POB... Will it ever be finished?

[Nail]

Hi all since talking to you on sunday in my power ranger gear and being generally gutted that i haven't finished my EE9 off yet I thought I'd log back in and finnally do some kind of build thread!
Im sure this is going to take me days to do so first off hes a quick pic of when I first bought the car off a mate I've known since school he'd bought it stock In 1999 & we were quite good mates I prob saw him every few weeks or so He modded it a bit in the 2 years he'd had it stuff cost a fortune back then too I remember the reactive rear can comming from the states and being £250!
Helix organic clutch kit. (absolutely brilliant bit of kit, no lift shifts were an option if you were really going for it, smashed the power straight through nothing bothered it you could do any launch you wanted confident that it wouldnt sturggle slip or burn)
HKS mushroom & intake with chamber
AVO coilovers
adjustable FPR with gauge
16" polished lip wheels
hks manifold & 2.25 powerflow custom system.
In 2002 the car was about to become mine, over a decade of stories to follow!

yes thats an Evoluzone II hes had a lot of cars
just before I got my hands on it and saved it from rust and write off's im sure... well sort of!
paid £2200 for it july of 2002

After a few years of generally really enjoying servicing it washing it etc & thrashing it about in my younger days... a few of us 2 tegs (including previous owner) an eg6 and me went to a rolling road day chesterfield it made 179bhp I was pretty happy but it was getting old starting to rust a tiny bit bushes were gone and coilvers about knackered, I got the manky polished wheels painted white stripped it out starting occasionally running at pod etc, Its at this point that I embarked upon seriously spending money on it! :S....... Sometime during 2004

I think I got a 14.7 best of the day...
Around this time I was parking in town and messing around with the stereo just before it got stripped I clipped the corner of a wall with the corner at about 5 mph or less it split the bumper right on the corner broke the indicator /sidelight/headlight and really messed up the drives side wing. It hadnt touched the bonnet or front panel. luckily (or not) glanced off the wall as i was turning into a space, so at this point I got a new white bumper, wing & lights oh and the grill filler bar and had them all painted etc this cost around 750 in total I think. but it was back and looking quite fresh. with new lighter pair of SiR lights.
..still I hadn't managed to get he bumper to fit right by the looks aof that last pic! these were dated october 2004.

[dazec8]

Glad u finally started a build to good a car this not to get some appreciation
I love this car its a true road warrior

[Nail]

cheers man ..but now for some tragedy and before 2004 was out, having some camber on the front had worn my tires down on the inside soo bad I desperatly needed new tyres, I had been out drinking and generally being a total fool all weekend not bought new tyres, or camber arms as I had planned. forced to work overtime on the monday I was totally knackered and basically came out of work , down the dual carridge way braked for rthe roundabout on the A5 locked up bad , couldnt seem to unlock the wheels pumping the brakes but i was trailing 2nd gear and doing 45/50 prob still, anyway I avoided workmates cars waiting at the roundabout! and went for the gap up the shallow curb across the grass between armco & the sign saying roundabout... I didnt make it impacted on the sign just to the right of the H on the bonnet.




It sat there for some time as I got a mate (Rich from dynodaze) to tow me back with his solid bar in a 1.6 Orion no less! lol
I debated scrapping it /breaking it , but they were going for around 1200 for a rusty one or 1500+ for a good one at the time , after talking with rich as he worked in the ford main dealers accident repair centre and him and the main jig worker real heavy stuff (nathan warrington RIP) were able to do it slightly cheaper after work by their boss , I decided to keep it for ever it worked out to about £1350 to fix it. better the devil you know I thought after all I knew what was wrong with this one may as well keep it rather than spend the same on another.
I got a Billb subframe as orignial ones are heavy S*!t and almost always bent anyway new they were 300quid which is what the custom thing cost me , but then it required some fettling and I never did get any rose joints with it so sourced my own and had the raidus rods re cut to suit new ones at a local engineering place. I had new off side chassis leg was only £180! & bumper fillar bar & front panel from honda leicester. and the leg was stitched in just after the engine mount as it had creased just where its supposed to in the crumple zone in front of that. They had a few issues and delays getting specs, measurements and alignments & I was collecting parts etc but we all got there in the end. it prob took about a good year to get the car back on the road! well you cant rush these things....


