This is a car that i am building with my daughter. I bought it 8 days ago and busted my butt and had a lo of help to get it presentable for her birthday. The rest of the project will be much slower and done the way she wants.










Doing some test fitting and started to block sand everything flat


sprayed the engine bay a universal color so it will go with any future paint color


long story short this is where we are now.

 

So far everything has been a major rush. 8 days to get this thing ready from start to where it is now was kind of a pain. We are supposed to be doing brakes and interior now so i will keep this updated if it seems like anyone is interested.

 

Holy **** me that's pink. Interior looks good.

 

I actually don't hate the pink, so far looks good. I would ditch the chrome wheels/tail lights though, alot of **** talking will stem from those.

Still, good job

 

I'm sure many of us will be recommending other wheels and tail-lights.
But for it to be completely rebuilt from a shell to that quickly in 8 days, especially for somebody else. and most especially a daughter. Much respect!

 

Pink? Yikes.. ok it's for a girl.
The purple was off a coupe, origninal hatchy was green , what a mish mash...
looks much better though.
Id chuck those chrome wheels for some 15's or 16's.
Keep it coming..
Lucky daughter to have a dad who like you.

 

Id say paint the wheels something other than chrome.
A rare color in my opinion, I like it.
Much respect for the motivation and progress.

Any planing on the motor yet?

 

Alot of work for only 8 days. Looks good..

 

******* beautiful so far, when do you ever see a pink hatchy? xD Please to dear god change those tailights and get some nice rota's(I'm sure she doesn't care if there 500$ rims or 2500k$ rims lol)

 

Thanks for the kind words. I'm sure most of you are younger and probably don't have kids yet but one day you will see how motivational doing something nice for your kids can be. She's my only girl and the youngest. She's a good kid and very appreciative for the things she gets. I've heard nonstop for the last 2 years that when she gets a job she can't wait to buy an older Honda civic. So I figured this would be a nice surprise. She said when she gets one she wants to paint it a color that will stand out and since her favorite colors are hot pink and black I thought well I guess that's as good of a color as any.
The plan for today was new brakes and start on the interior. That didn't happen because after getting the car done it looked like every tool box in my shop had exploded. There was crap every where. So today was clean the shop and brakes will be done tomorrow. I had thought about doing some type of upgrade but since I know people that weigh more than this car I'm wondering if its necessary.

 

Lol. The rims will be changed I'm just not sure how soon. I had these laying around because we took them off of my wife's Mini Cooper. I had a choice of the chrome wheels or 3 donut wheels and a BMW wheel.
As for the tail lights she really likes them. I think the stock ones would not look right with the color of the car.Personally if it were mine I would make a custom set but I don't know what she will want to do.
I would really like to find the rest of the trim pieces like the side moldings for the rear quarter and the pieces that go where all of those holes are along the bottom.

 

Buy coilovers, not a cheap offbrand/no name/autozone/ebay brand but one with a good reputation

Teins, koni, ground control ect.

 

It even has the lower audio console. Lucky girl!

 

At the moment she's not wanting to go fast( which pleased me greatly ). So other than making it look nice , I doubt it. I have read a little bit about it though (for when the time comes) and it seems like the best way to do it will be either turbo or a twin cam motor. This little Vtec motor should be really good on gas though.

 

Sorry perfection I was talking about an upgrade on the brakes. We already put eibach(I think) lowering springs on it. I don't think it needs to go any lower than it is now. I do like the look of some of the really low cars on here but with her being a new driver I don't think that's a good idea. I probably would not have put any lowering springs on it at all yet but when they're stock they kinda have the stance of a 4wd truck

 

no no no i mean for the quality of the ride. The stiffer and better quality springs make handling the car MUCH nicer and they hold up MUCH better than springs. i agree dont go any lower.

 

Ok I see what you're saying now. Im seriously thinking I may have to get me one of these little cars.
I guess I should say another one. I had one that I used for fuel mileage to and from work

 

Progress CS2. 350/250

 

That's some major progress for just over a week!
If you already bought Eibach springs, you could look for an aftermarket shock to match. Something that will handle the stiffer rates of the lowering springs better than stock shocks.
Or Progress ^ that's the set that I would like to eventually get.

 

Already got the springs? Get some Koni yellows.

 

After reading a sticky in the brake section it looks like it will be worth while to upgrade the front brakes to 95 ex brakes. Hopefully do that tonight

 

nice build man. i have a daughter and cant wait to do something like this for her. thumbs up for dads!

 

Nice u plan on lowering it?

 

Thank you

It's already lowered and we are probably going to leave it about the height that it is now.

 

Wow this is a great thread. Thanks for sharing the progress with us..

I just wanted to say +1 on the koni's.. Best bang for the buck and I think they have lifetime warranties on those.

As far as motors go. Go b16A and that should be plenty for her in a plucky little car like that. Also, if you're in california (or a place where they do visual emissions tests) it will be a legal motor swap so you will never have to worry when it comes time to smog test it.

P.S.- Looks like the exhaust sticks out quite a lot.