Welcome to my tiny space here in the community for my ‘95 Eg Civic build.



I have been working on it since the first of this month...October 2019...I would’ve started much sooner but sparing ya’ll from a small story, I’ll just cut right to the chase!



I bought the car back in late july/aug and at first glance it seemed pretty ok. No major damage, or anything of the sort but it was absolutely....a jdm turd nugget. Paint is horrible, missing some weather stripping here and there...awful tires, iffy no name rims and ebay lowering springs that were cut to drop the car more on blown stock shocks. It was also originally a D16Z6, however, likely spun a rod bearing and was swapped with the painfully slow D15Z1. I know I definitely won’t mind the 45+ mpg though. Here’s a few photos of it after my 2 hour harrowing drive home that was plagued with bad electrical and idling issues:







So after I got it home, and felt safe enough, I took it on a hard test drive and realized it wouldn’t go past 4k rpm and would cut out and go into a safe mode (oddity #1) and that almost every fuse /relay was blown but what was actually needed to keep the car running. No power to the headlights, wipers, brake lights, turn signals, dash lights, roof light, but the sun roof worked. (Need I mention it’s the ONLY place on the car that doesn’t leak any fluid?) After some searching, I found what was apparently the wrong ecu...how it’s working, I don’t know if there’s a chip but I know it’s for a D15B7 non vtec if I’m correct.....In actuality, I needed the P07 and not the P06.




the interior wasn’t too bad but you could tell it was musky and had many years of bodily fluids.




Probably the gross part was the amount of mildew and foul odors coming from the floor. I strip and rip our the interior. The entire sound deadening literally came up so easy, it was ridiculous. Moisture everywhere underneath the entire interior and dash. Peeled those out and ozone fogged it. POOF. Smells mostly gone.




I decided while this is all out, a further inspection of the wiring harness was in order. Which revealed chewed up and mangled wiring also a attempt at aftermarket HID’s that wasn’t working well.




Mind you, this was the good side. Amongst all this, I found multiple breaks, frays, crack and bad grounds with mixed and matched wire gauge sizes all over the place.






(For those who know anything about electrical, you know this is a bad idea!)

A+ for effort and getting the job done! However, I am the kind of guy that’s really OCD with my cars, and this simply wouldn’t do. Few parts store runs later and I have enough primary wire, electrical tape, corrugated tubing and solder to fix it up. Fair warning to anyone actually going this far 😆 The MORE I dug, the WORSE it got...frustrating wire breaks and tubing just disintegrating....but I kept at it...for about 13 hours straight on a saturday night/sunday morning. I replaced nearly the entire front and dash harness with new wiring. Sadly the interior harness is all in yellow...because it’s expensive when you need this much and I wasn’t going to blow another $300 just for different colored wire...at least I have a repair manual for the pins in the future 😆😆

It was then I realized...(I’m going to be using this word a ton because guess who bought a car without thoroughly inspecting it as usual?!? That’s right...me)...that the core support was making noise when I leaned on it. The car already made a crap ton of squeaky noises but didn’t usually sound like nails on a chalk board. Anyway....You thought right! It was damaged and definitely had been in a wreck...so I rip off the front fenders and bumper then get to work.

(Yes, I had a buddy from a body shop come help me look, the frame seemingly wasn’t bent out of shape in any way, just the core support was damaged)

Whoever did the work to this....shouldn’t of. I get it....sometimes you’re broke and you gotta make it work but pop riveting a front core support on is very dangerous safety-wise and personally, I’d never do it but to each their own. I digress.....here’s where the fun begins:





Fixing what the mad scientist did to this poor Eg 😢 I grind ALL of the pop rivets off, remove the old core support, knock out the rest of the rivets in the frame via drill and hammer







At this point I notice...I’ve gone to far to turn back. What was supposed to be a flipper-upper has now become a considerable investment in labor and money. I’m starting to dislike this coupe by this point and ALMOST consider selling it but push through. I’m going to do it right but after coming this far, because of that I’m keeping it. This is where the rabbit hole begins again.

