Well, many of you read the thread in October about smitdog and I going to get #55 here:
https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=659225

Before I get going, I should remind everyone that this was formerly Ausmith's R, that had an off track excursion last spring. See these two threads for details(Hope Clayton doesn't mind - if so, i'll edit this out later):
https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=545168
https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=555253

Well, now I have a major update(as some of you have already seen/heard).. Over the course of the last couple months, Smitdog, TrUsT, and I put the 5-lug suspension back on the car and redid the brake lines and took care of a bunch of misc. issues on the car.

We finished that up on about 12/10. Knowing we were getting close, I went ahead and ordered a BRAND NEW longblock and tranny from Acura around Thanksgiving and with the help of Ben Schaeffer we started putting it in on about 12/12 and finished on the 20th. I then ran it down to VA to see Victor(100 local miles), got some new rubber on it, and promptly drove it to rural Illinois(900 miles in 15 hours of highway break in) for it to stay in a secure storage facility at my parent's home.

It will receive a roll cage and some more work while I'm periodically out there and hopefully be track ready by march or april..

I'll shutup and let the tons of pictures do the talking.. More info below the pics..

Work in my garage in November


Smitdog and TrUsT with #55 on 12/8


Me with #55 on 12/8



The new goods



Motorless



Putting it in










The new home:







The car itself, complete(well, most of the way):













The storage facility, my dad, and my guard cat


Mods: Dryer hose intake(stock airbox, no resonator), ARP Headstuds, Mugen headgasket, DC JDM 4-1 header, SMSP testpipe, Buddy Club Spec 3 exhaust(with silencer in, in picture), Rota slipstreams(CW colormatched by me), Falken Azenis, Momo wheel, stripped to the bone, ACT HDSS clutch, Fidanza Flywheel, Hawk HPS brake pads..

To answer potential questions, yes, it is legally plated. I put it in Illinois because of their lack of a safety or emissions inspection in the boonies. And because it's safe there(my old one, #98-0106 was stolen from my home in Maryland). It runs awesome.. I didn't take it over 5k RPMS the whole way there, then changed the oil and played with vtec.. I'm slowly breaking in the harsh driving. It does have some outstanding issues, which I'll save for a thread tomorrow afternoon. Otherwise, I am a very happy owner of a running 98 ITR. If you have more questions, feel free to ask, I am more than happy to share what we've learned through all this!!

And many thanks to: Smitdog, TrUsT, Ben Schaeffer who helped TREMENDOUSLY to put this thing together. My parents and girlfriend, who helped and listened to me complain about the car. And everyone on here for answering my random and sometimes vague questions, as well as the 100 million people I bought parts off of to get it together in time to drive back to IL for Christmas.

And that's the end of my crazy long post. See y'all at the track this spring..


Modified by mstewar at 2:46 AM 12/31/2003

 

good job on the recovery process

 

Wow, man, that is awesome. It's REALLY good to see that car back in good shape. Great work!

I had a feeling this was coming... cheezthis (jay, who was in st. louis this past weekend) gave me a call this weekend about seeing the car.

Hope to see you and the car at the track somewhere in the area!

 

Looks liek a good time....Enjoy the tranny

 

Thats ******* Great! Good to see your 99% done

Hopefully We will get a chance to meet on the track this year

 

Good ish...... I was there from beginning to end and what a trip it was. Couple late nights here and there, and out came Oddysey #55 comes along. Its amazing how much work u can get done at 2am. Not sure how many times I was asked, "D, u sure you're loosening that or tightening???" Its freaking great to see that its complete now and time to rip up local tracks near you. I'm sure I'll be changing tires and brakes in the pits come summer time.

Good ish Mark, glad to see a dream come true!!!!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Chris N &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I had a feeling this was coming... cheezthis (jay, who was in st. louis this past weekend) gave me a call this weekend about seeing the car.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yep.. Jay got a sneak peek of the car rolling around the STL area last week when I met up with him to sell him a part.. I wondered who he'd tell.. hehe..

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by [TrUsT &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">]Good ish...... I was there from beginning to end and what a trip it was. Couple late nights here and there, and out came Oddysey #55 comes along. Its amazing how much work u can get done at 2am. Not sure how many times I was asked, "D, u sure you're loosening that or tightening???" Its freaking great to see that its complete now and time to rip up local tracks near you. I'm sure I'll be changing tires and brakes in the pits come summer time.

Good ish Mark, glad to see a dream come true!!!! </TD></TR></TABLE>

We'll get that lefty loosey, righty tighty thing worked out for you yet, D.. Thanks for all the help man.. and the entertainment.. haha.. Next comes your car.....

 

Mark, I am very happy I could help with your project!

#55 Reborn looks like new and runs like a C5 should! Cant wait to see the Cage and seats go in! Also cant wait to have this CW beauty on track with me in 04'!

 

Man that car has come a long way. Nice work

 

You sir, deserve a HUGE pat on the back! x1000

way to resurrect an R


PS: your gaurd "Cat" is F-ing massive, you sure it isn't a Dog?.

 

Damn you on putting this beast together so damn fast,...I envy you on getting this shell rolling, you know that I am slowly trying to do the same, but successfully failing, hahaha.

to a good guy with a good goal....


Just remember kids, buying a used/theft type R is ok, but buying and making a type R into the racecar it was supposed to be.......priceless.


Mark, the garage / farm is almost like a rocky movie where he trains from the grassroots to be the champ....hahah. Sorry, way too drunk to keep posting



Modified by hondahans at 10:58 AM 12/31/2003

 

Looking very nice. Awesome job.

Is the radiator support supposed to be white?

 

so I guess the pulley arrived ok?

 

Hopefully i'll be meeting up with you next week for stuff

 

#55 lives on!

 

wow... that's an awesome story. for restoring an original CW back to its full potential!

I'm almost afraid to ask how much the Longblock was from Acura... (how much was it?)

Good luck with the reborn car, can't wait to see it at Expo 04

 

Great story!!! Back to life!!!

 

That is fantastic to see that car back! Congrats on the "resurrection"!

 

Has anybody else noticed that Virginians just don't look quite right, not quite totally at ease, when they're doing the Carolina salute?

Congratulations on how successfully the project's coming together. I hope it continues.

 

Them's Marylanders!

Brian

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Brian*Blue95M3 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Them's Marylanders!</TD></TR></TABLE>

LOL... I think I've seem them north of the Potomac only once.

 

Congrats!! The car looks great!!

 

nice car, but your mugen valvecover isnt real

 

hell yeah, very nice. can't wait to see that bitch caged and in a echc race