EM1 Long term build (sideline EG track build)


SteveOEM1

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Joined
Mar 24, 2013
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153
I made an intro post a while back and had some nice response on my coupe, and as the list of work never seems to get shorter I thought I'd keep a build thread on here.

The catch up to where I am today has all been copied from another forum I'm on (a certain US site dedicated to EM1'S :) ..), so its just copy and paste, but I'll keep it alive moving forwards.

As the title says the key to this build is that I want to build an EM1 to the way that I want, but my pockets are far from deep! Also, every bit of work is done by myself (except on the odd times when I'll admit defeat and call on some great people I know who have the skills and knowledge to help me out..). This car has been my education and training in mechanics - its my test bed to learn more skills - it'll only ever be a hobby but its one I enjoy greatly. So I'm always willing to learn from those with a lot more experience and knowledge than me.
 
So this is where it started - how she was when I first got her.. completely stock except the clear indicators - Still got the ambers and change my mind on which I prefer quite often!

 
First job I needed to do was sort out the sticky front calipers - ordered myself a couple of Seiken rebuild kits and stripped them down...

Wondered why they were sticking so much.... this was the culprit -



A shagged seal had obviously been letting mositure in resulting in this nice bit of corrosion
 
Whilst rebuilding the calipers I thought it would be totally wrong to leave them with years of rust on, so stripped them back to the bare and gave them a coat of high temp satin black - is it sad that I got a buzz seeing the original branding on them!?

 
Whilst I was refurbing the the calipers I gave the disc hub a quick spray.. my car is a daily and will never have the love and time that a show car would recieve but I like to rejuvenate bits as and when I can.

 
Also added a Greddy Evo 2 cat back and decat; 2.5" system thats got a nice deep tone at low revs, but gets good and cheeky once in the good zone :) Good top end gains at the sacrifice of a reduction in the little low down torque I have.

 
So this was a while back, and driving along one day I started to loose my brake pedal.. limped into a car park to discover my front wheel arch covered in brake fuid! the culprit was a torn braided line.. I've sent the line back to Hel and been in a lot of conversations with them about the pro's/cons of having floating locators on the line rather than fixed like OEM - the pic below describes what I'm talking about -



Anyways I was lucky I was driving slow in town when it happened, and its triggered some good discussions with Hel R&D - a quick swap for an OEM line in the dark and the old girl was back in action.

 
With my suspension shagged at the rear/all bushes nearly dead - thought it was time to refurb it and add a little coilover action How it looked before I started -



Plan was to strip off the RTAs and everything attached - I wasnt going for showroom sorted, but no way was I leaving the sway bar in this state!



First job (and by far the worst) was getting everything off -
 
My car is odd! it would seem as if someone has driven it backwards into the sea at some point but only dipping the back end in - every bolt on the rear is rusty as f*ck! whilst the front seems good - always said Im sooo happy my car was built in the US purely for the better quality steel - but I reckon Honda must have sent a boat load of shitty bolt over for the original build.... lots of this was needed to release all the bolts that had cold welded to the inside of the bush!

 
I do like 'garage' shots :)



With the rear suspension off, i sent off the brake shields/sway bar/brackets/front forks/toe arms etc for some shot-blasting/powder coating.. ideally i' have done the trailing arms too, but as I'd only recently replaced the rear hubs I was worried about stressing the bearings plus i didnt fancy damaging an abs sensor...



RTAs stripped and ready for primer and a good dose of satin black...

 
Quick bay shot - nothing special for now as thats gonna be next years part of the project, just a spoon elbow/filter and a well serviced, clean B16a2 that runs sweet as a nut!



Good night girl..

 
sourced a 2nd hand set of Mesiter R Zeta S coilovers, they were a bit worse for wear when I received them so stripped them down and gave them some love..



Test fitting on the front..



Fully poly-bushed at the back... the only thing I now feel may have been a little better day today would have been the OEM RTA bushes

And 'yes' the rims I'm currently running are SSR rep/fakes; thats all I'm saying on the matter...

Suspension coming back together nicely :)

 
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Sway bar looking much better with its fresh bushes and coated brackets, haven't upgraded to the larger diameter ARB as I've heard in can give a twitchy ass - have an upper rear strut anyway and being a coupe I dont want its a bigger ass to start twitching!

 
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New rubber on the rears - now that the camber isnt gonna eat them up as bad! The insides were down to the braids.. shitty picture but I love my Falkens as a day to day tire so its good to have the banner in the background..

 
Cleaned her up and went out to shoot a couple of pics of how she stands today...





 
You can spot the dog in the drivers seat in the first pic - she's always getting in on the action and likes to squeeze into a bucket seat :)

 
I'm wanting to go for a black theme in the interior, eventually pillars/headliner etc, so to kick it off I got myself a black EK4 carpet..



Don't diss the gangster tennis racket tape wheel; it hides a hideous tear in the leather and provides a nice level of grip (to be replaced as soon as I get a decent condition EK9 wheel for sensible money)

 
Got these to go in once I've modified the current rails - but I'm dependent on a very good but busy mate who's much more elegant with a welder than me. We took a lot of thought and time coming up with the plan, now we just need to execute it)



And these are not Recaro SRD Reps/fakes - they are SRD's made by Recaro for Arospeed (its an intelligent business model to utilise your old factory capabilities to keep manufacturing old parts that are still wanted by the public, but let others distribute them whilst you continue to develop and build the latest parts for new cars). All components are the same as a Recaro SRD, just the fabric being a little cheaper..
 
went on a trip to go pick up some panels, discovered you cant fit an EM1 door in an EM1 ... But it sounded immense with the boot open! :)

 
I had a bit of a problem around Christmas; parked up in Glasgow for a weekend of drinking - came to drive back home on the Sunday, got about 2 miles onto the motorway when what I thought was a bearing going suddenly turned into my front NS wheel coming off the hub!

Thankfully I'd already slowed right down and moved into the slow lane when it happened.. and with the car being low the wheel just jammed in the arch at 90 degrees to the hub.

Expecting to find damaged suspension when I got out and jacked the front, I couldnt immediately see any damage - except all the wheel nuts were missing. When putting the wheel back on so I could get her to the nearest service station, I decided to take one nut of each of the other 3 wheels - when I went to loosen the back one 3/4 were already loose.

Turns out someone was obviously trying to steal wheels and got caught or something part way through - when posted up on my local forum apparently its fairly common! My cars usually parked secure but makes me check my nuts now when I park it elsewhere!

Main damage was to the arch, arch liner, wheel and studs - studs needed straightening and thee wheels got aesthetic damage on the inside - all in all a very lucky escape...

So I rocked a bent and patched wing through the shitty winter until the weather got ok enough to do some work.

This is how the wing was after I bend it back to a 'wing' like shape

 
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