Jake's EF Project

[Boostdelinquent]

I've been working on this build since about mid-January and figured I'd post up my build thread on here as well. LMK what ya'll think.

Jake

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A friend of mine gave me a 90 Civic Si for free so I have decided to do a light build on it and see how I like it. I'm broke and in college at the moment so this build isn't going to be anything crazy but I think it will make a nice DD. Anyway, here's the plan for now.

LS swap (lsvtec will be done later)
Tokico HPK shock/spring kit
ES master bushing kit
I/H/E (for now)
Boost (will be done once I get a diy kit assembled)

Anyway here's some pics. As you can see it is pretty stripped at the moment. I also have to strip off the body kit he was in the process of putting on and repair the rear driver side tail light since they had cut out the metal to install some RSX tails. Other than that and some very minor cancer (esp for WI) the chassis is pretty clean and should make a decent project.

passenger side

driver side

front view

rear view (you can see where I need to weld metal back in for the stock tail light)

interior view (it's completely gutted at the moment)

sunroof

top view

doors (one door had been covered w/ fiberglass and dense foam for custom WB kit so I have the pleasure of stripping all of that off and returning it to stock)

this is about the extent of the rust which is very little for a WI car

B18A w/ B18B head and YS1 trans

DC sports 4-1 header

Tonaka swap mounts

Assortment of DA wiring harnesses

2 OBD0 dizzys and 1 OBD1 dizzy (all came w/ swap)

Tokico HPK shock/spring kit and ES master bushing kit

The seats are pretty clean although the seam on the driver side needs to be resewn

The majority of the interior pieces

B16 shortblock that came w/ the car. (have all the parts, just need to put it back together)

That's all for now. I got it moved over to my shop and took it off the trailer today so provided it's not too cold this weekend, I will be working on putting it back together and hope to at least have the suspension and interior put back in this weekend. After that and depending on my class schedule I want to get the engine in and running next week/weekend so I can take it out.

On a side note I do still need an OBD0 B18 ECu if anyone has one for sale. That's pretty much all I need to finish the swap.

Click to read more...

 

[Boostdelinquent]

So today has been fairly productive in both good and bad ways. I got 95% of the parts for the hatch over to my garage so I should be able to get started on some reassembly however the guy that gave me the Civic isn't sure where he put all the suspension bolts when he took it apart so that might hold up progress a little. This is bad yet also good as it means I will most likely install the new ES bushings while I wait for the bolts to be found. If worse comes to worse I have a "box of Honda" with quite a few bolts I'll probably need from when I stripped the SiR clip I imported a few summers ago. In other news I also found the PR4 ecu I needed locally and just got back from picking that up.

So enough talk, on to the pixors.

The interior is now semi clean so once I vacumn it and run the chassis harness back up the the headlights, horn, etc. it'll be ready for me to reinstall the dash and rest of the interior. I'm still debating if I want to also go ahead and tuck the engine bay at this time. I will most likely do it at some point however I don't want to get tied up making it "pretty" before I have it running.

Here she now sits in her new home. Provided I get the ES bushings in and my friend finds the rest of the bolts to reattach the suspension in a timely manner, I am hoping to have it back to a rolling chassis by next weekend. I would probably have it done this weekend but my Sunday is already booked for the NFC Championship game. Go Vikings!

While looking through the parts I found this minty fresh climate control. I was very happy to see it is not only in one piece but also appears to be in very good shape overall.

Here's some pics of the PR4 ECU I just got back from picking up. Now that I have this, all I should need to do now is put the car back together and drop the engine in. After that I'll need to weld in new metal for the right rear tail light, strip off where the sideskirt was molded on, and I should be good to start driving it. I'm hoping no unexpected expenses come up however if they do, I should have enough unneeded parts to sell and finish the build. Stay tuned for further updates.

 

[Boostdelinquent]

Not a whole lot of updates for this post however I did go down to the pick and pull today and was able to get the rear tailight panel that I needed to repair the metal that had been cut out to put in the RSX tailight. Now that that is done, I should have about 95% of the stuff I need to complete putting the Civic back together. The only thing remaining that comes to mind are the suspension bolts which I'll order new in the next day or two if the guy doesn't find the old ones.

I also started installing the ES bushing kit however I won't post that up until I have finished it all so that I can put the post together as a step by step for anyone else looking to do the same on their car. Now onto the pics.

 

[Boostdelinquent]

Despite todays high only being 6* or -12 if you factor in the windchill, and my garage not being heated, I layered up and got some work done on my Civic. The main things I did were vacumning out the interior, running the chassis harness back to the headlights, and getting the heater core, blower motor, and AC condensor reinstalled. I was going to do more but I got tired of my fingers being numb as I dug through the box of bolts so I called it a day. In other news I also dug through some of the boxes I had and found the missing bolts I need to put the suspension back on, although I have to finish swapping out the bushings before I do that.

