Hi, from Australia, Perth

[jugbugz]

Hi everyone...

Very nice site with very nice front cover car!!! I stumbled across this site through google search...
I'm from Perth, Australia. I've just restored a genuine 1997 EK9 here in AU. Complete respray of body and wheels and changed the front to the 99-00 facelift.

Still on the process of getting it registered as it is very tough here in AU.

My mods are;

-5zigen 4-2-1 jasma extractors

-stock cats with fully custom made 2.25inch exhaust system with 5 resonators(hotdogs) to quite the thing down with a 2.25inch opening cannon type muffler...

-BMC panel air filter with some cutting and removing modifications to the stock air intake system.

-modified socket on ecu to interchange between stock, J's racing and Spoon ecu chips.

-Slightly bigger throttle body(done by previous owner)
-Spoon covers
-Spoon radiator
-Spoon torque damper
-TEIN HA Coilovers with 16 levels dampening(currently lowered by 10mm)
-Adjustable aircharger
-Carbon fibre Spark plug cover

I will be posting pics as soon as I find time off work... lol

btw... what's the reccomended engine oil to use for the B16B? I'm currently using castrol and previous owner used Motul. Also would 5W-30 be more suited than the 10W-30 blend?

Thanks guys! Hope to blend in with everyone...

Eric

 

[blinx9900]

welcome to ek9.org, i would have put a bigger exhuast on there, i noticed mine was kind of suffocating at higher rpms with the 2.25, i think 2.5 is perfect for mild NA... welcome though, post pics when you can.

 

[Neo]

welcome to the site

 

[rvm]

welcome!

nice mods

post pictures of your ride!

 

[jugbugz]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the warm welcome..

you see I got this sony digicam and I run XP 64bit edition so when I plug my memory stick into the computer, it doesnt register and need software to recognise the hardware, I know, it's pretty annoying... so i'll have to go to my friends place to transfer it to my usb drive then bring it back lol..

I've taken some shots of it just comming out of the paint shop and will take some more tomorow as I have half a day off work..

 

[jugbugz]

welcome to ek9.org, i would have put a bigger exhuast on there, i noticed mine was kind of suffocating at higher rpms with the 2.25, i think 2.5 is perfect for mild NA... welcome though, post pics when you can.

Hi,

I'm actually not sure if it is 2.25 or 2.5in there are so many resonators that I can't even recognise lol... but I will take some pics underneath the car too...

I heard that 2.25in is the best for any N/A 4cyc, so that it doesn't reduce to much of the bottom and mid range torque. This I also read in a mag.. I think especially if it's a freeflow, you'd be loosing heaps of power below 6500rpm.

My higher rpms are pretty good... I beat a mild MY99 WRX by 70 meters from a 60kmph rolling start to 160kmph the other night.

And the strange thing is... you see, my cannon type muffler came with a silencer insert to quiet it down and reduce a bit of flow... I think the opening of the silencer is about 2in, might even be a bit smaller... BUT, when the silencer is inserted, it goes harder and faster from low to mid and even the high rpm isn't affected... It's really strange but if someone here has a cannon type muffler with removable inserts might know what I'm talking about...

It's noticable everytime I put it in... I don't like it quieter but there is sure a lot more torque on the 1st cam, and strangely I thought that when the 2nd cam punches in that it would suffer and rev slower but guess what... NO it didn't, I had been annalysing this for about 3 months now and it definitely doesn't reduce power but increases the torque throughout...

I don't have to hold the accelerator as long or press as deap as I should when I shift gears driving normally with the silencer, there is just much more torque and response, both is very noticable...

B16B are known for lack of torque but please I reccomend everyone to try this out if you've already got a freeflow cannon muffler.

 

[blinx9900]

Hi,
And the strange thing is... you see, my cannon type muffler came with a silencer insert to quiet it down and reduce a bit of flow... I think the opening of the silencer is about 2in, might even be a bit smaller... BUT, when the silencer is inserted, it goes harder and faster from low to mid and even the high rpm isn't affected... It's really strange but if someone here has a cannon type muffler with removable inserts might know what I'm talking about...

It's noticable everytime I put it in... I don't like it quieter but there is sure a lot more torque on the 1st cam, and strangely I thought that when the 2nd cam punches in that it would suffer and rev slower but guess what... NO it didn't, I had been annalysing this for about 3 months now and it definitely doesn't reduce power but increases the torque throughout...

