CyborgGT : 1993 Accord EX wagon

[CyborgGT]

Little somethin' somethin' on the way, ETA Thursday...



They'll need a bit of body work, but one more "dream part" is checked off the list. If you're on IG and don't already follow that page, they're an amazing resource you can trust, and they seem to love Accords. I got my JDM fog lights from them as well. They get one-piece headlights in all the time.

It's kind of funny to think that I went through the trouble of getting USDM '92-'93 sedan side moldings and painting them, which was a pretty nice upgrade itself, just to take them back off before I even got to drive my car. That's how long this build has taken. I'm trying to get in touch with a tuner though (currently waiting on a reply to a voicemail I left); the dyno should be all I need to get my wagon registered...

[CyborgGT]

...But I took advantage of my time away from home. The friend I stayed with lives twenty minutes away in the next city over, but that is also where my wagon is kept. He manages the storage center, and has an apartment on-site. And not only did I work on the wagon, but one of the things I grabbed from my apartment when I had the chance to go back was my RC car. It's been sitting for probably a couple years at this point, but it's now got a new body, control arms, electric motor, rear diff, heat sink and cooling fans for the motor and ESC, and a mesh cover to keep dirt and water off all that stuff in the chassis interior. I'm getting better at not beating the crap out of this thing, so hopefully the major parts I replaced last longer this time around.




Back to the real car, the glove box came back out so I could wire the gauges to the ECU. I also took the chance to clean up my lazy job with the wire slack in this area, as well as add an aux wire to the back of the stereo to go with the USB port that was already routed into the glove box.




For the wideband I replaced the factory O2 sensor at pin D14 as seems the norm, but the other three were plugged into the analog inputs on the S300 board. For some reason I was sent an ECU with two ten-pin connectors for the analog prongs, but no 8-pin connector for the serial. It should be obvious by now that I barely know what I'm doing here, but am I correct in guessing that's for more advanced datalogging anyway? The tuner should still be able to utilize the analog inputs for a proper tune, correct?




All back together, with the USB plug hole once again spider-proofed with some electrical tape. Notes were made for the tuner so they know which analog inputs go to which gauges.




I got the front end on jack stands again to get some shots of the exhaust and also get a look at that oil leak. It's looking like it might actually be a cam seal already, but since it seems to be a very minor leak, I'm going to leave it for now, get the car on the dyno because I need it drivable asap, and then address the leak afterwards. I've already got both OEM cam seals on the way (I can't remember what brand the ones on there are), as well as the coolant hose that twists off the top of the oil cooler because that has a very slight leak as well.




Here's where it expands from 2.5" to 3". I'm wondering if this is why my exhaust is so much louder than I thought it would be. I might end up going with a full 2.5" after all. But that is a mod for a much later day... and it would be interesting to compare on the dyno! Since the expansion is after the flange, I could have a 2.5" back section made up, again using a Vibrant Street Power muffler to be more apples-to-apples, and have a back section that could be very easily swapped right there at the dyno's shop for a comparison on the same day with the same weather conditions. But I know from experience that mufflers with baffling material have a bit of a break-in period and that does make a little bit of a difference to the sound, so I'll give that a chance to see if things improve. I'm just surprised it's so loud, given the cat, two resonators, and muffler. I of course haven't gotten the engine past a few thousand RPM, but the tone right now is deep, rather than super raspy. It's sounding very promising, I can't wait to hear it at full tilt!




With coilovers in the future providing less suspension droop, this will be able to be tucked higher up:




And finally, a random engine bay shot because I like looking at it, haha. Can't wait for the tuning to be over so I can put my red valve cover on there (it covers the cam gears).




Priority plans moving forward:

- Keep a close eye on the engine to make sure it's leak-free and reliable. I'd really like to drive out to South Dakota for my vacation at the end of July, but that also depends on when the tuner can fit me into their schedule. I should be contacting them within the next week or two.

- Recaros & Nardi wheel, because I want the important parts of the interior to match the engine.

- Fortune Auto 500 coilovers. A full focused chassis/suspension build was planned for further down the line, but I really want to address the low-hanging exhaust asap. These might come sooner than the seats and wheel if I'm immediately bottoming it out on hard dips, with all the road construction going on locally.

- The daily RSX also badly needs attention all over, so after the parts listed above are in, the wagon won't be seeing any changes for quite a while.

