Restoration Speedy 1975 Civic

[rmilano31]

Car looks great. I live in Gilroy and would like to check it out sometime. Where did you get it painted?

Ramon

[Speedy]

Car looks great. I live in Gilroy and would like to check it out sometime. Where did you get it painted?

Ramon

Hey Ramon, I love showing off my cars so I may just have to meet up with you sometime!

So currently I'm working on putting the car together and making it look like an actual car. Ran out of argon for my TIG, and my MIG is too powerful for this sheet metal, so welding the frame and doing motor mounts is on hold until I get that bottle filled up. Along with the fact that my engine hoist is being loaned out for a few days makes me pretty stuck there. Unless somebody would kindly volunteer to hold my engine in place while I take measurments for mounts? :mrgreen: The last two patch panels are made and in place on the frame, just the inside corners of them need to be welded up, will post pictures later. So while I'm waiting on my welder I'm putting on everything from handles to mirrors and hatch lift supports and lights and the whole shabang. Everything's getting all polished and repainted and purdied up before it goes on the car. Hopefully if I get enough done soon I'll post a pic of my progress on the body. Also getting my Koosjer stripe made up now in matte black! Very exciting. Definitely going to post pics of that one when it's installed.

[Blue-Civic-Hybrid]

Amazing thread and restomod! That trailer you built looks fantastic! I can't wait to see more of your updates!

[Darqnez]

Great Build! Your inspiring me to sit down and post up the 5 years of pictures I have for my own. Car looks great now your at the point where you have to put it together without scratching it! GREEN TAPE is cheaper than paint repair, use liberally. :D

[Speedy]

Great Build! Your inspiring me to sit down and post up the 5 years of pictures I have for my own. Car looks great now your at the point where you have to put it together without scratching it! GREEN TAPE is cheaper than paint repair, use liberally.

Well post them! I wanna see! I could use some extra motivation, this is a lot of work to do and I'm trying to accomplish it in under 2 years instead of 5 haha and yes, I'm not afraid to pull out the green tape, especially after this paint job.

So another big update for everyone interested! And like I figured, it took me a month or two to get around to updating :lol Well I borrowed a buffing wheel from my uncle, and I must say it works wonders! Everything is coming out like brand spankin' new!

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A blind monkey facing the other direction could still show you the difference buffing and polishing makes on this old trim. Who needs NOS parts anyhow? :mrgreen:

Most of my time has been dedicated to cleaning up and installing all my old parts and lights and what not, along with getting all the glass and pretty new seals in! Got the whole set from civicgarage.com except for the rear hatch glass seal. All my parts cars' seals are shrunken back and have gaps between the straight sections and the corners. Now I'm just hoping that EvoCivic pulls through and gets those rear glass seals made! Anyone who is vaguely interested should check out his thread on it and order one even if they don't need it. We need numbers and money to get this done and have access to a full set of seals for our cars when needed!
Here's EvoCivic's thread: http://1stgencivic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19275
Now you have no excuse to go check it out!

And while you're checking stuff out, check this out!

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Windshield is brand new, last one in California from what the glass shop told me (sorry fellow drought-dwellers!) I installed it with some help from my dad and brother with the new seal, but it's such a pain. I should have just spent the extra $30 or whatever it was to have some other guy install it.

I'm in the middle of doing the 4x100 conv. and rear disc swap, which is why the car is on jack stands. It's nice having an uncle with his own machine shop. He machines my parts, I help him redo his trellis and fit some doors, and both of us end up very happy! Just like the rest of the car, everything gets blasted and painted.

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I'm hoping to have the car back on the ground in about two weeks or so maximum. If there's interest I'll go ahead and make a detailed visual thread explaining the whole process to do the swap and conversion. I know it's been done before, but this is to the spec of a perfectionist machinist and lifetime mechanic. And I've found a lot of critical problems that the other swaps do not address such as bearing side load, machining specs, and an easy to follow instruction structure and shopping list. I'm not trying to put down any of those guys that made the instruction threads, I'm just saying that I had to read the instructions MANY times before I fully understood them, and I am a very mechanically inclined person.

Back to the original thread!

Last thing I have for this update is probably my favorite...

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STRIPES!

I've been waiting to make these babies for a few months now. I REALLY have to thank koosjer for all his work on getting these reproduced and available, they look wonderful. Sadly there are some imperfections in my paint and they'll need to be buffed out before I can have these installed. So for now they hang on my wall next to the dresser I have loaded with a bunch of other parts that are waiting to be installed on the car last (yes those are NOS parts on the dresser, so sue me for my earlier comment :roll: haha!). The body shop said they want me to put the entire car together, get it driving the way I want it, and then give it to them so they can buff it out, get rid of the nipples in my clearcoat that are keeping me from installing my stripes, and fix up anything they missed when they painted it. So I'm hauling butt trying to get this thing going. I've got a couple sidejobs I need to finish up to raise a little bit of extra money for this project, then I'll go on to making custom motor mounts, fitting the engine, and getting her rolling on her own power after a fresh rebuild top to bottom on engine and transmission. Lots of cool stuff, I'm really happy this project is moving right along like I want it to. I can't wait to feel the difference in driving this baby compared to my dad's bone-stock canary yellow '79 CVCC :burnout

[Speedy]

So I worked on getting the engine fitted today and it looks so good sitting in there. Makes me even more excited to "git'r done!" and get this baby rolling on her own power!

