89 DX Auto Restro (Project Isuma)

mikebmac · May 6, 2010

Background
Before I even get start this is going to be a slow process

I am pretty poor being a student and like things done right so that means I either have to borrow or buy many tools. I bought this car way back as my first car when I was 16. I knew nothing (and haven`t gained much) about cars, how they worked or even how to properly maintain them. When I originally arrived with the car it was rust free but later I found out that there was a ton of rust under the bondo. Here is the earliest pictures I have of the car (Sorry they are crappy cell phone pictures):

She has a stock D15b2 engine with an automatic transmission which was a must at the time! To be quite honest I bagged the *beep* out of her. The engine now has a blown head gasket, worn piston rings and well an old heavy auto tranny that needs to be changed hopefully to an manual. Since those pictures I was rear end twice, backed into twice and hit and run while parked 3 times in my school parking lot

. So anyways I guess I will begin with my crazy rust removal and restoration.

The Rusty
Here is the dirty engine bay as it currently stands.

I replaced the hubcaps with these alloy wheels I believe they are a 92-95 Civic SI wheels; they remind me of mini fat fives.

Rear passenger side wheel well rust.

More rear passenger side rust.

This is what greeted me once I removed the passenger side skirt :|.

The rear end damage to the frame

The interior cleaning is going well, it was disgusting before this. I should of took a before shot.

Y8 Head I have been working on.

The money shot! :lol:

There was more oil in the combustion chamber then New Orleans drinking water

When I removed the spark plugs they were drenched in oil :|, and the 3rd chamber one is cross threaded

.

Passenger Side SI seat.

I did have a complete back seat but I removed part of it and it tragically died in our resent house fire

It will be a long path

. Off our property.

Plans

:!: My first goal is to stop the cancer from spreading
:!: Engine wise nothing too concrete at this moment, I do have a Y8 Head and a P75 laying around though.
:!: Interior I would like to convert to a SI interior since IMHO blue interior pieces are not the greatest

Any suggestions, tips, or other wise helpful information I would be glad to hear you. Looking to learn here.

mikebmac · May 9, 2010

Small Update:

Worked on my bike and car this weekend. I finally got the head off the block! Of course the gasket was damaged and there was coolant in the pistons. Haha. Beyound that I decide to pull the main harness and get ready for a MPFI setup, since every setup I want uses it. Here is more or less some random pictures of my progress so far:

Decide to get some pictures of the main relay, no real reason why... guess it may help some people wondering where it was.

bmw944 · May 9, 2010

Take your time, read as much as you can about whatever task you decide to tackle, and don't get discouraged. There will be bumps in the rebuild road, but learn from them and keep your goals in focus. :blah: Good luck! And get rid of that auto tranny!! (i'm doing the same thing)

b

91rexdx · May 12, 2010

i say keep it automatic. keep it original.

mikebmac · May 15, 2010

bmw944 said:
Take your time, read as much as you can about whatever task you decide to tackle, and don't get discouraged. There will be bumps in the rebuild road, but learn from them and keep your goals in focus. :blah: Good luck! And get rid of that auto tranny!! (i'm doing the same thing) b

91rexdx said:
i say keep it automatic. keep it original.

Yes, bmw944, to be bluntly honest I cannot stand these older auto transmission, I find they heavy, slow, and inferior to the manuals of the time. Since then they have come a long way but for this car I am going to be switching out the old auto transmission for a 5 speed. I have sourced nearly a whole D16Y8 engine now, so it looks like I am going to go a D15 mini me setup which is perfectly fine with me. My goal with this car is not to have a amazingly fast car or torque-y car but to be a DD with some style

b. I have been working on the car but nothing warranting a update (not saying the last two were lol!). I added some of that sound deafening coating to the rear where the donut will sit and been working on cleaning up the wiring and relocating the battery. Other then that just been trying to clean up the car and look for more hidden rust.

I work this weekend and it seems a few more weekends coming up so I am not sure how much I will get done, but I will give it a shot! Either way need the money to pay for these parts so no wasted time

.

Mike

mikebmac · Jun 19, 2010

Update June 19th, 2010
I decided to take a day off from work and tackle some of the CRX today. Since my last update I been working on wiring, rust removal and I bought a blown D16Y8 engine to help with my engine rebuilding. I decided to go with a mini-me setup for my first modified CRX because I feel it will meet my design ideas I currently have in mind for the car (cheap, yet clean

).

Here is the engine I bought for 80 bucks CAN, no too bad IMHO since I needed a working vtec head and intake. Sadly I found the intake came from a auto car (it seems something wants me to keep the auto tranny) so I will have to change that but I am still relatively happy about the purchase.

Here is the broken piston from the engine I bought after I removed the head.

A mocked setup of the Y8 head on the D15 block.

Lastly I picked this up from the local pick your part

, just ignore the mess in the background.