Anyway, enough of me blabbing, here's a few pics.

The interior after I vacumned it out. I need to go over it again but wasn't incredibly motivated to considering the temperature. I'll redo it once the car is running and I can go by a car wash.

The bolts I was missing.

The dash guts somewhat reinstalled.

Random pic of the engine bay w/ the wires and such put back in. I'll get around to tucking the harness either when I can go by my friends place and crank the heater in his garage or when I pick up my own heater currently at his house.That's all for today. Now that I have the bolts I need I plan on getting the suspension back on so I can roll the chassis and turn the car where it's facing out the garage. After I do that, the plan is to get the LS swap in and running, followed by the removal of the side skirt and sanding down of the foam and fiberglass currently on the driver side door. Hopefully that will all be done this weekend but it is largely dependant upon my level of motivation to work in single digit temperatures.

 

[Boostdelinquent]

I'm taking a break from homework and figured I'd post up some more pics of the progress I've made thus far. I'm waiting to get my rear LCA's back from my friend who's pressing out the bushings for me so there won't be any of the suspension back on until later this week or after the weekend at the latest. I honestly want to hurry up and get my Civic back together so I can drive it plus it'll let me know which extra parts I can sell to buy the Eaton M90 S/C and start custom fabbing it up. Anyway, here's a few pics of the past weeks work.

I started off swapping the bushings. Here's the basic materials I used.

Some of the bolts wanted to be bitches but after a little blaster and a 4.5ft breaker bar, they decided to see the light. Fortunately only one bolt broke.

Random pic of my fiance keeping me company while I wrenched. She's trying to learn a bit more about cars before I put a boosted LS/VTEC in her EG8.

Me doing a little reading to make sure I wasn't missing anything prior to starting.

Me loosening some bolts on the LCA's.

LCA's removed.

This is why I recommend everyone change their tired 20+ year old ED bushings.

While waiting for the bushings in my rear LCA's to be pressed out, I decided to swap the tophats from the stock struts over to my HPK kit.

Then I noticed they were sitting properly in the tophats. After a quick google search I realized that I am a dumbass and overlooked the F and R following the part number indicating which were for the front and rear.

Ah, much better. Now they're ready to go on once I change the bushings. I'm probably only going to swap the front and rear LCA bushings right now and do the rest when the weather is warmer.

Here's some pics of the interior back in. My friend gave me the DA lower console and arm rest w/ the car however I'm not sure I want the gap between the dash and console. I might go to the PNP and get another stock console and cut some material out to fil in the gap so it has more of a stock fitment to it.

A view from the back.

Driver side view. All I need to do now is install my CD player and hook up the climate control which seems like it's going to be a PITA to route the cables to the proper latches. I hope I'm wrong.

Anyway, that's all for now. With any luck, the next pictures I post will be of my car on the ground as a rolling chassis facing out of my garage and waiting for the engine to go in. If I'm really motivated, it may even be of the B18 swap in position. After that I'm going to sell some parts and pick up the S/C so I can start fabbing it up. Stay tuned for more updates.

 

[Boostdelinquent]

It's been slow going on my hatch lately, mainly since I've been spending so much time at the pick and pull getting parts to sell people but I did make a little progress on the hatch this weekend. It's nothing too great but I got the front suspension reinstalled and was also able to trade my Civic Si gauge cluster for the CRX SiR cluster off my old RHD converted CRX. Anyway, here are a few pics.

CRX SiR Gauge Cluster

Front and rear crossmembers in place

driver side suspension installed

That's all for now. With any luck I can find someone with a truck and go get the doors so I can put them back on and will also have the rear suspension back on so it's back to a rolling chassis. after that I'll need to get the bumpers, etc reinstalled and drop the engine back in. The football season is over so I'm hoping to not get sidetracked and be able to finish it all this weekend.

 

[Boostdelinquent]

So I finally got some free time to work on the hatch and was able to make some decent progress. I had hoped to do more but between having to run around to press bushings in and the rear shock mount bushings not being included in the ES Hypermax kit, I was a bit stuck. I ordered the bushings I need today and had them overnighted so I should be able to get the rest of the suspenion on tomorrow and then turn my hatch around in the garage so I can start the swap. With any luck I'm hoping to at least have the engine mounted and wired up before the sun goes down tomorrow since my garage light is blown and I don't have a ladder to reach the top to change it. Anyway, enough of me babbling, here's some pics.

I started off by pressing in the new bushings. It went pretty easy other than the metal center piece pressing out the outer bushing as it went in.

Since the outer bushing kept coming out, I drove over to my friends shop to use his bench clamp.

As I was pushing in the center piece, I looked next to the clamp and what should I happen to notice...... A 20 Ton Press. It looks like the rest of my bushing swap will now be incredibly easy!