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There are tons of areas I had to check when setting up the engine for mounting. The things I had to do:

Got it at the perfect angle angle and height to where the oil pan isn't too low and doesn't hit the sway bars
The intake manifold clears the firewall by about 3\4 of an inch which is a bit close IMO
The block deck is level left to right
The transmission and crank pulley fit great where I cut out the frame
Alternator pulley is far enough from the frame to not hit
I have 3 inches of space between the crossmember and engine, so that's going to be tight to fit an exhaust pipe through there
The differential and the hubs line up nicely so the axles stay straight and don't have unnecessary stress
The shift mechanism on the transmission stays under the steering subframe and clear of any obstacles so you don't have to jimmy up a rig to shift the darn thing

And obviously there are a ton of other things to worry about too, but these are the main ones. Just ordered bushings, so when those get here I can start setting up motor mounts and after that comes the rebuild and paint! Speaking of which, I am having the hardest time figuring out how I want to paint this bad boy. I was thinking orange valve cover, natural aluminum block/head and orange upper intake manifold? I would appreciate some input, I want this engine to really POP in the engine bay (aesthetically that is, I don't need any backfiring coming from a freshly rebuilt and tuned engine ), which is why I painted the bay black and left the engine to stand out when I get to it.

[Meldge]

Nice work man, I'm jealous.

How close is the shifter section of the gearbox to that rear cross member?
I was looking at getting my engine back as far as I can, possibly with a custom intake manifold but it looks really close there already.

Good work man...

[Bill]

Orange on the valve cover with the raised areas polished aluminum would be sharp. paint a couple of the accesories around the engine bay orange to balance out the look of the install. Very nice, can't wait to know that it is on the road, and see those pics!
=Bill

[Speedy]

Nice work man, I'm jealous.

How close is the shifter section of the gearbox to that rear cross member?
I was looking at getting my engine back as far as I can, possibly with a custom intake manifold but it looks really close there already.

Thanks! The shifter section is below the crossmember out of the way to where it won't need to be jerry-rigged to work. The engine is already sitting as far back as possible without a custom intake manifold. Just so long as you get the forward slant right on the engine there shouldn't be an issue since the crankcase and transmission are about an inch or so from the rear crossmember on my setup anyways.

Orange on the valve cover with the raised areas polished aluminum would be sharp. paint a couple of the accessories around the engine bay orange to balance out the look of the install. Very nice, can't wait to know that it is on the road, and see those pics!
=Bill

I was thinking brushed aluminum on the valve cover fins instead of polished, with an orange upper intake manifold to compliment, polished lower manifold, and maybe orange transmission. I'll be posting pics often, next ones will come once the engine is mounted up so I can get nice pics of the mounts made and hopefully inspire someone else to bring another old Civic back to life!

[Speedy]

Been working hard on engine mounts and a few other treats. She's back on the ground now! With her new shoes on, too.

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Got the rear discs in fitting nicely with all new parts, and the 4x100 axles in the front work beautifully. Upgrading to larger '92 Civic Si calipers and performance rotors as well as '92 Si master cylinder and brake booster.

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Still need to go make the caliper adapter bracket before I can install the fronts. Plus the face of the newer bigger caliper barely scrubs against the inside of my new rims, so I'll have to shave off just a tiny bit of material to clear everything. For brake lines I plan on just making my own custom lines with braided stainless hose and AN to metric fittings. The same will be done for fuel lines and oil lines to the turbo and oil cooler I'm installing. Speaking of which!

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Got my Garrett GT15 turbo shipped to my work! If you ever order a pretty new part, have it shipped to work. I swear it makes the day go by faster and makes you way happier haha. To mount this baby I'm going to need a custom header made and a bit of plumbing done. I'm actually drawing up a new exhaust flange to mount to the head so that I can bend some tubing to pipe into the turbo. I'll have a 16 row aluminum oil cooler to keep everything in check and probably install an oil temp gauge along with boost and oil pressure. But that's for later. Currently I'm working on my last engine mount so I can pull the sucker out one more time to rebuild, purdy up, and install for the final time after the engine bay is cleaned up to match. Have pics of the second mount, not done with the first completely so no pics of that yet.

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The bottom is the original and you can see the new one made from scratch next to it. Same concept, slightly different measurements is all. I was very happy with how it turned out. Used thicker plate metal than stock, so it'll no doubt hold up to the newfound horsepower.

Last thing I think I was working on was a bunch of wood trim I'll have around the car. I've got one of my friends helping me work on milling and fitting the wood paneling and what not for the car.

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All the wood is straight grained quarter sawn African Mahogany that will be stained to match the wood steering wheel, shifter knob, and African Mahogany veneer on the dash and door panels. The lumber is going to be used as more slats on the roof rack in between the chrome ones on the stock rack, much like an old VW Bug's looks; a wooden trunk floor complete with trap door for spare tire access and pop up spring-loaded knob; and speaker pods for the rear side panels. Hopefully my buddy and I can get that all installed soon along with the taillight wiring.

And of course, with all these '92 Si brakes and parts and an '87 Si motor, I had to splurge on the badges :mrgreen:

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Replacing all the CVCC badges with shiny new Si badges, felt fitting for the car. Grille, dash, hatch, and fenders are getting the new badge. My buddy that's helping me with the wood paneling is a woodworker and engineer among other things, and not so much a car guy. He passed me while I was playing with the new Si emblems and muttered, "Car guys and their damn badges, I will never understand" I like them, so I'm keeping them.

Hopefully I didn't leave anything out, that's what I've been working on for the past few months, progress feels slow but it's ramping up real quick. Hopefully see some good progress soon and get her running nicely!