Trondelond's EK4

[Trondelond]

Little update; had some problems with the gearbox accepting more oil than it should when I filled it through the breather hole, I blame this on not having seen a B series for about 7 years. Someone needs to take my tools away when I've been at the garage for too long; turns out that the bolts I was undoing to fill and empty oil through were the seals you remove when you disassemble the gearbox.

I suddenly discovered the proper holes, and what do you know - the problem solved itself. And yes - you CAN fill oil through the breather hole. This was so easy, I can't imagine why anyone would want to fiddle with removing the VSS to do this.

Anyway, the car wouldn't start when I tried firing it up, this was all my fault. I didn't read the manual properly for installing the timing chain. Had to juggle the cam sprockets a bit, and it started up and ran real smooth straight away. Purred like a 1.6-litre kitty.

I'll try and exuse all of the above with the fact that I've worked on SR20's the past few years.

I've stuck a new tempsensor into the radiator hose (or rather - I stole it from my other engine), and I'll get it hooked up tonight. Then it's a matter of setting the timing, hooking up lights and installing the front bumper. It should putter out of the garage on its own.

 

[Trondelond]

..and it got there on its own!

Got the OE temp sensor installed in the adapter, seems like it gets nothing to work with until the thermostat opens, when it suddenly springs into life. I can live with that.
Car feels fine, the new gearbox will take some getting used to though! But you can't beat the LSD during winter!
Next on the list will be to figure out how to get the heater working.. with temperatures well below 0C I am sort of motivated to get it going. The fan works, and there is hot air coming out, but when I press the buttons to select where the air should come out, I'm getting nothing..

Oh, and the intake/exhaust combo works nicely. Very peaceful for calm driving, and wakes up when you get a little more inspired.

 

[Trondelond]

Quick little update!

The heater mode selector motor works! But nothing is happening in the dash when it's pressed, so something must be bent, cracked, disconnected or something. Will yank out the console to figure it out.
Also, I got a tip that my rear lights don't work. The brake lights do, but the running lights don't. Found that the bulbs were corroded to the sockets, and some solution involving a lot of tape when it comes to the connections. Add "soldering that bastard up" to the todo-list.

Got some stuff done as well, installed a new door handle. I can now open it with style. And adjusted the door. The hinges are completely shot, so new ones are on the way.

I've also decided to raise the car up a bit. With the mugen bits hanging so low, and winter coming, it'll be a good idea to get a bit more height. Suppose a wheel alignment will be in order after that.

Finally bit the bullet and got this badboy, at last I can do the crank bolt properly :

My honda parts dealer will probably have a toast in my honour sometime soon as well. Third big order on the way :

4 x 90670SG0003 - grommet, screw door
6 x 91560SP0003 - clip door lining
4 x 9390324420 - screw tapping, door
6 x 94109-14000 crush washers
2 x 90009-PH1-000 oil pan bolts
4 x 15400-PT7-005 oil filter
4 x 90686-692-003 (lining mount cap)
2 x 67410-SM4-K01ZZ (door hinge)
2 x 67450-SM4-K01ZZ (door hinge)
12 x 90126-SR4-000 inner fender screw+washer
4 x 90126-SR4-000 inner fender screw+washer
12 x 90682-SB0-003 inner fender grommet, screw
28 x 91501-S04-003 inner fender clip
1 x 72365-S03-G01 sub seal left door
4 x 90331-SD5-003 nut spring sideskirt
6 x 90688-SB0-013 clip, sideskirt
1 x 74101-S04-010 inner fender L
1 x 74151-S04-000 inner fender R

And one more thing; the throttle seems to be a little "sticky". When I let off the throttle slowly, it sort of just stays at the rpm it was at when I had the throttle in. I've cleaned the throttle body a little, and there aren't any leaks. The throttle cable is adjusted to spec as well. But compared to my buddy's JDM Accord engine, the throttle body spring is real soft. I can push the throttle body thing back about 1mm when I've let off the throttle. Don't know if this is normal..

 

[Trondelond]

Figured I'd try to find out why no air was coming out of the heater vents, and yanked out the underside of the dash.