I don't have to hold the accelerator as long or press as deap as I should when I shift gears driving normally with the silencer, there is just much more torque and response, both is very noticable...

B16B are known for lack of torque but please I reccomend everyone to try this out if you've already got a freeflow cannon muffler.

i have a canon type muffler and i agree with you that the silencer does make low rpm driving easier (seems liker there is more tq) but i DISAGREE with you saying it does not affect the top end, for me it DESTROYED my top end power and really slowed down the revs. i have a 8lb fly and an N1 pulley so normally it has crazy topend power and revs really fast, the silencer made the car feel like a stock ek4!

 

[jugbugz]

Wow... interesting...
I was going to make a video between the silencer and no silencer, so that might help to see the difference...

I don't really know if my flywheel had any mods or not either, I'm still finding out whats been done to the car..

I can say our cars are different... I really couldn't pick it out... I noticed with the silencer off it suffered from idle until 6500rpm. 6500rpm is when it really revs out.. with the silencer on though, I couldn't feel or see any dips in power throughout rev range.

If your car felt like an EK4 then theres definitly something different.

 

[SpoonCTR]

welcome!

 

[jugbugz]

Hi everyone,

Here are the PICS!!

Actually, what you see on the complete restoration goes back quite far with all the time and money spent on restoration. The car's exterior wasn't in good shape at all, especially for a 1997 model.

The left front and side have had an accident. While my panel beater was preping the surface for the whole car to be resprayed, he noticed a big dent on the left side (where the rear passenger seats are) a big chunk of body filla, his expression was you've now lost another 10kgs of weight on the car!...

Anyway, this car had mojor restorations done and NEW parts that were needed were;
-the under carraige
-left front plastic under-guards
-windsreen wipers water bottle
-missing clips all over here and there
-reinforcement front bar(missing, maybe due to weight reduction? dangerous!)
-missing left passenger front and rear floor mats
-missing titianium gear knob
-spark plug cover
-missing jack, tool kit
-front horn

these are just most of the things I can remember. The car's exterior was just terrible... because of the accident on the left, the car had an ek4 headlight on the left and and ek4 front bumber, ek9 99-00 bonnet, ek4 grill, it all looked very wrong as the bonnet would leave gaps where the front grill sits.

I thought that since I've got the 99-00 bonnet already, 96-97 front lip was extremely hard to get new, and I like the facelifted look better, so I might as well change it to the face lifted model since I'll be respraying the whole car anyway.

So further NEW parts needed were;
99-00 front bumper
99-00 ek9 front grill
99-00 ek9 front lip
99-00 front guards
99-00 aftermarket black headlight (temporary as searching for new genuine ek9 headlights)
99-00 ek9 headlights
99-00 new bonnet seal
99-00 EK9 rear light clusters and side indicators(2nd hand) (97 models are orange colour, still have these at home)

I thought it would end here but I had to further get other parts replaced such as;

Front and rear suspension shocks lost their gas, so I wanted to get replacement shocks as I wanted to keep the original springs but when I went to the suspension shop, they only had shocks for normal ek1,ek4 civics as EK9 Type R never existed in AUS and they were like EK9? What?.. and in luck when they were searching their stock, someone had ordered a set of Tein HA coilovers with 16 levels of dampening and height adjustable in stock and they never picked it up for about 2 years now. The guys then offered me $400 bucks off to take it away from them.. lol... so I did... I've still got the stock EK9 Suspension at home.

Recently I had changed the stock radiator as it didn't look very good. i opted for a NEW Spoon radiator and installed it myself. I also added and self installed;
-Spoon Engine Torque Dampener
-Spoon covers.
-HID
-Mods to the stock Intake Air box with hose to the side opening of front bumper
-BMC Panel filter
-Vision Carbon fibre Spark plugs cover
-Air charger device off the intake manifold(for a 2nd air intake)
-Removal of the stock ecu chip on circuit board and installed a socket to interchange ecu chips.
-Spoon ecu <-- aint that good
-J's Racing ecu <-- the best and most noticable

also decided to install some Sound stream ICE but was a bad idea because of the EK9's zero insulation interior.

