[OhSix]

Spent time this weekend getting to know the 01 coupe.

The young dude before me was a car guy but not the hands on type. With that, this car is a shining example of what "professionals" in the aftermarket do to/for paying customers. Whoever built the headlights was a real joker. They started life as OEM (at least according to the lens) but they butchered, err... I mean moded for Moribito projectors. The parking light socket opening was empty, there were torn boots, slathered sillycone and dried duct tape covering hacked openings. No wonder the light they attempted to make was so poor. Polluted both inside and out.

Changed engine oil and filter and did some general clean up down under to make things less awful for Harry's crew when they yank her apart. All that wiring and regulation for "custom" head and fog lights. Screw that. Although the work done was pi$$ poor, and there are certainly better ways to do this stuff, gimme nice, clean wiring and sealed enclosures any day. To give you an idea of how absolutely deplorable this custom work was, the styro bumper was held in place with MASKING tape. Some genius couldn't even find some good ol' 100MPH tape? Absurd.

Since Harry doesn't mind installing owner supplied parts, a Daiken clutch kit was found. $111 vs $290 for OEM. Sweet! She's definitely spewing crankcase oil at the rear main, so that'll get done while she's apart.

She went back together cleaner than she was.

The K Sport struts all around are height and damping rate adjustable. Hopefully she'll be raised up a couple inches and her 40 series shoes will sit flat on the pavement. Pretty sure her left front is cambered negative, rolling on the inside tread - not much of a contact patch. If the shop can get things square, its gonna be a very different drive experience. Especially when the spring rate is softened.

Quick commentary on emission laws in California... not sure if other states have similar requirements but they'd hafta try real hard to out do the insane government in this eff'd up state.

If the goal is clean air, the state should only be concerned about whats coming out of tale pipes. But that's not what their laws are about.

For example, change you ride from auto to manual? Special rules apply.

Want a sporty little bone stock motor that meets emission test no problem, but just happens to be a year or two older than your chassis? Be prepared to spend thousands while jumping thru hoops or fire in order to become "certified" legal for use on state roads.

Drive a high polluting carbureted car from the 60"s? You're exempt.

What a bunch of B.S. Apparently, there's ongoing litigation against these idiotic rules. The issues include the private sector reacting to citizen demand, creating a seedy underground/black market with high stakes, replete with an underground tech sector. Not to mention the stifling of innovation, repressing creative solutions to carbon emissions by private citizens and curious students.

When regular people become politicians, dain bramage results.

 

[OhSix]

Forgot to mention... poking around for parts in general, its remarkable how cheap parts are for older Accords & Civics. Apparently, sales volume of those models make it profitable for the aftermarket to offer parts. Bumper covers, fenders, hoods, wheel house liners, headlight assemblies are cheap and plentiful. Dunno how they fits, but cheap sheet steel and large plastic components are good things. Stumbled across this all aluminum radiator too. Checked to see if they offer an RL version. Nope. But this thing is on the list should 01 rad need replacing.

https://www.radiatorexpress.com/pro...t595ul8SuFeSknok4x8bbv1CSTfam3s-aThoCdHHw_wcB

 

[Carsmak]

Interesting on the Radiator, considering it's been converted from Auto to Manual, I wonder how it was bypassed. I'm guessing you've atleast looked, wonder if there is a manual radiator, sans ATF cooler ports.

Nice thing with the all aluminum is modifying it would be much easier

Yea, emissions laws suck here, although California's goal and how it's achieved leave a lot to be desired.

I wonder if you could sell that motor and profit with a "period correct" 4 or 6, I'm certain returning to Automatic would be cost prohibitive. Unless you could find a complete package

 

[OhSix]

Interesting on the Radiator, considering it's been converted from Auto to Manual, I wonder how it was bypassed. I'm guessing you've atleast looked, wonder if there is a manual radiator, sans ATF cooler ports.

Nice thing with the all aluminum is modifying it would be much easier

Yea, emissions laws suck here, although California's goal and how it's achieved leave a lot to be desired.

I wonder if you could sell that motor and profit with a "period correct" 4 or 6, I'm certain returning to Automatic would be cost prohibitive. Unless you could find a complete package

Hey Mak,

I did note the OTW cooler was is place on the auto trans radiator. It was bypassed by a loop of hose between OTW receive/send ports. The Belleville washers looked pretty good too! LOL.

