good looking car and thats pretty cool you have kept it all these years

 

Wow thanks! Really cool to see someone from Hasport active on here, and especially in my little old build thread.

More updates coming soon...

 

Over the winter of 2010-2011 I started planning how I was going to get the car from New York to Colorado. I researched car shipping companies but that proved to be difficult with reviews not always stellar and prices pretty high. I knew some people at favorable locations across the country so ultimately I settled on flying to New York and spending 3 days driving the car to Colorado myself with stops in Indiana and Kansas to stay with friends along to way.

Before going to Colorado, I had to have the car inspected one last time in New York to bring paperwork up to date. Of course, it failed because of a front wheel bearing. I had that fixed and then had it inspected again. Here it is getting a second inspection (crappy cell phone pic):



After this we were good to go and I flew home to get the car. The trip was completely uneventful, and the car did great the whole trip. The only problem was lack of air conditioning. It was real hot during the day even on the highway with the windows down. On the third and final day, somewhere in Kansas a milestone was hit:


That's right- I had owned the car for 7 years by this point and had only put on less than 10,000 miles! Kind of sad, but with being away at school and not driving in winters in NY it was tough to rack up miles.

 

That is pretty sweet she is so low mileage and nice clean paint!
My little Cibic has >260k on the clock and the paint looks rough...

 

Once the car got to Colorado I could finally start tinkering on it. I would say I was not very mechanically inclined after graduate school but over the past 5 years or so have become much more knowledgeable. So, bear with me while the initial work starts out pretty simple and progresses to more in-depth projects.

First up was a simple fix I made in the fall of 2011- my seat rails were really rusty where they bolted to the floor inside the cab. Around this time I had figured out that there were "U-pull" or "Pick and Pull" yards nearby in Colorado, and often times the cars in these yards were rust free so they were a great source of parts for me. I picked up some seat rails at one of these yards and swapped them over to my seats. Here's a few random pictures of the process:




Come to find out later on, certain models came with an "Easy Exit" passenger front seat (I think 93-95 EX Coupes and SI hatches maybe?). Unfortunately the rails I grabbed didn't have this feature so I recently repeated the process on the front passenger seat with the correct rails that allow the "Easy Exit", since I'm sure I had that feature originally since mine is a '94 EX Coupe.

That was pretty much it for 2011. It was finally nice to have the car again, and be able to drive it and work on it.

 

A good step!

My Si has the Easy Exit passenger seat. I will try to get a picture of the lever for the rear seat passenger.

 

All of 2012 was pretty quiet as far as projects go on the Civic. One thing I did manage was the application of a "Civic" and "Coupe" emblems to the rear trunk area (can be seen in the photos below). Otherwise I was mainly driving it, enjoying it, and slowly developing a wish list of items that I wanted to fix. At the time, this included:

1. Oil leak from the front right corner of the head where it met the block (headgasket leak)
2. Inop passenger door speaker
3. CEL for Intake Air Temperature Sensor
4. Inop speedometer (but tachometer worked fine)
5. CEL for knock sensor when running the P30 ECU (running a chipped P28 ECU instead at the time, but wanted to run the OEM P30 ECU instead)
6. Rough riding suspension. I was over the Skunk2 coilover sleeves and wanted to upgrade to something else eventually.
7. Annoyingly loud exhaust. After driving across the 2/3 of the country for 3 days in 2011, I wanted to get something a little quieter.

I don't really have anything from 2012 to share but in 2013 work on the Civic really ramped up and some of the things in that list and others started happening. In the meantime, here are some "glamour" shots I took one evening in May of 2012:

 

Ah yes...

 

So.... when do we get to 2017 with this build?

 

 

Ha ha!

 

My first priority in 2013 was to get the headgasket re-done because I was sick of the oil leaking from the head. I was not equipped to undertake a large job like this myself both tool-wise and ability-wise so I found a shop to do the work for me. The shop cost was about $1000, which was mainly just labor since I supplied 95% of the parts. This included:

• Headgasket
• Camshaft seals
• Valve cover gasket
• Distributor O-ring
• Intake and exhaust manifold gaskets
• Valve cover grommets
• Spark plug grommets
• Resurface cylinder head
• Replace radiator with Blox aluminum radiator and fan
• Install Samco upper and lower radiator hoses

Here's a few pictures of the new radiator/fan/hoses after the install. You can also see the front corner where the head meets the block is now oil-free:

 

Why not stick to the factory fan w/ more shrouding?

