CyborgGT : 1993 Accord EX wagon

[CyborgGT]

Had an annoying weekend...

Went to put the Spoon-style lip on to complete the front end for now, and it's not fitting as well as the sedan. This gap is how far off it is on both sides. It can be forced, but I think I'm just going to hold out until I find a Seattle Silver coupe/sedan bumper in the yards.




I went to a couple junkyards, first to one that had a Prelude VTEC. I was hoping to at least see the shifter assembly left behind (I don't want a CB's unless as a last resort), but the car was completely stripped of engine and trans setup. But I did order a Skunk2 shift knob, DC2 ITR boot, and Circuit Hero extender... and S2 magnetic drain plugs for the engine. I've got so many S2 parts going onto this car by now, I should apply for a sponsorship to hit the Colorado show circuit hard, haha. At the yards, I picked up a few small resto pieces. One thing I found interesting was this LX; I thought it was only the SE that got the black dash. Too bad my budget doesn't allow for this stuff right now. The 5-lug conversion parts in the yards were tempting me badly, too.






Anyway, I went to install some of the resto parts. The first was the driver inner door handle that was off-color. The door card alignment is off or something, and it was making it a massive pain to get the tan handle off. I ended up getting pissed at the thing and ripped it off, breaking the tabs, despite my original plan to keep it in case I ever need it.




Because of the removal troubles, I decided to take the whole panel off, only to break half the brittle clips doing so . And then I find this mess:




Ugh. I ripped all that plastic and tape out and did what I could to clip the panel back on. The new handle was tight to get in, and I can already tell it's going to be a bitch to get back off when I dig back in there to replace the clips and put a new moisture barrier in (I'll probably get a whole new panel), but at least I now know how to get it off without breaking it. I grabbed the one other, rear, inner door handle that the junkyard car had for future backup.




The next headache was the cigarette lighter. Whoever did this was a stupid genius. Rather than grabbing a replacement lighter bezel from a junkyard, they put serious effort into fabricating their own little bracket. It was a pain to rip out of there, too. There were plastic panel clips holding it on through those top holes, and then a strip of that thick double-sided adhesive along the bottom sticking it to the plastic underneath. And, of course, when I went to put the plastic bezel in (when I was at the yard, I pulled the whole lighter/bezel/wiring assembly), I accidentally broke it.





That sun visor was another junkyard purchase that didn't work out, either. ^


The Xenocron cam degree kit I ordered came in. I accidentally ordered a second degree wheel, not paying enough attention to the kit's contents to see that it already came with one, and then on top of that they accidentally sent me a third wheel. So if anyone already has dial indicators but needs a wheel cheap, let me know.

[CyborgGT]

Brent and Jamie were there, they were nice guys. Honestly, as much as they film nowadays, I was worried about walking in on that and disrupting things a bit. Luckily I didn't, but I was still out quick. I went to their previous shop almost ten years ago now to get a header welded up and stayed and talked to Brent for a while about the most random car shit. Definitely a chill dude. I'll be going to them for a tune, of course, so I want to make sure the CB is looking good in case it gets its 15 minutes of fame, haha. Gotta represent well; I see how many basket cases they do what they can with.

Coincidentally, up until last year I was living literally just down the street from BoostedBoiz Kyle's house. Small world.

[Rilas]

Cyborg, I'm ecstatic that you finally got yourself a wagon! I'm just late to the game replying. I've been keeping up with your progress since you got it.

I'm glad that after years of patience and rebuilding an engine that you didn't even have a chassis for yet, you finally have something to put it in. Once that machining gets done.

How cool were the guys at PFI Speed? I'm seriously debating taking Lola down to Denver when the F23A1 gets installed for some tuning. I can get it running well enough to drive it down there. Have Brent do all the cleanup in the tune on the dyno.

[SSMAccord]

That box is for the intake resonance system that mitigates intake noise on the stock intake. If you are deleting the stock intake you can remove it.

And the headlights look phenomenal. I need to take your inspiration and do some maintenance to my own. I love the progress!

[CyborgGT]

Block was dropped off at PFI today. They've got a friend that does re-sleeving, and the crank will be checked over and polished as well. Between the head, block, and what I was quoted for a tune, this is all coming in way under budget. What to spend the saved money on... haha.

I'm starting to really hate Colorado's weather. I woke up this morning to my phone going off, warning about blizzard conditions, icy roads, and to "Slow down!" I look outside and it's near white-out. Snowing heavy and sideways, even building up on the road despite it being warm this past week. I figure my day is scrapped, so I just go back to sleep. Wake up again around 2, I look outside and it's all sunny, no snow on the roads and it's pretty much melted from the yards. Very windy and a bit cold, but otherwise a pretty nice day.

[Raf99]

Yep, those headlights look amazing!

