[speedfoos]

UPDATE! Clutch Installed! - My D17 Adventure, Start the slow road to boost - No 56K!

OK folks.

I've been a d-series.org ghost since March 2005. I get on and post occasionally, made a few sigs for people, pissed a few folks off, bought a hat, and have generally had a good time. I'm going to start to document my slow road to a boosted EM2. I love my 03 EX with its D17A2, maybe its because I like to root for the underdog. Don't know, don't care. So this thread is going to be my diary of the steps I take to boost my D17 - and hopefully do it right, as well as dosument all the other work I put into this car. If you don't like it, that's fine, it's not your car. If you hate the D17A2, that's also fine, I'm sure you'll like it just fine when built and boosted. This is more for me to share what I feel is all the hard work I've put into my car so far, and all the work I will continue to put in. I will do most of the work myself, until it comes to dyno and tuning time. But that's at least a year down the road. Its time to save up for the EMS, turbo kit, cam, valve train, pulleys, disc brake conversion, sway bars, clutch and flywheel, new injectors, fuel pump, and fuel rail - I think that's it for planned upgrades!

History lesson.

I bought the car in 2005 for $3K because it had been totaled out due to excessive hail damage. For The previous owner beat the shit out of it, but also had sunk some cash into the suspension and wheels. It had 18K on the dial and I figured I got a pretty good deal. Here's the specs on my ride now and some good and bad side pictures.

2003 Civic EX
Megan Racing FU, RU, RL strut bars
Tein Super Street Coilover kit
17" Konig Holes Graphite
Sumitmo HTR Z IIs on the Konigs
N1 Stealth 2.5" cat-back exhaust
DC Sports ceramic header
Knockoff Ebay CAI
Exedy Stage 1 Full-face organic Clutch
Exedy Racing 11 pound flywheel
Revo Technica Short Shifter
Aluminum Shifter Bushings
Seibon CF hood
D16Y8 intake mani and TB (not installed yet)
DIY trunk shocks
Relocated battery to the trunk
M3 mirrors
TYC projector headlights
Blacked out tails
Kenwood head unit
2x12" KENWOOD eXcelon KFC-XW1202DVCs in the trunk
Kenwood KAC-8something powering the subs
Kenwood Excelon 6x9s
Stock fronts and tweets
Custom mp3 mount

Now for the pictures of the car as it was. Here a couple shots of the good side of the car. It was parked up against a building when the hail storm hit. This happened in 2003 in southern Germany, the car was 2 weeks old.

The good side

Another shot, not so bad

A round of golf anyone?

Ugh, hail.

Needless the car looked the shit. We moved from Germany to England and it got a little worse. The car made for a great conversation piece, only now I could understand them as they were speaking English instead of German, and I got lots of looks driving down the road, but for all the wrong reasons. I did some homework on body work, having not done a whole lot - tossed around the paintless dent removal/massage technique, but the dents were too small and too many. I thought about using dry ice to get them out, couldn't find enough for a reasonable price since I'm stationed in England now. Thought about pulling the dents, but then I sobered up. My only other options were to cut the panels off and replace them or bondo it. Well, I found the body panels, but freight to get them shipped over the UK was ridiculous, so I went with the Bondo option. I didn't have much choice. Here are some photos of the process. I originally tried sanding the paint off, but the time involved was ridiuculous. In the end I just took off as many seals as I could and used ZipStrip and drill-driven wire brush.

Here's the take apart process.

The difference between naked and nekkid. Naked means you have no clothes on. Nekkid means you have no clothes on and you're up to something!

Look ma! No pants!

Just plain nasty.

I didn't know her ass was so white! Yes, those are a nasty set of Altezzas in the trunk which are now gone.

See next post as the saga continues.

 

[speedfoos]

The saga continues...

Here's the start of the paint removal process.

And here is the side panel with all the necessary paint removed.

So I decided to all this work myself, in my tiny, one car, non-climate controlled, British garage. I started in July and ultimately finished in October. What a peach this was. I lost my licesne for 28 days during this (115 in a 70 = $850 fine), and luckily had an '89 VW GTI beater to drive around while I was applying Bondo (called P38 over here) and sanding, and sanding, and sanding, and sanding, and sanding, and sanding, and sanding. My power sander broke and I had to finish the roof by hand. Which is probably why it looks like crap, because that got old in a hurry. With the bondo applied, and the sanding as good as it was going to get, (sorry no in progress pics, it was more trouble than I realized), it needed a little paint. I had originally decided on the $50 roller paint job, but figured if I was going to completely rip the car apart, doors and all, I may as well shoot it with actual paint. So I bought a compressor, HVLP gun, and some etch primer and shot the car with primer. This took a couple weeks because of work, dry time, bugs, weather, and screw-ups since it was my first time painting. All in all it turned out alright - I think anyway - but the weather got too cold to put a finish and clearcoat on it. I guess that's this summer's project. Here are a few shots of it all complete.