 

can the car car be steered and moved without the engine and gearbox?

 

Good question! I am not sure whether the factory D16Z6 shroud/fan would have fit on this radiator, and I did not keep it when they put in the new radiator. However, I currently have in my possession a used OEM JDM B16A radiator, fan, and shroud. My intention one day is to see if either the OEM B16A shroud fits the Blox radiator or get an OEM replacement radiator and install the OEM fan shroud. Problem is, I'm not sure the DOHC B16A3 radiator was the same spec as the SOHC D16Z6 radiator (I think the DOHC one might have been dual core or twice as thick?), and I don't know whether any aftermarket manufacturers make one to the DOHC spec. So I may stick with the Blox and try and attach the OEM shroud.

For reference later, some part numbers for OEM radiators:
1995 Del Sol VTEC w/B16A3: 19010-P30-505
1994 Civic EX w/D16Z6: 19010-P03-505
1999 Civic SI w/B16A2: 19010-P2T-A01

Note the 1 number difference between the 1994/1995 radiators: P30 vs. P03. Interestingly, the price of the 1999 Civic SI and the 1994 Civic EX radiators is identical, while the Del Sol radiator is $100 more expensive ($222 vs. $322 at the time of this post). All three part numbers are available.

Endless project ideas...

 

When I was cleaning up the after-math of the poorly executed swap, I had to deal with radiator issues. The swap shop simply double hose clamped B18C1 hoses onto my Si's D16Z6 radiator. On top of that, the seam at the top tank was weeping. At that time, Performance Radiator had an all-metal del Sol rad for the B16A2. It was quite a bit bigger, and my Si fan & shroud bolted right up. The factory shroud covers the entire back surface area of the radiator, which is why I thought I would ask why you aren't running this.

A couple of years ago, I was road-tripping in the Civic with my son and we stopped to hit a pool (Glenwood Springs). As I was parking, I smelled coolant. I popped the hood and saw a tiny stream of coolant shooting out the front of the radiator. Talk about luck! The temp gauge never moved, and I shut her down before we had lost much coolant. I must have taken a stone to the radiator out on the interstate where I had been going 80+. The local NAPA had Performance Radiators, but now they were plastic/aluminum, and one part number for all models. The inlet & outlet are smaller for the D series engines, and they provide you with hose sleeve adapters for the larger B hoses. The radiator is thinner than my all metal, but she never over heats. I changed the radiator in the NAPA parking lot and we resumed our road trip.

I kept my metal radiator b/c I would like to get it rebuilt at a reputable radiator shop and swap it back in.

Let me know if you want pictures.

 

Is that OEM JDM rad all metal? Or plastic/aluminum? If all metal, you could send it to a rad shop for cleaning...

 

oem del sol VTEC radiator is a dual core, hence the higher price.

 

I remember you telling me the story about I-70 that day we met up. I just checked perf. rad website and it looks like what you claim- they just have a single part number for all Civic/Del Sol now. My guess is the dual-core isn't necessary but I figured I'd upgrade to the aluminum Blox radiator which is a 2-row radiator. I never have any trouble with cooling even without the OEM shroud but I'll probably look more into this eventually.

I am pretty sure it's plastic/aluminum. I will double check but it's stuffed in a box piled in the garage somewhere.

Nice, thanks for confirming that. I figured as much, like you said given the price but wasn't 100% sure. Interesting that on the 99-00 SI w/B16A2 motor seems like they went back to a 1-row radiator (same price as D16Z6 from 5G models), although now looking again the part catalog only references the 99-00 SI for that p/n so maybe there is something unique about it. Probably just the hose inlet/outlet sizes are different necessitating the different p/n and maybe it's still a 1-row rad.

 

so is the 99-00 Civic SI

 

I realize my front custom grille did more than just cover up the front opening on the bumper, it saves me from nasty bug splatter and rocks.

 

Awesome! Well, if that's the case then if I ever consider OEM there's certainly no reason to pay the extra $100 for the Del Sol p/n (P30) vs. the 99-00 SI p/n (P2T). Thanks!

 

iirc, the del sol one is copper. material differences would explain the price difference.

 

I want to find a pic and compare to the EG rad...

 

That would be my preference!