Back & straight november 2005! I had bought a carbon bonnet for it but It ended up with this purple one as I lent it to the mate with the red/purple one and he got involved in a motorway pile up! and it was destoyed £450 down the pan there then never even fitted it to my car but it looked the part on his , thats his new rex there..

The rota grids on that tho later became the wheels on mine, well I bought 1 new one as it was damamged in curbing incodent he had in the rex! my wheels were terrible they had weird vavles that cost £12 each and bolted from the other side they kept going down and you had to take the tyre off to sort them , the grids look way better anyway.

[Nail]

I put he engine back in there on the driveway and got it running , on through the mot and drove it for a little while like this I'm sure it was at this point I had the whole car painted and rear arches done as I think they were stopperd before when previous owner had it to tidy them up and it had done the job for aobut 5 years , I dont recall getting just the front painted rich had blasted the chassis leg and front panel with plane white whilst it was still in the workshop so that was all good and wasnt going to rust etc... some psyco girl broke my windscreen whislt it was on the driveway (enough said about that!) so it was time to get the whole car painted along with the arches all cut out n done. rich did have some pics of this & I did too but the only 2 I can find are from just after it came back from paint. I'd got 2 outer arches for it and rich made up the inners Like he did for that red one he did the build thread for on here some years later.



Just after new arches and full respray with the screen out, I should've done the indside too tbh , but this was another £1350 ish & I'd got that front splitter from canada its a Fibre glass rep bonded it onto the bumper with windscreen bond before it went for paint , a mate was over there so I got it delivered to his hotel and he carrried it back through customs for me
I used the car with the original b16 in it like this for a while.
Around 2004-2006 I had been involved with several b18 & b20 & turbo builds that mates were doing in crx's 4g's & ek's so we had been learning the hard way about all sorts with those cars, engines in and out and mapping , trying new stuff test cheap ebay parts etc going over to see melvin & teeshan in there unit at hillfields leicester & taran from peterborough was often with them. Also me and wayne at this point took his CRX turbo over to gordon at street racers and amazed him with how much power these things made as he was pretty much focused on fords/cosworths at the time.

2007 I finally saved up some money (i had been skint etc and the car took a sideline not quite as big as the one it would take later on tho! ) took my b16 out flogged the bottom end to a local lad who had seized his B16b!!! up in a coupe :O and I began building pob's first b20 nasp hi comp.
Engine out again but this time gone for good & a massive spending on silly bits that would prove fatal.... for the engine


Integra R MC & servo went in whilst engine was out man that was fiddly! rich hired some blokes garage as no one had anywhere to do this at the time & I had sold my house was back at parents :O

It was just around this time or before car had.
2nd hand 20mm rear ARB & bushes used stock drop links at this point
The type r servo & mc.
goodridge hoses, new grooved discs all round and yellow stuff pads all round.
new exchange calipers all round.
Full energy suspension bush kit , well what you can use mostly front end stuff & gear linkage etc.
Adjustable front camber sliding top mounts the seperate sort, that are a total bitch to adjust!
ditched AVO's & bought some D2 coilovers they were all the rage at the time
Another £750 ish there i want to keep track as best i can of how much its cost so ppl can see how easy it is to rack up a 35k + spend on a 25 year old civic

gearbox was taken over to some company in worcster cant remember the name anyway £325 later it was reconned with all new brass syncros etc as it was well crunchy.

The engine. for some reason I bought forged pistons not sure if RS were out or widely used at the time. but I splashed out anyway.
84.5mm weisco forged +2.2cc dome pistons
Eagle rods
b20b3 block machined out, (at the time I was naive and let the engineering shop decide what was best on p2w clearences etc)
ACL race bearings mains & bigends.
DH racing PR3 HEAD
Eagle B20Vtec kit
b20 alloy block girdle
Commetic slightly thinner Head Gasket
Commetic Intake mani gasket
ARP head studs.
SKunk2 Tuner stage 2 cams
Eagle cam pulleys
Itr Intake & 70mm TB machined out intake to mate TB etc.
ngk 7 plugs & reactive 8mm leads
weld in Baffle kit & B18c4 sump to clear the block girdle.
F1 stage 3 clutch. As the helix had got damaged whilst parts were sitting about/being moved The helix organic was the greatest clutch Ive ever had in anything brilliant!
oil pressure & temp gauge fitted.
new belts / gasket kits /filters /fluids etc.
Oh had to source new b16a engine mount as I stupidly let it go still bolted to my bottom end! lol learnt that lesson!



