I can't see any of your photos. It is telling me to upgrade my photo bucket for "bandwidth". Does it take a certain subscription to photobucket for me to see your posted pictures? Thanks,
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93 Prelude Si resurrection in process....
I can't see any of your photos. It is telling me to upgrade my photo bucket for "bandwidth". Does it take a certain subscription to photobucket for me to see your posted pictures? Thanks,
his account ran out of bandwidth for the month because he's got way too much traffic. it's not you. maybe he could be nice enough to upload to another site or you're going to have to wait.
I know guys I'm sorry for the wait :-( Photobucket told me that my pictures won't be available until the 28th. I kinda don't know much about why I run out of bandwith on this. Do people save my pictures? Or does people opening the webpage take bandwith away from photobucket? Either way, I dunno what's going on, I'm just sad I don't have pictures
My dad and sister did some photoshop the other day of the white sands pictures, I thought it was pretty funny when they texted me the pictures to show me what they were working on!
I will be home in a week from this godforsaken land near Barstow, CA, I can't wait to see the paint that came for me in the mail!
and haha on the comment about the moon, my sister and dad who did this said the same thing but it was just them pokin' around on the photoshop, it didn't have to make sense. In another picture they have Asimo walking around on the surface too, .
Finally, after months of contemplating and alot of **** from everyone who has seen this thread, I have gotten new wheels. I was sick of the look of the front wheels jutting out and I was looking for the ideal wheel that would bolt on with no spacers and take a big brake kit. As luck would have it, I ended up finding that wheel in the form of 5Zigen FN-10R's that I just got yesterday. It was time for the Enkei RSV's to go, and their balding BFGoodrich TA KDW's. Towards the end, the wheels were either off balance or the spacers were finally just becoming too warped for proper torquing to alleviate, so I was happy to take them off.
I decided to switch to a different tire and try out the Falken Azenis 615's, because I've heard so much about them. At $108 per tire (215/40/R17) they were a pretty good deal and they look great as well (performance is yet to be determined). The 5Zigen wheels are 17x7 with a 35 offset. I was curious as if I'd get the right offset or not (they had 35, 42 and 48 to choose from), but they were absolutely perfect. They clear the Wilwood BBK by probably a millimeter or two (ha!) and they do not stick out from the flush line with the fender. I finally look like I have a real wheel setup! And now that I have my ARP wheel studs on all 4 corners with no spacers to cover them up, they look totally gangster (think of the roman chariots and their metal blades coming out to attack other chariot wheels) sticking out. The pictures speak for themselves, so without further ado...
I have yet to put the center caps in... I'm debating which way looks better, so I'll post up some pictures for you all to be the judge. The car is also way dirty and the tires have not been cleaned and had tire shine applied, so bare with this first batch until I clean them up.
I do have some BLOX lug nuts in black. They're hella light but I couldn't put them on the other rims because they were too large at the base. This rim has a different shaped area around the lugnuts so I hope they work!
very cool.... I am looking for new wheels now as well. Have to same problem as you. I want a 17 that will work with my Rotora big brake kit. and not have to run a spacer.
Wheels look good.
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PFI Sleeves, Eagle Rods, Arais pistons, Supertech Valve Springs, Supertech Retainers, JR Supercharger reworked by ENDYN, Ported intake Manifold, Ported "S" tube, Skunk 2 Throttle body, AEM CAI, Hytech Header w/3" collector, Custom 3" Exhaust, Meizer Electric Water pump, Hondata S300, MSD SCI-L ignition, MSD Blaster 2 coil, walbro 255 fuel pump, AEM fuel rail, 1000cc Precision Injectors, FJO Fuel Injector Driver, manual tranny swap, Quaife LSD, Motor Mount inserts, and a little nitrous.
Well, it's a shame to admit this, but I've been avoiding pictures of the rear of my car for quite some time now. Actually, it's been ever since that fateful night before the dyno session when Honda Bob was in town. To refresh your memory, the Megan Racing Header had failed bigtime and was leaking exhaust gases in probably no less than 2 places, probably 3. So $200 later, i got my RMF style header put onto the car and with my buddy's friend welding it, got a totally ****ty "saturday night special" of a weld job and the header got welded to a "reducer" which got welded to the new Random Technologies Cat. which got the 3" outlet welded straight onto the Greddy Evo2 Exhaust. The results weren't pretty and were probably the reason I got a lower-than-expected dyno result the next day.
