Thanks, Scott. Unfortunately Jesse's BBQ is a scheduling conflict for me so I won't be able to come see you guys next month. I wish there was still an event or a reason to have you guys caravan up here. Maybe we'll have to start a family-friendly weekend to get everyone together.

 

I love the finish on those seats!

 

I live in Atlanta now but if you're ever in the area you let me know!

 

Thank you, sir. The yellow stitching should tie some of the interior together. Plus, I hate RED!

Tell J-Lo (JLCoolman) I said "Hey" if you ever run across him down there. He'll be the Asian guy daily-driving his NSX while he builds a turbo Civic.

 

Remember when I said I was done with wiring? Yeah, I do, too. But I’m not. The good news is I’m on to the “fun” part of wiring and that includes installing and wiring the oil pressure gauge to Joel’s harness and creating a momentary switch for the rear hatch actuator.

TallKyle was nice enough to weld together a fitting so I could adapt the Autometer pressure sender to the VTEC oil pressure switch housing.



For those that don’t know, the standard pressure senders are 1/8” NPT but the VTEC oil pressure switch is a 10x1.25 recess. I could have attempted to tap it for the 1/8” NPT but didn’t want to risk shards getting into the oiling system nor did I want to risk a leak. No one on the planet makes a fitting with those sizes so instead of buying a 1/8” NPT to 12mm fitting and working it down Kyle welded an NPT cap that I drilled to the factory Honda plug after he milled the bolt area down. I tried my best to capture the wonderful colors he put in.



With that seemingly easy side done, I tackled the more intricate side – the display. I didn’t want to run a conventional gauge and at the same time I hate two clocks in a car – one on the radio and one as a separate unit. The fix? Put the gauge display in the clock housing. Sounds easy, right? Yeah, well the first step was removing the clock guts from the housing.



Then separate the gauge into the necessary pieces. Most of this I won’t be using – only the circuit boards and display.



Fast forward and you can see the slight hint of carbon fiber as I made a bezel for the smaller display in the larger opening. The three digits in the center are the first clue that something has been changed.



Since I was disassembling OEM components and repurposing them I got to making the momentary switch for the rear hatch actuator. The shell I have is a 99 and had I known the mechanical/electrical differences between the 94-97 and later Integras I would have changed out the rear hatch latch support for the earlier version and used a cable release. Complicate that with the chassis harness being from an unknown year (surely a 94-97) and I didn’t have provisions for the manual trunk release. Perhaps I do and I’m too unfamiliar with this part of an Integra or perhaps they never came with a way to do it from the cabin. In any case, I’m making my own. The roof has been swapped out for a sunroof-less version from a JDM ITR and that means I have no need for the sunroof switch.



Once I had the guts out I sanded down the face to create a flat surface and adhered some of the thinnest carbon fiber I have to it with a hole to pass through. A washer on the back side holds the switch firmly to the housing and it was all tightened down with the jamb nut.



Set in the driver’s side vent it looks like there are gaps in the lower corner, and truthfully there are. I followed the contours of the factory switch and if I get a bug in my brain about it I’ll make another panel and keep the corners as 90* angles for the opening instead of rounding them to the switch.



Another small (HA!) project was to install the steering column. Although that sounds easy, TallKyle accidentally threw mine out. I let him use it to move his CRX around back-in-the-day and when he was done he promptly tossed it out . . . thinking it was a spare I didn’t need. That may be a blessing in disguise as we came up with this solution. It involves mating the EK combination switch to the DC column. Kyle has plenty of extra combination switches and I did have a spare column. Too bad I didn’t give him this one instead. . .



The mounting surfaces are different between the two chassis as are the steering wheel mounting splines. That means we couldn’t just install the EK as it was – I have a DC2 hub for my steering wheel. The solution? Cut the EK mounting plate off the EK column and weld it to the DC2 column.



Yes, I could be worried about the 2mm difference in position but I would be more worried about the surface area for welding. I’m happy we did it this way. The benefit (aside from having the parts available) is the Integra wiper switch had provisions for a rear wiper while the EK one was from a donor coupe. This works with the fact I deleted all those wires any way so I won’t have an unused switch – just like the above sunroof switch solution. There was a little bit of work and opening up the center bore of the EK combination switch to slide over the DC2 column, but it all works – even the turn signal cancel. That’s something I tested by throwing the steering wheel on with the interior “mostly” together.



That’s still the spare mock-up dash as I practiced removing some of the rear webbing for the oil pressure gauge/clock housing. Once everything is more finalized I’ll get some better pictures for posterity. Even this small mock-up gave me hope that the entire interior will tie together. It seems to be a cohesive thought all laid out. Sometimes necessity truly is the mother of invention and I’m actually happy we had to come up with the steering column fiasco fix.

More to come soon . . . I hope.

 

 

Great clock idea!

 

Just when I thought it couldn't get better... It's the smaller things in life.
Love it love it love it!

 

That clock/oil pressure gauge idea is awesome! I may have to steal that one for my DA. Awesome work as usual!

