SRDFTITAN/LOADED811 97 EJ8 TURBO BUILD THREAD!! LOTS OF PICS **CUSTOM GAUGE HOLDER**

[SRDFTITAN]

A little update, got some sanding done. Tomorrow will be at the shop so I can use the power tools, should make sanding go buy much quicker!!

[SRDFTITAN]

So today was much, much better. I was able to use air tools and it made everything much easier. I was able to finish sanding the hood and also I was able to finish about 90% of the passenger side!! I say 90% because I have about 3 spots that I have to add another layer of body filler. I also have to pull off my side moldings, sand them and touch up a couple of spots. After that I'll continue to the rear and passenger side. I'm hoping to have all the body work done on Saturday. If all goes well I will be shooting some primer on Sunday, we'll see. Anyway I have some pics. Everyone keep chiming in and voting on the color choice.

I took that advice and tried not to sand all the way to metal like I did before.


This area on the quarter panel took up most of my time today. There was an area a little bit bigger then a basketball that was dented in. Thanks to the wife she was able to crawl in the car and message it out almost completely. Other then that the previous owner of the car apparently scraped up against something very hard because as you can see in the pic below it dented/scratched the hell out of the quarter!!




The after; I was able to also get the body line almost perfect. I will however have to go back over it tomorrow as there is still a slight amount of a low spot there, other then that everything turned out pretty good on the door.


Quarter Panel; there still is about 3 places that I have to touch up tomorrow but for the most part it came out pretty good for my first time, I'm pretty proud of it. I used the da on the flat surfaces but hand sanded all the areas that were jacked up! Let me know what you think.


Hood once it was finished; oh and I'm priming my entire car.


Open for suggestions!!

[JGilbert312]

Looks awesome, keep it up

[SRDFTITAN]

Ok sorry guys been a bit of a rough week, however I did receive my new suede interior parts!! In all I had my headliner, sun visors and center console armrest done. It turned out very well and big shout out to Wilson's Upholstery for doing such a fine job! There has also been a change of plans. I've grown up drag racing since I was about 9 (jr dragsters) and up until now that was the only racing that I would ever consider doing. So I've decided to try my hand at some Auto X/Road Racing events. Luckily there wasn't to many parts that I have to change but I've already gotten started, but keep in mind that I will be daily driving this car on occasion. On the way is some custom rate Ground Control coilovers 450/430, ASR subframe, ASR rear sway bar, Wicked tuning rear toe adjusters, Energy Suspension kit, new inner and outer tie rods, 11.1" rear disc upgrade (S2000/EP3 setup) with HPS pads and solid rotors (already have HP+ up front w/12.2" rotors), steel braided brake lines all the way around and motul 600 brake fluid. Only problem is I haven't figured out which front camber adjustment setup that I'm going to go with yet. I want to make sure that its of pretty high quality. I'll post pics as stuff arrives and is installed. You guys wish me luck and on to some photos of the SUEDE!!

Can you believe I got all this done for $110.00? Talk about a hook up!

[SRDFTITAN]

Ok so still making some good progress, the body work is about 90% done. Yesterday I was able to finish the driver's side, roof, both fenders and the front bumper. Because my tires are a little over sized I was having some issues with the front tires making contact with the fenders. Solution: I ended up trimming about a 1/2 inch from the passenger side and about 3/4 of an inch from the driver's side. I trimmed more on the driver's side to allow for the suspension settle when I'm in the car. I still have to remove all the trim, side view mirrors and the area under both tail lights. After this all the body work should be done and the car should be primed early Tuesday morning. I plan on blocking the car down throughout the week in preparation to spray the base coat and clear next weekend. Here's some updated photos.

[SRDFTITAN]

Ok so I did mention earlier about me and the wife auto crossing and road racing together, but I did fail to mention that she just designed our new Scott Racing & Development Factory Shirts. They look freakin awesome, as they should because she's a graphic designer lol!! As we move up in road racing she is going to design all of our pit crew shirts, race suits and even the design/graphics on the race car. She has some kind of 3D program where she is currently designing the graphics that are going to go on the side of the car!! I know, I know I'm lucky as hell!! Check em out and let me know what you think, she did two designs, one all black shirt with gold lettering and one black and gold shirt with gold lettering. What you guys think?

[SRDFTITAN]

Ok so today got a lot accomplished on the car (body work wise). The car is sitting in the paint booth as we speak!! All I have to do in the morning is tape a couple of things off, wipe down with a de-greaser and spray. When I got home I had a present sitting at the door....





