About 4 years ago I purchased a stock 1996 Civic EX sedan with manual transmission. Shortly after I spent my savings on a GSR Swap and extras like suspension, alarm system, wheels, etc. About one year ago I spent about 3 grand on a turbo setup, wiseco pistons and rods, and a mechanic to do the overhaul. On the second day the oil line ripped and destroyed the motor
Don't ask.....Its a long and upsetting story. Anyways, I decided that I am going to rebuild the entire car myself. I have a lot of research to do since I have big plans for the car. Important projects planned for the future:
1. ABS DELETE
2. Power Steering Delete
3. Brake Line Tuck
4. Shave and repaint engine Bay
7. Purchase GSR Longblock
8. Fix any damaged suspension components
9. Battery and Fusebox Relocation
This is what I plan to finish by the time summer arrives. I am open to any advice or sources that can help me accomplish these tasks.

 

So far I have removed the motor and began shaving off all the seam sealer and sanding the paint with 320 grit. In the next couple photos you will see that I did the power steering delete also. I also began welding up all the threaded holes in the engine bay. The holes with no threads are too thin with the welder I have. I did a couple of them but they are very difficult with a flux core wire, i burned a hole in a couple of them but luckily I fixed it. I also removed the dash and cut off all the abs plugins, taped them off and wired up the in dash harness again.

Power Steering:
1. I removed all power steering components except for the inlet 16mm flare nut. I purchased a 90 degree 6 AN push on and a 14X1.5mm power steering adapter fitting from AN plumbing and looped the new power steering hose around the steering rack. I did this because any sharper of a bend on the hose and it would kink. Their are other ways of doing it but I decided to do it this way to save money. I purchased the 16X1.5mm power steering adapter from AN plumbing and it did not work, dont buy it just stay with the 16mm flare nut. There is a pic of what happens when you try to tighten it.

 

Advise, don't expect to be done on time. Take it 1 day at a time and don't rush. Looks really good btw. Hope it turns out good this tune round

 

What the monkey ******** happened to that rod??

 

I've seen some pretty bad pistons/rods, but nothing like that before. It did more than just run out of oil. You must have been smashing on it pretty good. WOW

 

Looks like the hulk ate that rod lol. Good luck with the build, looking awesome so far.

 

looks good man. just take your time and do it right.

 

the tune wouldnt let me go past 4.5lbs of boost nor 4500rpm. It was my baby so i wasnt trying to hurt it. The other rods where untouched, even the bearings where ok. ARP bolts and studs. Oil line didnt have enough slack and it wasnt steel braided, It looked like it sheared off. I also kept the car running while it happened, i thought it was a loose exhaust bolt since it happened the day before. I learned the hard wayyyyyy.

 

Battery Relocation:
I used the same oe tie down and plate that was in the engine bay and used some self tapping screws to fasten it down. I put the screws in each corner far enough so it would not interfere with the rear chassis beam under the trunk.
I tried to do some research on the gauge wire that comes from positive battery to the fusebox. I didnt find anything but I did find out that the positive to starter is 4 gauge wire. The fuse box wire measured out to be smaller so I went 6 gauge. Negative terminal also is 4 gauge and I will connect to the rr strut tower. I believe I used 10 feet of 1/2 inch wire loom, some heat shrink, and some electical tape. The battery terminals can be found at home depot. The terminal for the fusebox was a little hard to find, i had to order from ebay. The connectors need to fit 6 gauge and need to be skinny enough to fit in the fusebox, whatever homedepot had did not work. This is where i ordered it:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=171184470122"Ring lug connector 6 gauge 1/4 inch stud bolt hole"
I started with 14 feet of 4 gauge and 6 gauge wire and mapped out where the wire would go. I ended up with about 12 feet of 4 gauge and 11 of 6 gauge.

 

Was it the turbo feed or the LSV head feed that was cut?

 

oil return from turbo to oil pan

 

I used this table as a guide for my relocation.



For the amps Hondas fall about the 4-6 gauge mark depending on length. Rest is overkill. People were always saying 0 gauge. Too much wire is just as bad as too little.

 

Yep, I remember all that fun stuff when I was dealing with my relocation, ran 4 gauge wire to the front of the car without any problems. I'm not totally sure about just using metal tapping screws to hold down your tray, though. Remove the carpet, and you should see four bigass bolts (two on each side). Those bolts connect the trunk to the frame. Remove one of those bolts, drill a hole in your mounting plate to fit the bolt, and bolt it down that way.

 

thanks for the input guys

 

Engine bay repainted

 

Brake line tuck

 

Its quite obvious.....VTEC KICKED IN NIIIIIIIKKKKKKKKAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!

NO ratio.

 

Love shaved/tucked bays, would have gone a different colour tho like purple or gold(high gloss). But my suggestion...5 lug conversion and grab some CCW's a nice 16x9 +15 or so with 185/45's

 

Nice paint job! What did you paint it with btw? Believe it or not, i used duplicolor on my stripped interior as a temporary paint job, and it came out surprisingly nice

 

Nice work so far. Love me a clean bay, and the stock white. Hard to keep clean but looks great when it is.

 

I had the car painted at MAACO because of reasons I dont want to go into details about. Overall the paint job is ok and looks great from standing point. I am very detail oriented and there are spots that I am definetly not happy with, but you get what you paid for so i couldnt have expected a perfect job. If i had more cash i would have gone to a better paint shop or if i had more patience i would have done better prep work. Paint jobs on this scale is not my forte.

 

I rerouted the left side of the main harness(brake fluid, windshield motor, headlights) to meet with the engine compartment harness. I grinded two holes, one near the door for the plugs to fit through and another near the lf headlight so I can tuck and protect the wiring from the tire. I also finished looming up the wires after I took the pictures to protect them.

 

Began teardown of used GSR bottom end. Port matched Intake to throttle, 70mm. I noticed that one of the Pistons has a dark spot on the edges of the dome, it even goes down to the walls of the piston but does not pass the first ring. I am not sure and was wondering if anybody on here had any advice/experience with this, PLEASE.

 

In

 

Gromets for the engine bay and wire harness. Fusebox relocation, made my own bracket from things I found at Ace Hardware.