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SSMAccord : 1992 Accord EX

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  • SSMAccord
    replied
    2020 Projects / Winter is Coming

    All that was left was to wrap up the install of all of the parts. The new calipers, despite being on the smaller side, would require new wheels. The 17x7 ET55 TSX wheels would not fit over the calipers according to the fitment template. That meant a wider wheel, but I didn't want to go hella wide and deal with wheels that protrude too far from the fenders. I landed on 17x7.5" ET45 TSW Nurburgring wheels as it seemed that they would weigh less, have a slimmer spoke profile and relatively low cost for a wheel that can deal with track use. According to the template it would need a 3mm spacer to clear the calipers. This ended up not being the case, apparently the template is oversized and where they indicated interference there was none. The wheels actually fit with quite a bit of clearance from the calipers without spacers. To keep the rear visually similar and also match the increase in track width, I also decided to add a 5mm spacer to the rear wheels. A fresh set of Direzza Star Specs were sourced as they have proven pretty grippy and sturdy in previous driving excursions, they are also pretty cheap as well.


    Tires

    Rear Spacer



    All Assembled













    I did also decide on badges; A fresh OEM 'H' logo for the trunk lid and an EP3 Union Jack badge. I have always liked this badge for one reason or another. I haven't decided on placement, either where the Accord badge is normally located on the lower trunk lid or where the trim level badge is typically located on the filler panel below the tail light.

    Badging



    By this point it was Autumn and time to wind the CB down for the year since we use salt on the roads here and that is not really something the CB wants to be exposed to. I was able to drive for a couple of weeks though, but I suppose there are a few projects to undertake while the CB is confined to the garage.
    Last edited by SSMAccord; 12-21-2020, 01:06 AM.

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  • SSMAccord
    replied
    Originally posted by PakaloloHonda View Post
    Wow, Thankfully we never had to get THAT detailed when I bought my wagon, but maaannn ...
    My interior was and is still pretty darn clean, but wow ... I thought we did quite a bit of work, lol ...

    AMAZING job my friend!
    Thanks. Your CB is one of the greats though!!

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  • PakaloloHonda
    replied
    Wow, Thankfully we never had to get THAT detailed when I bought my wagon, but maaannn ...
    My interior was and is still pretty darn clean, but wow ... I thought we did quite a bit of work, lol ...

    AMAZING job my friend!

    Leave a comment:


  • SSMAccord
    replied
    Originally posted by Rilas View Post
    Great job on the ducting. I've been thinking about working on a set of possibly ducts and a set of shields that will help cool the brakes as well.

    Did you actually test fit the Legend brake dust shields. I'm seriously wanting to try this and see if even just redrilling the holes and mounting it will work, instead of building the shields. I'm not opposed to DIY projects and such but a mostly bolt on option is preferable.

    Again great job overall on the brake ducting and cooling setup.
    Thanks.

    I was actually planning to run the entire Legend knuckle, but I wasn't confident the Legend LBJ would fit the CB LCA or that a LBJ that would fit the CB would also press into the Legend knuckle. I don't think that the Legend shield would work on a front mount style knuckle due to the mounting ears needing to occupy that same real estate. That said, the Brembo equipped 3rd Gen TL models (6 speed or Type-S) have a shield that does have a protrusion on it that seems to be meant for directing air to the rotor. I am not sure how effective this part is, but it seems to have been warranted in the engineering process. It also looks like the 2nd Gen RL shield follows a similar style to the TL shield, possibly with the addition of the area above the caliper also being bent to catch air as well.

    TL Brembo Setup
    Last edited by SSMAccord; 12-16-2020, 11:24 PM.

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  • SSMAccord
    replied
    Originally posted by CyborgGT View Post
    Incredible ingenuity. I've been wondering about a cold air source for my intake, so I might have to steal that FK8 duct idea from you and tweak it a bit. Looks like it might work perfect with the ducts on my lip. Is your lip from a 240SX, by the way, like Moises'?

    Are you going to be doing a lot of hard driving, though? Because I used to want to get the DC5 ITR brake duct system for my RSX with all the mountain driving I do, but someone I talked to who had it said it cooled the brakes too much for normal street driving, which is of course also unsafe. I ended up being fine just upgrading pads (which admittedly aren't the best in traffic either - Hawk HPSs) and going to slotted rotors. I'm very interested in your experience with this full cooling setup.
    Thanks. This would probably work for that. I am also trying to find a cold air feed location. There are vents facing the ground to the right of the passenger side brake duct that might fit the bill for a fresh air source. Or I may try to route around the power steering pump and feed in air from beside the radiator, a setup similar to how MarcusV8Thunder ran his cold air feed. Luckily, it's winter and I can brainstorm on that while it's inconvenient to be outside tinkering with project cars.