But I'm going to let the pictures do the explaining, here are the parts I've been saving for almost 3 months now to get installed on the car by any exhaust shop I could. Then the next pictures show the terrible condition we found the exhaust in before and during its session at the exhaust shop.
Two 5' long T-304 SS Pipes (2.5" diameter), 2.5" into 3" "reducer", Magnaflow Polished 18" long muffler, Magnaflow "Tanabe Style" Muffler Tip, 2.5" flanges w/ gasket, 180 degree and 45 degree mandrel bent T-304 pipe
The two most embarassing of all the pictures. When the 3" end of the catalytic convertor was welded straight onto the Greddy Flange, the shop didn't even care that the bottom bolt hole was wide open, leaving a perfect hole in the exhaust right after the cat. Idiots!
The exhaust shop in El Paso that did this was Al's Performance Exhaust on Doniphan Dr. on the West Side. I've never heard of it, but the place was very well taken care of. It was spotless, had all the tools needed for the job, had a professional waiting room and the owner was a very easy and personable guy to relate to. He took my job without an appointment because his day's appointment was just cancelled as I was talking to him after I got there.
The part that also sucked about the previous shop was that the RMF header was having clearance issues on the crossmember, so they barely cut it to fit the downpipe part of the header and it was constantly making contact noises when I'd drive it or let 'er rip. Al fixed this with an incredibly nice looking weld where he enlarged the gap, and on top of that, boxed in the weld with a professional looking design that made the trip all worthwile in my opinion.
The welding was superb from the initial welds of the shop before Al. Case and point:
Versus:
So with the bill all tallied up, the key was turned and the reward of an incredibly soft sounding rumble was listened to for the first time in a long time. There is no tin-ny high pitched whine or typical fart-can drone, I'm truly impressed with the low rumble that this exhaust system produces both inside and out of the car. The 40 minute highway drive back home was the most pleasant experience I've had in my car since I can't remember when. No exhaust leaks, a new alignment I got early in the morning and a soft ride on new tires made the car truly enjoyable once again.
A smaller tip compared to the Greddy, and nowhere near as boi-racer:
But with the car up on the lift, it was evident where my next focus needs to go, the condition of the lips around the car and the car needs a good washing as well. I believe tomorrow will be a wash and wax day as well as getting the bumper and side sills prepped for next weekend where I might be able to start painting!
Yeah, I will definitely try to make some time for that tomorrow. I just upgraded my photobucket account so I no longer have to worry about bandwith which would be my main problem with posting a video. I'll get it up shortly.
How come you're always the first to post the minute after I post something up? Haha, you get on here more than I do!
i have them, i just have not gotten around to doing the finishing work to the jdm bumper I have. It'll have the JDM fogs, cornering lights and a JDM bumper pole, all for you lilbill!
I ordered some BLOX lugnuts for my last set of wheels, and they didn't fit because the holes were too small. But now with my new wheels, I decided to try them out and sure enough, success!
I'm finally getting around to doing alot of odds and ends that have been sorely neglected on the Prelude since I stopped doing them in the late fall. As I was installing the ESP 4 point brace in the back the day before I left for the National Training Center, I was dismayed to find that the Taylor Battery Relocation Kit battery tray was already corroding! Not only that, but my failsafe idea (i had thought) of using sidewalk filler to keep it held down on the other end was also not holding up and the whole tray was kept on by a single bolt through the spare wheel tie-down hole.
So while I was at the NTC, I ordered a stainless steel battery tray off of Ebay and had Al from the exhaust shop weld in tray in a location I previously hadn't given much thought to from an idea of another Prelude owner. The results speak for themselves as you see I've now switched to gold-plated side post terminals for an extra clean look and also got my amp up and off the floor of the trunk and screwed in to the back of the Type S rear seat. My future plans include scraping out the sound deadening around the spare tire area and laying down a fresh coat of white paint, but not necessarily the pearl kind, to finish off the trunk area.