In their zeal to control us little citizens, what this state has done is build a network of black market parts and underground solutions. Owners of vehicles that are in compliance with emissions at the tail pipe, but technically out of compliance with arbitrary hardware rules are left to navigate ways around those idiotic rules.

For example, the technician whose job is to perform visual compliance at the smog station level, might not know that a certain engine was never offered in a particular year/model chassis, so if everything looks good with catalytic converters and such, someone could fly under the radar. It could happen, eh?

BUTT, when the gauge cluster has P,R,N,D in the display and he's pushing on a clutch to drive the rig into the bay, he's gonna become suspicious. SO, eliminating that "tell" seems reasonable, right? Just go find an appropriate gauge panel and call it even. Well, guess what? Odometer memory lives in the gauge cluster. That's a new-to-me tid bit of info, but it makes sense because the DMV tracks mileage at transfer of title - so sudden jumps up - or worse yet - backwards at the time of title transfer becomes problematic. Still, its possible. Diligence would pay off on this one. OR, a guy *could* find the correcting panel for $100 and play around with swapping gauge faces - if he were so inclined. Flying under the radar now got a bit easier. I'm not saying that's something I'd do but it is a solution, eh?

OR, one could resign themselves to playing between the lines, go into the grey area between where tail pipe emissions matter but B.S. hardware rules are not a gating item. I'm not saying that's something I'd do but it is a solution, eh?

The point is, all that SHOULD matter is tail pipe emissions, but tha'ts not what this state is really concerned about. Sure, they want and we deserve clean air - for that they are to be commended, but why do they care about anything but emissions?

Control. They just can't help themselves. Freedom and liberty ain't what it used to be.

 

[Carsmak]

Well here's the other bit of "BS" IMHO, Dealerships, and even small shops are now "submiting" the mileage of when work gets completed, right, wrong or indifferent. How else is it showing up on "CarFax"?

I'll give you the scenario that I had issue with a few years back with the Del Sol. I rarely take her anywhere for any service, so only about every 2 years does it get a smog check and the mileage recorded. But a "coupon" arrived in December a few years back from my local Honda Dealer and she needed an oil change. Christmas eve, day off from work, I decided to take advantage of it, as hey, I'd rather sit in their lobby than my cold @$$ garage floor. I actually took all 3 Honda's in before 1pm when they closed the shop for the day. Then in the spring of the year I get her smogged, and the mileage is recorded. About a month goes by, and I get a nasty letter from the DMV that there are "discrepancys" in my mileage. Turns out when Honda had it they recorded 76k miles, then I get it smoged and they record 179k, all because some "minimum wage" grease monkey can't write down a number. Oh and it also played "hell" with my insurance provider too. And it only has "PL/PD" coverage, but about a week after I get the letter from the DMV, I then get one from the insurance.

So yea, I hear ya...

 

[OhSix]

Holy Crap Mak. "They are watching us" in more ways than one. When clerical errors happen, it looks like they go for the owners throat before questioning anything else. All to comply with arbitrary law written by busy body, house mothering, Nancy boys in SACK-ramental. Perhaps the old "my speedo broke so I went to a bone yard" line would work? Wonder if they have a rule for THAT?

Farging Bastages!

Whew! I feel better getting that off my chest.

Hey, I stopped by Harry's this morning to check on 01's progress. Talk about OCD impulse suppression! So many parts I'll never see again in need of degreasing.

The tranny is out along with misc axles, strut & motor mounts, ETC.

Loogit the clutch! Something tells my the seller was fibbing when he said he didn't do "that much" street racing. Common sense would say you don't invest in a Fast-n-Furious wannabe unless you were gonna drive it aggressively. It's pretty well frayed and tattered. Cross member pretty OK though.

Theoretically, the motor/trans "only has ~80K" but the clutch has been replaced at least once. Pretty sure this is the same Daiken clutch I sourced to replace it. Harry got a good chuckle out of the "not much" street racing thing.