Front springs @ 450lbs/inch


Rear springs @ 430lbs/inch


Very excited, now just have to wait on all the other stuff so I can do everything at the same time. Comments welcome!

[SRDFTITAN]

Ok got the car primered yesterday, everything turned out pretty good. Everyone was right though, you won't notice any blemishes or spots you missed until you shoot some primer on it!! I'm still pretty pleased with it, I think I counted over 130 dings/dents in the beginning, yesterday after shooting the primer I have 8 spots that need to be addressed during the blocking phase.























As always all comments are welcomed. Feel free to leave any tips about blocking that may help me, I've hear that its the most important part of the process.

[Dylan]

Looking good so far man. You sure have put a damn fair amount of work into this car. Keep coming with the updates.

[SRDFTITAN]

Looking good so far man. You sure have put a damn fair amount of work into this car. Keep coming with the updates.

Thanks for the comment and your right, it seems that it never ends. I will be great when I'm done, but as soon as I'm done with mine I have to start on the wife's lol. She has an ek though.

[98blackcivic]

more!! we want more!!!!!

[Bacon]

Some good progress here.

[SRDFTITAN]

Ok it's been a while but wanted to give a little update. Started doing a little sanding on the car today as well as ordering of several parts. I guess I'm trying to finish the engine, suspension, brakes and interior before I continue with the final step of paint (base coat/clear coat).

Ordered today:
Suspension:
ASR 24mm sway bar
ASR Subframe Brace
ASR spherical end links
New ball joints (upper and lower)
Inner tie rods
Outer tie rods
Energy Suspension end link kit
Energy Suspension front lower control arm bushings
Wicked Tuning toe adjusters
Wicked Tuning rear camber kit
New rear lower control arms

Brakes:
Fastbrakes 12.2" replacement front rotors
Fastbrakes 11.1" rear disc upgrade
Hawk HPS rear pads (ep3)
Russell steel braided lines (all four)
Motul 660 brake fluid (3 bottles)

Cooling:
Zap dual core radiator
14" 1900cfm radiator fan
Mishimoto Fan switch
Oil cooler with filter relocation

Now its time to do a little research on the following:
Traction bars
H brace
3 point strut tower brace (front upper)
Strut tower brace (rear upper)
Mugen pedals
Dual valve springs and retainers (to go with my pro 1 cams)
Re-tune


Hopefully I can have the research for the above items done soon so it can get ordered. Its crunch time!!

[C230K]

Love this thread, alot of sweat is going into this car

[SRDFTITAN]

Love this thread, alot of sweat is going into this car

Thanks for the compliment and your definately right, I've probably lost 20lbs working on this thing lol.

[SRDFTITAN]

Just a little update:

Parts are starting to show up in the mail already. Need to get all the suspension stuff on tonight as I have an appointment at Honda tomorrow morning to get a 4 wheel alignment.











Stay tuned!!

[SRDFTITAN]

Just a quick little update:

Since my exhaust was broken I figured it was a good idea to address some other exhaust issues. My exhaust is already 3" that was fabricated and installed by Mainstream Performance, however the muffler that is on my car is a modified factory Honda muffler that I wanted to try out. This combination worked very well, as the exhaust note was extremely quiet and it flowed pretty good. However just to make sure the exhaust flows at its maximum I'm retaining the 3" exhaust but scrapping the modified muffler. In its place will be a 3" x 6" flex pipe (for the down pipe issue), 2 (two) Dynomax 24245 Race Bullet Resonators/mufflers with dimensions of: 3.5" inlet/outlet x 17.25" in length, and a N1 style muffler with silencer. Hopefully this combination will allow the engine to flow at it's absolute maximum and also stay on the quiet end. I do understand that it will not be super quiet like my modified Honda muffler, but it should be quieter than most (keeping fingers crossed) lol. I also was wanting to make sure that I maintained a straight through design throughout the entire exhaust this time around. Well thats it.