I'm sure it all depends on the area you live in and the ability of shops. It also depends on if you bring your own materials for them to work with like I did. And how much of the exhaust do you need welded? I needed the whole thing welded as you can see. I can tell you what to expect if you give me some of that info.
I like your car a lot more now that you changed the wheels. That exhaust looks nice! Get a video up! There's no resonators so I'd expect it to sound raspy.
how much did that exhaust cost you? I need to get a new one...
So I got home from work tonight too late to start making good on my other sideskirt, and I'm going to have to save that piece for the morning. However, I did decide to post up the pictures to let you see what I've been doing thus far.
The first step I took is prepping the bumper. It is in pretty awful condition but the only good part is that there are no cracks anywhere on it. It just has some deep gouges that I will attempt to fill in.
So the first step is to take all the hardware off. As most of you have done in the past, the turn signals are taken off through a single screw that is accessible through the front grill. Once it is off, it leaves the JDM fog light exposed. Nevermind where the drill bit is on this screw in this picture, that's the adjustment part of it, you only need to remove the other two screws to take it out.
Now I'm taking out the cornering lights. and all 4 screws that hold it against the bumper
I bought these cheapie saw horses at Home Depot, but I'm not actually sawing wood, so I just got the basic ones.
I used the 60 grit sandpaper block for starters
This is ideally what you want, take off the paint in the areas the scratches are the cheapest, but leave on the paint in other areas, it'll act like a primer surface.
So, realizing that I should first focus my skills on the side skirts because that front bumper is a bigger beast to tackle than I thought, I set about last night destroying them, haha
First, we see a perfectly prepared Electron Blue Pearl Side Skirt from HandA
I am not going to start out with the coarse sandpaper, because the paint on this is already existing and there are no dings. So what I did do is elect to go with a 100 grit to get that clearcoat off, then I went with a 320 grit because that is recommended before the paint/primer goes on.
scuffed up surface before the cleaning begins:
Now according to all instructions, before you do any paint or any kind of layering, you need to make sure the surface is absolutely free of foreign debris. This is a monumental task in the outdoors, as you see I'm doing, but hey, when you don't have access to a paint booth, you take your chances. Luckily, there was no wind that day.
First, give it a thorough washing to remove everything large and visible and all the sanding dust
Next, find the kind of wipes that promise to get rid of dirt, grease, oil, and whatnot.
When I took the package out of the pouch, it felt like it had no moisture on it. I was initially like "WTF" but as I rubbed it on, it left behind a layer of what I can only describe as that of "lighter fluid" where it stays a liquid for a little bit before evaporating.
Now the directions say, while it is still in its liquid form, to rub it off with a lint free cloth. Here I am using one of those microfiber cloths...
Now to add a layer of adhesion promoter. The surface, with the paint still attached, is acting like a primer in my opinion, so I began after two coats of this (one light, one wet, like the directions said).
It leaves behind a finish on the paint/primer that I can only describe as "satiny"
Then the basecoat comes next. I've never been good at this, but I tried a new technique... I started at one end, holding the can about 10 to 12 inches away and made one swipe, careful to not go too slow or fast...
But I kept doing it for well over 30 minutes (i lost track) where I'd do my one line of spray and wait for a minute, then do another and this picture shows my result as I was getting really close. I think I did 2 more coats after this one:
Now I don't know if you'll be able to see it when this picture gets put up, but look at the very top of the white where it meets the black night backdrop. If you look closely, you'll see why it sucks to paint outdoors, mainly, you get little pieces of anything floating in the air that will stick on the paint. Right here you see a little bit of fuzz here and there
Now I was pissed off and I didn't think I had a solution to it... that is until I came inside, sat down and thought about it. Then I remembered I had bought these!
What that is is "Cheesecloth" or tack rags to everyone else. It is basically a material with a coating on it that will pick up absolutely everything it touches. So I put it to the ultimate test, which was waiting for 3 hours until I was fairly sure the paint was dry enough that I could blot it and lightly skim the surface. Much to my amazement, it picked up EVERY SINGLE PIECE of lint and stuff off the surface of the paint, without leaving any evidence it was on top of the paint! I was astounded! So now this one sideskirt has had a full 24 hours to cure and is dust free and it's been calling my name to receive the pearl topcoat followed by the clearcoat.
hey mike did you take of the 3m film off the ends? If you did keep them, and apply them on finished paint to protect them from rocks spittin out your tires.