One of the more noticeable issues with 01 is she vibrates pretty good when AC is engaged. Classic sign of a busted motor mount. Visually, the center front, upper right motor mounts looked good when I was dinking around underhood last weekend, which leaves the rear in question. While these pics don't prove much one way or another, I'm trying to make sure any questionable part like this in need of replacement get done now, before she goes all the way back together. I'm planning on driving this car carefree for as long as possible, so even if she's been driven hard, keeping her in tip top maintenance should extend her life for the foreseeable future. Knock on wood.

Rear main and axle seals should end most of the nasty grime build up happening in the engine compartment.

Harry doesn't think much of modified cars. He's a big believer in OEM all-the-way-baby, so he's been none committal about the K Sport struts ability to restore (somewhere close to) standard height. Everything I've found about these things say they are designed as adjustable springs/dampers supporting height ranging factory to slammed stances with no camber kits required. With the lower strut mount removed, the its pretty easy to see how these thing work. Provided their enough range in the threaded shaft below the coils, negative camber should be adjusted out.

Surprisingly, during the 100 miles driven to date, the ride and height are less bothersome than the exhaust drone during freeway cruise. Shifting thru the gears is fun - sound wise - but once you are clipping along at 60, the drone gets old REAL quick. Carrying on a normal conversation is ridiculous.

The exhaust is a stainless cat back GReddy. There's a pair of cherry bomb style mufflers in a straight line pipe to the rear, then a two eared coupler bolts an S pipe to the stupidly large trash can resonator sticking out the ass end.

Been looking around for a bolt on replacement of more sane dimensions, no luck so far - at least nothing cheap enough to maintain membership in the Cheap Bastard Club of America/Beater Division. A fall back is to use the stock exhaust the seller will be dropping off this weekend. I seriously doubt I'd notice a change in throttle response - and I do enjoy a more quiet ride these days.

 

[OhSix]

01 came home from Harry's late Friday afternoon. Oddly, she was up on the rack most of week for what was quoted as 10 hours labor - which I equated to 2 full days. The clutch certainly feels more responsive and positive. Happy about that. Final bill came in at $1057. Ouch. Not that I'm surprised or that Harry's price is unreasonable, but beater culture questions the wisdom of spending $1k on a recently acquired beater. Maybe I should reframe what 01 is, call her a "rat rod" or something more in keeping with the kind of owner/DIY/driver I am. One thing for sure, she's lotsa fun to drive, freeway on ramps and curvy roads are especially entertaining. That perspective might change when 01 is relegated to mundane daily work drive/stop/go traffic.

The car has been somewhat of a challenge in a few regards. Many parts under her sheet steel show signs of environmental exposure similar to what one might expect from inactivity, perhaps exacerbated by salt infused ambient moisture. Aluminum is especially telling in that regard, IME. 06 RL is a good engine bay example of a daily driven vehicle. While I try to keep the RL clean, I'm not freakish about it yet her engine compartment looks very good for an 11 year old with 128 on the clock.
One need look no further than this to see 01 hasn't benefited from regular driving.

Harry's guys tried to raise her to a sane height but the strut locking rings weren't cooperating. She's a teeny bit higher in the front end but not enough. While I had her apart for the second weekend in a row, first order of business was soaking the rings/collars and coil stoppers with PB Breakfree. Wicked stuff - used it many times in the past on ancient locked up fittings with 100% success, you gotta be real careful with this product, never let it overspray on innocent by standing parts cuz it'll change their life. Always wear latex gloves cuz if it gets on your skin you'll smell like petroleum products for 2 days. I laid a 360 bead around the strut body and lock nut threads at least 8 times/each over course of the weekend, I predict they'll slip apart like butter next time. The KSport struts have user adjustable damping, the young dude had them set pretty hard. Fronts are easy to get to, so I set them dead center. Rears are another story, top of shock tower is buried under rear deck panels so those adjustments will hafta wait till I get back there.

You would think a old fart such as I would have seen this kind of evidence - right in front of my eyeballs - from the first second the hood was opened, but thats not how it went. Admittedly, I fell victim emotions when purchasing 01. Much less concerned with cosmetics than mechanicals, the combo of failing clear coat and noticeable things like flaking paint on the valve cover concerned me little compared to the sounds made by the motor at idle and under way, Did the pendulum swing to far that way? In retrospect, I might have made a different purchase decision had eyes been wide open.