All the motors and other doohickeys seemd to work fine, but I suddenly noticed that the flap covering the air filter wasn't shut properly. After shutting it, things got better, but it wasn't until I tried it without the filter that things really started working. Pretty clogged up filter. Must get a new one as soon as possible.

While I was at it, I wanted to see why the stereo had shorted out on me. And as expected, this was what I found (after removing about 12 feet of unused cable behind the dash).

Shoddy tape-work. One of the wires had fallen out, and was shorting out everything in its vicinity. Took it all out and soldered those badboys up. Stereo is finally working again, and the amp is secured in the back. Whoo.

 

[Trondelond]

Dali Racing serving up some everyday OEM luxuries : Shin-Etsu grease and a service connector plug! I´m tired of getting the welding wire, paper clip, wire or whatnot to work!

 

[JDM Civic EG4]

I have to say your ways of wording things make me laugh fair play haha

I LOL'ed quite hard a few times, especially with the gearbox filling issue and in your Technical Question thread as well about the oil, very funny.

.....the invisible oil gremlins strike again! Those pesky b*astards! I've thrown many a spanner in anger believe me! And almost cried a few tears and begged to GOD a few times too.

The nice custom Toothpaste engine mount made me laugh too, brilliant!! Could maybe be a new design that Mugen or Spoon need to consider for their catalogs?

Really does sound like this EK was previously owned by monkeys down the local zoo..... I honestly think a cricket team could have put it together better than the guy who had it before!


But you have a good build up fair play, your doing well, keep it up mate!

 

[Trondelond]

Heh, thanks. I suppose living in a non-english speaking country doesn't help either when it comes to the wording.
Unfortunately the soft, minty freshness my engine mounts would have provided didn't the Spoon and Mugen representatives.

Yeah, I would really like the complete history - or lack thereof - of this car. But I suppose I'll just stick with it, and make my own. *play dramatic music* Hopefully there'll be more amusement here!

 

[Trondelond]

It's quiz time! Who can guess which filter is new, and which one is old?

There's a lot more air coming through the vents now. It's magical.

Also got one inner fender installed, but it wasn't as straightforward as I hoped. First, I ordered for a USDM model, and there are slight differences between the european and US models it seems. Probably something to do with the fact that the Si only came as a facelift version. And all the old bolts and screws were stuck in place. So had to get them out. THEN I found out that the fenders (which seem to be made out of tin foil) don't have rectangular holes for the little clips you're supposed to screw into. These had to be trimmed, and with the holes being round, guess what happened when I tried to screw the screws into them. Yep, they went round and round. Argh.

The inner fender seems to have put some sort of tension somewhere on the fender, so it's now squeaking over bumps. Time to get the bending unit out!

 

[Trondelond]

Well, i've been driving around with the abs light screaming at me since I bought the car. And ABS is nice to have during winter. After clearing the ECU of the roughly 15 errorcodes (seriously), I was left with one indicating that there was a problem with the front right sensor. Ok, I yank it off, and check for continuity. There wasn't much to speak of.
Since I got (pigtailed) ABS sensors with my 5-lug swap, I figured I could use that sensor, and soldered it onto the wire. Turns out that in addition to the sensor being dead, there was a short somewhere in the rest of the cable.
I had some abs leads with sensors that came with the car that didn't fit. Ended up with using the plug that was on the car, leads from the "wrong" sensor, and the 5-lug bit for the sensor.. whew. Frankenwire. It worked at least!

Then I could enjoy that special feeling of warninglight-free motoring for..oh, about two and a half minute when the light came on AGAIN! Argh. This time it's the left sensor arguing. So that'll have to be fixed as well.

On a lighter note, I got the DC2 steering wheel on, and I really like this..

 

[JDM Civic EG4]

Metal arch liners?!?!?! What in the actual......feck. That's weird lol.

That's the first time I've ever seen that, their usually made of a type of ABS plastic, yes ABS plastic. Sorry to put that swear word in there (ABS) - its not your favorite of words lately is it! It inspires a proper fit of spanner throwing I'm sure.....

I have about 7 million of them lying around, one problem, your a bit far to simply throw them over for you!