I say hello to ebay, CarID, and Carparts websites and also make a few phone calls to friends in the area who have shops and ways to get oem parts I couldn’t find online. First tall order is a entire new front-end suspension wise.

For reference to condition, here’s some original swaybar bushings 😆



Picked up all new Upper and Lower control arms, OE ball joints, prothane sway bar bushings, prothane ucla and lca bushings, inner and outter tie rod ends w/boots, new hardware for the entire front end, caliper slider pins and banjo bolts.



I also went to autozone for some new brake lines by duralast......🙄 yea yea I know...duracrap...it was $60 locally vs $140+ from the dealer and a hour drive to pick them up. I felt lazy and broke so budget it was lol Anyway, the ones in the front are definitely not original and were so short, they rubbed on the spindle and were almost worn through, and to add to the pain in the ****, the caliper slider pins were seized so I smashed those out with a wrench and highly agitated ball peen hammer swings that Thor himself would be proud of.



Here’s the brake lines:





After dealing with the lines and seized caliper slider pins, I check the hubs and bearings in front and rear. Front needs them yesterday as they said “yeet” and exploded. Got the hookup with a good friend at a local shop, and got new dorman hubs and bearings pressed for approx $178/side.




At this point I take a break from the suspension to test fit my new core support. It’s aftermarket since oe from honda is $$$$$$, and it actually fit perfectly after I got the edges of the swiss cheese frame mounts straight. I did a ton of research and searching on the part to make sure it was good at the price point of $120.






After getting everything lined up and good to go, I picked up some general maintenance things like brake fluid, honda manual trans fluid, throwout bearing and axel seals. Disconnected the rear and passenger mount and supported the motor to pop out the transmission. (The entire stock suspension and axels have long been out at this point) and guess what? It’s not budging 😆 Sooooo I’m guessing I’ll need a pilot bearing too since generally this is hard to pop out. I’ve done this many many times in my life as a mechanic/tech and judging by the oil that collected in the area, probably replace the rear main seal and also the clutch while I’m at it. It’s unsafe to do it in the manner I have it currently but it was supposed to be one of those quick in and outs. Didn’t happen obviously, so I’m going to take a few extra steps with the whole “While I’m here” bug.





I’m currently at a stopping point with the build as I need a engine hoist and engine stand. You’d think I’d have one but I sold alot my stuff a long time ago when I had to move into a apartment before I bought my house. Anyway, once I get those, I can continue.

The future plans are to get the rear trailing arms bushings and hub/bearing replaced, repaint the engine bay it’s current color, get led turn signals up front, typical 50/50’s taillights in the rear, and a host of aftermarket suspension parts. Who doesn’t like to be lower than the stock 4x4 height? I plan on snagging some 16x8’s and having a reasonable drop. Roads are absolute crap where I live and I like my oil pan and exhausts. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading up! I tried to sum it up without going into too much detail and may have missed some things here and there. This build is FAR from over, so stay tuned for updates in the very near future!

 

So I’m currently waiting for a few parts to come in and decided to pull the trigger on some seats I thought would go well, yet still keep the OEM look I’m going for at the moment. They ended up being in really good condition and worth the two hour texas roadtrip, just a little dirty so please excuse that part.

I long decided upon some 92-96 Prelude Seats since I liked how they looked and how much more comfortable they were compared to the stock seats. While this isn’t a detailed right up necessarily, I will show you how I modified them to fit in my Eg coupe with a little bit of work. If you want the exact measurements and tools, feel free to pm me. I’ll be happy to share the info.

Firstly I took off the stock outter rail from the stock seats and got the round about area to drill out the seat frame on the prelude seats.


If you look closely above, you’ll see the stud that sticks up. I marked a spot to drill out. To free up some space, separated the braided line for the seat tilt and lightly tapped down where it attaches to the frame for tension adjustment. (10mm wrench)
After my redneck measurements were complete, I took a drill bit close to the stud size and had a little fun.



