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I've been meaning to start my build page for a couple months now, better now than never!
Just some background about myself . . .
My first ever car was a 1985 Monte Carlo SS, an unsafe, v8, attention-grabbing boat. I finished highschool with this car, and after getting tired of the 10mpg, I purchased a 95 Civic DX Coupe for College. The coupe is when I really started wrenching on cars. Most of what I did to the coupe was maintenance. After finishing my first year of college I decided I wanting something a little nicer.
My 99 EX Accord, purchased exactly how it is pictured above. A fantastic car, extremely well maintained 5 speed that turned heads and got me around town just fine. After driving it around for the better part of a year, I decided I wanted something a little more fun that I could toss around corners.
What better car to do that in other than a Miata! I owned that car until I graduated college. She delivered pizza for 3 years, went through a motor, clutch, every brake caliper, tires, rollbar, and pages of maintenance work. I eventually gutted the interior/motor bay and had a few months of fun before I sold her to a kid down the street...who promptly blew up the motor in a couple short months. After driving a gutted car around, I decided on something a little nicer.
A near mint 99 LS400, purchased from a lovely older couple with a stack of receipts. Arguably the best car Lexus has made, and it's a title well deserved. I only had this car 6 months or so before not having a manual transmission really started to bother me. The buttery smooth v8 just wasn't enough for me, and just like with the Accord, I again wanted something fun to throw around.
My first choice was Miata, because I was familiar with the platform and the cars are a blast to drive. After thinking about it though, I began to have a "been there done that" attitude. The Miata is a car I'll probably go back to, but I needed something different to toy around with, and the "Ek" hatchbacks have always impressed me. They've always been great looking, capable cars to me.
First picture!
Here's what I've added so far.
-y7 to y8 intake manifold, all new gaskets and intake hoses.
-Ebay whale ***** intake
-All motor mounts replaced.
-Si gauge cluster
- Si front seats.
-Tein Flex Z coilovers
-Kosei K1 wheels
-Inner and Outer tie rods
And here's what I have planned
-Rear seats and all the associated hardware has been removed, I plan on building my own "rear seat delete kit." After owning a Miata for so long, two seats is where it's at!
-Re-doing the interior from grey to black.
-AP1 s2000 steering wheel
-Sticky tires
-Rear Disc conversion
-Painting the car to Laguna Blue found on Miatas.
and of course autocross and driver mods!
I'm sure I missed a few things, but I'm definitely excited to see where I can get this car to.
In the first picture I took of her. She definitely needed some work, but I couldn't find a hatch that wasn't modded or priced appropriately. The steering was sloppy, interior and exterior need work, and it had a hell of an vacuum leak that I found to be coming from the intake manifold gasket(yay!) Also, being a south Florida car means there are some random bits of rust, worst part being the radiator support, but nothing too worrisome.
On the plus side, a large amount of maintenance had just been performed on the car.
New plugs, wires, catalytic converter, timing belt, water pump, 02 sensors and a fresh oil change. Even better though, is after 5k miles she didn't lose a drop of oil. I was even told the clutch had been replaced a couple years back.
First extensive "mod" besides interior stuff, was replacing the black sheep intake manifold with the Y8 IM.
This was right after the swap, where I wasn't able to find a proper intake system and had to piece together that contraption. It worked though!
And now with the whale ***** installed! Love the sound it makes too, and a welcome addition to the build.
Finally got a look inside, and was pleasantly met with one of the cleanest motors I've seen. Despite all the cosmetic issues, atleast I know she has a good heart!
And of course, have to finish the bay off with some nice wrinkle red! Came out great using a heat gun and waiting ~18 hours to dry enough to install it back on.
And if you have a good eye, you'll see at that point I already installed my coilovers, they just weren't low enough to really warrant pictures as you couldn't tell anyway.
Here's how she sits today, picked up some Kosei K1 wheels with some cheap all seasons. The tires have 90%+ tread life left though, which is nice! I really like more functional suspension set ups on lightweight manual cars, so I'll probably maintain this ride height. Might pick up some 5-10mm spacers to improve the fitment, but I'm digging it for now.
Immediate exterior issues should be obvious, a replacement fender will be installed soon, as well a new door. One of the previous owners must have hit the door on a rock/curb and the rust just had a field day. Luckily, it's completely isolated to just the door. Not really noticeable is the paint cancer these Hondas are so prone too. That will be addressed on the re-spray.
Pictures were taken by my buddy Alex. He's pretty decent with a camera! Check out the rest of his stuff on instagram. @lowtege or our group @ladder.gang
Just a few updates from this past couple of months.
My roommate was able to pick me up some Acura TL projectors! I'm currently in the middle of retrofitting them into some headlights. Hopefully I'll have them together and on the car in the next week or two. The EJ/EK headlights aren't necessarily bad, but they should be great once I'm done. I also went ahead and purchased tires and got an alignment. Decided to go with Dunlops DZ102s 205/50/r15. I had this tire on the Miata, and really like how they handle themselves in wet/dry conditions. In the future I may pick up 2 more wheels for the front and pair them with something a step up from the DZ102s for more grip.
Furthermore, I made some progress towards getting the exterior together. A door and passenger fender have been purchased and are waiting to go on whenever I have the time. Interior wise, the car still needs some work. I went in with a buddy who owns an e39 on some black suede foam-backed headliner. While he re-does his headliners, a,b and c pillars, I'm looking to re-do the old smelly grey headliner in my car and maybe the door panel arm rests. I've also managed to paint some of the faded interior pieces with SEM "Trim Black" paint. Most of the pieces look much better, but some may need a re-spray as I painted them on a rainy/cold day and the paint didn't adhere too well.
