Larimer

iTrader: (4)

Haven't really touched either car for about a week, but will attack it again this weekend. I'm going to see about a hard top tomorrow which would be nice for the track. It's white so my car will become a panda if I pick it up.

Larimer

iTrader: (4)

So... anybody want to trade a black hard top for a white one? I picked it up for $600 and it's OEM without defrost (don't drive it in the winter) so I'm happy.

CPSmith

Picked up an OEM hardtop for 600 bucks? In the winter? Good find. Everything around me is 900 bucks or more.
Why don't you just repaint the one you have?

Larimer

iTrader: (4)

I was glad to find it. I could paint it and may do that, but it'd be a lot easier if me and somebody else didn't have to paint ours and could just trade. And it's not like I don't have enough to do with the car before spring anyway. Let alone the bike you see in some of the pics.

Larimer

iTrader: (4)

Minor updates today, nothing really picture worthy. Blocked off the oil return and heater inlets and removed the oil feed line. Put the stock oil pressure sender back in. I think the last thing to remove is the lower rad hose, and then officially everything I'll need from it is off. Finally.

I started making a list of the stuff that I'm going to need to buy to get both cars running and thought it was kind of funny that I have to order 5 thermostat gaskets. 3 for the reroute and 2 for the stock config with the rear water housing. There are only a couple other little things here and there that I'll need to be ordering soon. I'm trying to find somebody to do the machining on the tstat spacer and figure out what all I need to do with it too.

Bought a set of daisey wheels today to throw on the 96 so I can sell the TE37's. I hope somebody on the Honda forums or here will snap them up. Going to throw on some tires I have sitting around hopefully in the next week and then start tearing into the 94 and swapping needed parts as I go.

clay

iTrader: (6)

If the machining of the tstat spacer is too much trouble, it might be easier to just buy one from Begi. I think there is also somebody on here who will sell one separately from a reroute kit they sell, but I can't remember who.

Also, the TE37's are a perfect fit for the Honda guys. I had them on my 89 Civic Si for a short bit before I sold it and bought my Miata. I'll post a pic if I can find it. Might help with selling them...

clay

iTrader: (6)

Here are some pics of these same TE37's on my old Miata and 89 Civic Si.

http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/111/20050612aa.jpg

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/7...50415abdx2.jpg

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/2...70714aiey8.jpg

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/6...70714adfc8.jpg

Larimer

iTrader: (4)

Awesome, I'll definitely use those when the time comes. Thanks Clay.

Larimer

iTrader: (4)

Swapped the injectors because the garage still reeks of gas (didn't put any on the 96 so the fuel rail has just been open...that was dumb in hindsight). Took off the turbine housing to get it and the manifold ceramic coated by a local guy ($75). We'll see how it holds up to street and a little track duty. He does great work and will probably warranty it if it flakes off, but said it's good for 2000 degrees.

I'm going to try mount some tires on the new daisy wheels, pull off the volks, get it off jack stands for now and get the black one ready for stripping. Probably will start with the exhaust manifold, exhaust, and clutch job first on the black car. While the trans is out I'll try and do all the reroute stuff since I'll be able to rock the engine forward and have the most room. Then I'll transfer the parts over to the 96 and get that thing running and it should be ready to sell. It'd would be great to have the garage stall back so I don't have to scrape snow off my DD in the mornings.

Larimer

iTrader: (4)

Moved some emissions stuff back to the 96, and took most of it off the 94. Did this step by step since I didn't know where all the lines connected, but luckily I had the other car for reference. There's still some things left from the box that I'm not sure about, but I'll post a pic of the questionable stuff soon. I noticed some small differences already between the 94 and 96 like some additional solenoids and vacuum lines but overall it's pretty much the same.

Got the daisy wheels/tires mounted and balanced yesterday and will throw those on in the next couple days and get the 96 off jack stands. Most everything underneath is done anyway, except the exhaust and chassis braces. If I get adventurous, the 94's trans and exhaust from the head all the way back will be removed this weekend. Getting all the final details of the spacer machining sorted out soon too and hopefully will get that done next week or so. Getting the studs pulled out of the exhaust manifold and turbo (getting inconel studs from TSE and new turbine housing studs since they're all either stripped or bent) today and getting them ceramic coated next week. Things are finally starting to move along now it seems.

Larimer

iTrader: (4)

Saturday night I dropped the trans. Looks like the front trans seal is leaking, which I thought was the rear main originally. Funny since I just replaced it when I did the clutch a couple thousand miles ago. This is getting stupid, I can get the trans off in a little over an hour I've done it so many times. Ugh.

Ordered some gaskets and general crap from Finish Line. Need to find some exhaust studs for the turbine housing still since most of them were either stripped or bent, which I'm not sure how that happened. BEGI wants to charge $16 shipping for 5 studs, nuts, and washers ($8.50). Going to call them tomorrow and see if they can do better. Also dropping off the manifold and turbine housing to the powdercoater this week, and going to try and get the spacer machined and tapped. In more of a rush to get this thing done now...

Larimer

iTrader: (4)

Haven't posted pics in awhile, finally I took some. A fair amount of stuff has happened in the past couple weeks, but I work at a snails pace so it's relative.

When working on the 96 a couple weeks ago, this happened.


Pic of process of moving emissions stuff over. I don't have the EGR valve for either car since my tube broke when I tried to bend it to fit on the back of my escort GT engine (water outlet is a bit different) and I don't believe one was included so it's blocked off. Probably will have a CEL on the 96 because of this.

Got the manifold and turbine housing ceramic coating so I can cry when it flakes off after a track session or two. Before:



After:

Should be satin black, the pics make it look funny.

Here's the transmission on the ground to get the FM1 clutch installed.