(Be sure to SAVE all the hardware from the eg rails. You WILL be interchanging a bolt and nut for this next part)



And hole #2





Then after searching this forum a little I did manage to find a small write up, albeit for a Ej2 here: https://honda-tech.com/forums/honda-...o-ej2-2303648/

But decided to do the method that was suggested to me by a friend and would make things a little more fun I guess. YES YOU CAN STILL USE THE OPPOSING PRELUDE RAIL. It just requires you to beat the crap out of it to flat and drill in a specific spot. WHICH OF COURSE, I did 😬


Notice the rear is off a bit below, just a little more drilling out, filing, wiggling around and it lined up no problem.

And voila! Seats are good and bolted into all 4 oe bolt positions 💪🏻 Worth the two hours of labor IMO.

 

Nice, keep up the good work.

 

FINALLY got some parts in, felt like it took
forever! Had to get my driver’s side spindle redone, picked up some used but in really good condition front lower control arm rear bushings and got my front struts in. Test fitted everything and made sure all the hardware and parts were 100%.




I sadly didn’t take alot of photos either as today was very busy but after I test fitted the suspension, I stripped it all back down, grabbed my new engine hoist I snagged today as well and ripped out the motor.



Now comes the fun part of cleaning up the entire engine bay, battery tray, subframe and prepping it all for a respray. Once I get it all cleaned up, I’ll get to sanding But that will be for a later update! I’ve got a ton of work to do and now that the motor is plucked, it should all happen pretty quick over the next few months 🤙🏻 Onward and upward until the next update!

 

Thank you sir! 🙏🏻

 

Got the engine bay primed and sanded. Everything is ready for paint! But first....Gotta weld on the core support and do the same thing to it. Hopefully by the end of december...depending on weather...I should have it completed.

 

Got my core support all welded up last night and today it’s all sprayed with primer and sealer throughout the whole engine bay 💪🏻 Been grinding hard the last 3 weeks, but if you follow my instagram, You’ll see alot of my daily updates. So close to paint and I’m definitely excited! Been a long two months with this initial part of the restoration.

 

great start.. Keep up the good work..

 

I also started a youtube channel for the little restoration and build that I am planning on doing so feel free to check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqG...DRyjW3nWaFwHg/

 

Ok....well it has been quite a while since my last update! I added a few videos to the ole youtube of the progress, so for a more in-depth review or explanation of things...go to the link above this post. As for the rest, welp, the engine bay has been painted along with the subframe...

Before:



After:





Then I painted the subframe:

 

I also managed to get all the body work done, buy a new brake booster, master cylinder, (a good but used) clutch master cylinder, and hood latch. With the old parts all rusty and leaky...it was unacceptable to have those in a fresh sprayed engine bay. The old stuff was just just knackered like the poor booster...




Just about everything I have is in video form but I’ll snag some photos and upload them later on. I also put 90% of the engine bays mess back together:



Then cleaned up the old mounts...they all were like this and now look close to new...


Replaced all the gaskets on the motor and cleaned it up.

I am in the final stages of repair and restorations of the coupe...just need the Rear Suspension components (IE: struts, rca/rlca’s, camber kit, ect), new tires, and a P07, and she will be back on the road again and registered. I’ve still got alot to do per say but it’s almost half way there. I’m so close to making my goals a reality with this car.

 

The coronavirus junk is making my schedule crazy since I work in warehousing....but I managed to get alot done. Had to sadly cut some corners due to some restrictions and parts availability until all of this calms down..buuut the rear shocks are in and got new hardware.


Had to rethread and retap a bolt and hole for the camber arm as it was rotted and ruined..


Also the interior with my seats are back in minus the center console and carpet that’s on order. So close 👌🏻

 

Finally had a entire weekend to myself, so I threw the motor and trans back in and got everything hooked back up. Waiting on the P07 ecu to come in and then snagging a battery and hopefully, she’ll start right up! 🙌🏻

 

Awesome progress man!

