Ok im doing an EF hatch rhd conversion and i have been working on it for awhile. I am doing it different then what everyone else does, im not cutting out the firewall and putting in the new one. I am cutting the car in half and welding the new front clip on and before you people start saying...... "oh thats too dangerous".... "you are a freaking idiot" or "why are you doing a RHD conversion when you can just buy a REAL RHD." For one thing if you dont know how cars are made then shut up and i have always want to do a rhd conversion since 1998 and have not been able to do one till now.

Ok now i got that out here is a picture of the car i own a 88 civic hatchback STD



heres the front clip













All right now we start the cutting and what we do is we cut the side caps off and all the brackets and it looks like this and the reason why we cut the out side cap so far up and to the back is to get the car more support





heres the rear end



and i love the JDM bracket that holds the rear bumper, it weighs like 5 lbs compared to the one i had that weighed 25 lbs. but if i get rear ended im screwed



and here are the main places where we are going to weld. if you didnt know by now cars are made by pretty much welding sections of panels together with spot welds

[IMG][/IMG]



every thing that is in the red is going to stay with the car and the rest that is some what black is going to be the new clip.



another thing that these cars have in a center brace that runs in the middle of the car from the back of the car all the way to the bottom of the fire wall. the red is where the brace is and you can see where the spot welds were cut out.



and thats where we are. right now we are cutting apart the clip and getting it ready to weld it up, if any one is ever going to do a conversion i would recommend doing it this way. it is way better doing it this way and its safer. and i will update when we get ready to cut the car and weld it up.

RHD front clip getting ready to cut apart



and here are some other pictures of some crap i have for this conversion

doors



hood and doors



JDM rear bumper w/ lip, JDM front bumper w/ lip and JDM rear bumper filler piece



engine out of the car



K&N filter and air box




Modified by Zaakro at 1:20 AM 5/31/2005

 

Good luck bro. let us know the outcome ive always wanted to see it done this way

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Magick211 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Good luck bro. let us know the outcome ive always wanted to see it done this way</TD></TR></TABLE>

hey thanks, yeah one of the reasons i wanted to do it this way was because i had major rust problem on my front end and i was going to half to fix it and also so the engine just drops right and have all the cool options like A/C and power steering

 

Dang that original color for that civic is ugly, well good luck with the conversion and I hope you don't run into too many problems.

 

Good luck with the project.

 

well good luck with the rhd conversion.....i have heard many do this process but personally i like the firewall swap a lot better....still holds the frame intact and the rigidity of the car is not lost plus the car feels a lot stronger due to the firewall being somewhat seam welded......i will probaly get flamed for this posting but hey we all got our own opinon..

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ILLNtrL &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">well good luck with the rhd conversion.....i have heard many do this process but personally i like the firewall swap a lot better....still holds the frame intact and the rigidity of the car is not lost plus the car feels a lot stronger due to the firewall being somewhat seam welded......i will probaly get flamed for this posting but hey we all got our own opinon..</TD></TR></TABLE>

I agree with you to a point. But it is easier to just cut and weld a front section to rear section. If DONE RIGHT, the car will be stronger than original.

When you take a front cut and weld it on you add bracing. Also where at the factory they just spot weld sections, most people would do full welds around the section for added strength.

 

this was talked about when my USDM CRX got hit. the only way to fix it was to "clip" the car - what you are doing. the body shop I used had some concerns with doing a clip on a car like this. I did not end up clipping a car (I wasnt doing RHD, just wanted to keep the original car), I just ended up swapping everything over to another CRX. But some concerns that the body shop had with me "clipping" the car are (you are probably aware of this, but just in case):
- supporting the car when its cut, don't need the car flexing while its apart, and the car ends up cockeyed.
-car rigity. You happened to mention it above. and my shop at least warned me, that you don't want to make the car "too strong" the car was designed with crumple zones and flex areas designed to help take the energy of an impact. and im not 100% sure on this, but it may effect handling characteristics, if the body is not moving like it should (prolly not a huge notice).

those were the things that kept me from doing that, when it was a lot easier for me to swap everything over to a new car, but you want to do this, and you want RHD. good luck with everything, and hope all goes smoothly.

 

good luck... can't wait to see finished project

 

looks good. post pics once the final project has been completed

 

why did you use the whole front clip? why not cut and weld the firewall? any why did you choose one over the other???

 

Looking good man. Keep us updated!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Jonathan_ED3 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Looking good man. Keep us updated! </TD></TR></TABLE>

 

I just want to see the finish product should look good. I wish I had all those goodies!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by pogiTSI &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">why did you use the whole front clip? why not cut and weld the firewall? any why did you choose one over the other???</TD></TR></TABLE> If you read what he wrote you'll find out why.

 

Looking good so far but I dont see anyway that this is safer than a firewall swap.

 

Good luck with that, I did want a RHD car untill I put the thought into it and how much money its gonna cost, I figured I'll just make the car faster with that money instead, but you'll get alot of looks for sure

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ukdm crx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> If you read what he wrote you'll find out why.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I read it, It says cause he wants to be diffrent? or just wants to do more work with the same effect?

 

hey man! good luck on your conversion. i did it on my crx. i didn't have the ***** to cut mine in half... but i guess as long as you are not touching the A pillar arms you should be cool. the only part that would seem shetch would be when you start cutting on the frame. eather way...i will be keeping a close eye on this fourm also dont let any of these honda tech ******* ( only some not all ) bring you down. cause my crx was pretty nice till i cut mine

 

so0pa

 

nice..

 

looks like a fun project

 

Looks Good

I got a buddy that works with me at the honda dealership that is doing that way to. Its a tight way of doing the rhd conv..

 

Keep us updated! Unlike someone *coughbartcough*

 

hey hey hey...i've been trying