as you can imagine this set me back quite a bit.... i suspect this engine build by the time it was in and running cost about 5k.
The head cost me over £1000 in total and took Dave Hickman the fat rip merchant (as you can tell I dont really like him much) nearly a year to get it too me! Its all singing all dancing flow benched thing with some 3 angle valve job and springs etc in and ready to rock apparently..... well it wasnt! here's a pic of the port work.... It was supposed to be all polished and annodised up etc as per his original adverts...

[dill]

And then...? Loving the story so far!
Nice car, good work, lots of commitment.

[Nail]

sorry mate been editing that post and eating dinner etc , Im only up to 2007 atm! the major work is yet to come

[Nail]

So after I finnally got a new engine mount off mark the nutter on here the engine could actually go in, I'd collected all sorts of wonderfull other parts over the last few years i cant remember what injectors it was running , Im sure i just had stock socketed PW0 ECU , stock injectors FPR on just under 60 psi and cranked it over.... well few pops but wouldnt run , messed about with it. had Bre running & was going through and trying all sorts... we had build the bottom end up and knew it was fine (ish few clearence issues and I do things differently now but it was all good) not sure what happened then but I was out of money and out of paitence with it. It had to leave the rented garage as was paying out for it per week so towed it home left it there.

Had changed soo much, the inlet had trouble with TPS sensor reading right from the TB though it could be soo many issues maybe at this point everything had been in the car during snow outside go soaked I'd had to buy new rings for the pistons as the door seal & sunroof leaked water onto the block and all the boxes in the car just before building it.... then went out for a BEER.....

Prob 3 months later when I compression tested it after turning it over again, rich came round and we both had a listen he suggested it really sounded like it was popping back through the inlet it would almost fire it was really irritating well, after it made not alot of compression. Rich doesnt like arp head studs cause once on his brothers car they unwound on warm up and he hates havign to retourque them etc , suggests the same thing maybe they are loose...Took head off everything looking pretty good... took head over to engineering shop, they trying to tell me its prob bottom end erm nope check head , passed vac check on several valves! the guy tells me its fine whilst im standing there watching him. Im saying I know the bottom ends ok , I call rich he says the same got be something wrong with it , can see no cracks etc. I have to demand! (places shouldn't be like this they should work with you ffs!) that they take out a vavle and give it a quick rub whilst ive got the head there and in my hand..... guess what never trust a fat yank! valve job try hadn't even lapped them in. so I lap them in , pissed off reuse the commetic head gasket (sod it at this point!) more oil water and months wasted , It fires up like a dream runs fine up to temp and let it chill again. cams are on 0,0 at this point.
finnally get it MOT'ed insured and Lazer aligined takes ages with adjustable caster camber etc... lol
Insure it fiddle with onroad base map as I'vebought the
Inovative wideband controller
motes flash burner & the ostrich 2 etc.

the weird marks on the pistons are from the snow melting corrosion whilst they were sitting in the box on the seat! cleaned up alright it was just on the tops.
ran it in sorted out the PCV pipes on the back and it smoked alot less! It still smoked abit I hadn't used running in oil like a nub & prob p2w clearence issues.
anyway rich had just opened dynodaze or was just about too at this point. it was just Rolling roads and he still worked at paynes in the day mapped it on road & then on the dyno when it opened, dialed around with cams & made 216bhp /156ft/lb I was hoping & expecting more tbh the old b20z wayne had slapped together made 208 with no map just fpr tweeking.. but anyway it Flew on the road and it was fun weighed 920kg's handled pretty damn well and the new brakes were nice.

