[Oldcivicjoe]

A year ago my 95 ej1 was stolen, ofcourse it happened a mere 2 weeks after a full suspension, steering and brake rebuild/upgrade. We recovered the car about a month later, out in the middle of the desert, dropped into a hole and smashed pretty bad. A few things were stolen, mostly stupid stuff, brake pads, fuses, light bulbs, a couple motor mounts, wheels and tires, a ripped door panel, stereo, ect.

So I got it home and stripped it. sorry I can't find the pictures of how and where it was when I found it, and the video just pixelates so bad its worthless if I compress it enough to attach.
Yes I put ghetto rigged straight axles under it to move it back to the back yard after the initial tear down 😂

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

A few weeks later after some serious digging around I finally found a shell.

It had a bunch of stuff like f&f coilovers, teggy rear discs, fart can exhaust, momo quick disconnect steering wheel, all of which i ripped off and sold, as this is my daily, my kid carrier, and my grocery getter.

Put the ENTIRE suspension setup from the ej1 in, 1.5/1.75" eibach drop springs, KYB struts, spc sliding plate ball joints, lx auto abs drum setup for the rear.

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

After I got her sitting right I dropped in the motor and trans.

When I tightened the trans mount bolts one of the stud holes sheared off the trans case, so I knew a rebuild of the original trans was in order, but I figured I could limp a while until then, oh my how wrong I was!

So I dug through the junkyard and came upon a clean set of shift forks

And set about rebuilding the trans, with a lot of help from trans ex (a.k.a. mista bone).

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

Usa standard gear rebuild kit for the s20 b000 case had everything i needed to get it done right,

Was a nice learning experience as I've never been inside a Honda trans before

Either screwed the pooch and bent the shift arm, or it had been bent, not sure as I seated the interlock bolt by hand before torquing it, either way the trans came back apart to replace it with one that wasnt bent. I also got the amount of ultra gray needed figured out on that second try, lmao.

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

She has been back on the road for a while now, in need of an alignment, but other than that she is running beautifully and is once again a joy to drive, and it only took a year!

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

Still lots of cosmetic stuff to get into, which knowing my track record with appearance will likely never happen. And some minor mechanical and creature comfort stuff as well, ( alignment, heater core, ac, stereo, weather stripping) which will happen sooner rather than later.

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

That was what tweaked my beak the worst, easily 5k worth in parts, including the ported, port matched, compression bumped and balanced d16z6, all those suspension components that were new and upgraded... they just screwed me for a joy ride and 300 bucks worth of used parts. Tweakers man, too many in the world nowadays.

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

I think the long periods of sitting have done my injectors in. Going to have to spend money 😞

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

Injectors were fine, my fpr was locked up, 29 psi, lol. 0 fluctuation with or without vacuum applied, I wish my pressure gauge hadn't been destroyed when it was stolen, could have spotted this before I installed the new wideband, lol. Lean condition is gone, fuel mileage is down, but 8 think thats cause I been trying to wear these MC-440s out so I can justify a nice set of new Falken ze 950s

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

Mk2 is in for alignment today after I spent the last week or 2 playing with caster changes, feels like I finally hit pay dirt. Why is it im always so twitchy and anxious when someone else is working on my car?

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

Thought id share my motor build as it seems to be coming up lately. D16z6 crank and rods, d16y8 pistons, block decked .025", Z6 head milled. 007 (go as low as you can on decking and milling, then use pistons and headgaskets to adjust cr)
, arp head studs, felpro 2 layer y8 head gasket, stock Z6 cam advanced 7° to drop torque peak and account for block decking/head milling (every .005" of decking/milling retards cam timing by ~0.93°, so make sure you start out ADVANCING the cam timing to match crank to cam centers, then retard or advance from there to dial in), porting to maximize atomization, tested on a wet bench to verify droplet patterns, intake manifold port matching to get rid of the cavitation after porting the head, complete engine balancing (big end/small end/bob wieght/cam/damper/flywheel). pace setter 4-2-1 header, magnaflow high flow 2" direct fit cat, 2"cat back with Flowmaster 60 series muffler. Was running the stock intake tube with a DC sports 4"-2.5" velocity stack, but after car was stolen, smashed, then rebuilt, (stock intake tube got ripped, velocity stack stolen) switched to aem short ram intake. Strong smooth torque until vtec kicks in, then you gotta shift quick as tires break loose or you end up losing time. With stock fuel pump on tuned ecu she ran a bit lean up top and near perfect anything below 5200 rpms, the shell i put everything in had a 225lph walbro fuel pump and its now rich everywhere below 4100 rpms(stock p28 as my demon ecu got fried with water damage). Still logging 36 mpg if I drive it easy, up from 33 mpg pre trans rebuild and front bearings. Might squeeze another 1-2 after the alignment the other day. Ive done this near exact same build 30-40 times, they always pass CA smog and put down much broader torque than stock with either no losses or gains in the mpg and smog departments.

