I picked up a 98 DX for $500. The body was really rough but I just wanted a beater to drive to work. A week later, I was given a 98 HX because the guy rear ended a tractor trailer. After getting the HX home I realized there wasn't any structural damage. It took out the radiator support, hood, and fenders but didn't touch the big front crossmember. Decided to swap the radiator support from the DX to the HX since the rest of the car was in much better shape. Plus it has Neuspeed springs, adjustable shocks, stainless exhaust, and power windows/doors.





Had to swap subframes since the one in the HX was completely shot. Not a spec of rust on the rest of the car though.



I ordered new fenders, hood, and bumper, also going to do the timing belt, water pump, complete tune up, rebuild the shifter linkage, ordered a B&M short throw etc.

The car has 200k on it. Hoping to get a few years out of the motor, then probably do a swap.

 

That's cool man, looks like you have plenty of space for a nice build.

Good luck.

 

Expect wicked mileage out of the HX as long as the factory O2 is working right.

 

Thanks man. That's only half of the garage (my Father's). He has a 2 car and added 24x40 off the back. It's pretty nice.


That's what I hear. My Jeep gets about 9mpg. I'm spending about $400/month on gas and it sucks.

Are the DX and HX manifolds interchangable? The HX cracked right by the precat 02 sensor so I plan on swapping them.

Any idea what I can expect to get out of well maintained HX motor? I was hoping to get another 75-100k out of it and then swap in a DOHC.

 

Good deal! Nice garage your dad has, too. I'm jealous.

 

My toys

 

Yes the manifolds should be interchangeable. I own an HX as well, I have a thread on the motor build I'm doing. I dont have the stock transmission, but with it, you should average about 38-42mpg. With the trans I have in it now, I get about 34. I have just over 170k miles.

 

Nice deal on the cars - but I have to admit that I geeked out on the garage too...

Last tank my HX gave me 41.97 mpg in back and forth city driving.

enjoy the fix -

 

I'm in love with that garage nice set of cars you got there.

 

Yeah I'm pretty spoiled to be able to work in his garage. I did help him sheet rock and insulate it. There is a big compressor in the basement of the house piped all around the garage, tons of lights, mig, tig, plasma cutter, tons of hand tools etc. My father was a machinist for years and now works in an engineering dept doing prototyping. I try to learn all I can from him.

Anyway, tonight we cut the radiator support out of the DX and roughly cut off the front of the HX. Should be fitting it this weekend and weld it up.

 

A fast toy, a tough toy, and now a daily driver. Good choices!

 

That has got to be the most crispy subframe I've ever seen.

In for this, interested to see the outcome.

 

Good Luck! Can't wait to see the finished product. Love your rig btw !!

 

It's definitely up there. Looks like it sat in the grass a lot. We had a '98 hatch at work that came in on a trade like that one time, maybe not quite as bad, the rear trailing arms look about the same. I have no idea why the '96 - '00 subframes rotted so bad though, the '92 - '95s never go bad.

 

I bet you're right.

 

I was shocked how shot the subframe was. There is literally no rust on the rest of the car.

A few pics of the cut. Hopefully fitting and welding Saturday morning depending on how hungover I'll be.


My brother's 30th birthday party tonight.

 

Couple quick updates:

Trimmed and fitted



Held in place with clamps and a cleco. If you look closely you can see yellow paint marking certain holes. We took a bunch of careful measurements from the parts car and made sure everything would line up.



Mostly tacked



More welding, grinding, painting etc tonight. Then fitting the fenders and hood. Then on to the timing belt, water pump, shifter linkage and tune up.

 

And keeping the egr system clean too. My 99 has never been running 100% ever since I bought the car and every so often it would throw the egr code. I had it all apart and cleaned the ports and the valve and it would still come on once in awhile and run very badly.

I also have a 97 that just started throwing the same codes so I took the valve out and cleaned it all out but didn't clean the ports but then the other code came on for the ports. Since I had to tear it apart to clean the ports and couldn't drive it I switched the egr valve over to the 99 and it's been running great ever since and I've since bought a new valve for the 97. So I attribute my problems with the 99 to a faulty sticking egr valve.

So from my experiance I would say clean the egr system at least every 100k or along with the timing belt change. The 99 has 215k and I've put maybe 5k or so on it and the 97 has 200k and I've put at least 130k miles on it.

Good luck with your project.

 

Got the front clip finished up finally




Also the shifter linkage was frozen so we pulled it apart. Ground off the head off the pin and punched it out.


Everything apart


Drilled and tapped the end of the pin, cleaned and greased the crap out of everything, and put a stainless bolt with a flat washer and some loctite.

 

Snapped a crappy Chinese impact socket on the crank bolt


Also found out the side motor mount got hit during the accident and bent the bolts. When we took them out the threads were shot. We tried running a tap through them, but there wasn't anything left. Ended up having to lift the engine up about 8" and heli-coiling them.



Hopefully that was the last of the surprises and we can get this thing done.

 

Timing belt done. New tensioner, valves adjusted, cap, rotor, plugs, wires, new valve cover gasket etc.

 

Nice work! Keep it up!

 

That socket doesn't owe you a penny.

Nice work man, keep updating.

 

All other accessories installed. We pulled the radiator support section of the harness out of the junk car since this one was damaged in the accident. Changed the oil and did a quick test start. Fired right up. Just need to fill with coolant, bleed the power steering, hang the hood and fenders, then it's off to paint.



Also buffed out the headlights



The rebuilt shifter linkage and B&M short throw work awesome. Best $60 I've spent in a while.

 

Nice work on those headlights. What did you use for that?