    It will likely attend 5-6 HPDEs a season. It was only 2-3 before. I was running HPS pads before, but now I am running stock S2K pads for street duty and HP+ pads will be the track pad choice. For bedding pads I will have to cover the openings with painter's tape, if I find that the cooling works too well I can either take the ducts off or cover the openings with clear headlamp film as a possible temporary solution.

    It is the S14 Silvia lip, it seemed to have large enough ducts to make the brake ducts work as I intended. It also seemed to have a sleeker aesthetic which also appealed to me. I did have to tweak the lip to make it follow the shape of the CB bumper (rounded rectangle) where the S14 is more of and oval shape. You can see the braces in some of the pics.
    Last edited by SSMAccord; 12-14-2020, 11:48 PM.

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  • Rilas
    replied
    Great job on the ducting. I've been thinking about working on a set of possibly ducts and a set of shields that will help cool the brakes as well.

    Did you actually test fit the Legend brake dust shields. I'm seriously wanting to try this and see if even just redrilling the holes and mounting it will work, instead of building the shields. I'm not opposed to DIY projects and such but a mostly bolt on option is preferable.

    Again great job overall on the brake ducting and cooling setup.

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  • Grumpys93
    replied
    Yep stealing this Duct modification nice work!

    Leave a comment:


  • CyborgGT
    replied
    Incredible ingenuity. I've been wondering about a cold air source for my intake, so I might have to steal that FK8 duct idea from you and tweak it a bit. Looks like it might work perfect with the ducts on my lip. Is your lip from a 240SX, by the way, like Moises'?

    Are you going to be doing a lot of hard driving, though? Because I used to want to get the DC5 ITR brake duct system for my RSX with all the mountain driving I do, but someone I talked to who had it said it cooled the brakes too much for normal street driving, which is of course also unsafe. I ended up being fine just upgrading pads (which admittedly aren't the best in traffic either - Hawk HPSs) and going to slotted rotors. I'm very interested in your experience with this full cooling setup.

    Leave a comment:


  • SSMAccord
    replied
    2020 Projects / Brake Refresh

    Since the suspension was all torn apart it was also an opportune time to refresh the brake system as well. The rotors were coming due for replacement after a few recreational track days and age, but I also wanted to try to address the tendency for the car to experience brake fade and also do a little bit of an upgrade as well.

    The brake fade issue was a bit of a concern, as losing braking power in recreational driving is dangerous and definitely a hit to driving confidence. I figured that increasing airflow to the front brakes would be warranted to try to actively cool the front brakes. The CB has no stock provisions for cooling the brakes, which is less than ideal. The stock front bumper doesn't any great openings to get air in without possibly opening up and utilizing the foglight area. Even then, those openings feed into the fender liner/washer reservoir area and I didn't want to chop up my front bumper either. Naca ducting was also an option, but I didn't want to have to deal with routing the hoses either.

    Since I always planned to add an aftermarket lip I figured that would be an easy way to get a bit of airflow. After a bit of research and not finding a cost effective solution in the aftermarket brake duct space, I landed on OEM FK8 Civic Type-R ducts. These turned out to be $14 each and fit the bill for what I imagined.

    FK8 Duct 1


    FK8 Duct 8


    Being that the CB was not intended to have brake ducts, a bit of modification was needed to fit them. The duct had to be modified to clear the front crossmember; a groove had to be cut out of the upper to make it narrower. Only a small channel is pictured, but the channel ended up having to run all the way into the oval depression in the end. The metal mounting tabs had to be drilled out as they weren't going to be used. Mounting it to the lip was pretty simple after that bit of modification.

    Modified Duct


    Modified Duct 2


    Mounted Duct


    Mounted Duct 2



    To make space for the duct and also allow it to fit snug below the fender liner, the front bumper and lower splash shield also have to be trimmed.

    Bumper Before Provision Cut


    Bumper After Provision Cut




    In further attempt to mitigate brake temps, a change to a more track oriented pad compound was in order. It was also pretty easy to upgrade the rotors, I had been running the 300mm x 25mm RSX Type-S rotors and the change to TSX rotors would allow me to upgrade to a 28mm thick disc and also a slightly more dense heat sink at the expense of an increase in unsprung weight. The issue is that DC5/CL7 rotors have 64mm hub bores and the Odyssey hubs 70mm. I dremeled the DC5 rotors way back when, and decided I didn't want to hassle with that anymore. I managed to acquire some pretty rusty 98-02 V6 Accord knuckles that I could rehab.