[Nail]

more disaster....................................:'(
Its 2011 when I said I went for a beer for 3 months I actually ment just over 2 years had past between taking the engine out & now be it waiting for the head from states and other parts to messign around testing the head on and off etc I wasnt very keen and was in love elsewhere at the time! I remember now I moved house several times in that and took the car with me / left it at freinds houses moved it around whilst i was doing allsorts of other things with my life...
BUT I refused to sell it, I always knew I'd keep it. no matter what it would be great again!
At this point the engine has done just under 3000 miles its been great not even that smokey tbh.
Im overtaking down a looong striaght country road with a bmw up my arse 3rd gear almost 7k rpm it lets go sounds like a bag of old spanners being kicked down a hill in a metal dustbin... I know its fucked. The beemer doesnt and almost runs into the back of me! Its 6pm sat was going for some food at a country pub with this bird, now im rolling infront on the car I just over took... hoping to make it to the layby at the top of the hill lol! the beemer flew by when i pulled in prob taking the piss, and revelling in the triumphant defeat!
I made it to the layby. I make a phone call, we get picked up, just leave the car there its about 15miles from home and I'll come tow it back in the morning...
well no ones going to be joy riding in it!

The valve stem has actually punched right through this piston and bend the eagle rod slightly!
well it was going round at nearly 7k at the time so there's a few impacts there!
I whip the head off on my parents driveway I really thought I was done spending on it. I'd already left it sitting for over several years round girlfriend houses and it had been a constant source of worry and annoyance whilst I had been ignoring it and out clubbing etc. I'd finished with her I dont think the car helped! and I'd just moved back to my folks...
plenty of valve stem is now up in the inlet by the TB crazy.

[Nail]

Upon stipdown of the head which happened prob 6weeks later as i couldn tbe bothered and I saved up some cash to buy a new b16 to chuck in so i could use the car and it wasnt just sitting for years like it had been :O pulled the cams out , valve springs to find out what had happend was looking at them all lined up on the side totally twisted out of shape and all different hieghts now , It had clipped a valve because it had bounced due to weak springs because I concluded not only had he just shoved a set of valves in having not lapped them he had put some GSR or ITR or whatever dual valve springs in it that he had cleaned up.... I should have double/triple checked everything myself, Like I do now! my fault really. After checking the max lift of my cams agianst that of say GSR or ITR springs It quickley became apparent the intake side actually coil bind at 11.7mm lift well my Skunk2's are 12.4 lift on vtec so Im actually suprised it even made the 216bhp! trust some crazy yank from las vegas?! my advice would be, NOT EVEN ONCE!

So there was my 5 grand build down the drain. I picked up a b16a1 from stew sixpointnine out of some forum memebers old rex apparently, just under £200 with no rocker & cam covers on it. I swapped the clutch around at this point as I hated that stage 3 soo stiff in traffic and the bite was about 1mm then on. I used the f1 pressure plate with a stock clutch plate I got with the engine I think it looked quite new. Threw that in it and mapped that, I drove it around for almost 2 years like that, It was much better to drive but it would just start slipping if I tired any of the old no lift shift crazyness the helix used to cope with, and launches with it didnt feel great, I went pod and dare not push it anymore could only get a 14.9 with crappy infinity tyres on the front (dont ask) and that clutch set up.
Which was the engine in it when you lot saw it at the dynoday when it snowed! then I got bored just not quick enough, so I started some propper modding and started working with rich at dynodaze customworx. there were a fair few suspension changes and other bits that happened before I took it off road and stripped it this time tho..

I got rich to make me a battery box in welded in the boot and reloc'ed it with 4 gauge cables and fuses etc the cars also got a cheapish rear lower tie , modified rear strut brace to sit lower so it might actually do something & c pillar bar at this point.
then I sold the c pillar bar stuck the brace in shed and made the X brace



I cant find any of the pics of making it now , but its just cutting welding and the brace forming up in stages.
The cars also had at this point:
cleaned up all underneath and under sealed,
honda legend twin pot fronts on reconditioned & 282 discs,
new cv joints
new lower ball joints,
new rear adjustable arms as all the rear bushes were gone,
d2 camber & toe arms
knock off Rear LCA's as needed new bushes
new blox adjustable droplinks
super pro RTA bushes



And here I am concentrating really hard on reversing up that curb and not ploughing into anything damn the suspensions hard and not confortable at all! I chalk board painted the bonnet as it was dented in by a 125 motorbike i had at the time when car was off the road, wind blew it over onto my bonnet and it put 3 dents in it so they were tapped, filled , primed and sprayed it in the unit with matt black fortress iron paint. In fact you can see the dents in the pic on the rolling road in the previous post up bet you didnt even notice eh?!