It'll be staying there until I get my coolant spacer back from the machine shop. That's the current hold up, or at least something I can blame my slow progress on. Here's the trans with a new gasket behind that piece over the input shaft and greased up.


Yesterday I did a ton of work on the 96 and have it nearly ready to start minus the fluids. Just need to put the exhaust, intake and some of the underbody stuff on the nose back on now. Should hopefully have it going in the next week or two, though I've said that for the past 2 months . I'm doubting I'll be lucky enough to not run into any issues from the massive amounts of work that I've done to the car.


94 needs some simple green treatment to the engine bay, bad.


Picked up some gauges, and some expensive hardware...




So basically that's where I am now. Priority is get the 96 moving and put it up for sale. The 94 I still am waiting on the spacer to wrap up the trans install. I still need to cut the sheet metal for the turbo and down pipe, heat wrap the coolant lines and master cylinder, drill the oil pan for the return, mount the IC, buy a 3 gauge a pillar pod, install the gauges, install the turbo and manifold and lines, exhaust, COPS, etc. Now that the trans is out I'm going to try and do all the little things that require more room to work. I'm waiting on heat wrap and turbine housing studs from BEGI to come in the mail.

Larimer

iTrader: (4)

Worked on the 96 today. Put the intake, heat shield, and a coolant line back on, and filled all the fluids. Only needs the exhaust put on and the clutch bled. I tried started it and it wouldn't start. I'm going to look over everything and try swapping the coil plugs since that got me last time. Problem is that I did a ton of stuff so there's a bunch of little things that I could have possibly missed. I need to press on though and get that thing going ASAP. There's one sensor I found in the box of parts that I have no idea what it goes to, so I'll probably post up a pic and see if any of you guys can help me figure it out if I can't.

Next I'll probably clean up the 94 with a healthy dose of simple green and see if I can do the thermostat housing stuff. I plan to just remove the plug on the back of the head for the coolant sensor so I don't have to drill and tap the spacer. Since I have an escort GT head, I have an extra coolant bung on the back of the head that I could route a 180 degree hose to the heater core and just put the spacer right on with the t-stat. Too bad I already got it machined for $20 when I may not have needed to.

Larimer

iTrader: (4)

Clay (if you're still reading), I looked on autozone's web site and it looks like the sensor in question is a crank position sensor if I'm remembering it correctly. This would make sense since the 94 doesn't have one and I didn't know what it was for. Did you remove this with the MS install or is it just a spare? I didn't notice an extra electrical connector but I could have missed it somewhere. I'll probably poke around the engine bay tonight and see if there's something missing around the crank pulley.

clay

iTrader: (6)

It sounds like the spare crank sensor I had from my old engine. The stock one should still be on the engine as I never removed it. I basically threw everything I had in with the stuff I gave you so there may be some extra sensors, brackets, etc. The only sensors that were removed from the engine should not affect it starting and running. In fact with my MS only controlling the spark outputs and injector outputs the stock ECU was still cranking and idling the engine just fine without the evap stuff, EGR, and stock O2. If you are getting nothing, I would check the main fuses.

Larimer

iTrader: (4)

Makes sense, I forgot about it being parallel before. The EGR and o2 sensor aren't hooked up yet, so I know it'll have a CEL on, but could potentially have others so I'm going to try and borrow an OBD2 code reader if I can't find anything tonight.

The engine cranks over but doesn't fire. Well, there were a couple times where I thought it was starting to, which produced some pretty loud noises since it only has the exhaust manifold on. hahaha. I was just trying to see if it would start, still need to put on the exhaust. I'm going to recheck the ecu wiring and also a few things under the hood. It smells like it's getting fuel so I may just have the coil plugs swapped.

Larimer

iTrader: (4)

I took out the plugs and they were black so I put in some new ones I had sitting around. I checked spark and had it, so I didn't know what to try next. Nothing appeared unplugged or messed up, so I swapped the coil plugs which I thought were correct. And...

It purrs like a kitten. A pissed off kitten.



I'll get the exhaust, matching set of wheels, and the under bracing on soon. I only have one set of jack stands and don't really want to take them away from the other car just yet if I don't have to. I need to get a proper jack that's really low profile so it isn't such a pain to just get the car on stands.

Larimer

iTrader: (4)

Got the inconel studs fitted and the turbine housing studs installed. I don't have a vice so I took it to a place that did and that's probably all I'm accomplishing today. More tomorrow...

Larimer

iTrader: (4)

Been lazy about updates. The 96 is running and is all buttoned back up. Just probably needs the cooling system burped. I drove it yesterday and the tires I put on some stock daisy's are terrible. That poor car was stripped of all that was fun. I just need to wash it and list it for sale with the volks and then actually make some progress on the car I'm keeping. The goal for the weekend is to do all the stuff I've not been wanting to do, like drill the oil pan, drill the spacer for the coolant reroute, and cut the sheet metal for the turbo install. Apparently I don't like using drills and cutting tools.

Larimer

iTrader: (4)

My dad stopped over to help me out this weekend. Got done a lot of stuff that I didn't want to do and had no motivation to finish, such as the oil pan drilling, spacer drilling, and notching of the frame rail. Coolant reroute is done and in place, just need to wrap the heater hoses with insulation. Drilled the spacer for my water temp gauges (dash and autometer) and placed the senders in there. I will try and do the heater hoses today along with the manifold, turbo, and intercooler & pipes install.

Recently a fire has been lit under me in the form of a job offer in another state so I need to get on it and finish up my project so I can get it moved up there easier. Also means I need to clean up the 96 and the volks to sell ASAP as well. The next 6 weeks are going to be crazy busy finishing up everything and selling off a bunch of crap I don't want to take with me.