Your having more problems than I've ever seen but your battling through them like a Nordic warrior! Top man! Keep it up, will be worth it in the end, i promise! Just try not to cut the Civic up with a disc cutter in the mean time ok?

 

[Trondelond]

Heheh, sorry, that's my mobile's flash that makes it look like it. They are OEM items (although for an US model, so they don't fit perfectly because it's designed for a smaller wiper fluid tank. Must remedy that.), so don't worry.

I'll see what I can do with cutters and a soldering iron, if I run into trouble I'll nag you about the sensors then. Good to know!

Playing a squash tournament tonight, I'll try and get some frustration out, and get the left side sorted tomorrow!

 

[Trondelond]

Had time to check the sensor at least, there was continuity which I suspected as the faultcode indicated something else physically wrong with the sensor. And I think I may have found the problem :

To the left is a healthy sensor, the faulty one to the right. I have no idea how this has happened. Better warm up that soldering iron again.

 

[Trondelond]

Still here, just haven´t done much writing home about!

Getting good at making these hybrid ABS cables, but unfortunately this didn´t help. I´m still getting the ABS light after a bit of driving. So I´m going to measure the ECU pins and whatnot as a last resort. If that fails, I´ll try to find another ABS ECU I can test.

I didn´t have any 2.5" gaskets when I got my twinloop, which resulted in a tiny leak where the cat meets the B-pipe. Got that sorted, and slapped some polybushes on the gear linkage.

Got sick of the seatbelt hanging out the door, so I ordered a new one. Also got overhaul parts for the calipers. Aaaand a distributor cap and rotor. However, when I yanked the old distributor cap off, the rotor shaft had such bad play in it that I don´t see myself using that much longer. Ordered a used distributor, and will put the new parts on there instead. I´m amazed the distributor actually works..

Furthermore, I´m sick of Koni and their odd springrates. So the coilovers have to go. And I´m putting on a tried and tested combo. Merry christmas to me :

These will be a nice base to start tuning the suspension, methinks. I´ll be running these for a while, and I´m considering the spoon springs as an upgrade option. But these will do nicely for now.

 

[Trondelond]

Finally got the ride height right, thanks to the rocketscientists on ek9.org Here´s the ride height front and rear, the car is parked in such a manner that I can´t get a pic of the whole car :

I´ve got some problems with idle not settling as low as it should, and a slight hesitation on light throttle. Figured I´d clean the IACV just to rule that out. It did help the hesitation a bit, but the idle is still not good. Noticed that the throttle body spring probably has been removed and installed wrong. The spring is way too loose to close the throttlebody properly now. So that´ll have to come off. At least I´ve most likely found the problem :

Got my newish alternator as well, so I treated it to a new cap and rotor. Also got OE leads with it, so the blingy ones had to go. The old alternator will be used for spares, in case the igniter or coil dies :

 

[Trondelond]

Been on vacation for a few weeks, but here we are : Got a used throttlebody in the mail, and new OEM front discs and pads. They should do nicely for the purpouse of the car at the moment. The fronts had developed a vibration during braking, so they had to go.

No nasty surprises during the change, except for one of the screws that hold the disc in place. It was solid, but a bit of hammering, heat and drilling sorted that our.

 

[Sopano]

wos dirty, you cleaned it. nice ride

 

[Trondelond]

Slowly moving from a salvage thread to a build thread I suppose.

Got around to changing the throttle body last night, and suddenly the idle is spot on, and I don't have to jab the pedal to get the revs to drop.. plus the pedal got twice as hard, so something was definately wrong!

Still have a slight hesitation from time to time though :/ Any suggestions are more than welcome. Changed throttlebody, distributor, new plugs and cleaned out the IACV, running out of options.

Also got a new ABS control unit that I strapped in, but the light came on as soon as I started driving. I'm guessing it's grounded through the chassis? Won't do much good lying in the footwell then..

 

[Trondelond]

FINALLY! I have ABS! The ABS ECU didn´t do the trick, but a new sensor and lead on the left front did! This calls for some sort of celebration.

 

[Trondelond]

Was getting sick of this :

So put in a new one. Feels odd to fetch the belt from behind the seat now as opposed to having it lying in a bundle in the seat, ready to be put on..

 

[iainbig]

nice work