Project Turtle: Bluesteel93's Civic VX build

[bluesteel93]

This was going to be called Project Mr. Tokyo Man, but my wife renamed the car Turtle after a little road trip yesterday. The name fits and its funny .

I bought a 1994 CA version Civic VX back in October, but had ACL surgery a couple weeks after I bought it and have only just recently been able to work on it. Here's some pics of it when I first got it.





After I bought it I noticed the transmission was making a funny noise. A little research led me to believe it was a bad input shaft bearing which I guess is pretty common on these tranny's. So I parked the car for a couple months until I could rebuild the trans. I figured I might as well rebuild the whole trans while I was in there since the car has 240k miles.

While I was off for my surgery I was able to do a lot of research and gather a lot of parts for the car. I was able to piece together a factory air box since the car came with a cold air intake, bought an MPGuino, the tranny rebuild kit, a fed version ECU and O2 sensor, and made the harness to convert it to the fed version.

Last week was the first time I really had to work on on the car, so first on the agenda was the tranny rebuild. I did all the work at my brothers house because he has all of the tools and space, something I lack where I live.

Here's the motor with the lame CAI before we did any work.


De-greased the engine bay with Superclean and took off the CAI.


Tranny is out.




Broken open. Definitely right about the input shaft bearing. The balls had pits in them and the bearing would lock up occasionally.




Had a leaky rear main seal and oil pan gasket too, so those got replaced. Here's a pick of the bottom of the motor just because.




Tranny is back in and bolted up.


With the new old factory air box.


Took about 2 days work with my brother and I working on it to rebuild the tranny and replace the rear main and the oil pan gasket. Drove it back home and the noise is gone. Tranny shifts nice and smooth. Ended up putting in valvoline synchromesh in it after hearing that OG VX had good results with pennzoil synchromesh (they didn't have the pennzoil stuff at O'reillys). Ended up taking it on a little road trip with my wife on New Year's Day up to Mt. Baldy. The car did great with the exception of stop and go traffic, uphill, for about 10 miles going up the mountain. I wish I got some pics of the car on the mountain but I forgot. Did get this shot though...


Its first recorded fill up after we got back down the mountain. Averaged 29.7 mpg . It ain't great, but considering the trip up the mountain and the idle time while working in the car I'm not too discouraged. We'll just have to wait and see what the next tank is under typical driving.

That's it for now. Gonna do some routine maintenance stuff in the next couple of days so I'll update then. My end goal for this car is for it to look really nice and not scream that it's ecomodded. A good example would be DonkeyCRX's white VX. I love the way that car looks and the fact that it can get over 70 MPG is awesome.

Let me know what you guys think so far and post any questions or comments. I'm really excited for this project and to be apart of this site. The support here is awesome!

[OG VX]

Alright! Welcome aboard and so glad you started a thread to detail your progress. Great start and super clean VX. Love the white. Please keep sharing. Hope the synchromesh works out well for you too. Have you done any intake IM, TB, egr, and FIV cleaning? Be sure to do that work as well, to maximize performance and economy. Also, have you done a compression test yet? That CAI has me worried about past treatment...

[bluesteel93]

Originally Posted by OG VX

Alright! Welcome aboard and so glad you started a thread to detail your progress. Great start and super clean VX. Love the white. Please keep sharing. Hope the synchromesh works out well for you too. Have you done any intake IM, TB, egr, and FIV cleaning? Be sure to do that work as well, to maximize performance and economy. Also, have you done a compression test yet? That CAI has me worried about past treatment...

Thanks man! Your build has definitely been an inspiration to me and has given me some ideas for mine. Haven't done any internal cleaning of that sort yet, but it's on my list. I did do a compression test today, the first time by myself. On a dry test I got 170psi across the board except for cylinder #2 which read 130psi. Did a wet test after and got 180psi on #1, #3 and #4, and 150psi on #2. So I figured the rings might be wearing out on #2. I decided to test it again later on in the day but this time I had my wife in the car cranking the motor while I kept an eye on the gauge to see when it stops building pressure. Low and behold I got 180psi on all 4 cylinders. Not sure what the problem was the first time around but it seems to have corrected itself.

