I am starting this thread to document my journey with my very cheap Civic Hatchback project, definitely not here to impress anyone, figured it would be a fun way to share, and document my experiences and things I am doing to my car.

To start, I received the offer to buy this Civic from a friend (who definitely is NOT into civics, he is a jeep guy), in Aug. 2020, for $200 as a parts vehicle, for my other civic I bought in Jan. 2020, the first civic I purchased was my first project car that was truly 'mine'
at the time, I really wanted a project car of my own, I had been working on some other vehicles, but I didn't OWN them they weren't mine. My first civic, (which I will refer to as the 'White Civic" or the 'First Civic' throughout this thread) has a build thread of its own, from the previous owner
I wont link it, but if you search "$250 '90 Hatch Build!" you will find it. I bought it and intended to fix the rust and make a fun summer/autocross car. I put some money into it over the summer before I bought the red car (the car this thread will be about)
During the summer I realized that I did not have the money to put into the car, and soon, not the time to fix it, due to college starting soon, and having to move. I had started to look for a different project to buy, and was very disappointed in myself, because I was VERY determined
to fix the car up when I first bought it.

A few weeks after I started to look for a new project, my friend told me that he was looking to get some cash for the car, since he had received it for free, he had taken it to a dealer and spent $600 for a new fuel pump, distributor cap, and a Honda brand OEM battery.
He had owed some money to the dealership that did the work, which I didn't know at the time, he asked if I wanted to make an offer, I told him that I probably would offend him and told him $200. Long story short he delivered the car and a title-jumped title the next day.


The car as I bought it


Swapped the fender on, gave it a nice power wash, to reveal some "not that bad" paint, the car had been sitting for years before my friend got it.


The car as it sits today

So far, all I have done to the car is swap alot of parts from the white car over which include (All of these parts are only a few years old, if you look at the thread I mentioned at the top you'll see all the parts I am mentioning)

• -Truhart lowing struts
• -Neuspeed racing springs(someone cut the fronts, they are WAY too stiff)
• -Fender, headlight, and corner light, all 90-91 spec things.
• -Chinese hub, and knockoff deep-dish "KEY!S RACING" wheel (I mainly did it because i am tall and have very long legs)
• -Chinese rear lower control arms(just swapped these on when I did the struts and springs, since they were already attached to the struts I was swapping over
• DX front sway bar, base models did not come with them.

Other than that, the maintenance I have done so far is very minimal

• Front Upper Control arms
• Upper Ball joints(included in front ucas)
• Lower Ball joints
• A set of used tires I had on a set of steelies i bought after i picked up the white car (which i like better than the ones that came on the car, seen in the 3rd pic)

In the future I am going to be making a post on this thread specifically about the white car. As of now its destiny is the scrap yard, after I get ALL useable parts off the car.
I feel very bad about the white car, the previous owner put a lot of work into it and really loved it, and I wanted to continue the build but there is a reason he sold it, which is going to be the same reason that the cars life will come to an end
Life goes on, the parts will be used to keep another car on the road, and after all, its just a 30 year old Honda Civic

As for now, Both cars have just over 220,000 miles, both burn oil, both are really rusty. They will never be nice, just something fun to learn to work on, learn some driving skill (with autocross), and just have some fun with in the summer.
Soon I will make a posting about some more "mods" I have done to the red car. I have some very attainable goals I have for the future of the car, which I will also be writing about.

 

Story of the WHITE CIVIC. (Photo dump below)

So I bought the white civic from a friend of a friend, he had the car in marketplace for a long time, had no bites on it, and it wasn't listed for a long time and the car wasn't getting driven, I had been contemplating buying the car for weeks or months beforehand, and I finally decided to pull the trigger to take a peek at the car and make an offer.
I ended up getting it for $400 with quite a few maintenance items done. Alternator, brakes, brake fluid, Nickle and Dime items that can add up fast.

