My not so slow EG4 build thread

[lancew]

So anyway, I bought myself a DA6 roughly about a year ago, its my first Honda and I love it! When I got the car it was pretty rough and I had plans to do it up nice.
Since I don't really have much money and get paid jack shit from work this build probably wont be moving very fast, but meh, you can all see what I've done and what my future plans for the car are.
when I got the car it had:
King spring super low springs in front and unknown brand lows in rear
intake
short shifter
gizmo vtec controller
a shitty sounding fart cannon
a rice steering wheel
volt gauge
air con had been removed
and a shitty west Auckland paint job haha
Also gearbox is crunchy as fuck into third, 3rd gear is pretty much non-existent and now 5th is starting to go

Pics:
This is when i first got the car:





A lots changed on the car since then. I cant really remember everything ive done on the car as it was usually just small things but ill try remember all the shit i've done.

Notable things i've done since I got the car:
-The car had no sounds at all when i bought it, so I purchased a sony head unit and 6" speakers for the door and some ex display 6x9's for the back, sounds pretty decent and can hook my ipod up to it too!
-Replaced the shitty taped on gear knob with a Type R imitation knob
-Replaced the Momo wheel with a scarles drift wheel
-Had a high flow rear muffler fitted to keep exhaust noise to a minimum without sacrificing to much air flow
-Removed lots of little things, A/C box from behind dash, carpet, sound deadening from rear seats back, volt guage, rear window wiper and heaps of other shit i cant remember or have no idea of what to call it.
-Battery has been relocated to the boot
-Some D2 adjustable coilvers
-4-1 Extractors
-Iridium sparkplugs
-10.5mm ignition leads
-A partial wire tuck of the engine bay
-New Wheels
-An Alarm and central locking
-Some Bucket seats
-Password JDM superbrite headlight bulbs and similar coloured park bulbs
-redone the high stop light an number plate light as they were a bit dodgy
-redone some of the bay earths
-started making a custom cold air box
-removed the words "Honda Motor Co." from the rocker cover
-Most recently i've started panelbeating and priming the car ready for paint, this seems to be taking forever!

more pics:
This is how the car looked a little while back:



Yes i did remove the funny looking red badge, kinda reminded me of a red nose clown lol

Bits & Pieces:
Random shit off the car (note: the portable clothes line isnt off the car )

Seats, these are sitting on customised factory rails

Lead and Plugs

Superbrites, was so excited I put them on in the car park haha

D2's thanks to forum member hbasher

Extractors:


My current sump has a slight leak so have bought these:


Will get on to putting them on soon

Rear wiper removed:

Roughly how the back looking,not quite so low now:

Rocker cover, soon to be painted a new colour:

Engine bay as it currently stands:

My new gearbox, finally got one after almost a year haha. drove all the way to the mount at night in the rain for this, mean cruise. Now just need a clutch

Got my hands on some itr sideskirts:

Itr sideskirts partially modified to fit:


There's so much shit I want to do to this car, just dont have the time to list everything at the moment, in the near future however I am wanting to:
get my gearbox and clutch in (ive ordered a heavy duty clutch kit from berniemac customs, should be here in about a week)
Get some new front tyres, ive heard those Hero HZ1 milanzas are pretty good for the price
Finish modifying the itr sideskirts
finish making my cold airbox
Finish preping the car for paint and the paint it gunmetal gery, like this:

And take the car on the dyno, cars running rich as shit and and hoping this could help.

Anyway, thats all for today, thanks for reading. All comments and suggestions are welcome.

Wednesday 6th April 2011: just a small update.
Car failed the cert about a week ago for:
-Insecure front break lines
-seat rails to be remounted as discussed
-rear coilovers touching lower control arms


I have secured the front brake lines with hose clamps, hopefully this is sufficient
I have also grinded a bit out on the rear LCA that was touching and there is now more clearance between the shock and the arm also painted them with rustproof zinc paint.
Sorry for shitty cell phone pic


This is how the seat rails currently look:

I have been told to use thicker metal to make the plates (6mm), cut the overhang off and have two bolts per plate instead of one.
I will get these cut up soon, ive been told to measure them and take the measurements to an engineering garage and they can cut them to size for me. Then will be time for recheck.

Also picked up some radiator flush and coolant from autostop for $16.50 so did a radiator flush today.

Also while I had the rear wheels off yesterday I took the opportunity to roll the rear guards, as I want to camber the rear wheels out so there is less negative camber at the rear.

I noticed there is no photos of how the front of the car currently looks so here ya go:

The stickers are covering a huge chunk that was taken out of the bumper thanks to curb + under-steer :/ . Had a few compliments on the stickers and cable tie stitching so I'm not in a hurry to replace the bumper haha

[NVMY R]

Hey good shit man I'm loving how much attention that the DA's are getting at the moment. Just remember have a plan of what you want the end result to be and always do something once, do it right.
Will be keeping an eye on this thread. Cheers, Chris.

