Hey guys,

I'm looking for some guidance or wisdom words... I believe the majority of us at least once in a lifetime have been through this LOL.
I've been a Honda fan since my youth, in 2020 during covid peak I had the brilliant idea to get a project car, a 94-coupe civic. My plan was pretty straightforward, get the civic swap the engine for something ready to handle a beating and have fun.
The first part was easy, I got a D16Z6 and rebuilt it from A to Z (machined the block, rods, pistons, caps, block guard, camshaft) all of the good stuff


Than I swapped the engine and what was fun for a couple of weeks quickly turned into a "I need more horse power" so car back to the garage lets get an ebay turbo kit.

And while I had the car in the garage I thought hmm, since I'm already here maybe I should fix leaking the heater core, and since I'm already tearing down the interior maybe I should teardown everything and super clean it. And since I have the interior off maybe I should also fix the rooftop and get that dent out of the door and you know what why not give it a complete new paint...
And all of the sudden what was supposed to be a 1-week work in the garage has turned into 2y with car parts all over the place and no clue how to start solving the problem,








So guys, how do you start tackling this kind of situation?

 

Literally the same exact story for me.

Nothing to do but nut up and start actually getting things done. Try to focus on what it takes to get things reassembled and start moving the other direction (parts going ON the car rather than coming off).

Simplify your plans wherever possible, try to avoid hyperanalyzing things and getting 100 bullet points. You can be meticulous without overcomplicating things.

 

How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

Start with cleaning the work area, that usually gets the motivation rolling for me. Then just keep giving it 15 minutes a day. Those 15 minutes easily turn into hours.

 

organization is key.
when my garage looked like a mess, it made me not want to do anything.
organize and clean up parts. it will motivate you to work

 

Organization and patience is key. Take it one step at time, and go at your pace. Don't ger pressured into hurry just for someone else, 99% of the time something will go wrong, you'll forget something and end up costing yourself more time and money. Organization is huge. I could go for days on **** I lost, bought again and then found the exact thing I was looking for.
Set a goal, set something to aim for and aim for that. Driving ***** into something, you can get carried away easily. I've seen several of my friends give up halfway because the project got out of hand.



It's driven less than 10 miles since 2018 due to a few of the things I posted. I got carried away thinking I was going to do a bare chassis rebuild/respray just to puss out and lose interest.
Don't be like me.

 

I can relate. My big project has been down 3 years. Tis life.

In 2005ish I took it almost this far apart (no paint) and rewired it for obd1 using all the old connectors. That time I knew next to nothing about cars, and it took 2 years, but I got it done. This is round 2, even deeper full refresh.

Motor was back from machine shop 2 years ago. Need to weld up some stuff, pull some dents, shave a few minor things, lay some primer paint and start putting it back together.

Break it down into smaller chunks. Small battles win the war.

The fact that you are posting about it means you have the itch! Just watch a bunch of best motoring videos/top gear and get motivated!

I promise I'll work on mine soon! Gearing up for this winter. Building a waste oil burner. Been saving my oil all summer.

😊

 

Hi again guys, thanks for the replies is always nice to have some support words to find motivation to keep on going with this

For this week the work is done cleaned up all the mess around the garage and stored all the parts properly.

Some photos bellow


Actually to start cleaning of the mess I had to make more mess and only then I started cleaning. Makes sense? Not to me but was what happen 🤷🤷🤷





The goals for next week will be;
Wash the car
Wash the carpet and install it
Install dashboard
Start fixing the rust in the sunroof

I will keep posting here weekly to share how its going, maybe it helps someone else getting back to their projects.
To me just feels nice to be sharing this project with someone 🤜🤛

 

That's a nice workspace you have there!

 

That's what I was thinking. You are lucky to have such a good spot. 👍