The car had some budget suspension, an aftermarket steering wheel, and quite a few parts that were never put on the car. Including an eBay header, rear camber arms, and a full Mishimoto Coolant Hose kit

I got the car, and immediately ordered some quarter panel replacement panels. I drove the car around quite a bit until i got the quarter panels and was ready to cut the old ones out.
That's about where the rust repair job just about ended. It revealed absolutely obliterated inner wheel wells, and completely gone inner rocker panels. I also ended up wasting some time patching a hole in the floorboard prior to this.\

At this time i had both bumpers off the car, fenders, bumper filler. I was trying to uncover hidden rust, and making room to do work in the future

I ended up attempting to replace the oil pan gasket. And oh man, that turned out to be a long weekend in the garage

Long story short, attempting to replace the oil pan gasket, as well as the power steering cooler turned into replacing all of these parts;

• Exhaust Manifold and gasket (replaced with eBay header that came with the car)
• 2 Manifold studs
• Oil pan gasket (obviously)
• Power steering cooler (got a generic one from auto parts store, stock one was leaking BADLY and looked awful)
• Radiator Hoses (used Mishimoto Hoses that came with the car)
• O2 Sensor (old one was seized and NOT worth the $12 to not just buy a new one)

Attempting to replace the Oil pan gasket ended up making me replace ALOT of parts, that I really wasn't prepared to replace at the time.
I had the whole radiator (which was very easy since i had the front end tore apart anyway) out to drill the studs out of the head, it was a BIG project
After that small refresh, The car still leaked some, I assume now from the front main seal.

I got kind of discouraged from that job since it went south very quickly, and the car sat for a month or two, which is about when I started looking for a different car

Since i had bought the car with a STRIPPED Interior, just had a headliner, dash, and door panels. No carpet, Just a driver seat, no console.
I realized that the car would take a lot more money than my brain thought it would. I knew it wouldn't be cheap when I started.
I went into the project with the "its going to be worse than you thought it was" so I had thought I prepared myself to fix the car. Because in my head, my expectations were crazy low already.

so yes. it will ALWAYS be worse than you think it is.

Right now the car is sitting, with no front end, no drivers rear quarter panel, and slowly losing parts as I need them for the red car. The 'parts car' has turned into the project car.

I think I am going to pull the engine, the harnesses, lights, glass, and anything else that could be useful, or be sold to keep another civic on the road



This is the car after I bought it, at my vocational high school, doing an inspection, found out the axle seals were shot, and found the big oil leaks
The bumper ties are there because there is NO rear bumper support. It rusted out and the previous owner cut it out.


Just how the car looked before I ran it further into the ground


I was fortunate enough to use a shop space. This is the day I swapped the suspension from car to car.


This is pretty much how the car looks now, but since then I robbed the passenger headlight off it also


The very large amount of hidden rust

 

More about the red car! Now that I have caught myself and the story up on the thread, I can start to fill in what I am currently working on, and what I have planned!!

When I bought the red car, my buddy had some ek seats, and an ek center console, he told me it all fit in (I knew it didn't). I would have to swap the seat pans on the seats to make them fit, and ek seats are not THAT comfortable.
For now im sticking with my ripped up stained and gross cloth seats. That I have cleaned and vacuumed 1000 times. They look filthy, but don't feel or smell like it anymore thankfully.
For the center console, I had heard of people doing DA Integra console swaps, which look pretty good, but the bubbly-ness of the ek console doesn't really fit so I wasn't gonna put it in and it just sat around.
One day I decided to just start trying to put it in and cutting and hacking till it sat in there. I figured the functionality of the armrest and having a shift boot and handbrake trim would be pretty cool, modernize the interior a bit (even though I LOVE the 80s Honda interiors)

Had to delete the little cubby above the cupholders, so there is just kind of a void there.
From this pic you can also see the recall sponsored dealer-installed seat belt buckles(Ill mention these sometime later)

Pic showing how the fitment of the front turned out, that's where all the trimming was needed. I decided to just go for it, didn't feel bad about it because there are SO MANY EK CIVICS!!!
Not rare parts or anything that im ruining, and it was basically free.

I also took the clock out of the center vent panel from the white car and put it in this car!! the standard/STD/base model, whatever you choose to call it, really was lacking options!!
Which I actually enjoy, its fun to see the differences between even a DX (the white car) and Base, No rear wiper, no passenger side mirror, no clock, things like that.

