91 Civic daily driver build thread

[c1jake]

Thought I'd share "some" of the story of my daily driver civic. A quick 3 year catchup so I can hopefully keep it up to date

I bought it in 2020 as I wanted a cushy reliable daily driver I would legitimately leave well alone and not modify so I could focus time and money on all the other projects.

I couldn't find anything worth buying for ages then lucked into the civic on marketplace, the vultures usually beat you to the good stuff but even with a net cast as wide as RETRO CARS FOR SALE on facebook i still managed to snap it up. quick train trip into london to collect it from a super cool guy, had a nice drive back in it with no issues other than forgetting to pay the dart charge which went to the seller who paid it for me (who I repaid several times over as thanks) and an epic wheel vibration n/s which was a badly buckled steel.

I wanted a manual one, in black, non sunroof. I got an auto in grey with a sunroof but the GL spec level is pretty nice, twin carbs, power steering electric everything etc. I've never owned an auto so it was 'interesting' to drive at first . I'll probably miss a lot of pics and info of stuff I did but here goes, I love the car and drive it 24/7



















Having daily driven Renault 5's forever the Civic was like having a religious experience, it's a superior car in every single way but that didn't stop the civic getting sidetracked by building an r5 turbo van 



Anyway, I proceeded to leave the civic well alone as intended. It was in decent condition but the paintwork is shocking across most of the car, it's a combination of laquer peel and then the paint shrinking



The arches rust from the inside out, it had bubbling but nothing major so I left it for a few years. An entire week had passed before I started to not leave it alone anymore

you know it's going to be good when the coilovers cost more than the car.



scored some real jdm legit bro wheels on marketplace and gave them a refurb and new 195/50 proxes, handled nice on the new wheels and coilovers, this was a good start to the project totally necessary for the car



Did a lot of parts hauling and generally used the car like this for a while enjoying it and problem free. 



I kept it pretty clean/unmessed with for a long time but saw the potential to have a really cool usable daily driver so I decided to continue down the rabbit hole..

[c1jake]

Managed to find these really cool impul silhouette wheels, long long trip to get them and I don't like this style of wheel normally but had to have them and still do. Quick refurb and tyres and on they went



Found a pre facelift front bumper and got that on with a cheap lip



acquired all the parts to manual swap the car from a good friend in hull



my beloved staffie/bull terrier hybrid approved



Got started on the manual swap, the auto box worked perfectly fine but it was a relief to bin the big ugly shifter and boat anchor auto box, I must have shaved at least 10kg off the nose of the car from the manual swap it handled so much better.






3d printed trumpets to replace the big airbox. they sound pretty cool even though it makes about 90bhp



ok make that 93






made my own jdm/usdm spec rear bumper out of the uk bumper










could not live with the mismatched paint anymore and decided to give it a quick scuff and shoot to get it all one colour for a year while I decide what colour to paint it for real

[c1jake]

Some more pics post-paint












Smashed the windscreen by prodding it with an arris rail



I'll do pretty much anything but replace a bonded in windscreen well, apparently neither could the windscreen guy who proceeded to butcher it in with the wrong seal





routine wash gave me dreams of gloss



cardboard aided design some mirror baseplates






then did some real cad






integra type r rear seat



vt crx dash with approval from my boss, i also cad modelled and printed a double din fascia for the most aliexpress double din money can buy






tried the wheels from my gt turbo for a laugh



future vtec yo



tweed glorious tweed



got an ill-fitting chargespeed lip



converted the sunroof headliner to non sunroof for the non sunroof conversion



replaced the radiator which had seen better days but still worked perfectly fine



got a cheap 20 year old dslr and took a few pics.












after a couple years good service from my 'temporary' refurb i got the impul wheels refurbed in chrome powdercoat so i can daily drive it without needing to polish them or have lacquer peel. never had this done as i cannot afford such things so this was very pleasant and my friend tom did an awesome job on them









matching gearknob from benny which is cool




couple of random pics

[c1jake]

Fast forward to 2023 and things start to change for the better, I got my dream job and sold the van to free up some time and space. I miss it but I have a much more exciting GT Turbo to build. anyway back to the honda

