CyborgGT : 1993 Accord EX wagon

[Grumpys93]

I hate those two bolt with a passion. I was lucky to not have to deal with the fuel straps. I love that premium unleaded decal, nice touch like you said, only you will see.

[CyborgGT]

Even on cars that didn't have the rack, there are studs welded into the channels under the roof strips. Thankfully the rack came with its own set of shorter strips to cover the gaps between the posts, or I'd have been cutting mine up. I can see myself going back and forth with the cleaner 'slick top' look.

[Raf99]

For sure! But I'm curious how does it get installed? Bolts through the car?

[CyborgGT]

Boredom and curiosity led to me installing the roof rack tonight. I just wanted to see for sure how it all secured onto the roof; restoration will be a project for probably next summer/fall. But after it was all bolted in and I was yanking on it to see how rigid the whole thing is (it's pretty damn solid), it got me thinking about the underbody bracing that Ultra Racing offers for our cars... could this roof rack be secretly serving as a 6-point brace to help against unibody twist?! One can hope...

[CyborgGT]

That adjustable toe bolt that always seizes up on these cars, too. I pulled the whole subframe assembly for that one and just cut it out.

But it didn't take long in this case to decide that the strut bolt wasn't worth saving, and then once I got the grinder it was out in no time. I got new hardware from Ace, and was generous with the anti-seize when I put everything back together.

[Raf99]

Man... besides the gas tank removal with rusted strap bolts, that rear stuck strut bolt is a PITA! I remember I spent hours on mine when it was stuck & looking as you have the rear knuckle off that was probably a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.

[CyborgGT]

So the car's going to be another winter in the storage unit. Too many little issues have been snowballing since I got the car home and thought I'd 'quickly knock some stuff out between shops.' Old car life though, right?

Going through photos, I didn't realize I never posted some of this here...



So yeah, got the car back. The battery died sitting on their lot for two months, so I connected it to a friend's charger and it still seems to be in good health.




I immediately started installing the new stereo system. Turns out whoever installed the deck that came with my car cut out the factory connector and just crimped in the deck's harness, rather than buying an adapter. I clipped a factory connector from the junkyard, but unfortunately the wiring that was left in my dash was barely long enough to work with and I felt like it was better to just crimp it in place because I couldn't get in there with a soldering iron. I did at least solder the stereo connector to an adapter and wrap it up nicely.






I'm loving the look. As for the placement of the GPS, from the perspective of the driver's seat, I just liked the positioning of the screen on the dash vs sticking it to the windshield. . It's not pretty from this angle, but I can live with that. It's just stuck to an adhesive-backed suction cup mount.




Small detail here that no one but me will ever see, swapping the Unleaded reminder for a Premium one to match the engine's needs.




Installed the horns behind the grille. I really didn't want them there, but there's just no room anywhere else behind the bumper. They're bigger than stock, so they didn't fit in the stock locations no matter how much I tried bending up the little mounting tabs that came with them, and I couldn't even lower them just out of sight below the grille thanks to the bumper beam pushing them too close to the a/c condenser for comfort. In an effort to hide them a bit, I painted the yellow cages with some truck bed liner I had laying around. But they're still not working. The relay's clicking when I hit either button, which takes those three pieces out of the equation, so it must be the clock spring. I need to get to a junkyard again...






Speaking of the condenser... that unit was complete garbage, you can see the little elbow of a pipe trying to occupy the same space as the radiator support. And because I scratched the hell out of it trying to install it without dismantling the front of the car more than strictly necessary (stupidly thinking there was no reason for it to not fit as it should), it couldn't be returned. Money down the drain. I've since found that Denso, the OEM, still makes theirs. I'll pick that up, but after the car's driving.




I noticed that my stepped adapter in the power steering line was leaking. Not surprising considering my choice of hose clamp style, on top of not being able to find perfectly sized hoses for the fitting. I beefed up the adapter with some soft, conformable material (plumber's tape and heat shrink) to better fill out the hose, as well as some OE-style clamps, and hoped for the best. This new setup's been sitting for a while now with no new leaks, so hopefully it's good now.








Spotted a coolant leak as well. Looks like I forgot to put thread sealant on one of the fittings...




I've been getting a lot of overtime at work, so I thought I'd give the car a simple, cheap lowering spring setup to hold me over until coilovers come during the big 'chassis/brakes/suspension' build. I just can't drive this thing at stock ride height. Same combo of Tein S-techs and factory spec struts (Monroe OE-Spectrums) that I did on my old sedan. All the internal bushings were replaced as well; the only pieces saved from the old strut assemblies were the bump stops and rear piston boots.