As long as I'm "stuck" with her, the most important aspects of transportation will be addressed. The horridly modified - horrifically aged, nearly useless cloudy headlights were yanked with great zeal. Drop kicked into the recycle bin where they'll become 1.2 M doggy dropping bags or some other worthy object du jour.

While the snout was off, experimental LEDs were installed.

Not a fan of the old yellow fog lamp lenses, so I fashioned a pair of covers out of 1/8" ABS and found a home for cheap/ugly LED fixtures picked up on ebay a while back. We won't talk about the failed effort to hack out the old grill and install a replacement, so don't ask. I eff'd up, OK? Happy now? There's a plan to fix that. Might not be a good plan but there is one.

Also had a few Oznium mini LEDs fixtures on hand, so tried them out this way.

No weekend beater project would be complete without doing something about the fugly JVC head unit. True to beater culture, an old Sony was dug out of the box of surprises on the garage shelf was popped in. More to come on sound but for now this will do. Although I gotta comment all four door/rear deck speakers are blowed up, rattling like pennies in a coffee can. That chit ain't gonna last long - take that to the bank. :wink::wink:

As the day wound down I found myself focused on the trunk. Why is it so dusty back here? Following the trail of heavy dust, I yanked the drive side trunk liner. Sure enough, one of the geniuses who were paid to mod this car took out and left out the cabin pressure breather all the way to the rear, accessible only when the rear bumper skin is off. Its a large opening roughly centered in relation to the rear wheel, perfectly located to allow gravel and leaves and road junk to enter the trunk space. Nickle and dime starts to add up after a while.

Example: this car has an AEM "performance" air intake tube/filter. While out and about this weekend, hitting NAPA/O'Reilly and Advanced, I learned that 2.5" throat conical filters are special order. Say what? More choices to make. Source adapters? Spend $50 or more on a "fix" for a poorly designed system? Nope. I'm going back to OEM. Safe. functional. Reliable. Beaters need to be dependable road warriors.

Took her out for a drive at sunset last night. OBD reported instantaneous calculated MPG: 24. After living with 06 RL average 15.4 I'm encouraged. We'll see what 01 Acc does over course of a few tanks - likely it'll be somewhere above 20, which isn't exactly what hoped for but I haven't found her sweet spot G spot yet.

 

[Carsmak]

Well, I've just made a few quick checks of both Edmunds.com and FuelEconomy.gov and Mid 20's is about correct. It's not exactly an MPG warrior. But it's still an improvement and a nice spare vehicle. As for Speakers, I'm certain you've got some around, I've got a spare set of NIB 6x9, but knowing you they probally are not up to snuff...

Maybe you need to offer the kid a quick trip to Chino in the G1 and just pick the stuff up with him. Or if he'll be up there soon, I'll make the 1hr plus down and meet him and pick it up with my RL, then I can bring it down to you...

If any of this sounds good call me.

 

[OhSix]

Thanks for the offers Mak. The kid brought down a few smaller parts on his move this way, but he didn't have room for bigger stuff like the exhaust, rear bumper cover and door sashes. Hoping those parts are in good enough shape to be reusable without further investment. At this point he's doing me a favor - although it benefits his parents and the garage where the parts are stored - so its pretty much a logistics convenience thing. We *should be* hooking up some time this week so he can pass along a couple of smaller items - I'll press him to arrange obtaining remaining parts then.

On the speakers.... lemme factor your generous offer into the mix. Trying to keep this whole project in check but improvement creep is a PITA at times. A drop in pair of 6x9's might help out that effort. Beater culture likes freebies!

To avoid chasing the SPL Dragon, was thinking the exhaust should be tamed before doing much of anything sound wise. At the moment, a loud car and no phone HF is a major issue - last thing in the world I need is ANOTHER freaking head unit just to get a speaker phone going. Betcha the warehouse guys at work have one of those sun visor version BT speaker thingys collecting dust on a shelf. Beater culture likes freebies. LOL.

