Lean and Mean - 1998 Honda Civic HX Project Log

[California98Civic]

sounds like good plans. good luck. my headliner also needs replacing,but there are so many things needing work in a 215K miles car that.... well.

[cbaber]

I've ordered some misc. parts to fix up the Civic a bit. New window regulator & motor, new door lock actuator, and a VTEC-E valve cover is going to be put on. Pictures to follow.

AND

Hello, I am a 1982 Civic and I am begging for a 3-stage VTEC swap. More details to come....

[California98Civic]

Nice pic of an old beauty.

[cbaber]

I saw it for sale locally, dirt cheap. I was thinking about buying it. It's a 2 owner car, the lady who owns it now knew the original owner. It ran up until a few years ago, they quit driving it because the clutch was going out and it needed new tie rods.

I'm still trying to decide if it's a good idea and a worthwhile adventure. The only problem is the $$ that will go into it. It's rusty on the drivers side, needs tires. They claim it ran fine before being parked. It's a 1.5 L with a 5 speed. These cars can get 40 MPG stock. But as I said, I would want to swap in a modern fuel injected motor and restore it.

Decisions....

[cbaber]

I caught up on some maintenance this weekend with some new rear wheel bearings on both sides. What an improvement! For the last few months I just lived through the bearing noise, when I got these installed it was like I had never heard silence before.

My tip of the day: For rear wheel bearings, skip the OEM parts and find these. It turns out Honda (and probably many other makes) uses NTN bearings from the factory. The cost of the hub/bearing assembly from Honda was $120 for each side. These were $120 for both sides at Advance Auto. The best part? Timken uses the same NTN bearings as Honda, so you get OEM quality at 1/2 price.



Old OEM bearing:



New Timken bearing:



BEFORE:



AFTER:

[California98Civic]

Nice tip.

[mswehx]

I have a 97 hx 5sp with 443,900 haven't touched any wheel bearings or clutch as of yet,clutch soon though but still holding,45,46mpg no mods.

[California98Civic]

Originally Posted by mswehx

I have a 97 hx 5sp with 443,900 haven't touched any wheel bearings or clutch as of yet,clutch soon though but still holding,45,46mpg no mods.

That is amazing.

[cbaber]

Started my upper grill block today. The wind blew a for sale sign into my yard last fall. That would probably annoy normal people, but for an ecomodder it's free coroplast!

The Civic upper grill uninstalls from the car pretty easily, so I decided to take it off so I could accurately trace for the cut. I found out the grill seperates even further, which allowed me to take it apart and get a really precise trace for the shape I wanted. I cut it with a utility knife and my precise trace became sort of unprecise lol.

I started out thinking I wanted the grill block in front, but remember one of my goals is to not stand out from normal cars. Also, I wanted a clean looking install. If I were to put the block in front of the grill I would want to add some fiberglass and body filler to basically mold it in so it blended in smoothly. I decided to install it in the back, a more stealthy look. From what I have read, it's still more effective than no grill block at all.



Luckily there were existing tabs sticking up that I was able to just cut slots for. This makes mounting easy, and allows the coroplast to sit flush so I will be able to seal it airtight so no air will escape beyond the grill.







I sanded it down to remove the shiny finish, and hit it with one coat of primer. I had some flat black engine paint laying around, so that is what I used. I think once it dries it will be more of a flat finish, no so glossy. I will update with pictures once I install it on the car (and figure out how to attack the block to the tabs the best way).

[MetroMPG]

That will be quite stealthy.