Of course, these things can't go smoothly. Not only were the rear lower strut bushings toast, but the bolts were seized into the bushing sleeves. Trying to unbolt them just twisted the bushings to shreds. So I had to dip into the budget to buy a grinder to cut the bolts out (I got sick of borrowing my friend's) and a bushing press kit to install some new OEM Honda bushings.




And then that couldn't go smoothly, either, and I had to pull the spindle off the car to be able to deal with the bushing itself. One of the trailing arm studs has to be knocked loose to fit my press kit in there. It took a wee bit of MacGyver to get the whole thing to work with the spindle's weird angles and tight confines they create, but I got it done. It was money I didn't want to spend, but I'm so happy that I can do bushings on my own now.








And done. You'll see a Megan camber arm up there, too; I noticed that bushing was pretty crispy looking, and the ball joint boot was split. At least the car should feel pretty tight now; there aren't many joints left on this car to replace. I actually tried ordering Megan's adjustable toe arms as well in case I need them for the car's alignment, but they were out of stock with an ETA of around a couple months. The next shop I'll be approaching for tuning builds a lot of race cars for autocross, road racing, and rally, so they offer performance-oriented alignments... it's tempting.

[CyborgGT]

have you ever seen the jdm wagons with the rear ceiling speakers?

The rear speakers are in the ceiling in all the wagons. Kinda sucks, because they're only 4" back there. There's also a single 6x9" in the driver side wall of the rear 'trunk,' but from what I was reading here on the forum, people were saying you can't really hear it because it's so far back. I guess I'll find out how well it all sounds soon enough.


I just got the car back to the storage unit this morning, though. Going to talk to a different shop to handle the fab and tuning. That first guy was having too much trouble keeping employees, so he was pretty much handling all of his customers himself.

[SSMAccord]

Sucks to hear about the hang up at the fabricator. Your A/V setup looks to be shaping up nicely though.

[Raf99]

have you ever seen the jdm wagons with the rear ceiling speakers?

[CyborgGT]

The noise was just the power steering pump; the engine sounded fairly normal once I removed that belt.

Car's been sitting at the fab/tuner's shop since May 7th, though. He's missed four appointments, and at this rate it's looking like the car won't be ready for a second vacation I have scheduled for it toward the end of July. Still, I've been collecting more parts to make it ready for a long road trip just in case. A budget stereo system, and the parts I need to get the A/C working.


*ED. - the deck came in today, so group photo:



- Garmin GPS. Debated for the longest time getting a deck with Garmin built in, but a) the mounting position in the CB is both awful for getting a good look at something like a map and of course there's our stupid cup holders, and b) a stand-alone unit can easily be moved between cars, which I know I'll want to do. Certainly doesn't hurt that the screen is bigger this way, too.
- Kenwood deck and install kit from Crutchfield. Somehow my first ever double-DIN, and I had to have something with a volume knob. The Kenwood single in my RSX is actually the same one I bought for my CB sedan about 12 years ago, and it's still kicking.
- Kicker speakers (6.5" and 4") for the main four, and an Alpine 6x9" for the rear cargo area.
- Hella Sharptone horns. My horns aren't working, and I'm sure I'll need to fix that to pass emissions. Wanted something louder.
- A/C condenser and drier, praying those are all I need to get that system working.

[Raf99]

Is it normal for forged internals and/or an engine that's not yet broken in to sound a bit chattery even at operating temp? Sounds more top-end, but I'm not sure. That's the only thing I'm worried about. ...........

My top end has always been chattery. Built bottom end but not built top end.

[Straight Success]

One of my favorite ongoing projects, and I've been too out of it to come in here and indulge. My bad. Give me a minute, and I'll get caught back up.

[CyborgGT]

The tuner finally got back to me today. Sucks I couldn't get it done during my vacation from work this week as we originally planned, but I'll be dropping the car off next Saturday to start the fab work. With me working overnight I'll do my best to be there for the dyno tuning to record pulls, but it's two hours round trip out of my day just getting there and back, and the work is done on his packed schedule, so we'll see. Knowing me, I might actually go a few days on only a couple hours of sleep just to see it. At least the delay gives me time to properly fix that oil leak first.

[SSMAccord]

Yeah, it’s very fulfilling to see this up and running finally. The dyno pulls should be a good time.