[rustyman]

looks heaps better
will look awesome after the paint

[lancew]

Thanks for the comments guys!

---------- Post added at 05:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:36 PM ----------

A bit of an update today.
I have redone the seat rails to comply with cert rules. I started by getting some steel plates made up at A C Martian Metalworks in New Lynn for $40 (kinda a bit pricey but meh) and then drilled the holes and bolted it all up, this time I used nylon lock nuts.
This is how it came out:

The seats also seem to hold a tad firmer too.
I rang the certifier and he said the cert plate's all ready to go so I'm heading down to Ezygee Performance tomorrow morning to get that put on! Yay!

I also decided to put the head rests off the original front seats in place of the factory rear headrests, IMO it looks good, plus its different from everyone else's so that's a plus too!

Its also more comfortable for the passengers in the back and would probably save some necks in a crash! (remember kids, safety first! )
That's all for today!

[IVTECU]

Coming along nicely man always had a soft spot for DA's especially facelift one's

Good luck on the rest of your build

[fangaC]

love DAs and your doiing good so far keep it up man!!

[efsi]

nice car dude love the drift stitches lol

[b16aTeg]

looking good man, be nice to see it when its finished. good luck for the rest of you build

[xsiv]

good work mate

[lancew]

Hey good shit man I'm loving how much attention that the DA's are getting at the moment. Just remember have a plan of what you want the end result to be and always do something once, do it right.
Will be keeping an eye on this thread. Cheers, Chris.

looks heaps better
will look awesome after the paint

Coming along nicely man always had a soft spot for DA's especially facelift one's

Good luck on the rest of your build

love DAs and your doiing good so far keep it up man!!

nice car dude love the drift stitches lol

looking good man, be nice to see it when its finished. good luck for the rest of you build

good work mate

Thanks for all the positive comments guys! Glad to see that people are interested in my build!

---------- Post added at 02:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:57 AM ----------

An update for today, took the car to get the cert plate put on last weekend, so that's now all sorted, any way here's how it came out:



I also went into Super Cheap Auto to pick up some painting supplies:


Got some 3M primer, thinners and lightweight body filler and also picked up some sandpaper and the sanding block came free!

I also went to see a guy my mate knows who specialises in automotive paints, he mixed me up a sample colour close to what I want for me to test on a small patch. The paints quite a bit of a mix, it contains a bit of black, blue, red, white, and 2 types of silver, it looks really nice in the test pot so hopefully comes out nice on the car.
Anyway that's all for today, more info as it comes

[lancew]

A bit more today, Mostly pictures thought, pretty much self explanatory.
I've started preping the car for paint.





... And some of the tools:
The Beast:

and his gun:


I also took some pictures of the sample paint:


These are to mainly show you a rough idea and should hopefully look good on the car.

Chur

[B16aTurb]

is that the gun the cars getting painted with? i hope not, use a gravity fed gun those ones are cheap and nasty and splutter if tilted the wrong way

[efsi]

is that the gun the cars getting painted with? i hope not, use a gravity fed gun those ones are cheap and nasty and splutter if tilted the wrong way

yea there kinda crap unless u get it spot on. Grav feed is the way to go

[nykon]

Did you weld up the badge holes? If you just used filler it has a tendency to sink in, leaving little dimples where they used to be.

[SiRge]

Eh, go for gold, your doing a cheap half decent paint job on your car. We are all thankful you didn't choose matte black from a rattle can

[zombo]

Looks nice man so far man should turn out really well! keen to see the paint job

[lancew]

is that the gun the cars getting painted with? i hope not, use a gravity fed gun those ones are cheap and nasty and splutter if tilted the wrong way

yea there kinda crap unless u get it spot on. Grav feed is the way to go

Oh really? I had no idea, got given this for Xmas and cant really afford to buy a different one at the moment :/ surely it wont sputter as much as rattle cans? Thanks for informing me though, il try it with the bit of test paint i got and see what its like.

Did you weld up the badge holes? If you just used filler it has a tendency to sink in, leaving little dimples where they used to be.

When I bought the car it only had badge holes on the bonnet, so I put something behind them before I filled them, thanks.

Eh, go for gold, your doing a cheap half decent paint job on your car. We are all thankful you didn't choose matte black from a rattle can

Thanks man, don't want another cheaply done matte black car in west Auckland haha.

Looks nice man so far man should turn out really well! keen to see the paint job

Cheers man, hoping the paint doesnt turn out too bad.