    98-02 Accord V6 Steering Knuckle





    I also stripped the rust and treated the knuckles to the encapsulation/rustoleum process. The splash shields were beyond saving so I acquired new ones. The new splash shields also allowed me to try to find a way to direct the air from the brake ducts to the rotors/hubs. Using a little bit of creativity and some sheet aluminum I managed to come up with a sizeable yet light deflector that protrudes about 2.5 inches inboard of the wheel and hopefully feeds air to the caliper and rotor similar to how a 92-95 Legend shield deflects air, which was where I got the initial idea. Also I was being cheap and didn't want to pony up the money for the Honed Motorsports air guide kit which I think also gets solid reviews.

    Legend Knuckle / Deflector


    98-02 Accord Splash Shields


    Duct Mock-Up


    Duct 1


    Trimmed Splash Shield


    Knuckle


    Assembled Knuckle w/ Duct






    I also figured it was time to refresh and upgrade the brake calipers. I wanted to upgrade from the stock AP1 caliper to something more robust, but also not end up with an unreasonably low offset or wheel width/spacer. The options were the RL caliper which would also mean that I would need to change my rotors for the 12.6" units. The downsides to the RL units are its size and limited track pad offerings; I still have the TL Brembo calipers from ages ago but those were only viable when I was running AP1 rotors and and they are also pretty wide in addition to needing to ream out the mounting bolt holes in the knuckles. I decided to go with a simpler solution that aligned with the parts that were already being used.

    There happened to be a pandemic inspired sale at JHPUSA and I picked monoblock Spoon calipers meant for the CL7 which paired up with the new CL7 rotors, though they are a tight fit over the 28mm rotors. Using the template, it did seem like a 3mm spacer would be needed to clear the caliper but would also be reasonable in terms of wheel fitment. The downside is that the it retains the DC5/AP1 pad size which is on the smaller side. I also picked up some remaufactured rear calipers from Rockauto to round that out. Unfortunately the Spoon blue caliper color wasn't really the direction that I wanted to go; so I sent them out to be stripped and powder coated using Galaxy Gold from Prismatic Powders. The final color was a bit more saturated than I anticipated, I figured that it would look appropriate once it was mounted and inside of a dark wheel barrel though.

    Spoon Box


    Caliper


    Post Powder Coating



    Looking at the change in the piston diameters by adding 4 piston calipers from the single piston calipers, it seemed like the brake bias would move forward. To try to shift some of the bias rearward without moving to an adjustable proportioning valve, a larger rear rotor was in order. The solution was to upgrade to the 282mm rotor used in the 05-07 Accord Hybrid. It uses the same pad as the CB7 but uses a different caliper bracket. The calipers themselves cannot be used as the E-brake cable mounting is different. The CB caliper mates to the bracket and then to the CB/CD rear knuckle but does need an 18 gauge machine bushing to center the bracket over the rotor. In an attempt to match the fitment of the front wheels, a 5mm spacer would be needed as well.

    DC2/98-02 Rear Rotor vs. CM Hybrid Rear Rotor




    CB Rear Bracket vs CM Rear Bracket



    Assembled Rear Brake 1





    The front calipers mounted without a hitch...mostly. I ended up needing to modify the upper vane of the deflector to give clearance for the brake hose. I also used a corner brace bolted through the fender liner to support the rear exit of the brake duct.

    Knuckle on Car


    Caliper Mounted 1


    Duct Exit
    Last edited by SSMAccord; 12-14-2020, 01:41 AM.

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  • SSMAccord
    replied
    Originally posted by Raf99 View Post
    I'm also running:

    1 x 900W amp (2x 400W 10")
    1 x 300W amp (2 x 300W 6")
    HID lights
    etc

    With the ELD deleted and S300 running the show things can get quite complicated, the alt output is a set point & your battery has moved. Sure, 'better safe to be sorry'. I mainly added it to smooth things out and help the battery hold a change / stop ALT from working too hard. For me it was lessons learned as well, bc you're trying to calculate CCA and all the other complexities. ie; your car doesn't run as long when your battery is dying (fuse box location to battery is lengthened now). If you're using your ELD and start loading on the power pull I'd think a volt meter would show a constant ALT/BATT pushing +13V to reach the trunk.
    I am running HID ballasts...which I didn't even think about. The harness was tapped into the (+) battery lead originally but I must have moved it to a different source when I rebuilt the harness a while back. I might have tapped into the 12V for the power steering pump this time.

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  • Raf99
    replied
    I'm also running:

    1 x 900W amp (2x 400W 10")
    1 x 300W amp (2 x 300W 6")
    HID lights
    etc

    With the ELD deleted and S300 running the show things can get quite complicated, the alt output is a set point & your battery has moved. Sure, 'better safe to be sorry'. I mainly added it to smooth things out and help the battery hold a change / stop ALT from working too hard. For me it was lessons learned as well, bc you're trying to calculate CCA and all the other complexities. ie; your car doesn't run as long when your battery is dying (fuse box location to battery is lengthened now). If you're using your ELD and start loading on the power pull I'd think a volt meter would show a constant ALT/BATT pushing +13V to reach the trunk.