Drove her to work yesterday. @80 MPH she's turning around 4K RPM. Stupid exhaust is pretty loud at that speed. I'm very surprised at the torque range this little motor has. She pulls pretty good above 1500 RPM without downshifting in just about any gear. Then again, I'm in the new relationship phase so "new" is often pleasing. But then again... discovered an issue while raising, lowering passenger side window, there's a nasty air leak coming from the lower corner right at the rear view mirror intersection. Pulling into the lot @ work, raising the window a significant clang-clang-clang was heard. Like the regulator was misaligned or the window motor was slipping a tooth. Luckily, the doors are on project list for this weekend. Here we go again...

 

[OhSix]

Calibrated the dash speedo to GPS ground speed. Looks to be spot on even with those 18" 40 series shoes.

Zero'ing in on the RPM/Speedo sweet spot. Keeping the ticker under 3.5K and just under 70 MPH nets a click or two over 26MPG (instant).

Grabbed this image at off ramp stop light after freeway run to the office.

If this holds up over time, I'll be smilin' while shiftin'.

There's been this nasty wind noise coming from lower front pass side window glass. Finally took a few minutes to dink around with the glass itself - it appears the regulator is the culprit. Once lowered and raised, the window doesn't sit square in the guides, slightly tilting up at the back of the glass. For the moment, the noise is gone and for the first time have a sense of 01 native cabin noise. Even with the obnoxious exhaust droning away at freeway speed, she's a bunch quieter than prior. Opening up both doors this weekend, hope to be able to realign/reassemble the regulator but I've a feeling there's nylon rollers or something in there worn.

 

[Carsmak]

What are your thoughts on the ScanGuage II. I've considered one, just never got around to buying.

I'm certain that some sound deadening in that cabin would help.

Have you checked how that exhaust is mounted, still on the rubber hangers?

I forgot to ask, what did you do with the HU that you pulled?

 

[OhSix]

What are your thoughts on the ScanGuage II. I've considered one, just never got around to buying.

I'm certain that some sound deadening in that cabin would help.

Have you checked how that exhaust is mounted, still on the rubber hangers?

I forgot to ask, what did you do with the HU that you pulled?

Thought on Scan Gauge is: MEH. It's fine for what it is but the Torque App does everything Scan Gauge does, plus: it's configurable for analog/digital/combo gauge faces - each face can be sized according to preference - and you can have several pages of gauges and on the fly graphing too. And it logs selectable sensors, writing plain text straight into phone memory, which can be extracted as csv. The data can be exported and graphed and stored indefinitely.

Scan Gauge is great cuz its just there all the time - but once spoiled by Torque, the two line, 4 segment dot matrix Scan Gauge display screams 1995. A veritable dinosaur. In the end, both are just displaying info provided by ODBII, so in that sense they are identical. Torque is much more customizable, user friendly, more viewable at a glance. Torque also logs sensor data on board the mobile, so you get accelerometers & GPS that can be merged with vehicle data to show you where you were and what the vehicle was doing during any specific event. $16 for an OBD reader with serial Bluetooth profile and the Torque App gives you total portability and much more flexible user access to data.

The Greddy exhaust is Cat back. Looks nicely made and follows the stock path to rear exit - so heat shields and such remain in place - near as the eye can tell, the hangers are in original locations the entire length. In an earlier post I mentioned the shudder/shake/vibe happening @ idle when AC is engaged. When 01 was @ Harry's shop up on the lift, we were scoping out motor mounts and discussing that issue when I asked about the proximity of the A_Pipe to oil pan. Ever since then, he's been (more or less) saying he thinks the vibe is related to the A_Pipe. Having no point of reference what-so-ever, I'm dubious of that conclusion. The top of the pipe seems mighty close to the bottom of the oil pan but other than heat transfer, I fail to see how that contributes to this sometimes serious vibration. Once above idle, the compressor isn't noticeable and the motor winds up very smoothly, so the vibe a mystery for now.

Reading various forums, theres lotsa reports of the issue but haven't read far enough to confirm diagnosis & solution. I'm positive someone has figured it out by now.

Surprisingly, I've found no non-factory holes, taps, hangers, loom openings or any other evidence of alteration to factory sheet metal by after market/engine swap hackers anywhere - yet. The shift mechanism/pedal assembly openings, bolt holes and everything I can see firewall/pan related is untouched and factory sealed with correct grommets and body plugs. Which makes me quite happy.