After receiving all these parts sitting in the garage... I had to book a time with my panel beater. This place gets booked out for any other car except BMW's with a 6 months waiting list as they are the contractor for BMW, Ferrari, Porsche, Benz. But since I'm a regular they booked me in within a month... LOL.. They are by far the best in Perth, they do Ferrari's for goodness sakes. I wanted to get the original wheels reconditioned and resprayed also. This is almost a full restoration to the whole car.

So because of the amount of work needed, I had to wait about 5 weeks before I got my car back. And below you will see in the pics of when the surface was preped before painting and the finished product. Our impression was like wow that's shiny...

Some of the pics I took recently was on an extremely bright Perth afternoon. it was so bright that even I nearly got blinded by looking at the paint.. lol

This is pretty much a small write up of my own but not as big as rhdek9's write up. There also might be more parts not listed but those were pretty much most of them

I hope now I can register the car in Perth.

Oh, Blinx9900: you will some pics of the custom exhuast system, they're either 2.25 or 2.5in

Enjoy everyone.

 

[jugbugz]

Wish me luck guys!

 

[jugbugz]

Ok last pic LOL... sorry so many pics.

Oh By the way, Adminstrators: Would I be able to get the sites decal for my car? Would look pretty cool...

 

[jugbugz]

Oh, if you guys are wondering why in some pics my car didn't have the CTR decal was because it just finished and later on new decals were put back. I had to specially order them..

We also managed to keep the original stickers of the colour code etc... (the ones where you open the door and next to the latch) and the one on the petrol cover. I don't think I'll be able to get those if they were removed for the paint.

I've also put Meguires Next Generation Tech WAX with synthetic polymers... Damn that is one nice wax!!! Shines and protects 2nd to none.

 

[jugbugz]

These are the pics of the car when I got them..
The wheels were totally stuffed.. And scratches and dents all over.. calcium all over the 10 year old glass.

You will see the front of the car where it is all wrong. Interior was all great except missing floor mats on the left sides and gear knob missing.

Engine is great and smooth when I got it, and even smoother when I did the oil change etc.

I'm soooo happy now...

 

[JayH]

Sweet country, sweet car. Looks like a tonne of work and money has gone into it... looking awesome now. The front end -was- all wrong indeed! Hehe.

Feels like its time for me to bring out the polish and camera as well.

How well does the engine torque dampener work?


Hmm about the exhaust silencer... low end rpms and cruise can usually benefit from smaller exhaust diameters due to the siphoning effect of flowing gasses, but I find it strange that a small outlet with a big pipe all the way will give the effect of a smooth siphon flow as well...

Either way I think ill be keeping the standard pipings. Those are about 2.2 inches arent they?

 

[jugbugz]

Sweet country, sweet car. Looks like a tonne of work and money has gone into it... looking awesome now. The front end -was- all wrong indeed! Hehe.

Feels like its time for me to bring out the polish and camera as well.

How well does the engine torque dampener work?


Hmm about the exhaust silencer... low end rpms and cruise can usually benefit from smaller exhaust diameters due to the siphoning effect of flowing gasses, but I find it strange that a small outlet with a big pipe all the way will give the effect of a smooth siphon flow as well...

Either way I think ill be keeping the standard pipings. Those are about 2.2 inches arent they?

I've spent minimum 10K AUD

Yeah it's strange huh, but I know that the muffler opening is about 2.25in, and the silencer rod slots right in, so there isn't much disruption of flow.. Doesn't siphoning effect helps with the low and mid range?... I know many people say the B16B lacks torque but mine feels strong. Feels weaker with the silencer off. But revs slightly faster on 2nd cam.

I can't really tell about the diametre... they look like 2.5 but might be 2.25. In person they look big. I've still got stock cats so might be 2.25... but then again the pipe isn't one smooth size.

Engine torque damper works well from 7500rpm... and quick gear changes. But it needs to be properly installed and tightened to give the full effect.

 

[noname212]

wow....nice write up dude..

 

[kagetora01]

Nice car and lots of pics........ good job!!

 

[jugbugz]

Thanks guys,

There were times where I didn't sleep for 48 hours because of that car... work, car, work, car...

I've been offered a very good price for these Rays Volk Racing wheels for my car. They are 16" with about 5-10mm increase in width.

I'm thinking to either keep them bronze or paint them black with red pinstrip...

What do you guys think? Or should I just stick with stock?

 

[Neo]

Stock wheels for the win, not liking those much sorry