My 94 VX
 

I am going to start this thread for my new car, a super clean 94 VX with 112 000 miles. This car is replacing my heavily modified Neon, found here.http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ods-20741.html

The VX will stay basically stock looking. It will get a grill block, maybe a belly pan, and possibly a kammback, although it will have to be factory looking.

I really owe a huge thanks to an ecomodder member here, Brian, 1carnut. I bought the car from him, and this past friday a friend came with me a d we drove down and picked it up. Brian was extremely helpful, especially with the fact that the car was being exported/imported to Canada, and he took care of a bunch of the necessary paperwork for me. The car is awesome, it's incredibly clean and obviously well taken care of. There are a few rust spots that I have to address, but really nothing serious. The car also has a well done, subtle injector kill switch.

I really want to say thank you again Brian!

I only have a few pictures of it so far. Here they are.http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k...G_00000181.jpg
http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k...G_00000182.jpg

Kumho Solus tires, 155/80/13

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k...G_00000179.jpg

I will get some more pictures later, as well as the interior once I am done installing my stereo.

Better put anti-rust treatment on the list too!

Nice car. Lean burn + MPGuino will be lots of fun and will return some stellar economy.

You're welcome! I'm glad it went to someone on the forum and you seem like you truly appreciate it. Good luck with it and anxious to see the progress and some awesome numbers.

dang that's clean wheres the rust spots?
I would definitely coat the underside with something

Inside the doors, rockers, fenders too. If you plan to keep it for more than a couple of years, it's worth it to take it to a place like Krown or Ziebart, etc. It'll probably cost about 140.

Dude your el camino is ****ing nice!!!!!

Your civic is really nice too haha

Thanks guys! I just spent a bit more time on some rust areas, mostly doing the shock towers under the hood right now, then I will get into to the more visible areas. None of the rust is too bad so I have high hopes for this car lasting me a long time.

I was going to use leftover truckbed liner in the fenders and under the rockers, then a healthy oil spray, but I changed my mind. My dad uses a waxy coating stuff on his tractors, both sprayed and brushed on, it's not too thick, dries very solid and because it's wax based it is completely moisture resistant. We have used it on a few of his tractors and the stuff is downright incredible, but expensive. However, to me, and how nice this car is, it is well worth it.

If I feel it is still necessary, I have a buddy who works at Krown who said he can take care of it inside the rockers etc. I plan to take rust control and prevention very seriously, rust is the only thing I see for me not having this car for years to come.

I took the care with the El Camino, and I've had it for 7 years, I hope the VX will be the same.

I wish you a very happy ecomodding/hypermiling with that VX. :thumbup:

I'm confused by your user name. Didn't take long did it? :)

I'm totally in favor of you stepping back 6 model years.

Thanks, my commute may be changing a bit and focus on more city, so the VX came at the perfect time.

For future reference, I will stay as 2000neon. No it really didn't take long, from when I originally started increasing my tire pressure to the fully aero-modified neon took less than a year! :eek:

I have to get to work soon and so I can't update everything that I would like to. I have gotten the car safetied and emissions tested, it easily passed both. I have also finished up my stereo system and took care of some more of the surface rust, I am now all done under the hood for the few rust spots. I have pictures but not the time to upload and post them.

Also my best mpg yet, just over 60 US MPG, 73 Imp MPG! :thumbup:

It was only a half tank because tomorrow I am going straight from school, picking up my girlfriend and unfortunately going to a funeral. :( It will be about 4 hours total of driving, some city and mostly highway and I didn't want to test my range or have to stop then so I just filled it up at a halftank (just over 300 miles, basically 5 gallons). I guess on a full tank, running almost empty I might be able to hit 600 miles on a tank!

On your way to the top 10?

Getting a feel for lean burn?

That would be cool! Especially considering that tank had over 100 miles of short trip commuting to school and back and temperatures are pretty cold in the morning. I can't wait until next summer, high temps and a highway trip could maybe put me up there. :D

I still have no instrumentation for lean burn or anything, just trying to drive it during the conditions I've read here for lean burn and hoping it's there, I guess it is!