[SSMAccord]

This seems like a very chaotic few weeks, I’m glad it seems to be wrapping up.

[CyborgGT]

May has been an interesting month for me. It kicked off at the end of April when the smoke alarm in the apartment I share a wall with woke me up. I've come to assume it's peoples' cooking and that it'll shut off soon, so I waited... but it didn't stop. So I go out into the hall and smoke is filling up these two upper floors of the building. I had planned on knocking on their door, but if it's gone this far and I'm not hearing panicked voices, they're apparently not home. I reach for their door handle and for some reason it's unlocked (turns out one of them works just down the street), so I open it and immediately feel the heat. I call the fire department, and then me and the old lady who lives across the hall run around getting people out of the other 9 units in the building.




Turns out it was an electrical fire, from something like a bad power strip or device charger. I didn't get the full details. The girl who lived there happen to come home right as the fire was put out, she called her boyfriend home from his nearby work, and after some watching and waiting, the rest of us were allowed back inside. Luckily the fire didn't spread outside of their unit, but the building has been around since the early '70s when asbestos was still used in construction. For a couple days, I would walk past their newly sealed-off door with its warning that there might be asbestos inside. That sign was soon changed to this one you see here, signaling that there is most definitely asbestos. That door right next to it? That's mine.




Monday rolls around and I get a knock on my door, and before I could get out of bed a fire restoration team lets themselves in. Imagine sitting up in bed, half asleep, and looking out into your living room to see people in hazmat suits kneeling down on the floor inspecting your carpet. The next day, I get notification from the property managers that "higher than normal levels" of asbestos were detected in the main hallway, and everyone in the building was told we have 24 hours to grab essentials and evacuate for 7-10 days while they clean up the hallway and await test results from those individual apartment inspections. I decide to stay with a good friend rather than deal with hotel reimbursements from insurance. At one point, I drove by the building just to see how it looked. There's an identical door to the one on this side directly opposite on the other side of the building, and this plastic perimeter was erected fully from one door to the other around one end of the building.




A few days into 'exile,' I get word that my own apartment passed inspection. Three other apartments weren't so lucky, thanks to smoke carrying asbestos into their units. I also feel like it may have been from the tenants of those units tracking it in themselves on their shoes during the time before the hallway was sanitized. Personally, I've always been strict about no shoes in my apartment, leaving them on a doormat I have right inside the door, so that might have been what saved me, but I can't be sure. Those in the affected units lost everything soft they owned - clothes, furniture, etc - because anything absorbent could never be properly cleaned.

Still, while everyone else who passed inspection was allowed back into their apartments on the 10th, I was not. Because my door was right next to the burned unit's and the restoration team needed to make a sealed exit from the building so they could gut that apartment, my door was blocked and I wasn't allowed to return home for another few weeks. However, there was a short window of time between the others being allowed back home and half the hallway being sealed off. I used it to grab a few more things from my apartment to keep me occupied while I was away. At that time I walked around the building and saw three more doors sealed off, with asbestos warnings taped to the zippered plastic. The bushes outside, underneath the window of the burned unit, were also gone - makes sense, since the firefighter who was inside had to break the window and the contaminated glass fell down.

I stopped by a couple nights later to see the hallway sealed up. To get an idea of how much is blocked off, know that there are three floors, with four units on each floor. Staircases on both sides of the building, with their own exits on the middle floor. Six units in total sealed off, either because they were contaminated or because, like me, one other door had to be blocked out of necessity.






I evacuated on April 27th, and didn't get the okay to return home until May 25th. At least they gave me the full month's rent back. Of course, the people in the burned unit aren't back (I don't think they will be) because that one has to be completely remodeled, and I can see through the open curtains that the people directly below them haven't come back yet either (they'd only lived here for a few months anyway). No signs or padlocks on the other two affected units upstairs, so they must be piecing their lives back together.


However, I did spend my time away getting the wagon ready for the dyno. Details soon...

[Size9zombie]

Looking good, that's an interesting intake setup.

