Mase

This will be a “how to” install your jdm conversion. I am not taking any responsibilities for you messing up your car, if you are mechanically inclined, you can do this yourself with a few tools. A lot of people will frown upon DIY installation (especially the oh so special ITR owners, and yes they certainly are a special bunch ), but I like doing things myself, It makes you feel good when you are done knowing you didn’t pay some guy without a college degree thousands of dollars to do the install.

Tools you need:

10 mm and 12 mm socket
10 mm wrench
Various screw drivers
Drill (cordless makes it easy)
¼ inch bit, 3/8 inch bit works well
Dremel and many cutting discs
Paint
Welder (rented mine for $29 a day, came with gloves and mask)
I’m sure there are more tools, but that’s all I can remember


Procedure:

Take off USDM Bumper, Headlights, Bumper support, fenders, and hood.

Your car should now looks like this:



Ok the name of the game is to drill out the Spot welds. I usually started with a ¼ inch drill bit, and drilled all the way through, you can usually tell if the spot weld is drilled out thoroughly, if not, I used a 3/8 inch drill bit, that did the job. BEFORE YOU DRILL, take some paint, I used touch up paint, and outlined exactly where the USDM Top Radiator Support went. Its extremely important to do this, so when you install the Jdm Top support, it will line up, Otherwise things might not line up. Pics:



On each side of the top of the USDM Radiator support there are 3 spot welds you must drill out. Should look like this:




Once you do that on both sides, you must also drill the two spot welds in the middle support underneath the USDM Hood latch shown here:



You are almost ready to take the USDM top radiator support off, you need to drill three more spot weld on each side, and then cut the headlight supports, shown here:



Note: You must be careful where you cut the headlight support (green lines). If you cut them in the wrong place you could screw yourself…..when you cut your JDM make sure you cut it farther down so you will have an over lap, but we will discuss it later….


Now, you should have your USDM top support free. You are now ready to put the JDM top radiator support on. But first you must get your JDM Radiator Support ready to be installed. If you are like me, I had the full Jdm Radiator support, so again I had to drill out the top 3 spot welds on each side, the one upper-outer spot weld on the headlight support on each side, and the two spot welds on the middle support under the hood latch.


Also please note, be careful drill these because if you bend up your jdm radiator support you could have trouble fitting it correctly. You also need to cut the 4 headlight supports. But this part is important, you must cut the support where there is more than what you cut on the USDM, if they don’t over lap, then you will have a gap and not be able to weld it correctly. Pic:




Once you have the top “T” looking radiator support of the jdm ready to slap on the car, you will probably notice it doesn’t want to fit right. You must cut some of the chasis off. I know it looks scary, but you must line the back of the JDM Radiator support up with the back of your paint outline you made. Pic:



You are now ready to weld the JDM Support to the car, however, you want to take a couple precautions.

First, take some clamps and clamp the top radiator support in the proper place. This is important because if you don’t weld the radiator support in the right place, nothing will fit. Clamp it down like shown:



Once you do this, put on the JDM Hood, JDM Fenders, and make sure things line up, If they do, then you are ready to weld. If not, go back and make sure it lines up correctly


Welding was a bit shitty for me. I rented a Wire Fed welder, which isn’t the best anyways, it was hard to get a clean bead, never welding before didn’t make things easier anyways, hehe. If you are like me and never welded before, do some practice welds…. I started off by spot welding a few places, just to get everything secure on top, make sure things are still lined up, but I welded the outside of the top of the radiator support first, as well as the middle support under the hood latch. Once that was secure, I then cut the over lap from the JDM Support so it would line up w/ the rest of the USDM Support. Once it lined up, I welded it.


Now you are done w/ the hard part. You want to paint the welds so they don’t rust.

Put the Fenders back on, hood, and throw in those spiffy headlights, if you have HID’s like me, you have to bend the a/c lines in order to fit the ballast, no biggie, just be careful. Once the headlights are bolted on, put the bumper support on, throw on the bumper, and look at the purty $3000 you just spent.

Note: Sometimes you may have to get things to line up right, this means apply a little force while you tighten down bolts….use washers, etc.

Good luck, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask, cuz im tired and probably left something out.


P.S. I made this Thread the same title as my other one, just for the fact people will be able to search for this much easier.

Link to my other post : Click Me



[Modified by Mase, 5:03 PM 11/17/2002]

Fuuma0083

great info

Too bad i won't be able to afford a JDM Conversion for a very long time.

B2FiNiTY

iTrader: (2)

Can I add your how:to to my website? Let me know.

machgo5go

SCARY stuff out there!

98itR484

great info, cant wait to do it myself

Tommy_Gunns

Awesome write up

itr1244

looks like hell alot of works to do~ man i dont know if i can do it my self

1250b18c5

EXCELLENT Mase!!!!!!!