Yes the stick on plate may look slightly odd there , but its lighter and more aerodynamic than a plastic thing

[Nail]

Around this time I noticed cracks appearing to widen in the sealer on teh flitch panels and around the bay, fatigue of the years of hard suspension and driving I suppose. there are no radius rod bushes to ease anything its all bolted up solid. Anyway me and rich set to work to remove as much of the sealer as we could after I managed to talk him into welding it up this was just what we could see get at with the engine still in for now. the aim was just to do every seem in there we could reach as it was only in a couple of places where it was pulling apart the spotwelded panels. it seemed to be in teh top corner by the VIN plate & the left side near the stock battery location but just the flitch really and the box on top of the inner wing at the joins. the movement cracks were tiny but it bothered me and wanted to nip it in the bud. MIG'ed all down each seem , a nightmere with the thin panels and sealer still hiding in the gaps despite hours of picking it out! deffo a job when the engines out and your really stripping it /sandblasting it tbh. just rattle canned it white for the time being after chucking some pirmer on it.






Also fitted the Plastics 4 performance LEXEN window kit, ordered all 5 with the goup buy on civiclife , had them all oem look, fitted the rear quaters bonded them in totally non opening now & just put hte front into my electric window mech for now they work fine but are getting slightly scratched up I shouldve paid out for the coating.
the rear screen is in my shed atm I'd planned on buying a carbon tailgate and fitting that straight on with the plastic window rather than having to cut the rear screen out as it looks to be a nightmere so currently still have glass with the heated screen in the rear but the kite was around £350 with bond etc.
I weighed the car roughly around this time at robs MOT station just opposite dynodaze his brake rollers weigh each axel which is nice. with just over half a tank of fuel 916kg,

Then a phesant flew into the side of me on the motorway enroute to a liecester meet , it destroyed the passenger mirror thought it would come through the window rocked the car soo bad & soo loud. I just got some abs spoon rep mirrors from the states. they weigh nowt compared to the stock electric ones! think they were £60
Ditched the big heavy rad fan for a nice slimline light one 12" did away with the plug and used a pair of spade connectors then taped it up, lots more room in there & less weight!



here's the stay /brace I made for the front bumper splitter as it was not secure enough for my liking and was obviously bending out of shape at speed etc. wanted to make the most of the splitter and the old plastic mounts at the side are well past their best!

I also fibreglassed over some parts of the bumper mounting pionts as they are tiny and one side was cracking lifting of the pegs its design thats clearly not the best so with some reinforcement hopefully it will sit better.
Its steel dowel Ive painstakingly bent to the same shape so it fits snug into the splitter with two tabs to bolt up under the bumper and hold it all nice. then acid primered it to death , rattle canned it , then some stonegaurd in an attmept to stop it rusting. The bumper & splitter are pinned in place with this its solid no movement or wobbling or deforming. Mission accomplished






Then I just got bored as rich was on holiday and I got the chalk out for a laugh


I did have some fun in the car here it is at the famous ashby folsworth car & bike meet in the summer 2012 (which is now sadly no longer operating due to lack of police interest, sheer numbers turning up & idiots racing & doing burnouts in the quiet leicstershire village.
I left the chalk on the bonnet and went for a wonder round. kids loved it & some adults too.



Went to pod with it like this and got told to rub off the 'offensive slogan' before running, its just laugh but. Ok I wasnt trying to be chavy, there are kids there and I can see their point. But I cant help being so Ironically kool

[Tahir]

WOW I love it, some journey man.

[Nail]

Thats only 2012! theres more recently I gave up around 2am lol, its had another b20 & loads of stuff since tbh. I'll get on it in a bit

[Nail]