Got these from 'murica



started prepping the car for the 'real' 'paint job' - welded the bonnet and wings and into epoxy primer. was very impressed at how well this went on with my very cheap gun and very cheap compressor and very free spray booth



retrimmed the door panels again this time in alcantara and the whole top half which i seperated from the bottom to do it




tried some paint on the wing, orange peel to be expected but very pleased with the 'colour'



quick hand buff just to see. i will fully flat and polish the whole car when its painted



did a bit more painting and epic failed as it came out way too dry, a lot to learn teaching myself to paint again but it's good to make mistakes and be honest about them



removed the rear seat and made a false floor with frequent trips to the weighing scale






paint prep reminded me how it got to this point



wired the rear foglight into what was the second reverse light, i obviously put a red bulb in after this



finally found a windscreen trim that fits after vaguely looking all year. unfortunately it goes in with the screen so i've got to try and get the screen out without breaking it, the screen and trim are long NLA. the rough black reacted paint is some weird protective stuff i put on it to stop the pillars rusting from how bad the outer trim is until i get the new one in and paint everything



battery relocated to the boot with 40mm cable. the oem battery tray is bolted in not spot welded so i used that and put it inside a battery box. cad modelled and 3d printed a mega fuse holder









cad modelled and 3d printed a new smaller washer bottle. the oem one is ridiculously large



wiretucked the passenger side loom





finally decided to check out those rear arches.. :/


















and weld new inner and outers. this was a pretty tough job trying to keep warping down and rushing it as i did it at the weekend needing it ready to drive back to work on monday


















finished seat mounts and mounted seats



and that's up to date now.



I need to finish painting it, tidy lots of little boring bits up, do the vtec swap, etc etc.............

[Alpina99]

Nice car and interesting journey so far with it,
Must admit I liked it best in white but looks good anyway,
Nigel

[79cord]

Well I'm a big fan, having been spoiled by my first Accord hatchback. Even if I've too many other problem/projects to play with mine much beyond rear discs & should really fit aftermarket manifold I suppose & pre-facelift frt bumper..& undented roof spoiler...
Even daily driving my DC2 integra (not Tp-R), every time I drive the TwinCarb D15 I enjoy that more, though I also let my mum drive my EF8 CR-X to daily my Accord again. Hence I got a Civic or two to pry her out. Good timing too, bargain availability seemed to disappear straight after!
Fitted a Concerto injected D16 sohc to another ED hatch, taking it to USA Si spec. but even if it may have a little more power & smoothness, it just doesn't have the rorty sound & character of the original twin-carbs facing the cabin. D16 DOHC seamlessly elastic & shouldn't be underestimated, B16 is nice, but it's pretty ordinary under 6k & gearing won't get it off the line immediately unless you're trying hard enough to be obvious about it. Looking forward to trying D16 vtec properly with EG soon.

Nice work done upon yours & look forward the final repaint reflecting that, even if enjoying it is more important.

[twincammy]

love this! some amount of work you've put in.
i just picked up a Z6 last week to put into my crx, not many people go for sohc vtec swap in this country so a big learning process for sure.
where did you pick up the front lip?

[BritBrick]

The R5 Turbo van conversion...I saw this or one like it bombing round at Rockingham some years back.

[c1jake]

Aug 6, 2023 19:15:28 GMT twincammy said:

love this! some amount of work you've put in.
i just picked up a Z6 last week to put into my crx, not many people go for sohc vtec swap in this country so a big learning process for sure.
where did you pick up the front lip?

The lip is from american ebay, it’s a late spec one I modified to fit the early spec, they advertise it as early spec but I don't think it is

Z6 should be good, I’m really looking forward to the vtec swap on this, it’s super fun as it is so a very mild bump in power will be nice

[c1jake]

Aug 6, 2023 21:40:29 GMT BritBrick said:

The R5 Turbo van conversion...I saw this or one like it bombing round at Rockingham some years back.

Probably Briggsy’s or maybe another, there’s a couple kicking around his is the best by a mile but even mine was super fun

[c1jake]

Not much to report, painted the rear quarters about 2 weeks ago, came out nice for the low effort prep, weak compressor, cheap gun, outside, etc.



Brought it to mallory last week

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Went to paint the bonnet straight after work the other day and lost pressure for some reason so it came out really dry and horrid which I need to troubleshoot before re-doing it and getting on to the roof and doors. I gave it a very quick cut and buff so it was slightly less offensive until I re-do it.






Yesterday I replaced both trailing arm bushes, I found NOS honda ones a while ago. Left them in the freezer overnight and used the honda tool to do them in situ, worked really well.

[rotarypower]

Excellent work!

I've the somewhat ludicrous idea of dailying mine as well, so I'm glad I'm not the only idiot that thinks a 30 year old daily is a great idea!

Out of interest (and I'm not sure if CRX & Civic would be the same, you mentioned that you ahve a CRX dashboard.), but would you be interested in printing another double din fascia? (for a fee of course)