This isn't much, but it was a mod I took the 10 minutes to do this weekend... It was mainly the scraping of glass out that took the longest, haha.
I got those blue tinted mirrors months ago and never got a chance to put them on. I read the directions and then I lost them in the mix. I completely couldn't figure out how to take the damn mirror piece off, but I remembered somebody saying they just broke their's, soooo....
And you're done! haha. I guess it slipped my mind to take a picture of the side view of the car with the windows... oh well, i'll post them tomorrow!
By the way, they are more convexed than stock mirrors, which means you will see a whole lot more of the road, but they take a few days to get used to while you drive!
yeah check the ends of the skirts that are facing in towards the front wheels. Its the same material used for clear nose masks. honda probably intended for them to protect the paint from rocks flying out your wheels.
My bad, Yeah I didn't catch it till I loaded my skirts in my car to take them to the paint shop. I got in the car and the skirts were in my face, then I noticed.
You'll have to give me a quote on the total price you paid to get them painted. I'm curious to see how I stacked up in terms of cost savings on DIY. It sure is a pain in the ass, I'll tell you that much.
lets just say I felt a lot better going with the champ white paint due to the costly fees of base/pearl/clear. Mines base/clear and I was charged $100 per skirt and they also prepped them for me. They told me to never prep my own stuff I bring to them cause they won't offer warranty.
i must say, this is quite possibly the best read i had ever had the pleasure of reading in my entire life. This thread has inspired me to do so much to my 98 lude that i dont even know where to begin.
props on the saga and MADDD Props on the car man. and especially what with you being in the military and all. I'd definitely vote you having the best prelude in the world, or at the very least having the best prelude saga EVER.
keep the pics and story coming man, i cant wait to read more.
I just want to document everything as often as I can. I'm glad you all still read and like it. I will keep updating once I get done painting and start installing the body components.
I just try to deliver on my posts. I don't want people posting the same message time after time asking when the next update is, I can promise that updates will come even if it's just new pictures with the scenery of this area before I move to the Tennessee area.
So I got home from work tonight too late to start making good on my other sideskirt, and I'm going to have to save that piece for the morning. However, I did decide to post up the pictures to let you see what I've been doing thus far.
The first step I took is prepping the bumper. It is in pretty awful condition but the only good part is that there are no cracks anywhere on it. It just has some deep gouges that I will attempt to fill in.
So the first step is to take all the hardware off. As most of you have done in the past, the turn signals are taken off through a single screw that is accessible through the front grill. Once it is off, it leaves the JDM fog light exposed. Nevermind where the drill bit is on this screw in this picture, that's the adjustment part of it, you only need to remove the other two screws to take it out.
Now I'm taking out the cornering lights. and all 4 screws that hold it against the bumper
I bought these cheapie saw horses at Home Depot, but I'm not actually sawing wood, so I just got the basic ones.
I used the 60 grit sandpaper block for starters
This is ideally what you want, take off the paint in the areas the scratches are the cheapest, but leave on the paint in other areas, it'll act like a primer surface.
So, realizing that I should first focus my skills on the side skirts because that front bumper is a bigger beast to tackle than I thought, I set about last night destroying them, haha
First, we see a perfectly prepared Electron Blue Pearl Side Skirt from HandA
I am not going to start out with the coarse sandpaper, because the paint on this is already existing and there are no dings. So what I did do is elect to go with a 100 grit to get that clearcoat off, then I went with a 320 grit because that is recommended before the paint/primer goes on.
scuffed up surface before the cleaning begins:
Now according to all instructions, before you do any paint or any kind of layering, you need to make sure the surface is absolutely free of foreign debris. This is a monumental task in the outdoors, as you see I'm doing, but hey, when you don't have access to a paint booth, you take your chances. Luckily, there was no wind that day.
First, give it a thorough washing to remove everything large and visible and all the sanding dust
Next, find the kind of wipes that promise to get rid of dirt, grease, oil, and whatnot.