    Leave a comment:


  • SSMAccord
    replied
    Originally posted by Raf99 View Post
    Nice update. And ya, I believe I spent 4+ hours on installing that front ESP upper bar. OMG what a pain. Literally had to drop the suspension, one side of the car higher than the other... finally beat it on. Tight fit is good though
    Please tell me you don't drive this in the winter now. As for the electrical. The only thing I did different eventually was added a ground from battery to transmission. I think with everything on or off it was questionable if the circuit ground return to the battery was sufficient. Especially for the major ground items (#1 the engine/trans , dist, fuse box, starter). OEM it's a quick short route battery ground near major player grounds. Now there's a path. Hard to say what it helped with exactly, i did see better / faster starts and less battery drain over time with car off. I'm not smart enough to know of the cons for breaking that OEM setup. I suppose only the battery suffers but if so then you're over using your alternator to charge the battery all the time.
    The ESP bar install is tedious, but I suppose the benefits are worth the effort. I haven't seen any adverse issues from my setup as of yet, but it is only recently installed so those may arise sooner or later. I actually planned to run a ground from the trans to the battery, but I couldn't find a space in the firewall that I was comfortable making hole for the negative port to mount into. So I adhered to what the BMW setup did and ran 2 short grounds.

    The CB goes away for the winter due to road salt and such. Unless, the daily has an issue in the winter, the CB stays in the garage until springtime.

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  • SSMAccord
    replied
    Originally posted by owequitit View Post
    I'm glad my DIY was able to help figure that out! I figured the pics were probably gone. I downloaded everything, but haven't re-hosted them since I was hoping we would be able to eventually do it here and I wouldn't have to redo the links more than once.

    Car is looking good and the suspension refresh should make it feel like a million bucks!

    Question: I couldn't tell from the pics, but did you media blast the control arms before you refinished/rust coated them? I think a media blaster is on my "to do" list so that I can generally clean stuff up.

    Keep up the great work! Seeing your progress on this old gal is upping my motivation level and probably a lot of other people's too.
    I used the electrolysis rust removal process on the rusty parts. While it takes a bit of time for the process to work, the saved labor from sanding and scraping was a worthwhile trade off. It leaves the parts with a blackish patina that has to be scrubbed before painting though. I figured these didn't warrant the cost of media blasting being that they are functional parts and exist in the dark recesses of the underbody.

    Thanks for the support! We are a pretty tight community these days, glad to be a part.

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  • SSMAccord
    replied
    Originally posted by CyborgGT View Post
    Wish I hadn't thrown my wagon's rear toe arms in the trash after installing the FFCs, or I'd just send them to you. As for the front sway bar, I do searches on here and people always seem to talk down the need for a front upgrade, but it made a massive improvement on my RSX, which is pretty stiff from the factory. On that car, I installed the rear bar first, then the front about six months later just to feel the individual changes. I feel like I noticed a bigger change with the front bar than the rear. I'm definitely stiffening up the front on my wagon; these cars have way too much body roll stock. None of our options are stiff enough that they'll be pulling up on the inside tire in a hard corner.

    Looking good, though. Gold's a fantastic contrast color with black.

    I see the elongated hole on the ESP bar. Did it not fit?
    Yeah, I think I will experiment the CL bar, but I wont be able to really determine if I need it until after the next track day. Hopefully the refreshed bushings will bear out the balance of the chassis tuning and I can tweak it from there.

    The ESP bar is a tight fit. It is difficult to say if its the bar fitment or a 28ish year old chassis that might be distorted from past incidents with a curb or two. That said, it was necessary to modify that mounting point otherwise every time that the bar has to be removed a front coilover has to be removed and that sounded like a larger inconvenience in the long run.

    Gold was kinda a theme in certain areas, I hadn't planned on it being for these parts but the universe dictated differently. I do wish that all of the golds matched, but I suppose these parts don't have to match the gold of the H in the steering wheel.

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  • Raf99
    replied
    Nice update. And ya, I believe I spent 4+ hours on installing that front ESP upper bar. OMG what a pain. Literally had to drop the suspension, one side of the car higher than the other... finally beat it on. Tight fit is good though
    Please tell me you don't drive this in the winter now. As for the electrical. The only thing I did different eventually was added a ground from battery to transmission. I think with everything on or off it was questionable if the circuit ground return to the battery was sufficient. Especially for the major ground items (#1 the engine/trans , dist, fuse box, starter). OEM it's a quick short route battery ground near major player grounds. Now there's a path. Hard to say what it helped with exactly, i did see better / faster starts and less battery drain over time with car off. I'm not smart enough to know of the cons for breaking that OEM setup. I suppose only the battery suffers but if so then you're over using your alternator to charge the battery all the time.

    Leave a comment:

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