This mornings ride was surprisingly (compared to last few freeway runs) quiet after getting passenger side glass lifted into place correctly. So far, the seller is resisting my offers to run up north/pick up the spares in his parents garage - so I'll hafta tough it out till he brings down the stock exhaust and rear bumper cover. BOO HOO, huh? Think I'll survive but I am really looking forward to a more "normal" drive experience. When I dig into the doors, I'll scope them out cuz there's a bunch of Cascade deflex laying in a garage box just in need of deployment.

The JVC is sitting in the garage but will likely end up being given to a local kid building his own beater. It's pretty old and featureless - no USB port - no handsfree or remote inputs so its pretty well useless that way. Plus the disc player was all tick.... tick... tick... so its just a radio now.

 

[OhSix]

3rd weekend dedicated to bring 01 into reliable and somewhat acceptable cosmetic condition.

Many, many, many loose/ill fitting/bad install tid bits fixed along the way.

Largest cosmetic impact has to be the new snout. Made in Taiwan, shipped across the ocean, stored in a warehouse, placed on a truck and driven to a private home in Any Town U.S.A. Ordered via Amazon, delivered to the drive way. All for $60. Stunningly inexpensive.

This is a 98/00 cover, which has different lower grill openings, no fog light recesses and a separate upper grill insert. After trial fit, Crappy LEDs found there way into a spot where their fugliness is hidden from plain sight.

Rewired the previously added license plate LEDs while at it.

 

[OhSix]

The kid came thru with OEM tail lights. Replaced the faded "custom" lights. She's coming together nicely.

Replaced the rattle can OEM door speakers with cheap Kenwood 6 3/4" mid woofs left over from 06 RL first audio system. They make sound but that's about all they do. Very weak low end but there's a plan to compensate for that.

Placed Soundstream crossovers inside the door. "Sealed" with aluminum tape, wrapped in closed cell foam, placed inside the lower front corners of front doors.

While doors were apart, cleaned everything up, found a home for a couple more of the fugly LEDs. Facing down at the back of each door, serving as perimeter lights. Not a fan of drilling into metal due to rust concerns, O rings were used to crush both inside and outside the door frame, hopefully sealing water from the bare metal hole.

Favorite tweets of all time (Dr. Heil's air motion transformers) are now available in a pod format. Perfect spot was found for them.

Towards the end of the day, it dawned on me the rear struts are accessed via removal of most of the ass end interior. So, in effort to shorten hours in Harry's shop when she gets raised up a couple inches, the entire interior trim was removed. This car is incredibly dirty, an even coat of fine black dust infects ever surface and hides behind every panel. Seat leather and seat belts stained. The rear deck was ridiculously dirty. Clean up of parts removed hasta wait till more time is available. In the mean time, she'll get dropped at Harry's shop sometime this week for a proper suspension tune up.

 

[Carsmak]

Room in there for those 6"x9" in that rear deck. They are NIB Blaupunkt, I'll have to dig them out to find specs but I had them for the Civic never got around to changing it out before sold it, IIRC. You should re-purpose the '06 Sub when you get into installing the new box for it...

From previous experience, if you do drill into the sheet metal, although the O-rings are nice slapping a little primer and paint on those places does wonders. Also once in the door, make sure the existing drain holes are clean and clear of debris, so they do there job.

Oh Yea, so tearing into the Passenger Door, did you figure anything out with the window regulator?

 

[OhSix]

Room in there for those 6"x9" in that rear deck. They are NIB Blaupunkt, I'll have to dig them out to find specs but I had them for the Civic never got around to changing it out before sold it, IIRC. You should re-purpose the '06 Sub when you get into installing the new box for it...

From previous experience, if you do drill into the sheet metal, although the O-rings are nice slapping a little primer and paint on those places does wonders. Also once in the door, make sure the existing drain holes are clean and clear of debris, so they do there job.

Oh Yea, so tearing into the Passenger Door, did you figure anything out with the window regulator?