[SRDFTITAN]

Got a little update:
Was able to get access to a welder and fix my down pipe. Got back to the shop and it bolted back up with no problems. I then had to make a new oil return line gasket to stop a leak that I've had for a while. After this I finally was able to test drive the car with the new suspension setup and all I can say is ......SIMPLY AMAZING!!! Its very nice and predictable/nuetral. Will be taking it to get an alignment hopefully on Tuesday at Honda and then I will be able to feel the full benefits of the newly added suspension components. After I got back from the test drive I checked my coolant levels again to make sure there was no air in the system, the new radiator, fan and fan switch are working out great!! I then turned my attention back to the body and started wet block sanding with guide coat. I started on the passenger side quarter panel and made my way up to the passenger door before quitting lol. I will say that the body is surprisingly straighter then I thought it was going to be, especially since this is my first time. I am very pleased with the results so far and look forward to getting the block sanding done by this weekend. Hopefully if everything turns out right I'll be posting some pics of the car with the base coat and clear sprayed on in the next couple of weeks, just have to see how everything works out. Anyway enjoy the pics and comment.

[SRDFTITAN]

Ok been a long time but been pretty busy at work. Well about two weeks ago I noticed that I was breaking exhaust studs. I searched locally at some hardware stores with no luck on any replacements. I didn't want to just go back with oem so I started looking for the best price on the ARP exhaust studs. I think that the cheapest that I could find was around $120.00 plus shipping. Well I ended up finding them a little cheaper on accident! I was placing an order with Blueridge Motorsports for a a/c compatible ram horn turbo manifold and just thought that I'd ask. Well they beat the best price I could find on the net by ten dollars!! I didn't even have to pay for shipping!!

Well my manifold and studs arrived in the mail a couple days later and I couldn't be any happier. The quality and craftsmanship of this manifold is just simply superior!! I just can't believe the price point for the quality, Blueridge Motorsports could simply be just like everyone else and charge upwards of $1,000.00 very easily. I ended up catching them on sale and I paid $527.00 shipped. If you are remotely interested in a ram horn manifold, make sure you check Blueridge Motorsports out first!!

Now I'm sure everyone's thinking "just wait until you have to install that thing", especially since it's an a/c compatible manifold, bound to be some fitment issues. Well I have to tell you I was thinking the exact same thing. Well to my surprise I was wrong, it took some wiggling to get everything past my fittings that stick out from my valve cover (lazy ass), but once I got it past that it went right in. Now I did have to clock my turbo a little and played hell trying to get my oil feed line in but the fit is really, really good, like a glove. The only things I really had to change was a new fitting for my oil feed line, a longer oil return line and some minor changes with my charge piping. Got everything together including my new ARP studs and everything looks good. Oh by the way I used the two nut trick to get my old studs out and I would recommend getting them out before the engine cools all the way down.





















More pics of manifold installed coming very soon!!

[green91]

That manifold is very nice! The car looks great so far.

[SRDFTITAN]

That manifold is very nice! The car looks great so far.

Thanks alot for the compliment bro, finally got the manifold installed and my downpipe made. Had to make some adjustments to the charge piping, oil supply and oil return lines to get everything like it should. Going to get an a/c bracket and start mocking all the a/c components up so that I can finish my dump tube off of my waste gate. Everything is looking really good so far, was unable to really get on it any because of the weather. I was able to get on it a little bit in second gear, felt really responsive and had a noticeable change in pitch/sound from my previous manifold. I'm really happy with the results so far. Now I can hopefully get back on my body work and finish it and then on to the interior. Gotta get this done already lol!!

[green91]

I know what you mean, i've been surprised in the past how much difference a manifold can make in the exhaust note & spool.

[SRDFTITAN]

I know what you mean, i've been surprised in the past how much difference a manifold can make in the exhaust note & spool.

Your exactly right, going from a log manifold to a equal length was the biggest change in spool. My turbo used to spool up around 3000 rpm with the log, went up to about 6000 rpm with the equal length. At first I didn't really know if I was going to like it, but I had to stick with the equal length if I wanted to use my skunk2 pro 1's. Another benefit that I've noticed with the equal length is the gas mileage, I've been between 29-31 mpg. I'm guessing that this is because the turbo is not really spooling up as long as your not in vtec. It is really cool to have a hell of a kick at vtec crossover!! Thanks again for the compliment.

[SRDFTITAN]

Well finally got some pics of the new manifold setup on the car. Like I said before I'm really pleased with the outcome. The car feels more responsive and I'm at full spool about 300-400 sooner which was a plus. Like I said before, if your in the market for a manifold check out Blueridge Motorsports, ask for Brandon.