I took the car off the road 01/11/2012 when the tax ran out, As I wasnt earning a great deal working with rich , but it meant had tools/welders/workshop etc and some free time to do anything really well with someone who shared the passion for a good honda build.
The original Idea was to have the b16 out, wire tuck it move the fuseboxes inside, paint everything subframes & the bay and tidy it all up. my steering rack had play in it by this point the clocks are showing 130k the TRE's are kanckered too..
wanted to get the mg rear big brakes on, and just generally finish everything and do it right ending up with car around 850kg's running around 230bhp & I was hoping to run it in time attack in the following year maybe with some help from dynodaze and Rtech next door.
but for now I would get a b20z slap it together cheap , get it in and running with the car itself all done then possibly sell that for a swap to a customer etc when it was proven and do a hi comp build. well it didnt really work out like that.... as per
I saved up and collected parts again doing a massive amount more research this time into every aspect of the build, with lists and more lists talking through everything with others and then adding something missed to the list. lol I still missed something and we ended up waiting for a couple of parts and wasting some time.
I managed to source a b20z litterally stock just bottom end from a breaker south of nottingham for £250 I sent a mate in a van to go get it the breakers had litterally took everything off not even the water pipe on the back of the block remained! but luckly I have boxes of spares after digging through my old boxes of engines smashed heads and parts as I kept everything in storage so I had the the task of going through all that keeping anything good and weighing in old blocks heads etc... (There was another b16 in bits I had after a small experiment with running the skunk2 cams on single valve springs for around a year that finally clipped a valve too but it had only cost 80quid to do. so lots of bits spare.)
The B20Z came and looks like someone had some rad weld or something in it that wouldn't come off after a quick clean!
got a b16a2 head off a breaker on civiclife. I was going to use a C4 head but... I got some blackbird ITB's and want to play around with those so thinking use my original b16 inlet to make some thing with and bolt my itr 70mm inlet on this to get it up running and mapped. both head and block have come back after being sent straight to my mate who worked at arrow precision (those that make the expensive cranks and rods its actually in hinckley by the mc donalds) he used a CNC grinder to perfectly flat them hence there are no swirl marks like a milled/skim normally leaves 2 thou off block 1 thou of head and they are micron flat. grinding ally really clogs up the grinding wheels so its not normally done but when they aren't yours you tend not to care
oh yeah stuck the pcv 'prelude water' adapter inthe block there too.




I also stripped and cleaned the type r oil pump I bought new for the old b20 after looking at the price of new units now!!! checked for any damage/contamination as the old block was destroyed all the mains & crank were scored up with bits of block/head/valve guide. but the oil pump lives! not a mark on it. winner! its going in the new build savings made there.

[nominous]

Did the Hickman head have a stamp on it anywhere with initials DHR ??

[Nail]

Right at this point I got my old baffled b18 sump,pick up & the b20 specific block girdle all cleaned up and ready. I carefully remove the b20z sump checking for any crap in there or signs of something terrible. Take the 6 maincap bolts out the centre trying not disturb the caps/bearings, but alas. As I crack the centre cap bolts I smell it, wafting up , friction burned oil/metal that terrible smell I pull the maincap bolt out and its covered in grey sludge... yes, yes at this point I obviously cant resist pulling the crank and checking the bearings out properly as I know there is some wear in that center. but it ran fine. I toyed with Idea of ignoring it for half a second of course I couldnt after seeing it. pulled crank some coating going off the centre main shell, and some minimal wear on the others tbh it prob wouldve ran fine for years If I'd have left it.... but at this point It was too late and it was having a full build.. bam there goes my buget! I figure if I do the shells all that measuring and double checking as you cant trust anyone! I'd do the big ends too , then I'm going to need new rings whilst im there may as well. Ring are around 70quid from honda to reuse the stock b20z pistons and stay around 10.2CR, but I have a quick look on the bay for £170 I can get YCP itr copies in 84mm with new rings and go up too 11.7 ish hmm sold!
Although at this point I try to get in touch with various sellers to fine out what the dome cc's are to no avail there is a shortage of RS machines about at the time I know they come in 3 dome sizes. hmm after much searching on Honda tech and looking about msg's etc . I buy them anyway. I'm pretty convinced they are either +2.2 or +5 which ever will do.
Time to strip the car down and prep the bay lots to do.... you can see where I had left the sealer over the welds from the previous effort to seam it up. Its generally solid on the passengerside anyhow as thats where the new leg was stitched in previously.




car outside on stands now so we can work on it inbetween jobs, MC out wires labelled up for whats staying/going taking off unwanted brackets/ studs on bulkhead etc & cleaning up the welds from before & seeing where the fuseboxes, resistor packs etc will go. Its up on stands as the subframes are all comming out to be cleaned checked for fatigue & then powdercoated, steering racks getting reconditioned too, so I send that off to a lad we know and its delivered back with lovely new parts nd no play just need a pair of tre's now.
Here is Rich in some rain making a start on prepping the bay because we have spare time, Im inside sorting out boxes of parts etc.. great things require great sacrifice