I would really like to make this thread to document where I have gone with my car since I got it and also document the new stuff being added to it.

Admins, If you would like to move this thread please feel free to do so.


Here are the original images off the craigslist ad....Paint was fresh, nice rims. A solid looking car.

Had 163,000 miles on it. Stock 4 speed transmission pared up with a 62hp beast of an engine. Sohc D15b1. Dual Port Fuel Injection. Aside from the 16" Konig Cobra rims, the car was completely stock. We picked it up with a busted break booster. Ended up replacing the master cylinder, and calipers before we finally found out it was the booster. If you search hard, you could probably find the thread on it.

I picked her up for $1,800 dollars.







Here is an interior shot of my car. A nice brown color.



Some cool seat covers I picked up at autozone.



The car came with an enclosure for a 15" sub woofer, but the previous owner pulled it out before hand....so Here is my 100 dollar autozone set up that I installed.




And then the Ricing Began.




Underglow, Projector halo headlights, altezzas. I think I may have bought every aftermarket part on ebay.





Then I made this mistake.



Came out decent I guess...i regret it now.





Had one of these bad boys for a while.



Glow shift tachometer.

Some of these



what a beautiful job I was doing with my car.




Then I made this cool contraption.



So by this point my car was pretty riced out. I still had the 62hp under the hood...also had a KN cold air intake...not that it helped.



Rear disc break swap. Picked up everything for it at the junkyard for about 100 bucks.





This is when I started wanting more power and got more interested in building engine/swaps and all that jazz. I did my research and finally picked up a DOHC zc engine for 300 bucks.








I found a 5 speed DX transmission at the local junkyard. Got some new parts for it.


did some valve cover work






Here is the engine finally assembled. Learned a lot about how an engine works and all that.



Out with the old



Cleaned some stuff up.




Painted my valve cover.



Lookin good



So finally got the engine in and it wouldn't start. I have a thread about this somewhere as well. We finally gave in and took it to a mechanic. He diagnosed the problem as a wrong crank gear. I called the guy who sold me the engine asking if he had the correct one and he insisted that the one he gave me was correct. This is a JDM engine...so tracking down this part wasn't easy. Finally got one about 2 months later. They got my car to start but it smoked..... a lot



So..figured it was the head gasket....

Nope

Had the head resurfaced..



Nope

Had the block decked.

Which involved this monstrosity





Nope.

Finally figured it was the rings/cross hatching in the cylinders. So...my car sat for a while.

But while it sad I did manage do some stuff.

Fog lights



New head unit.



New speakers



New Seats



Also got a full set of black interior (aside from one door panel).

Installed that. Picked up some SI seats. Also smoked my taillights.

So were looking something like this



I used my graduation money and swapped in a SOHC zc that I picked up from Ni-Mo.com I think it was about 500 bucks shipped. Swapped it in. Never had a problem with it. Car basically had no modifications for a year. It was my first year of college

I did manage to sand down my tail lights..they still need to be finished..but you get the Idea, back to stock. Same thing with my head lights. Put the stock ones back in...started the De-ricing process again.

Picture of my car



I couldn't afford new tires for my rims so I picked up a set of steelies at the junk yard. Also, stripped my bumper...im not sure why..



So that was cool and dandy. Again..did nothing with my car until about Halloween 2009. Some drunk *** hole keyed my car and my roomates. Now by this time, my paint was oxidizing heavily being it sat for 6 months in fresno heat when the dohc zc didn't work out.

Besides the point, i was pissed. We knew who it was so we threatened to call the cops unless he paid us to have our cars fixed. Maaco quoted me 600 to remove the scratch but told me that they would paint my entire car for the price. So I got my 600 dollars and...





Notice the middle light is still smoked kinda..ha...thats fixed now.

add some pin striping




Shortly after my paint job, my sohc zc blew. It spun a bearing. So....For Christmas I got a new engine. This time a DOHC ZC from Hmotorsonline.com

Installed it no problems.

Then this mess happened




soooooo


RSR exhaust system.








reppin the HCF


I got some LS meshes, they didn't last too long





I had an accadent where I hit a curb at about 20-25 MPH.

This resulted in a bent front cross member, bent steering rack. Snapped radius rod, bent LCA, and basically the entire front sub frame being damaged. I managed to get all the replacement parts for about 150 bucks from a friend.




This left me 3 flat tires, and 1 cracked rim...so back to steelies.

I also messed up my driver side fender a little bit, still working on getting it fixed.

Car does run great as of now and this is currently where I am at with my car.








Future plans.

Firstly, I wanna work on getting my car looking good again. I am looking to pick up a JDM front end in a couple months from a buddy of mine. I also plan to polish my LS mesh rims (after finding a 4th one) and getting them back on the car.

I wanna get my seats and carpet redone along with the headliner.

New suspension is on the list as well, Hopefully I will be able to tackle that by christmas time.

Engine wise, I am looking to boost the ZC I am running now at somewhere between 8-10lbs. I need to get a new transmission being the DX transmission simply does not do the trick with an engine like this.

I plan on updating this thread regularly, and I will try to get some better pictures of my car soon.

 

i really liked the yellow before it was riced. i think we all went there, i know i did haha. hell, i still have some evidence on my car haha. but it looks pretty clean now! thumbs up!

 

i like the progress. cant wait for more

 

This cars been through a lot! Can't wait to see some more progress.

You really like your stereo systems, don't you?

 

I like the progress. If you don't mind, I'm going to move this to the project section; I think it deserves a place there.

 

NIce build. black looks better.. welcome to the black hatch side, LOL
did you get it lowered any? or is it stock springs?

 

Lol you dedicated your life to your 20 year old car, awesome, I love every piece of this thread, glad I know your progress now, I will stay tuned!

 

I love the black paint with the red pinstripe. you've done some good work with the car...post all the rice

 

Haha..yeah. It let me use all my electronics knowledge and spend all my money. I remember with my first setup I wired 6 RCA cables into dpdt switches and used it as a mixer between my 1996 Sony cd player and MP3 player. It was pretty bad ***...Current setup is the Dual head unit with Bluetooth, which is awesome. I usually just have it auto pair and then listen to pandora in the car.
Thank you sir

You know, im really not sure. Im pretty sure its on cut coils, but not positive.

Thanks!

 

nice project, just ball park it, how much have you spent on that 20 year old hatch? and how long have you had it?