[Boosting EG]

looking good

[SRDFTITAN]

Thanks bro for the compliment. Little update: Got the car primed again, had some issues with the spray gun so I bought some brand new ones. Because the old guns were acting messed up it made my primer feel like sand paper. All I had to do was lightly sand the surface with 180 grit to knock down the sand paper feel. Now all I'm going to do is go back over it with 400 grit (wet) and then I'll be ready for paint!! I'm very excited because I'm nearing the end!! Has taken me a while to get everything pretty straight, not perfect but much better then it was when I started. I'll be purchasing my base and clear coat on Friday and if everything goes well maybe spray on Saturday!! Wish me luck, check back for updates. Oh yeah I almost forgot, I ordered a p28 ecu with Hondata S300 w/ boost option, should be here next week.

[SRDFTITAN]

Ok well tomorrow is the big day. Was able to pick up my paint today. I don't think I ever told anyone which paint choice I picked out of the two that I posted.....I'll let the pics give the answer.







I absolutely love this color and tomorrow morning I'm going to start spraying the fenders, hood and front bumper. I wanted to start on some smaller pieces so that if I messed something up I won't have to start over on a larger panel. I think everything should work out ok! Wish me luck and check back tomorrow evening for some updates!

[SRDFTITAN]

Got my fenders, front bumper and front lip sprayed. I'm very pleased with the results. Only problem I had was trash in the paint. I should be able to wet sand most of it out. I didn't have any runs anywhere in the paint. Came out awesome!!















I'll try to get better pics today. Comments welcome, I'm really glad that I chose this color!!

[SRDFTITAN]

Got a couple more pics today, was planning on doing some more work on the car but drank just a little to much last night lol. I'll be working on it all week though.

[Kyle]

I like build threads with hope, too many threads it doesn't seem like any progress is ever made... You're doing work though, keep it up.

[SRDFTITAN]

I like build threads with hope, too many threads it doesn't seem like any progress is ever made... You're doing work though, keep it up.

Thanks for the compliment! I'm glad my build has some hope lol. But again thanks, just trying to get it done.

[SRDFTITAN]

Alright finally got some updates to share with you guys. I was able to get the rest of the car painted and cleared. I think everything turned out pretty good, no runs or sagging anywhere and it appears the the metallics were spread evenly. I'm going to wait for a sunny day so I can pull the car out and get a good look at it.

I was able to spray the base coat on Sunday and had to wait until today to spray the clear coat. It got too cold to fast when the sun went down on Sunday so I figured it would have been better to wait. The only problem that I found was I had the air lines that run to the paint booth hooked up to the wrong side of the air compressor. This made it to where there was way to much pressure coming to the spray gun. Because of this a lot of trash ended up in my clear coat, as all the dust was being stirred up. I've been doing a lot of research on color sanding and I've decided that I'm going to start with 1500 grit and work my way up in 500 grit increments all the way up to 3000 grit. Let me know what you guys think, I think that I should be able to get most of the trash out with color sanding and buffing. Thanks for the comments so far and I welcome any advice. Try to ignore the quality of the photos, I used my cell phone to take the pictures and there was still quite a bit of clear coat still floating around the paint booth lol.

[SRDFTITAN]

Quick question; I was unable to find any directions or anything that specified how long I had to wait before I could wet sand and buff the paint, any suggestions?

[Saung]

Is that my old red strip del sol seat I sold to green91? .

[SRDFTITAN]

Is that my old red strip del sol seat I sold to green91? .

I'm not sure who green91 is lol, so I don't know.

[SRDFTITAN]

Well started doing some wet sanding and buffing. So far I've got the trunk and passenger side quarter panel done. It's coming out really nice so far. I started with 1500 grit and then on to 2000 grit. I spoke with a friend of mine and was told that 2000 grit was more then enough before buffing. Let me know what you think. I would like to have the entire passenger side done by tomorrow, we'll see.

Had to do some leveling of the clear coat with a razor blade, had a couple of drips in the clear coat.




Taped the edges off and started sanding.


A little before and after of the trunk:

[SRDFTITAN]

Now on to the quarter panel. It started getting dark so I had to move the operation inside lol!













My favorite:



Well that is all for today, I will post more tomorrow when I get the rest of the passenger side done. Comments are welcome!

[NAIZBST]

looks good!!!

[Patterson]

Nothing like rubbing one out in the shop. LMAO looks good buddy, how many coats of clear did you end up putting on?

[SRDFTITAN]

looks good!!!

Thanks I appreciate it