Pics to prove it.








The other project I worked on today was to clean up all of the little nicks and scratches around the car. Particularly on the rear bumper. I bought a color code matched dupli-color pen from auto zone and got to work.


Here's the rear bumper before.


And after. I think the smudge on the left is residue from a sticker so I'm going to try to get some goo gone to take it off.


Filled in some small chips on the front also but it's harder to tell in the pics.
Before




After




That's about it for now. Gonna try to do some more work on it tomorrow.

[bluesteel93]

Did a little more work today.

Got some goo gone and finished cleaning up the rear bumper. Also put the H badges back on.




After that I figured I would check the valve lash and I'm glad I did. A few rocker arms we're a little loose.


Also changed the spark plugs with proper NGK's because it had Bosch Platinums in it and replaced the air filter with a fresh Wix.


That's it for now. Seems to drive pretty good now. Hopefully that will translate into better mpg's

[OG VX]

Nice! Don't forget to SeaFoam the tank, THEN replace the Fuel Filter in the bay. Also not a bad idea to replace the sock filter on the fuel pump. Pulling the fuel pump on these EG's is very easy. Remove the rear seat and it's right there.

[awcook]

Nice thread! Subbed!

Getting 29 MPG isn't that bad when you are getting used to the car is pretty good. I think my first tank on my Civic was like 27 MPG, and that was when everything was nice and new and fresh (well, not new, just new oil and tires). Working on your car will help the MPGs a ton. I can't wait to see what mods you do to this car!

[bluesteel93]

Originally Posted by OG VX

Nice! Don't forget to SeaFoam the tank, THEN replace the Fuel Filter in the bay. Also not a bad idea to replace the sock filter on the fuel pump. Pulling the fuel pump on these EG's is very easy. Remove the rear seat and it's right there.

Sweet! Good to know, thanks for the tip!

[bluesteel93]

Originally Posted by awcook

Nice thread! Subbed!

Getting 29 MPG isn't that bad when you are getting used to the car is pretty good. I think my first tank on my Civic was like 27 MPG, and that was when everything was nice and new and fresh (well, not new, just new oil and tires). Working on your car will help the MPGs a ton. I can't wait to see what mods you do to this car!

Thanks for the sub! I actually just filled up again this afternoon and was pleasantly surprised... I got some other surprises too . I'll update later tonight when I have more time.

[bluesteel93]

Another Update! I feel like I've been working on this car non stop for the past few days. I love it though!

When I bought the car back in October the previous owner threw in a set of VX rims with the car, but the tires on the rims were shot which is why it was on the steelies. I was just going to get new Michelin defender tires for VX wheels and run those, but deep down I knew I really wanted to get a set of HX wheels. I prefer the look of the bigger 14" HX's, plus then I would be able to get a set of the Bridgestone RE92's which seem to be the cat's meow of LRR tires.

Last night before bed I was looking on Craigslist and found a guy with black HX rims about an hour away from me. He wanted a set of steelies with decent tires + a little cash for his HX wheels and tires. I told my wife and surprisingly she was on board. I have a birthday coming up so she said it can be my birthday present from her .

So I talked to the guy and met up with him this afternoon. We agreed on a price and swapped the wheels on both of our cars right there. Now I'm rolling on a set of HX's. 3 of the 4 tires are in good shape but they are all mix matched brands, so I'll roll on them for a little while and then get some RE92's.

Here's them on the car.






A couple weeks ago I ordered some replica spoon mirrors too. They're cheap, I like the way they look and I'm pretty sure they're more aerodynamic than the stock mirrors.

Before




After








Also filled up again today. Averaged 44 mpg! A little better than my previous tank haha. Details are in my fuel log.

That's it for now. Next step will be converting it to the 49 state federal version and installing my MPGuino. Hopefully I can get that stuff done within the next couple of weeks.

[awcook]

Those new mirrors will be better for aerodynamics because they are closer to the car which means less frontal area (I think, I'm not an expert).