Mike

bmw944 · Jun 20, 2010

Good score on the armrest!

mikebmac · Jun 27, 2010

Update June 26th, 2010
Another weekend with more to show. I recently order my head, intake and exhaust gaskets; along with an assortment of other needed parts to complete the swap. I am still short an adjustable cam gear and a distributor for a Y8 engine though.

Oh and surprise! I picked up this (it is a full WW kit, just didnt picture the side skirts and door caps):

And a pretty cool steering wheel:

Could that be cruise control?

I have a Z6 intake on a Y8 head... for the life of me I could not find a Y8 intake manifold for a manual car.

I have a full engine harness for a D16Z6 engine along with a P28 virgin ECU I am waiting on from a member here on these boards. To be quite honest I am finding the wiring ahead a daunting task, but I guess I will just have to do it one wire at a time.

mikebmac · Jul 2, 2010

Update July 2nd, 2010
Well having Canada Day off gave me some free time. I ended up changing the water pump and some other minor things to the car. I am still waiting on parts to arrive so it is going nice and slow.

For some comical relief I had a hard time removing the 19mm nut on the engine mount for the right side, so here is what I came up with, I don't think it is long enough :lol: :

I cleaned up the wiring under the dash, it was all spliced (rather poorly) for an old automatic start, I ended up having to cut off part of the wiring and solder/heatshrink it back together.

Finally since I am still waiting for engine parts I started working on some other things, here is the armrest progression so far:

Forgot to add I added that rockguard to the rear wheel department, turned out ok I guess.

I am off this weekend so I hopefully get some more done.

-Mike

mikebmac · Jul 4, 2010

Update July 4th, 2010

I continued my work on other parts of the car while I wait for my needed engine parts to arrive. Today was a little counter productive to be bluntly honest. I started working on my power windows conversion based off a 91 teg harness. I started adding switches to the door panels and made a large mistake:

In case you didn't notice I installed the driver side switches on the passenger side door :doh:. This left me with some ponder time on how to fix it and I decided give the passenger the power of my (the driver's window) and just pick up another teg driver side switch

. A little depressed, disappointed and amused with myself I moved on.

I ended up finishing the armrest today

b I decided to relocate my rear defog and light dimmer switch to there in favor of putting a future cruise control switch and something TBD in those two locations.

I also picked up a 91 Teg petal assembly with of course the cruise control arm. I already ran into an issue though, it unsurprisingly doesn't bolt right up. So I am going to have to do some drilling but that will be for another day.

-Mike

bmw944 · Jul 5, 2010

Nice looking arm rest! Interesting about the teg pedals, I wonder if you could just take the cruise assembly off and attach it to the crx pedals.

mikebmac · Jul 5, 2010

bmw944 said:
Interesting about the teg pedals, I wonder if you could just take the cruise assembly off and attach it to the crx pedals.

I thought about that but I am switching to manual so I would still need a CRX or Civic manual petal cluster. I think it will be easier if I just drill some new holes, just use some cardboard as a template I don't think it will be that hard and I need to drill new holes for the cruise control cable and possible the clutch cable as well :blabla: .

mikebmac · Jul 8, 2010

Small Update July 8th, 2010
Just thought I would share that I got the teg petals installed in the CRX. You have to bend the cruise control arm so it doesn't hit the center console and grind off a bit of the backing on the clutch side so you can clear the fuel lines. As far as drilling goes you just need to drill one hole for the accelerator petal, all the others line up perfectly if you do that.

I also picked up my "new" virgin p28 ECU from crxblues today, so I can start finishing the wiring for the engine now. Other then some minor cosmetic changes I made to the door panels so the switches sit flush that is all I have to update.

-Mike

Etard · Jul 9, 2010

Nice work so far Mike, you are really tearing into this thing! :shock:
Will be a very proud feeling driving a car you basicly built from scratch. Thanks for sharing.

mikebmac · Jul 11, 2010

Another Small Update July 10th, 2010
Well I found out why my engine parts have yet to come in, it is because they cannot deliver to my rural address

. So I have to go pick them up in the city :wink:. Normally that would be impossible because of work but oddly enough I got laid off yesterday lol :rolleyes1:, got to love the construction industry; still, I don't understand why they would lay off a summer student since I am already gone in a month and a half. Either way I have get the parts now

b.

So here is some more random progress I have been making so far:

I been working on the car wiring a bit today, here is some pictures of the extended headlight wires and how I routed them. Nothing special at all but at least it is something.

Worked on the door panel some more today, now the window control sit nearly completely flush. I am quite disappointed with how glossy the door handle turned out :x. I was going for a flat black like the switches but it turn out almost opposite. So I will be sourcing more parts and redoing it, the odd thing is I did use a low gloss clear coat *shrugs* I guess you can't win them all. Sorry for the blurry pics, my camera can't handle indoor, low light shoots.

And here it really shows how bad the door handles turned out, I think it looks very cheap when it looks like that

Etard said:
Nice work so far Mike, you are really tearing into this thing! :shock:
Will be a very proud feeling driving a car you basicly built from scratch. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks man.

-Mike

89 DX Auto Restro (Project Isuma)

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