When I took the package out of the pouch, it felt like it had no moisture on it. I was initially like "WTF" but as I rubbed it on, it left behind a layer of what I can only describe as that of "lighter fluid" where it stays a liquid for a little bit before evaporating.
Now the directions say, while it is still in its liquid form, to rub it off with a lint free cloth. Here I am using one of those microfiber cloths...
Now to add a layer of adhesion promoter. The surface, with the paint still attached, is acting like a primer in my opinion, so I began after two coats of this (one light, one wet, like the directions said).
It leaves behind a finish on the paint/primer that I can only describe as "satiny"
Then the basecoat comes next. I've never been good at this, but I tried a new technique... I started at one end, holding the can about 10 to 12 inches away and made one swipe, careful to not go too slow or fast...
But I kept doing it for well over 30 minutes (i lost track) where I'd do my one line of spray and wait for a minute, then do another and this picture shows my result as I was getting really close. I think I did 2 more coats after this one:
Now I don't know if you'll be able to see it when this picture gets put up, but look at the very top of the white where it meets the black night backdrop. If you look closely, you'll see why it sucks to paint outdoors, mainly, you get little pieces of anything floating in the air that will stick on the paint. Right here you see a little bit of fuzz here and there
Now I was pissed off and I didn't think I had a solution to it... that is until I came inside, sat down and thought about it. Then I remembered I had bought these!
What that is is "Cheesecloth" or tack rags to everyone else. It is basically a material with a coating on it that will pick up absolutely everything it touches. So I put it to the ultimate test, which was waiting for 3 hours until I was fairly sure the paint was dry enough that I could blot it and lightly skim the surface. Much to my amazement, it picked up EVERY SINGLE PIECE of lint and stuff off the surface of the paint, without leaving any evidence it was on top of the paint! I was astounded! So now this one sideskirt has had a full 24 hours to cure and is dust free and it's been calling my name to receive the pearl topcoat followed by the clearcoat.
I updated my Photobucket account a month ago because I was running out of my limited bandwith capacity earlier and earlier every month. So there's no reason they shouldn't work?
Also, I do plan on doing some videos. I want to get the car's bumpers and stuff updated first, then I'll video everything from the bumper pole to the corner lights to the sidemarkers to the exhaust to the car getting re-dynoed and of course, some general movies.
Umm... so here's also a reason why I can't take any videos at the moment...
On Wednesday morning, I was driving back home and I was doing nothing unusual, just cruising down the road when out of nowhere, all of my warning lights come on and the car just turns off. So I coasted into a gas station that just happened to be there and I tried to turn it back on. The engine was cranking and the car had power, but the engine never turned over.
I got out and opened the hood and looked around, nothing looked out of the ordinary, no smells or anything, i looked under the car and there was no evidence of any fluids leaking. I was stupified at what was wrong.
So yet again... I had to get a tow truck, and here is the familiar picture of my life...
Before the towtruck took it, I noticed that there were some wires that looked out of place and kind of dangling near the drivers side CV joint on the axle. I made note of it and told it to the shop I took it to.
Well, they couldn't diagnose the problem immediately. They tried testing the distributor coil, that was fine, they checked the igniter, that was fine, all wires, spark plugs and distributor cap were okay too. They all were functional but there was still no spark.
Today they finally got their big break and noticed that the wires I had noticed were apparently to the Crankshaft Position Sensor at the bottom of the block on the timing belt side. The wires I saw were a mixture of my oil temperature DEFI gauge line and the Crankshaft Sensor's female adapter, which was just dangling there. The wire must have gotten snagged into the CV boot or the axle or something because as soon as it caught, it ripped the line off the sensor and the male end off of the female end. Along the way to the shop, it must have fallen off as the tow truck was hitting bumps, that's why they could find no evidence of what the problem was.
And since the car shop isn't open on the weekend, they will have to wait until Monday to either attempt to fix the wires or order a replacement piece or find one around town.
Oh yeah, and so I don't leave this one out, this is when my clutch pedal sank to the floor and the slave cylinder crapped out on me back in August. That was a fun day of watching the car get towed too, haha
Total count of times the car has been pictured being towed on this thread: 4!
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