Here's the finished product.

From there I decided I should wait to put in the rear LCA's since I might need to press in the strut mount bushings so I proceeded to put the front end back together. Here's a step by step commentary.

Bumper support bolted in.

Headlights in position.

The finished product. (I really need to hurry up and get my hatch sprayed as soon as finances allow.)

That pile of parts behind my car is getting smaller pretty quickly.

I was going to reinstall the rear bumper support until I noticed all but one of the studs to bolt it on was broken off. Looks like I'll have to get some new ones welded on before I can proceed with that.

Right side

Left side

Then I got bored so while having a smoke I decided to take a pic of some parts I have lying around. These won't be going on but are for sale if anyone wants a decent starter suspension package for their non-sway bar equipped ED. First $100 takes it. It's the oem LCA's, sway, and Drop Zone coilover sleeves. Search for my same SN on D-Series.org if vouches are needed. I've posted/sold on there alot more over the years than here.

I was running short on things I could do w/out all the bushings in my LCA's so I decided to install the trailing arms to save me some time tomorrow. It was suprising easy despite working by myself.

The finished product. I would have done the other side too but had to pick up my fiance' from class.

After I dropped my fiance' off at our place I went back for a little bit longer and decided I should put the master cylinder and brake lines back in. It was a bigger PITA than I wanted it to be since I couldn't get the brake lines behind my swap mount. This lead to me having to lower the rear crossmember so I could get to the back mount bolt and remove it for the lines to be bolted into place.

That's all for now. Hopefully I can get the rest of it done tomorrow with the exception of welding in the rear tail light metal and removing the sideskirt the previous owner molded to the side. Speaking of which, does anyone have any suggestions of a relatively easy way to remove the fiberglass used when they molded it in? I really don't want to have to sand all of it out just to pull the damn thing.

 

[Boostdelinquent]

I didn't get nearly as far today as I would have liked to. Despite having my bushings shipped overnight they're stuck in Indy as best I can tell and probably won't be here until Monday morning. With that said, while the car should be rolling today it isn't. I was however able to get my engine swap, cherry picker, and doors moved over to my garage. Since the doors were there and I didn't have a whole lot else I could do I mounted them up. Here's some pics.

The passenger side is pretty clean.

The driver side is a wreck and will take alot of work to strip off the fiberglass used to mold the sideskirt on. I also have to scrape off the foam that was being used to extend the kit higher on the doors. Hopefully 60 grit will make fairly short work on it but I have to be careful not to leave grooves that'll come back to haunt me after I have it sprayed.

 

[Boostdelinquent]

Finally!!! 2 days too late to be of immediate use, but next weekend should go very well. That is all.

 

[Boostdelinquent]

Today I went and bought a driver side door window to replace the one that was broken. After that I installed the shock bushings and got the rear suspension reassembled. I would have had it rollable but I got caught up on the e-brake cables and then had to get back home since my fiance has class at 5:30 and needed the car. With that said tomorrow should bring alot of progress and I hope to get the engine dropped in after I roll out my hatch and reorganize the garage. With that said, I do expect to have my hatch running this weekend.

Anyway, here's some pics of todays progress.

 

[Boostdelinquent]

Today I got my hatch back to a rolling chassis and was able to roll it out and flip it around so the engine bay is facing out of my garage. If I wasn't selling the B18 I would have painted the engine bay and mounted the engine as well. Since I'm out on spring break I'm going to try and get the body sanded/painted, install the rest of the interior, and put the rest of the glass back on. If I sell my B18 swap and get another engine, I'll be dropping that in as well. Anyway, here are todays pics.

Here's all the junk I have to strip off the driver side. I picked up a wire wheel for my grinder so I'm hoping that'll make short work of it.

Passenger side

Front

Rear...... I really wish they wouldn't have cut out the metal for the driver side tailight as getting the new metal welded back in will be the main thing I forsee holding up progress.

Back in the garage and ready for me to start on the body work.

I was sooooo tempted to spray the engine bay and drop the B18 in. If I didn't need the money from selling it, I would have.

 

[Boostdelinquent]

Today I stripped off the pieces for the body kit that had been installed so my hatch now looks like a normal car again. Since this is done tomorrow I will be sanding down the body and masking everything off in preparation for paint. After that all I'll have to do is trim the metal for the tailight to fit and get it welded in and I should be good to go. Now on to the pics.

The grinder made short work of removing this junk. I still have some little strips to remove but it is gone for the most part.

Aaaaaahhh, back to stock!!!!

 

[SRT41320]

good luck...i wish i still had time to do crap like this...

 

[Bob Kazamakis]

Wow looks like lots of work. Body still looking rough but looks like you've done a ton of work so far. Nice job