Can't forget the other purpose for the car, Autocrossing. The hatch now has new fluids all the way around (still need to do brakes), and with the new tires on, I'm starting to check dates for my first autocross event. Hoping to sign up for one in February or March depending on my schedule.
I'll probably update in the next couple of days with pictures. As always, suggestions are welcome. Thanks for reading!
Weird, I thought that was only a problem on my end...if I go to edit the pages, open the images in a new tab and then save the post again they re-appear and I can see them fine.
I'll try to post them differently. Thanks for the heads up!
A few pictures of the projector project. They are on the car now, and everything looks great! I'm going to include a very basic write up in case anyone else wants to go the path I did and wants the general idea of how I completed the project. I don't believe I took the easiest route, but oh well. Questions are welcome.
Below is a before/after of the reflector housing being painted black. I wasn't able to really find many photos of people going this route online. I'm glad it turned out well, as I really like the look. The lens in these photos has not been sanded so they are pretty rough looking.
Sanding and polishing the lens with air-tools was a blessing, much faster and more controllable than the kits you can buy.
Before and After of the lens! It's a shame there are no glass lenses out there for the EK/EJ. Only photos I have are with my phone, they look much better in person.
These two pictures show the back of the housing, and how I used a basic "S-bend" bracket in order to hold the projector securely to the reflector housing without any glue.
Basic tools I used were . . .
-Drill
-Various Screwdrivers
-Bending/Metal Brake - Harbor Freight has them for cheap.
-Wrench & Sockets
-3inch hole saw - drill attachment.
-Basic hardware (Washers (rubber and metal), Screws, 16g steel sheet metal)
Materials/Products purchased/given . . . Everything but the projectors purchased from RetroFitSource
Acura/Honda D2S Projectors- Please note, if you purchase projectors from RetroFitSource a lot of the DIY below will not apply to you, installation is different with their projectors.
Apollo 1.0 Shrouds
50w/D2S: Morimoto XB HID Ballast x2
D2S: XB 5500k HID Bulb x2
MotoControl Bi-Xenon: H4/9003 Wire Harness
Headlight sealant
JB Weld (Or any other kind of product that will securely hold plastic together)
Basic How-to (There are plenty of more details write-ups out there, PM/Comment if you have any specific questions about my setup)
1. Bake the headlights and remove the lens from the housing,
2. Remove the old bulb holder (silver piece), adjusting the headlight using a 10mm socket will allow more room to remove the screw that holds it in place.
3. Use the 3in hole saw to widen the hole on the back of the housing/reflector. The reflector creates a lot of dust, don't breath it in obviously.
4. Test fit your projector with the shroud over it to get an idea of the placement. My shrouds had a flat bottom which fit perfectly to the bottom of the reflector housing.
5. Once you're certain everything will fit (It should), JB weld the shroud to the projector and fit it in the hole you've created. The back of the projector should be sticking out past the headlight housing.
Here's where more creative fab work comes in. You'll need to make custom brackets using the metal brake in order to fit the projector securely into the housing. Alot of people will just glue it in place, I chose not to go that route. Use the above pictures for reference.
6. Using the screw hole on the projector used for keeping the Bulb Retainer Clip in place, and the screw hole for the old (now removed) bulb holder, you can successfully connect the projector to the reflector housing with your bracket and still retain angle adjustment. Drilling an opening through the housing to get access to the old bulb holder screw hole, allows for easy tightening/loosening.
7. With everything securely held in place, you can now bake your headlight housing with the sealant and push the lens back into place.
From this point on, everything else is more preference, there are plenty of ways to route your wires and hook everything up in your bay. RetroFitSource has decent installation guides to help with this process.
I'll be including more photos of them on the car later this week.
Thanks for reading!
Looks good! Owned a few miatas as well and anyone who makes fun of them doesn't know what they're missing.
My current ek is almost identical to yours so I've got to say good choices so far lol
Absolutely agree, everyone should own a Miata at least once in their life. They are great cars. And you weren't kidding, I found your build thread. Definitely some similarities lol.
Haven't really given too much though to the front lip on the car. I have bad luck with lips though, I've destroyed quite a few, haha. Have always been scared to buy the real deal stuff because of this. With that said, I probably won't be trying to fit anything specified for the facelift model onto my car.
-I had a plug harness go bad on me, so working with Retrofit Source to get a replacement. Hopefully under warranty.
-Going to be purchasing LED switchbacks and a supporting relay for the front turn signals, they are currently just plain Jane bulbs with that slight yellow tint.
-Distributor seals/o-rings and radiator hose need replacing, a slight oil leak is eating up the radiator hose in that location.
Lastly, I'm working out how I'm going to go about the rear seat delete project. Anyone have any advice on keeping it tied to the chassis? I rather not drill a bunch of holes through the car. Is there a good wood-to-metal glue out there that will be used to hold a couple pieces of the wooden frame in place so I can use those as anchors for the rest of it?
I also plan on going with 3/8 birch wood for the top, seems like a good choice to me unless anyone says otherwise.
11-15-2017, 04:12 PM
Jergel's EJ6 Hatchback - Autocross/Daily