I wish Brian would have decided he was selling his car 1 or 2 months earlier. I would have picked it up in a heartbeat. When he decided to sell it, I had already bought my rusted HX and had committed to doing the swap D16Y5 swap to my CX. Enjoy that low mileage VX! It is clean in all the right places.

I guess that is the thing with buying and selling cars, timing is everything. This car is amazingly clean, and believe me it is being enjoyed and appreciated. Your CX is a great car too I have been following along with your swap. That will be an impressive car! When I couldn't find any decent VX's I was almost set to build my own and do the engine/trans swap with either the d15z1 or one like yours.

Please do not ruin the VX with all of those mods you did to the neon. It was understandable on the neon as it was already old and rusted but now that you've got a clean, nice looking car that already gets over 60MPG, what is the point on sacrificing the looks of the car for some goofy looking mods. Atleast no visual cosmetic mods like the wheel covers and diaper on the back.

a car that gets 70mpg and if done rite still a clean looking car:D but yea no bolt holes this time lol

Or pounds of duct tape...

It won't, that's the whole idea of this car, and MPG sleeper :D

Good stuff. Do you have any more pictures? Also how much did you pay for that beauty?

No mods!?

You're on the wrong forum, buddy! :D

It already has a grill block, and it will likely get a belly pan, but that's probably it. If I can do a clean kammback I will, I want to practice my aluminum fab skills first or fiberglass so I can bodywork it smooth.

Steadily improving on each tank so far,just filled up at 61.13 MPG US. (73 imp MPG!). I will post some more pictures here in a second, I need to upload them from my phone.

I also picked up some VW alloy wheels and winter tires for when the fluffy white stuff comes around.

Nice work! Still kicking myself for letting that car leave the state of Ohio...

Here we go, pictures:
http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k.../Image0458.jpg
http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k.../Image0444.jpg
http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k.../Image0443.jpg
http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k.../Image0441.jpg

Here is the rust I was talking about, super clean by Ontario standards! Everyone who has seen this car is extremelly impressed by how solid it is. The only rust was just surface, not deep at all.

Driver's side shock tower.
http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k.../Image0432.jpg

Sanded, cleaned and primed. I do have it painted white now but apparently I forgot to take a picture of it.
http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k.../Image0434.jpg

There was some rust here at the top of the door. I still want to clean this up a little more. But this will at least stop it from getting worse.
http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k...e/IMAG0918.jpg
http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k.../Image0512.jpg

First picture of the car in Canada. With the Neon on the way home from Ohio.

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k.../Image0422.jpg

All 3 of my cars together. Neon is now gone, and the El Camino is put away in storage for the winter, really opens up the driveway!
http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k.../Image0425.jpg

Yeah Brian had said you were interested in it, I think he didn't want to see it go either.

If it helps, it's being taken care of very well up here in Ontario. Rust proofing it next week!

It's a shame to drive that in the winter at all. That's what rusty cars are for.

Be sure you get some hub shims for the VW wheels- iirc they will have a larger center bore.

The VW wheels have a 57.1 mm centre bore, the civic has 56.1 mm, as far as I know there are no hubcentric rings for that small of a change, that's only 0.5 mm on each side. Some people say that it won't be an issue at all, and a surprising amount of people use a little bit of tape on the hub, and it squishes down to size... Not sure exactly what I will do.

I am extremely confident in the rust proofer that I use. We have used it on our tractors during the winter plowing snow and salting, so you can imagine how badly they rust. Since using this undercoating no rust has formed at all, spots that already had rust don't even get worse.

So on the civic I have a lot of faith in using this waxy coating as an undercoating, and then maybe even an oil spray inside the rockers for good measure.

Nice machine.

No "maybe" on inside the rockers, doors, rear quarters, hatch... Spray it all!

Thanks. Good point on the rockers,what I meant by maybe the oil spray is that's if I cant get everything with the undercoating. If there's anywhere I can't get good enough, then it will go to my buddy at Krown to make the rest happen.