[Raf99]

Thanks for the update. Time to do something with that valve cover too

[CyborgGT]

Finished the intake today. After doing some research on whether wrapping it in DEI heat tape would be worth it (since I have extra laying around anyway), it seems that some people measuring IATs get results while others do not. I don't really like the look of a gold pipe sticking out in the engine bay, but I wanted the functionality, so on the off-chance that it would actually work in my case, I decided to go with the 'best of both worlds' approach, painting the intake pipe to match KeeleDesign's valve cover and covering the bottom 1/2 or so of it in heat tape. The shiny gold is out of sight, but in recognizing that heat rises, maybe there will be that little bit of avoiding heat soak from the bottom of the pipe. Many pie-cuts were made to get it to lay down as flat as possible. I also swapped out the worm gears I was given for the PCV hose with OEM-style constant-tension clamps.






Here are some close-ups of the bracket the shop made to hold the filter enclosure in place. I love little things like this, and appreciate it all the more that the guy put more effort into the piece than was strictly necessary. It takes advantage of existing holes in the bay, as well as the bolts holding the filter together. I painted it the same black, only to immediately scratch it upon install when the wrench slipped.












I'm loving how this bay's turning out.




As a bonus, here's that header ground clearance I'm working with. I'm not riding as low as you guys, but you can at least see the relation to the oil pan. I also seem to have developed a slight oil leak on the back of the block...

[Rilas]

Summit Racing also offers chunks of oval piping with 90* bends and all.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/grn-313539

[Size9zombie]

I was guessing you had a pretty big downpipe. There's actually oval exhaust tube out there for cases like yours! It's not cheap, but one brand I found even has vertical elbows that combine the transition from round to oval, which they'll design to your needs: https://spintechmufflers.com/vertica...ons-on-a-bend/

I have used oval piping like that on my Civic I used to have that I used in the ST class years ago. That car was near static and I had good clearance where a round pipe was pretty much dragging the ground.

[CyborgGT]

Ha... I'm working with a 3" exhaust that I'm trying to stuff under the oil pan on coilovers. It's the lowest point under the car and I wish there were options; like a flat pipe which doesn't reduce flow. My flex pipe is always scraping, I want to go lower with the car but cannot due to this. I'd say my only option would be go out the side of the car from the engine bay but too loud! I currently run two resonators to get the car quiet and it's still too loud.

I was guessing you had a pretty big downpipe. There's actually oval exhaust tube out there for cases like yours! It's not cheap, but one brand I found even has vertical elbows that combine the transition from round to oval, which they'll design to your needs: https://spintechmufflers.com/vertica...ons-on-a-bend/

[Raf99]

Ha... I'm working with a 3" exhaust that I'm trying to stuff under the oil pan on coilovers. It's the lowest point under the car and I wish there were options; like a flat pipe which doesn't reduce flow. My flex pipe is always scraping, I want to go lower with the car but cannot due to this. I'd say my only option would be go out the side of the car from the engine bay but too loud! I currently run two resonators to get the car quiet and it's still too loud.

[CyborgGT]

I recall that he trimmed his header to tuck in more closely to the oil pan. I think thats what you are referring to? I also have that issue and haven’t quite worked out a feasible solution yet.

Yeah, you still have the PLM 4-2-1 header too, right? This post shows what I did; I just trimmed a bit off the "male" tubes in the header primaries so that the "female" tubes could go higher. I ended up with great ground clearance now with everything in place. I'll try to get more photos up soon. But like I said, something happened with the little loops that the slip joint bolts pass through, so you might have to be more careful if you want to maintain those. As for your turbo setup Raf99 , I have no idea since I think yours would be very different from mine. I'd have to see what you're working with.

[CyborgGT]

Hmm, I was under the impression that having the wideband plugged into the ECU isn't absolutely required. I've seen enough cars without them just have a sensor stuck up the tailpipe for the dyno. On the stock O2, my car is currently running and "drivable," lol. I'll be sure to wire it in, though, thanks for the tip Rilas . May as well do it right and not make things difficult for the tuner.

Do I just ditch the factory narrowband then, or does the ECU still need to read that as well since it's still technically a factory ECU?

[SSMAccord]

I recall that he trimmed his header to tuck in more closely to the oil pan. I think thats what you are referring to? I also have that issue and haven’t quite worked out a feasible solution yet.

[Raf99]

Thanks for the updates man! When I jack my car up my exhaust hits my FFC rear control arms too. But my issue isn't this part of the exhaust, mine is the part that goes under the oil pan which sits super low. How is that not an issue for you?