Just finished cutting and pasting all of that into a Word Processor to save for the future....I'm planning a D.I.Y. JDM front on a 95 Integ sedan of mine.

I WILL be doing my own install, as I think of myself as a fairly proficient GMAW (MIG) welder

The Step by step's are very clear.....

thanks again and congrats with your own results

disordeR

you rims are blingin!

oh yeah, good info.

Mase

thanks, however, it will be much easier if you have a person to help you, all my punk friends were gone for the weekend, would rather go out to a club than help me, or thought it was too cold (heh its cold here, 50 degrees out)

also my jdm hood latch cable is too short...gonna need a 92-93 integra cable, and the shippers messed up my hood, other than that, im happy


Now i just gotta get my compustar alarm installed im not sure if im ready to install that myself, haha

Mase

Opps, I forgot to thank stan, if it wasnt for him, this install would have taken me a lot longer

C-speed

You went to alot of trouble, where you didn't have to... You didn't have to cut the USDM support and also cut the JDM support.. if you bought the complete JDM conversion, the JDM rad support should be one pre-assembled unit which is the upper, center and lower support.

All you had to do what drill out all the spot welds on the USDM front end and remove the entire USDM upper and lower rad support as one unit, and then put the complete JDM rad support assembly on. Not cutting required at all.

Here's a pic, the car is white as you can see. The black unpainted upper, center and lower rad support is the complete pre-assembled JDM front end. It bolts right up and just reweld. Not cutting required.

C-speed

More pics:





complete article here:
http://www.c-speedracing.com/howto/jdm/jdm.html

Ferrell

nice write up.. too bad i cant afford one.

Ricky Rojales

I commend you for taking the time to compile this and post it on HT.

TKBLAZER

hopefully i'll be joining the jdm front crew soon

slowassR

bling bling..


[Modified by slowassR, 1:19 PM 11/18/2002]

RTW DC2R

nice job on the install and the write up. Like most things, there are probably different ways to go about doing it. Im sure most people do it a little different. Either way yours came out excellent

Mase

Have you ever tried to drill out spot welds before? They suck, and the mangle the hell out of the support, Trust me, this way was much faster. It took me probably 1 minute to cut each support, 2 minutes to line up the supports where they meet, and about 1 minute to weld, then a couple to paint. whereas it probably took me a good 2-3 minutes to drill out each spot weld, you have to go really slow. and do you know how many spot welds there are on the whole support?


[Modified by Mase, 11:16 AM 11/18/2002]

Mikes01GSR

Mase,

First of all awesome JOB!!! You have inspired me to attempt to do my own
JDM conversion!! Couple of questions!!

1.) This pic that shows "Green USDM cut here, Red JDM cut here" Do you
have a close up pic of that area after you welded the two together??

2.) Did you have or need Jdm fender brackets??

3.) Are you gonna do a write up copy that your gonna sale? If it's
reasonable I'd buy one!!

I was also gonna see if you were gonna do a write up of the headlights wiring wise
since only thing floating around is that one pic someone sketched. Not sure if it
would help since I don't have HID's. Again mase thanks for the info so far

ITR#00-1077

Very nice write up.... I'm positive that I can do my own JDM install now... but just after I try it on others first.... j/k...

slowassR

Mase sent me this pick and after looking at it a few times just had to post it

Mase

1. as of right now, i didnt take a pic of the weld, but im going to be taking off the bumper maybe tomorrow and ill try to remember to take a picture.

2. I didnt need jdm fender brackets, the headlights bolt into the fender, as well as the top 3 bolts, the upper bolt by the side mirror, and the two lower bolts underneath the side skirt. The fenders arent going anywhere

3. I wasnt planning on charging people, I believe in DIY, because not only does it save you money, but it makes you feel good when you complete a big project like this. However, if you want something really in depth, that will take a lot of time to write up, I could probably do it for some $$.....hehe or better yet, you could just fly me up there and ill do it for you for the cost of food, a warm bed, and some booze


I havent wired up everything yet, but I could make a diagram for that as well, im kinda doing it the ghetto way, im using slide female connectors to plug into each of the 5 slots on the plug. The fit snug though.... Pics:

uber_nihilist

I have drilled out mine with a special 3/8 inch spot weld drilling bit from the Eastwood Company. It drills out the spotwelds between two pieces of metal, leaving the undermost sheet unharmed. My support is not the slightest mangled nor bent. I don't know the exact number of spotwelds, but I would guess that I drilled out around 10 spotwelds for each support. Now that may haven taken over an hour, but I like the result. Your way is certainly faster, but everyone may not like the look of a chopped off radiator support.

Danger

thanks