The passenger side was the jacked up side. That's my dog too.

Yes I know. My license plate is crooked. But I love my blacked out stock tails!

Here is better shot of the major bodywork. Looks good enough to me.

Yep. The driver's side door is a little darker. That's OK, its still only ricer-grey primer. Finish coat should take care of that.

Woof.

So. I will probably be doing more bondo this spring, as its not perfect and I'm a touch on the anal side. But it's a damn sight better than it was before. I'm torn between a dark blue or graphite grey for the finish coat, we'll see this summer.

I just got my D16Y8 intake mani and throttle body. That will be going on in a month or so. They sent me the TB from an automatic, so I have a 5-spd TB on the way now. They're just different enough that I don't want to force the auto TB to work. I paint the intake mani black and silver, and did a general polish on what I could reach with my fingers and sand paper. Should be alright, plus it looks nice. I'll do up the TB when it arrives. I already polished the throttle plate to a mirror, so I'll just swap that out.

So that's it for now. Like I said, I have lot of upgrades planned. The next one will probably a Stage 1 clutch and lightened flywheel. I'll post a DIY of that when I get to it. Probably won't be for a couple months though. I've started budgeting the $1500 for the AEM EMS for my turbo kit. Plan is to buy it in January of next year. That's just too much cash to drop all at once on top of the turbo dollars.

Anyway, comments and thoughts are appreciated. If they're stupid comments, I'll just ignore them. Thanks folks.

 

[speedfoos]

It was buried in between the pictures:

"I originally tried sanding the paint off, but the time involved was ridiuculous. In the end I just took off as many seals as I could and used ZipStrip and drill-driven wire brush."

Tried disc, palm, and sheet sanders too. Way too much paint for that, ZipStrip was much easier. Although I did drip a little on the RR wheel and it ate a spot of paint in about 3 seconds. Thanks to goth girls and Revlon for making a nail polish that matches Konig's graphite paint!

 

[speedfoos]

Thanks guys, been a little busy lately so I'll hit the questions all in this reply.

D16V1 regarding the y8 mani swap: Yeah, it seems like it will take a bit of fabbing. I've got a couple how-tos on it and the head bolts don't exactly line up, there is a little wire lengthening involved - mainly for the injectors - and its been advised to run new fuel lines to the pump. I'll be upgrading the fuel pump anyway so that's a task already on deck.

MyHonda1 regarding paint: I'm torn between a graphite gray - which is more forgiving on less than perfect bodywork - and dark blue. We'll see, haven't decided yet.

 

[speedfoos]

Just got my throttle body in yesterday. The one that came with my mani was from an automatic with cruise control, and my new (to me) TB is from a manual without cruise. Luckily it was easy enough to switch the cable actuator thingee - technical term - on the TBs so I get to keep my cruise control. Its currently drying after paint and will polish it tomorrow. My wife keeps telling me to get a hobby. I don't understand.....

 

[speedfoos]

Updated with more pics.

So I finished the poor man's port and polish and painted my new Y8 TB. I had to switch out the throttle actuator (correct term?) from the automatic TB (w/cruise) to replace the one without cruise that was on it when it arrived. Either way, I'm happy with the results. I'm currently looking around at injectors (450-500cc) and a fuel rail for when I do the conversion in preps for the turbo. Dezod has his Walbro high vol pumps at a decent price so I will go with that when I'm ready to do the mani swap and fuel system upgrade. Anyway here are some pics.

 

[speedfoos]

You shouldv'e left the dents and painted the car like the Moon ....:

Yeah. My daughter said the same thing, cuz I promised the car to her in 8 years. She also wants me to put big red flames on the sides. With age comes wisdom......occasionally.

 

[speedfoos]

Yeah. I've got a special place in my bank account for his stuff. Namely that $6K stage 2 turbo kit. Oh yes. It will be mine!

 

[speedfoos]

Thanks. New clutch and flywheel go in on Saturday. The weather is starting to warm up a little bit so hopefully I can tweak the rest of the body work and re-primer and paint in a month or so.

Oh and for the color go with the shadow grey. It will stand out alittle more since there is thosands of blue civics from that year.

What is shadow grey? A House of Colors (sp?) or another one? I haven't looked into the specific colors yet, I may mix my own, still kicking it over.

 

[speedfoos]

Yeah, that's the color I'm thinking about - or at least very close to it, but who makes it? Is there a specific manufacturer or is this just a general color guideline? I've been up and down House of Kolor's website and there are obviously 9 million different ways to throw paint on a vehicle, and several paints that are close to it.