Didn't know the gap was that small. Just leave it I guess. It's not like you'll be doing track days. If tape squishes down it probably isn't offering any support anyhow.

Whatever it takes to keep it clean :)

Did you consider pulling off the big plastic interior quarter panel covers before heading to the Krown guy. If you remove the inner panels it is better than just removing the tail lights and shooting the product from there.

Also since the Krown guy won't do the floor from the inside , you should pull the seats and carpet to do the floor yourself. Cars driven in snow areas always have a wet floor under the carpet and insulation . The carpet may feel dry to the touch but the insulation will be wet year round.

Vx rocker panels are totally accessible from either end. A rubber plug at the front of the rear wheelwell and a rubber plug at the door post behind the front plastic inner fender.

Remove the front turn signal lights ( only 1 screw each ) to get the fender inner structure .

Also pay attention to the area below the battery

Just trying to help .. Good luck

I was considering the carpet,but never thought about the rear interior panels, that's a good idea. Thanks a lot, I appreciate the input!

Freezing temperatures are here, so I picked up a fire blanket good for 550*C and used it for some extra engine insulation. It definitely helped the motor warm up quite a bit quicker.

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k...G_00000037.jpg

FYI, my Krown location did the Firefly rockers from the inside of the car. (They're a channelized affair with "hidden" passages that the usual Krown drill holes won't reach.)

But I had removed the trim pieces & pulled back the carpet before I went in to make it easy for him. He was happy to oblige.

Just got home from Krown and the car is sprayed and good to go. :thumbup: My buddy there has had a few hatchback civics and knew all the bad areas, especially the rear quarters and he did an awesome job getting it all. He made sure to get down under the battery too, definitely impressed.

I am consistently happy with this car, it's awesome. It's in great shape, drives great, fantastic MPG. What's not to love? :thumbup:

Been consistently doing high 50's MPG, I love this car. Definitely have to work for it though, I can't wait to see what this car will be capable of in the summer with warmer temperatures. I have an almost complete grill block on the car, but no pictures since it doesn't look like anything. It has the partial factory block, and I have some black coroplast on the backside of the grill, I'm happy with it since it's next to invisible.

I finally had some time today so I got started on my kammback. As I had said earlier, I want it to be factory appearing, so I'm going with fiberglass. I started by building a metal rod frame from 3/16" galvanized steel, and bent it to the shape I wanted. I attached it at the bottom of the rear window using the gas strut mounts through the window, and I am using the factory spoiler attachment holes at the top of the window. This allows it to be completely removable with zero modification to the car.

I was considering using the factory spoiler as a base, but decided to just go from scratch with my metal frame. To attach at the top of the window, I have two small 1/8" steel pieces, that I drilled through to match the factory spoiler mounts. I dropped some (4) bolts through my steel bar and through the factory mount, then welded the heads of the bolts to the bar. I welded the heads of the bolts because I will be fiber glassing overtop and need to stop the bolts from turning, since I will not be able to access the heads of the bolts, only tje threads will hang down. I then just built the bars/ mount into the frame. So basically I just have my own version of the factory mounting setup that uses the stock mounting points, built right into my kammback frame. :thumbup:

So the frame got me the shape I want, and all of my attachment points figured out. From there, I stretched fleece overtop of the wire frame, and attached and pulled it tight using paper clips. Just as it sits right now it is surprisingly rigid, so I'm sure with the resin and a few layers of fiberglass it will be quite strong.

Here is where it sits right now.

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k...G_00000197.jpg

The horizontal crease isn't as bad as it seems, it appears more dramatic because it is directly under the light. Fiberglass and filler should be able to easily get rid of it.

I am going to put it back on the car tomorrow to make sure it didn't shift at all, and assuming all is still well I will put resin on the fleece cloth to make it rigid, and will add fiberglass mat, then sand, body filler, and sand it again. :thumbup:

I will probably paint it a simple semi-gloss black to make it match the factory spoiler that came off.

I have better pictures of the wire frame and it on the car on my phone which I will have to upload still.