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

Alignment and pulling my foot out of the throttle brought it up to 39 mpg, ive noticed that if I can back out just enough that the nose drops load decreases and afr steadies out around 14.4:1, amazing how much the stock ecu can trim out to keep things as efficient as possible.

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

I have ripper vids somewhere from the ej1 chassis, just cant find them, im working on a phone mount that will give a steady view now.
This one was dubbed mk2 by my wife, she couldn't imagine me with a car not named Trixie, lol. Her ef was Priscilla the desert queen, previously I had had a 90 crx, dubbed lil homie, and a 94 ej1 dubbed homie. All my cars get named by others.
The Trixie mk1 was so named from the all girl car club "team trixie" the only legible part of the associated badge when I bought it was trixie, so the name stuck.

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

Started her up this morning, doing my weekly checks, and hear the unmistakable whine of low ps fluid

I knew the pump was seeping, but not like that, and the rack was bone dry and clean pre install with no signs of leakage. Fml looks like ill be dropping another 80 setting the toe after switching the rack. The clutch circuit appears to have develoled a leak somewhere too, lost 1/2 ounce of fluid since last Monday.

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

Cruising in traffic today, doing about 70 after a quick pull to escape the press, engine just sputters out half mile before the nearest exit🤬 muddle across 3 lanes hit the end of the off ramp, solid wall of cars🤬 some more. Get it into a parking lot, realize i have 0 for tools with me😰 but lo and behold! A harbor freight store close by! Run in grab the basics, a test light 1/4 ratchet, extensions socket set. Check out my ignition and fuel injector pulse, all good, pull the test plug on the filter, fak its dry, main relay is working so I start checking power down the line and it seems to intermittently disappear shortly after the main relay. This guy had the kill switch hidden so effectively that had his solder join not broken it would have never been noticed. Could have mentioned that when I bought it.

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

Civics, especially eg/ejs are still big targets out here, everyone thinks they most likely have swapped engines at this point, but the smog program and crushing cars that weren't swapped legally has gotten rid of most of the swapped ones. So ill certainly be be re working that kill switch, just going to do it right this time, de-pin and use the right ga wire and what not, no sneaky solder joints.

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

So unbeknownst to me, the rest of the dads (and 3 of the moms) in the DHH school for deaf and hard of hearing kids in my area have been spending lots of money trying to leave trixie in the dust, the most recent attempt is a 2014 srt charger, 6.8 hemi, manual swap, intake, headers exhaust with mild tuning, after a hard push up the hill trixie came out on top. the hemi has a rod knocking and trixie is pushing coolant. They are both now interfering with a 61 f100 fuel injection swap thats been in the works a few months now.

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

I got asked by a customer today why I "went through the trouble" of this build, lmao. "Why didn't you start fresh?" Easy to wonder I guess for a guy that spends 2300 fixing his charger every few months, rofl.

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

So... bit of an update, Mk2 went through some troubles recently. I swear it all started with that hemi, but maybe I'm imagining things.

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

Main relay wiring went on the fritz, sudden power downs for no desernible reason, then if I could keep it coasting a bit it would switch back on, eventually traced it to a break in the ground that goes from relay to thermostat ground via 3 different connectors. Then clutch issues after I replaced a leaking clutch master, damn thing just wouldn't let go of the last air bubble for like 8 weeks. Soon after that was solved the distributor went out in spectacular fashion, bleeding 2k V into ecu ground and frying an ecu or 3. So spares used up, running low on cash the head gasket finally went the rest of the way the same day my daughters program gets shut down for 10 day due to covid exposure🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