 

[speedfoos]

Yeah. So much for "Front Towards Enemy"!

 

[speedfoos]

Clutch goes in tomorrow morning. Hardest part will be waiting through the break-in period before I can play around in the fun part of the tach...

 

[speedfoos]

So a buddy and I put my new clutch and flywheel in yesterday. (For reference as to what I put in check my thread here). Wow what a giant pain in the ass. It took us 8 hours, the first 2 by myself - he had the brown-bottle flu and I finally was able to wake him up at noon. It probably would have taken us about 5 hours if things had gone according to plan. I was only able to get one picture before the battery on my digital camera died. So here's a shot of my car on the lift (at the auto hobby shop on base) with the motor mounts and drivers side axle off. Yay.

Anyway, it went pretty smooth for the most part. I decided to leave the engine in the car while doing this. Looking back, I can't decide if that was a good idea or not. It was a huge pain removing the flywheel bolts, torqueing them back down after installing the new flywheel, and especially mating the transmission back up to the block. That little 3 step process took about 2.5 hours. If the motor was off, we could have used an impact wrench to remove the FW bolts, and mating the tranny up would have been a lot easier. However, I didn't have unhook everything that's connected to the engine, remove the subframe, and drop her out the bottom, so that saved me a whole lot of time.

Long story short, we got it installed and I love it so far. Pedal effort is a little more than stock - not much - and its got a very smooth take off and engagement. The FW is an 11 pounder, about 9 pounds lighter than that stock behemoth. I don't notice my RPMs falling any faster between shifts, and there is no chatter (no should there be on a full face) on launch. Everything fit exactly like the OEM assembly that I took off, so that part of the install was a breeze. I can't give a full review yet as I want the clutch to bed in for about 400 miles before I get to play around in the fun part of the tach. But so far I like it!

The stock clutch assembly was still in pretty decent shape and not worn down that much. Here are a few pics of the stock setup I took out.

Stock pressure plate and disc.

Stock disc still has a lot of life left in it.

Pressure plate face.

Ridiculously heavy stock flywheel.

 

[speedfoos]

I was looking around for a new Intake manifold and throttle body also. Any suggestions.

There aren't really any bolt-on options for us, nor will any of the fab jobs give the 7th gen much of a performance gain. It all depends on your goals really. Since I will be going boost at some point, I will be doing a Y8 mani conversion and everything involved with that. Our fuel system sucks (returnless) so managing FP and A/F ratios are a real pain. With the Y8 setup, you get more options, return fuel line, aftermarket rail, TB options and so on. Until I boost, I expect absolutely zero performance gains from the Y8 setup. Clutch was a stage 1 by the way, but the "stages" that are advertised by companies are nominal. Think of the difference between Coke and Mountain Dew - the Dew is EXTREME. No seriously, stages 1, 2, 3, etc.. sometimes mean the difference between fullface, 6-puck, and 4-puck. Look at the material of the disc, and the holding power of the plate, and total rated HP and torque. Make sure those meet your driveability and HP needs. Don't necessarily go by the "Stage".

 

[speedfoos]

....I was able to get my Y7 tranny out of my D16 by myself. In order to get the FW bolts out I re-installed one of the tranny bolts and then wedged a long crow bar into the FW teeth...

Shit. There was no way that thing was coming out of the bay unless I dropped the subframe. You sir, are a bigger man than I am. I wish I had thought of the trabby bolt brace thing. Man, that would have been tons easier than bracing that damn pry bar on the frame. Good advice for next time though!

 

[speedfoos]

Wee!!! Gotta luv my new VC! I sent it off to Steve at racecoated.com and he did a doozy! He's shipping it off tomorrow but sent in some pics to tide me over until it gets to my house. Thanks to sql_civic for selling me his VC so I could send mine off to Steve for powdercoating. Anyway, here are the pics!

 

[speedfoos]

And some new parts I just ordered for my turbo build. Wee!

Dezod FMIC

Dezod V2 turbo Mani

RSX-S Injectors

Ingalls Engine Stiffy

Crower Springs and retainers

Bunch of new tools

 

[speedfoos]

"M" for mighty?

I have no clue actually. I was surprised when I saw it after I removed the coils and wire cover myself. Its on all of the 7th gen VCs for some reason.

 

[speedfoos]

Thanks guys. Good to know on the RDX injectors, but it will be a while before I need anything larger the RSX injectors.

 

[speedfoos]

Thanks man. I've been away on business now for a month (one more to go!) and I can't wait to get back and rip apart the engine and install all this stuff!