 

So, due to some constraints I had to get a ebay header. I’d much rather get one from Dc Sports or Skunk 2 but I’m trying to get this thing moving! I absolutely will be getting a proper one later but for now, it looks way better than the old rusted, pos that’s been on the car since I bought it...which is highly likely the exact one I have 🤣🤷🏼‍♂️ $50 though 💁🏼‍♂️

Old:


New:



But hey, progress on a ever tightening budget! Gotta finish it before we either see the end of the world or before june lol I have a few other things come in this weekend..being a battery stay, radiator mount, hellaloud horns, and ordered some headlights. Currently figuring out my wheels and going back and forth with Whistler Wheels for a custom color and costs. A lot of stuff is happening as I live off of rice and grass clippings to get this done 🤣

 

lots of progress man. keep it going.

 

So after some parts deliveries, got everything I needed to get her going...only to blowout a o-ring on the water pipe 🤦🏼‍♂️ But luckily got that ordered through hondapartsnow.com


And now that I don’t have water pissing everywhere...(because why would anyone wanna waste coolant and look like a jerk with it all over their driveway? I always use water at first).....I added new fluids as well today...

(picture taken with a potato)

only to get another check engine light and a failure to restart after a cooldown 🤣🤣 After alot of meter testing and a jump wire, I figured out my starter switch relay is bad because no signal to the jumper wire to the solenoid...which doesn’t happen often...and my intake air temp took a 💩 so, me and that honda parts website are becoming close friends. I wish I knew about it long before I started this....Another $60 later...I have spent way too much on this car in the last 3 months 😅 that’s the game though right?

 

This battery stay looks so good too 😍

 

FINALLY......after alot of searching and digging, I have the 5 wire o2 Sensor wired up! The wiring was missing EX harness...as it should be since it’s literally two different wire harnesses...so I made my own sub loom and ran it into the interior next to the P07 ecu. Luckily the car was vtech before with the d16...so most of that was already apart of the main harness and did not need to be made. Everything is pinned and ready to go for the o2 though! Gonna test fire it later this week when it’s not 10:30 at night. I’d rather not **** off the neighbors more than I already do 😆💁🏼‍♂️

Ps: If you need the pinouts for the D15Z1 you can find a great reference guide here:
https://technet.ff-squad.com/wiring.obd1.htm

 

Now if only the good ole IACV wouldn’t of failed 🙄

Still having trouble with the o2 sensor CEL...think it may the the Rcal values on the o2 resistor. All my wiring is absolutely good and has continuity. Still getting a code 48 though...it will require some thinkery. However, my wheels came in finally! Custom ordered some Whistler KR7’s and they are gorgeous 😍

 

Fixed my o2 problem. Wiring issues again but with some dabbling and some driving cycles, it took the sensor and no more CEL 🙌🏻

Well these wheels look awesome!



Super stoked on them! Also picked up some new headlights 👌🏻


However....the little d15z1’s head gasket went out. Went to replace it...only to find out the head was warped. Side note is the head was over torqued as well. All just from being in my driveway went it started to smoke 🙄🤦🏼‍♂️ Anyway took it to a machine shop...it was all the way down to the mill tabs...so it was pretty much not very savable.



Now I’m back to square one looking for a motor while the rest is on hold 🤷🏼‍♂️ Have a friend I’m negotiating with to snag his D16Y8. So long as that goes forward then I’ll be doing a slight walkthrough of the swap and any technical junk associated. Have yet to see one in great detail that I can find. Long as my a0000 trans bolts up, then it should be fairly straight forward. Time will tell 💁🏼‍♂️

On another note, I currently have a good 5 wire o2 for sale if someone wants it lol

 

Picked up the swap donor the other day 👌🏻 A rather good shell too...he decided that since it’s sat in his field, I can just take the whole thing. So thank you to one of my best friends 🙌🏻


Clean title, and super clean interior. She runs and drives (mostly because of a bad transmission oil pump) but either way, it’s going In the EG eventually. Gotta snag a P28, a D15B7 dizzy, and a few odds and ends to make it work. Onward and upward 💁🏼‍♂️