From the Second pic in this post, you can also see the speakers that were just SCREWED into the door panel speaker vents, which sucks, but they work OK and im big on music while im driving so I deal with how it looks.

I still have so much more planned, and more to talk about! Next update will be very soon, and will be about my mpfi/obd1/mini me swap info

 

Progress! Currently waiting on a RockAuto Order and just made a trip to the junkyard! Here is what i picked up:

Junkyard:

• Lots of wiring and connectors
• Throttle Body
• z6 valve cover (eventual mini me swap, i have y8 head, i think z6 valve cover looks cooler, and it was cheap!)
• under-dash trim panel (that i found out doesn't fit in my dash because the clips are gone in the dash)

RockAuto:

• Intake manifold gasket
• a/c compressor belt
• a/c belt idler pulley
• Hatch lift struts
• Obd1 (4 wire) Oxygen Sensor

To start, what I am attempting to do is convert to OBD0 DPFI to OBD1 MPFI

So far, I have removed the Dual Point Intake manifold, swapped manifold support brackets, removed factory exhaust manifold, removed stock distributor, and created my very own OBD0 Dual Point -> OBD1 Multi Point Distributor harness!!!

The main point of this update is 1. so I don't forget anything by posting as stuff happens, and 2. when I look back at my thread I can tell about when I did stuff to the car. and 3. Because im excited!

There was NO "direct" guide on how to create my conversion harness (so I didn't have to cut my factory harness, because I like preserving original OEM parts, why? I just do)
I'm planning on making an entire write up on the conversion jumper once i verify it works in the car, but it goes from 5 wire OBD0 DPFI/"DX" connector to 7 wire OBD1 distributor, without depinning ANYTHING and without the SI/EX OBD0 MPFI Distributor plugs.

Once I get my intake manifold gasket, I will be able to bolt everything in place and work on just the extra wiring that needs to be done, and figure out what i need to make it work with my stock airbox, id assume i need like an ex/si factory airbox tube.

That's all for this small update, no pictures or anything too exiting, but progress is happening and I want to archive it!

 

Good job! Congrats on your progress. Will there be more updates

 

Progress!

The OBD1 MPFI Swap is DONE! Wiring diagrams and pinouts were a HUGE help on this project.
I was able to convert my 5 pin DX distributor plug to 7 pin OBD1 plug, without using a OBD0 MPFI plug (like most of the guides show)
I will be creating a writeup soon about that so others can follow.

The Car is running, still a couple things that need to be addressed, like Ignition Timing, lots of wiring needs to be loomed up, and i am going to extend the MAP sensor wiring still, i had just plugged it in temporarily like that in the photos to make the car start and idle.

The only real hiccups I had before the car would start is that, the d15b7 distributor does not have the same locations for each plug wire, so at first i had the plug wires plugged in incorrectly, since i had just done them in the exact orientation as my d15b1 distributor by instinct.
After that the car fired right up, had kind of a weird surging/hunting idle issue, that would go away when I unplugged the TPS sensor, but I tweaked the ignition timing and it seems to idle better. Still needs to go on a nice test drive though.
I am running a P28 ECU since i plan on sticking a Y8 Head on, probably this winter, and ill enjoy driving the car, and auto-crossing it this summer.
I only took the car for a drive down my road and back, since it is not road legal yet this year, it was stored over the winter not being driven. It misfired a bit at low rpm when giving it throttle, but that was before I tweaked the ignition timing.
I was also able to cut about an inch and a half off the stock air tube going to the airbox for the OEM look! I originaly wanted to try to find a crx/civic si/ex tube to use, but figured that I may as well use the parts I had, but I hate cutting up perfectly fine parts!


I got a new dipstick! as well as a A/C Idler pulley and a belt! The old belt was cut off, and the old idler was seized, so I am assuming the A/C still works! It will have been worth the $6 for Belt+Idler from RockAuto to find out!
Dont worry! im going to extend and loom those MAP Sensor wires as well

Driving and opinions on MPFI swap soon after I get some more time behind the wheel!

 

So I think you should move this thread to the build thread forum or a mod will come along and just delete your thread without telling you anything. Just trying to help; mine was deleted and now it's all gone.