 

Thats an awesome idea for your "clock" i might have to steal that idea with an afr gauge some day! And as always i like the progress.

 

So this update didn’t come as soon as I’d have liked. To say I’ve been busy with life is an understatement. Progress being progress and since that’s what it’s all about I’m happy to tell that there is still stuff going on with the Integra.

I planned the trimming and fitting of the oil pressure gauge/clock housing with a spare dash so it was time to get the final dash sorted.



I didn’t want to jump full-tilt into the dash with the matching VIN just in case this idea didn’t pan out so I mirrored only the essential clearances for the oversized gauge back to fit within the confines of the dash support.



With that completed I swapped over the modified dash wiring, powdercoated support brackets and vacuumed up around a thousand spiders or so. The gauge is going to have its own separate harness. One side integrates into the lighting/power/ground of the existing clock wiring (minus the constant power) while the other three wires terminate on the passenger side of the dash where the integration plug is on the chassis side of Joel’s engine harness. Again, a big thank you to Race-Spec for a fantastic product!



After a quick – quick and dry – wipe down I installed the dash in the car. On the way home from the garage I realized that there is one more wire I need to hook up for the dash to be “functional” before testing. One thing that did change that I didn’t show pictures of is the new hatch release button bezel. I ended up redoing it with right angle corners instead of rounded corners so it fits the recess better. Here the interior is bolted in and together for the first time. The dash is held in with all the bolts, the seats are bolted in since I hopefully won’t have to remove them for access to the wiring I need to complete.



I still need a radio – undecided at this point – and finish the hodge-podge EK/DC2 combination switch. A monkey-wrench appeared as I was tightening down the hub adapter. The EK combination switch has been clearanced to fit the DC2 column but that left nothing in place to bottom-out the hub adapter. A quick trip to the lathe at TallKyle’s will hopefully remedy that. If not, I can fabricate something rudimentary but fully functional with some hand tools in the garage. I just need something to center the turn signal cancel mechanism while supporting the hub adapter from behind. Easy. From there, some new column cover shrouds are ready for me when I have time to stop by the local Acura dealership. Little by little it’s still coming together!

 

love this build. you always go the extra mile to make something unique in a functional way.

For a head unit, Pioneer DEH 80PRS is a good source. Has eq and time alignment, bluetooth, 2 usbs, aux and pandora. Would compliment the Focals nicely (Im an SQ audio nerd too)

 

 

hi

 

How about an almost 2017 update?

 

Let's see. . . an end of 2016 update?

If you guys see the post from July above you'll see a bunch of Subaru boxes tucked against the wall behind the 510. That's because I was in the middle of closing on my first house purchase at the end of July. That has kept me monumentally busy - particularly in the garage. I'm outfitting it with as much stuff an organization as I'll need being a new homeowner. I haven't started on the rest of the house aside from fixing a leaky faucet but have spent way too much time and money prepping the garage. It's a poorly finished two car garage that's wide enough to walk around the cars to the back door without trying to wedge between the wall and a fender. But for those of you who know me off the site can understand what an uneven wall and poorly done corners will do to me. Yep, so a month's worth of "body working" the walls, seams and corners led to my first paint. Too shiny, too dark. Then to my next coat. Too blue. Finally (today) to hopefully my last repaint . . .of just the garage. From there it's about painting and installing wall hanging cabinets (not kitchen cabinets mind you), work bench, floor cabinets, storage storage storage, etc. It's fun but time consuming.

As for the Integra, I have initialized the KPro which means the electrical system test is complete aside from the radio. I don't anticipate any problems there. I still haven't unpacked my computer but there are pics to upload at some point. Yasu from Opera Performance came into town again and asked about the car. I was kind of embarrassed telling him it wasn't done but it's close! I've done the valve lash which is the last part of touching the engine hopefully. I have a cheap eBay header so Brandon can make a fitment jig off it. He's also got my radiator for the fan mounts so when he's got down time between GTR's and Lamborghinis hopefully he'll knock those out. With the radiator back I can finally fill the engine with fluids and turn it over. That will be a red letter day!

Still needed aside form the above items? Exhaust, radio, and windshield. It really is that close. Oh, and gas. I keep forgetting that there's no fuel in the tank ever since getting it back into the car!

After the Integra is done I don't know if I want to readdress the aging turbo EK or dive right into the 510. I know if I start the 510 the Civic may never ever get refinished. Add to that the STi and now a Bugeye wagon and I see why my realtor suggested I stop looking for garage requirements and sell some cars. Happily I didn't sell any but lowered my ideal garage requirements. But there's always the ability to add an addition out back. . .

Sorry for Honda-Tech being slow moving. I know my lack of posting coupled with everyone else's lack of posting has led this site to become what it has. Rest assured, when I've got updates (and a computer finally unpacked) I will get them up here. Thanks again for those following!

 

Patiently waits.

 

Congrats on the house! post of some pics of the garage if you can! ( Always looking for new ideas on how to organize my garage)
Cant wait to see the integra all done!