Thanks man. There's a bit of a depth limit back there - trunk spring rods traverse directly under those non-standard OEM 6X9's. Briefly toyed with the idea of using Tang Band W69-1042J 6X9 subs but passed due to depth concerns - and the fact that in the end, subs on sheet steel is a big fat MEH. Full range might be OK but good bottom needs stout baffling, maybe even a circuitous vent. Besides, beaters get as few new parts as possible - and - with a bunch of unused audio gear taking up space in the garage, there's a mess of options. If you stumble across the Blue Points and they list a mount depth, lemme know but don’t go to any trouble. You know those 3” aluminum cone Fountek’s mounted as mid’s in 06? I’ve got enough of those around to do a quad array back there, which might be perfect in that application. 2 in each 6X9 opening mounted on 1/4” ABS plates would present a 4ohm load, and since they have a sweet mid/high range, they could serve as a decent rear channel fill set up that way. Also have a ½ case of very nice Definitive Audio 5 1/4 mid/woofs looking for a home. Might end up yanking the gawdawful Kenwoods and replace with the Definitive’s just for the fun of it. On the bass side, I’m going big in 01, partly to use up components parts on hand, partly to fill that listening space with the lowest octave available.

Yah, historically misting primer into drilled holes and/or applying a rubber coat is a good way to slow rust accrual in newly dilled metal. In this case, I didn’t bother cuz an O Ring on both sides *should* create a water/airtight cavity around the hole. When the doors were opened up, drain holes were poked with a wire tie from underneath, the interior joints were agitated with a stiff brush, followed by shop vac, followed by another brushing, followed by a good blast with the trusty garden blower. Then, the inner skins were bathed liberally with alcohol from a spray bottle. First spray was to knock down dust, second spray was followed by brushing with short/stiff nylon, a third spray to rinse away debris followed by a wipe down with damp towels as a final step before applying Cascade VB2 deflex. There’s 2 crash bars inside the doors, three panels of deflex the length of the sheet steel were stuck to the inside outer door skins - one above the top brace, one between the two braces, and one under. I was going too fast to grab pictures, but will when the panels come off next time. The car is so stupidly loud right now that there’s no way to know what impact the deflex had on interior noise while moving, but there is a noticeable difference in resonance when closing the doors. More thud, less ring.

The story this car tells me about her history is a bit confusing. The passenger side window was replaced at one time, its not OE, and I’ve found solitary pieces of tempered glass here and there. I’d guess the window regulator was replaced somewhere along the line, but that’s only based on the presence of gobs of grease along sliding rails. Perhaps she was victim of a break in or vandalism. Happily, all sheet steel appears original, so an accident isn’t the root of the glass breakage. I have no good explanation for the very fine black silt throughout the vehicle. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect she was sunk at one point. The dirt got in there somehow – its spread evenly and everywhere. Suppose it could be she sat somewhere w/windows open. Industrial debris? Rural air borne dirt? I’m glad to have gotten interior parts outta there before it goes to Harry’s. Most mechanics are brutal on interior parts. @ 15 years old, 01’s clips and such are getting brittle and need TLC when handling. The added coat of dirt on everything could be aggravating to an alignment guy. When I was “in the biz” there was nothing worse than a customer bringing in their rolling pig pen for an alarm or audio system.

The regulator is old school – not like the worm gear stuff we see these days. Motor is attached to a frame with its gear driving a fairly large toothed bow pushing and pulling the X mechanism clamped to the bottom of the glass. The toothed bow is the culprit on the passenger side – its teeth are worn at a spot about 2 teeth away from full extension to the up position. Opening up the door, removing the glass and extracting the regulator is a 10 minute job. Glancing around, after market regulators are about $80/pair. OEM is like $120/each. Although it bends personal rules for mechanical parts, 01 is going aftermarket.

One a side note, the new bumper cap is black plastic, ready for primer & paint. I have no intention of investing in paint – but maybe vinyl off in the future sometime. While assembling everything, I put the beat up crappy ol’ front license plate holder in place. PFFFT. It looked twice as bad sitting right there on new bumper skin. Faded and grey it was. So gave it a hot a bath and treated it to 3 coats of Bonda Black Restore. Looks pretty good for an old beat up nose guard. As I’m putting it on the new bumper cover, I thought bubble appeared overhead. Bondo Black the bumper. Cheap, easy, quick way to protect and darken the new skin. Another day perhaps.

