I have a '93 Si (this) and I love driving it, but it has it's list of problems. Some of the problems came with age, others are due to the moron that owned it before me. I'm still not sure if I want to fix it up or if I should just sell it and go for another 5th gen hatch. I've got about $1300ish to spend right now, so I was wondering where to start (if I decide to fix it up). Keep in mind I'm still a newbie when it comes to this stuff. I can change my oil and bolt up and exhaust just fine, but that's about it.

My main concerns:
-For starters third gear grinds, I've just started double clutching 3rd, but I want to just get a new tranny. If I got a new tranny should I, or would I need to get a new clutch? Also right now I have a 'ghetto' short shifter, just the stock shifter chopped shorter, would I need to get a new shifter or would that come with the new tranny?
-I have a newish Apexi WS2 on the car and it rubs against the frame near the rear of the car. I don't know if it is just crappy alignment or if it's due to my header being really low (DC 4-2-1) and throwing it all off. So basically I'm looking at buying a new header (something I have wanted to do for a while) and getting the exhaust taken care of at a shop if the header doesn't solve the problem.

And a little less important:
-The front bumper is cracked a little and spray painted, it looks crappy, but it works for now. I was thinking of just buying a new bumper.
-The drivers side speaker went out and I'm considering just getting a new deck and speakers for the car, how much would it cost for a decent system? Nothing too fancy.

Overall, the car has suffered through lazy cheap owners and poor maintenance. It's about time for another oil change and I figured I could go through and give it a full tune up, what all should I do for a full tune up?

If you guys could give me a general price break down for this stuff and your suggestions on what I should do first I would greatly appreciate it. I probably forgot to add some stuff, but I'll post it when I can remember.

 

bump, on the 3rd gear grind parts a lot of my friends 3rd gear grinds.

 

ttt

 

Looks like the car is rusting pretty bad.
Don't waste your money on mods, find an rust free car.
If your just looking to to basic maintenence, go right ahead.. get a repair manual and you will be fine.

 

A 12-15 year old car that's rust free is hard to come by in illinois. lol

 

Bumpage

 

A tune up would be spark plugs, spark plug wires, distributor cap, distributor rotor, and checking that the timing is set correctly. If you just bought it I would do fuel filter too since they're cheap and lazy owners never remember to replace them (speaking of which, I forgot to do mine this fall ).

If you're dead set on changing transmissions, you should get a clutch kit (clutch, diaghram, etc.), since there's minimal labor involved in replacing the clutch once you've already gone through the trouble of dropping the transmission.

If you haven't tried it already, you may want to try flipping the trans over to Honda MTF and give it a few hundred miles. You don't know WTF the previous owners did, and I know first hand that the wrong fluid in a Honda trans can cause grinds.

I hear Certafit makes OEM-style parts that are substantially cheaper than OEM and with decent quality. If the crack is superficial you should be able to just sand & repaint the existing bumper, you wouldn't need to replace it. I've got an actual .5cm wide crack in mine. Going to pull the bumper off this summer and see how bad the damage is underneath.

FWIW, the rust doesn't look too bad to me for that age of a car. The bit bubbling up in front the wheel well is going to get ugly though. Try to keep it washed. (hopefully tonight it'll stay above freezing and the car washes by me won't be closed)