Hello all,
I just picked up my 94 Civic VX 2 days ago and am quite pleased so far.
I'd talked with the seller over email and when I went to go see the car, it was a lot more beat up than he described, in terms of dents and rust. It had also been 'riced' out (he did tell me that) but the engine seemed smooth and fine. But I got him down on the price a bit and plan to do some body mods someday which will make the dents go away anyway.
So far I've changed the speedo (it works now), fixed the seat bolster with one from the pull-yard, replaced the massive intake with the stock box, took out the sub and amp, changed the muffler, and started with replacing rust with fiberglass patches.
The exhaust on the car was headers and a large diameter pipe and a HUGE can on the back. I'm searching for a complete VX stock set up, but in the meantime I found a stock exhaust from a 99 Civic at the pull-yard today for $9 and it fits with some minor tweaks and sounds like a normal car again. I've got a couple ads up on CL to see if anyone wants to trade this set up (it's actually nice as far as modified systems go) for a stock VX set-up.
My MPGuino arrived (thanks JCB!) and I'll be putting that in tomorrow-ish. Now that I've got a working odometer I can start getting numbers on FE. It'll be interesting to see what the headers are doing, and how much it changes when I go back to stock.
I've also ordered standard bulbs to replace the HID kit. Those cheap things are awful. I'd like to retrofit some Minimotos some day, but thats a long way off.
The seller threw in some cheap-looking adjustable lowering springs (set of 4). I had planned on selling them on CL, but as I looked them up, it looks like they sell new for $50, so it'd hardly be worth my while to do so. I don't know if I should put them on. I know good lowering springs make a difference, but I'm not sure if the trade off in potentially poor handling from cheap ones would be worth the gain in FE? Any thoughts?
Also, this car came with a convex mirror like
this one. I really love it. Although someone has added a passenger side mirror to the car at some point and my wife wants it to stay. She says it's easier to back out of the driveway, and I agree that the convex rear-view does not allow you to see the driveway edge like the outside one does.
So far I'm happy with the car. It really is a bit of a basket case, but I felt somewhat of a duty to rescue it. It had fallen to the wrong crowd and before long it would have been swapped out, never to be efficient again. We've got some work to do, but I want to keep this one and see if I can make the best of it. There is a kammback planned in the future, but thats after we get some other issues sorted first. Hope to have some good posts in the future.
-Rick