 

[OhSix]

In the last episode of Fun With 01 Beater, the back end interior was out so Harry's crew could get at the rear coil over mounts. Didn't really need to tear everything out but once started, there was no stopping cuz the fine black silt like contamination was freaking everywhere on everything. Turns out, the shocks are still bound up, so.... the car still sits low. Thanks to youtube, there's some helpful info on freeing up adjustable shocks, so its up to me to get these things loose and adjusted a couple inches up.

While everything was out, cleaned the chit out of panels, vinyl, leather and everything else in sight. Most surfaces cleaned up nicely but some things, like seat belts and carpet will are probably permanently stained.

The GReddy exhaust drone has been addressed. Local muffler shop attached a Walker in place of the gigantic and worn out resonator/muffler/whatever.

Looking into the GReddy, the guts are pretty much corroded to crumble:

To convey a sense of how absurdly large this trash can sized thing is, that's my size 12 boot right there:

The exhaust is WAY more palatable, the car feels less "frantic". Butt dyno feels no loss of power. However... now that the mechanicals are audible above the exhaust drone, the motor has a bit of a buzzy sound. And the pipe tip might be considered weeny now.

Check out access to cabin air filters. Nothing like the 3 to 5 minute job in the RL. The knee panel, glove box and two cross braces have to come out in order to access the twin cartridge filter elements.

Aside from normal dust, the black silt and a mess of leaves were in there.

 

[OhSix]

Both window regulators were replaced with parts from A1 Auto. They are smooth, quiet and seal completely, making a big difference in road/wind noise.

While doors were apart, continued experimenting a with audio, the 6.75" Kenwoods installed a few weeks ago were replaced with 5.25" Definitive Audio. Much richer vocals now, but very thin mid bass.

Made a small effort to rattle proof and couple the door panels to the mounting ring.

Borrowed the seldom used sub box from the motorhome - its my camp site box - but it takes up too much space to transport and not much fun to move around so... I've got another idea for camping. Why not throw in the beater trunk and get some bottom end bumping? It certainly does the job in this little car.

Returned the intake system to stock. The reasoning there was based in difficulty finding a 2.5" throat conical filter to replace the filthy AEM. And 3" version filters alone were $50. The whole idea of a "cold intake" system drawing air from a hot engine compartment makes no sense whatsoever to me. So, for the low low price of $120, an OEM system replaces the tuckered out AEM. It was an ill fitting kludge anyhow, so bye to it.

Yesterday, I ran the Sea Foam intake cleaner thru the system. MAN! Does that stuff make some white smoke! It also served a second purpose. Some of that smoke appeared under the hood, coming from the top of the heat shield covering the headers. Sea Foam revealed an diagnosed gasket leak. Damn.

Aside from freeing up the coil over adjusters, and doing something about the newly discovered exhaust leak, things are pretty well done. Oh, and a new set of tires. There's a wob, wob, wob tire noise at low speeds coming from the rear end. Pretty sure thats the right rear tire suffering from a nasty case of negative camber.

Two tanks of fuel so far. According to Fuelly, 22.5 average. That includes some sporty driving.

 

[Heli ATP]

Looking good OhSix.
How does final cost compare to proposed budget? Let us see some before and after pics.

 

[Carsmak]

Morning Six,

I'm thinking that the "gray dust" could be leaving the windows open (or having them opened via broken window) in the LA Basin (where the Accord was previously). I lived in Rancho Cucamonga years ago and there was a non stop gray dust crap on everything. Smog creates some nasty fallout. It may also explain the AEM filter.

I have one more thing for you to check on that exhaust manifold, pull the heat shield, and get a mirror and check all 4 pipes on the manifold. All the way around and where the "Y's" come together. On 90's Civics and Del Sol's the cast iron manifold is prone to cracking. I've replaced or repaired 5 manifolds between the 375k miles those two little road warriors of ours in a combined and overlapping 17 years of ownership. Actually I'll be repairing or replacing the one on my Del Sol, as is more than likely won't pass smog at the next check. My Guy pointed out the crack when checking it this year. So I've got about 18 months or if I sell it sooner to replace that manifold.

You may check and see if a header is available for that motor...

https://www.summitracing.com/search/part-type/headers/make/honda/model/prelude

Although more than likely not able to be shipped to California...