[CyborgGT]

Couple questions:

1) Anyone know what this is off hand? It's located behind the passenger head light, squeezed in between the battery and that side wall of the engine bay. There's a vacuum line on it hooked to the factory intake, as well as two wires: a black/yellow and a solid white. Just need to know if it's something I want to keep and hook back up when the H is in. I do plan on retaining all the creature comforts.



2) Performance spark plugs. It sounds like NGK Iridium IXs are a good plug to go with for my build and that going one step colder, to 7, is commonly recommended. Iridium being my choice for longevity rather than something that will look better on the dyno but need to be changed every 3-5k miles. I'm finding two part numbers, and I can't tell the difference between them other than that the -11 plug is pre-gapped (according to this page). Anyone familiar enough with the plugs to know if they are identical otherwise? If they are the same thing, why go through the trouble of putting a special pre-gapped option out there? Makes no sense to me...

- BKR7EIX/2667
- BKR7EIX-11/6988

https://www.summitracing.com/search/...eyword=bkr7eix

Summit lists those as Civic/S2000 specific, but aside from the heat index, they're physically identical to the Prelude specific 6-rated plug: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/n.../submodel/vtec

/ / / / /

Today was just finishing the headlights. Luckily the 3M film came off the one without leaving any sticky residue. While I was removing the intake to figure out where to mount and route the HID components, I found this sticker confirming the R134 conversion the seller told me was done. You never know if sellers are talking up their car for the sake of money, so it's just nice to see something official like this:




But the driver-side headlight was resurfaced and polished as the passenger's was, and both were hand-polished with Turtle Wax polishing compound, which is much finer than the polish in the Rain-X kit. Boy, did it help. These things look practically new now. The only way you're seeing swirl marks is if you hold a light right up to the plastic.

[Grumpys93]

Very creative with the glove box. I like the fact that it’s still functional. Most just create one big mounting plate and make the rest of the glove box useless.

[CyborgGT]

Got the DIY glove box gauge cluster in today. All I did was swap the outer skin onto the junkyard glove box I'd used to mount the bezel, since neither box is mint; I'll keep an eye out for a cleaner inner compartment for a permanent install. Crappy nighttime phone shots incoming...






It was a pretty simple creation. The bezel itself is plexiglass (because it's strong but flexible) cut to shape and hole-sawed to fit the gauges, then wrapped in black tweed. And then to mount it into the glove box, I spray painted some shelf pegs black to blend in (it does look better in person), drilled holes at carefully considered places (it took some trial and error to secure the bezel the way I wanted, as you can see), and super glued them in. The peg on the front of the bezel, at the bottom-right, is not glued in. With the way I angled the bezel a bit toward the driver, it wedges that peg in there strong enough to hold, while still being removable so I can pull the whole bezel to mess with the wiring if I need to. The gauges are all AEM: wideband, exhaust temp (right after I bought that analog gauge, they came out with a digital version, kind of annoying), fuel pressure, and oil pressure. And, of course, I was careful to design the whole thing to keep the normal functionality of a glove box, leaving room for the legal paperwork needed when I inevitably get pulled over just for driving a modified import.




At some point, this red interior definitely needs to go...

[PakaloloHonda]

I'm just trying to get mine up to your level, man. Yours is too clean

Arent they the bestest lil wagons ever? Gonna love following this ...

[CyborgGT]

Omy ... can I follow too?

I'm just trying to get mine up to your level, man. Yours is too clean


A very good thread just popped up at Honda-Tech, for those looking at OEM H-series intake manifold options. Turns out the Euro-R isn't the only one worth considering for real power potential...

[PakaloloHonda]

Omy ... can I follow too?

[CyborgGT]

Headlight-specific. Three feet of this stuff: https://www.ebay.com/itm/254234823670

And now I'm just realizing that I forgot I was supposed to wet the headlight down first and squeegee it flat. It's not like I haven't done that before for large stickers, either. Damnit!

[blazercrx]

did you use the headlight specific 3m film or the paint protective film to cover your lenses?

[Grumpys93]

I bought the headlights as they are. Eventually I'd like to find another set that doesn't have the high beam dishes painted, and just put yellow bulbs in there.

But the head was dropped off at Heads by Drew in Denver today, it'll probably be a couple months (which is fine by me, I hate working in the cold). He's a big name locally, so he's backed up. It's funny, I go in there with my Supertech parts and he says, "oh good, you brought me good parts, none of that Brian Crower shit." I didn't even know Brian Crower were bad parts, but boy does he not like them. Dodged a bullet there, since I was seeing good and bad reviews for every brand available, including Supertech.

I think next Monday when I have time I'll just go down to PFI and talk to them about who they go to to re-sleeve their blocks and look over the crank, etc. I'd prefer to support a local shop rather than ship it out, but it's of course a matter of finding someone I'd trust with a Honda block (i.e. not a domestic shop).

I heard that since Brian Crower’s son took over a while ago, their quality in parts has gone down. But I have supertech parts and so far have not had any issues with them.