[efsi]

[QUOTE=lancew;1629571]Oh really? I had no idea, got given this for Xmas and cant really afford to buy a different one at the moment :/ surely it wont sputter as much as rattle cans? Thanks for informing me though, il try it with the bit of test paint i got and see what its like.


just try to keep it like half full all the time when your painting.
They starve alittle when there low cause the paint flows away from the picup tube. Just dont run it low and it will be sweet

[lancew]

[QUOTE=efsi;1629899]

Oh really? I had no idea, got given this for Xmas and cant really afford to buy a different one at the moment :/ surely it wont sputter as much as rattle cans? Thanks for informing me though, il try it with the bit of test paint i got and see what its like.


just try to keep it like half full all the time when your painting.
They starve alittle when there low cause the paint flows away from the picup tube. Just dont run it low and it will be sweet

Okay thanks for the info, will do mate.

[DCV1N]

hows the paint looking???

[lancew]

hows the paint looking???

Hey, thanks for asking. No paint as of yet but have spent a long time preparing. I will put a new post up very soon with info. Thanks for the interest

---------- Post added 27th April 2011 at 12:05 AM ---------- Previous post was 26th April 2011 at 11:27 PM ----------

I've been very busy over the last few days getting the car ready for paint. I've spent a lot of time masking (the car as well as the olds garage), sanding, bogging and more sanding, I also took some time to tidy up the old man's garage

The bogging part seemed to take a bit longer than I thought, as I started going over the car I found more and more tiny dents from doors being opened onto the car etc. These had to be sorted out, as well as a series of largish dents along the bottom of the passengers door and the panel just behind it. A large dent was also on the drivers door. I did my best to panel beat the larger dents with the various hammers and dollys I received for xmas a while back, most of the dents I managed to pop out however, I did not get the greatest of surfaces afterwards so on went the bog.
I spent a long time sanding out rough parts on the already primed rear bumper with P80 grit sandpaper (this grit was also used to sand the bog) and sanded all the surfaces that had not previously been primed with dry P80 grit paper and then wet P180 grit paper.
I decided to remove the trim around the windscreen which I will sand the old white paint off of and tidy up back to original.
Enough talking, pictures!














My Dad was talking to one of his mates who recently painted their car and he told my Father I would need some type of moisture trap, my Dad said he had one of these but he couldn't find it, so off to Supercheap we went. There we got this:


However it didn't include any hose fittings, so I went back up and bought some, I bought the wrong ones but we ended up making all the pieces we had work and we have ended up with this set-up:

We tested it and after a few annoying air leaks from using oversized hose clamps we ended up getting it going with no air leaks what so ever.
The moisture trap also helps keep dirt out of the air and therefore the paint so that is another plus!
Early start tomorrow as I am hoping to have everything done for the Sylvia Park meet tomorrow night.

Another small thing. These came in the mail today:

Thanks to forum member necsis I am one step closer to being hellaflush!!!!

[efsi]

looking good dude.
if u can afford get a mini water trap for the gun as well added protetcion

[necsis]

Hope you put those spacers to good use

mean build!

[lancew]

looking good dude.
if u can afford get a mini water trap for the gun as well added protetcion

Hi, thanks for the info, the pressure regulator we got also works as a water trap.

Hope you put those spacers to good use

mean build!

Will do! Thanks!

[lancew]

This update was meant to be done last night but I was having some internet trouble

Some more news on the painting.
I woke up early this morning and got the gun and compressor set up, I had a small practice on a spare bonnet I had and then got into it, I mixed 1 part primer to 1.5 parts thinners as per instructions on the tin. Once id got everything running nicely I started spraying the car. Some time went by and all of a sudden id run out of primer :/ so I went to super cheap to buy some more.
Car is now all primed up:



Garage was still closed in these







There was only one bit that came out really badly, don't think I sanded enough of the old paint off here:

I will try tidy this up before the paint goes on

I painted the gas flap with the sample paint, however I forgot to stir it and ended up with a really crap finish:



So I went back to the paint guy and he mixed me up a new pot and also gave me some clear coat.
I re-sanded the flap and gave it 3 coats of top coat (after a good stir)
and the 3 coats of clear coat and it came up mint, exactly what I wanted.
Before clear coat:





After clear coat:





The paint guy also told me to leave the primer at-least overnight before sanding and doing the top coat and to also keep the room warm otherwise the paint will go white and look shit so set-up these:


So I had to take the other beast to the NZHondas meet up at Sylvia Park, Here she is:



Gave her a good clean and a wax and polish and also put an old head deck I had into it so I've got something to listen too (it’s from 1 shitty speaker but meh, better than nothing)
I've got a tutorial at Uni tomorrow so may not get much done, maybe just sanding and possibly buying the paint but probably not much more but will keep you posted.
Chur.