btjtaylor

How's it holding up on the stepwagon? I probably won't bother on my MB as it's not likely to see a lot of salt but I definitely need to do my Accord, its starting to get a bit crispy under there in places. One of the rear disc shields completely fell off in my hands the other day!

Bolt in half cage fitted today. Quite an awkward install as there's a lot of holes to drill and try to keep everything on centre but we got there eventually! Very impressed with the welding and paintwork - definitely recommend JP Cages who supplied it

Installed AEM x-series gauges for wideband AFR, oil temp and oil pressure, and wired the analogue output from them up into the doctronic ECU so I can set a "limp mode" in case something goes wrong! Oil temp mounted into a sandwich plate between the block and the oil filter and oil pressure mounted to the factory oil pressure location with a K-tuned adapter so both sensors can be run They are housed in a very nice 3d printed gauge pod holder that mounts in place of the centre air vent (from a very nice Bulgarian chap on a honda group on facebook who managed to print me a right hand drive version for a very reasonable price).

It's probably cheaper to just buy a Civic with the engine you want already in - maybe you could get a right hand drive one form the UK that's rusty? Theses kind of cars tend to be cheaper over here ... MBs haven't gone up in price much (yet!) like EG/EKs have in recent years. Obviously you'd have to get it back to where you are but depends how desperate you are! You are absolutely right on the K-swap front - especially if you use quality parts not ebay copied junk. I spent £750 on my shell, £700 on an engine, and £250 on a gearbox, but I would say the parts to do the engine conversion properly are probably 5x that, especially when you add in a lot of items that get done "whilst you're in there" e.g. new clutch/lightened flywheel, bigger injectors, different intake manifold... etc. etc.

More info on the lights? Looks great !

Yes, there are some marks - I guess it was to align the drill or whatever they were using in the factory if the car was to be an MB6. I'd love to know what they did - I imagine just drill and tap a hole, thread in a stud ... or maybe there was more to it than that? Maybe some extra reinforcement underneath? I found a video of someone working on an EG just now doing basically the same thing as I wrote earlier but using a piece of metal behind as reinforcement - it seemed to work OK for them

A basic smoke tester can be useful in these situations. Leave it inside the car with the doors and windows closed for 30 mins or so to fill the car with thick smoke, you should see it leaking out of the holes. I have this one - its basic but does the job aliexpress.com/p/tesla-landing/index.html?UTABTest=aliabtest125094_24784&src=google&src=google&albch=shopping&acnt=708-803-3821&slnk=&plac=&mtctp=&albbt=Google_7_shopping&gclsrc=aw.ds&albagn=888888&ds_e_adid=784528327853&ds_e_matchtype=search&ds_e_device=c&ds_e_network=g&ds_e_product_group_id=2463919240694&ds_e_product_id=en1005006642306652&ds_e_product_merchant_id=106959561&ds_e_product_country=GB&ds_e_product_language=en&ds_e_product_channel=online&ds_e_product_store_id=&ds_url_v=2&albcp=23272714697&albag=191864323674&isSmbAutoCall=false&needSmbHouyi=false&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23272714697&gbraid=0AAAAAD6I-hHL-qdK3MTpI0Ema2awFtvJN&gclid=CjwKCAjwspPOBhB9EiwATFbi5PCAR3LaZGphD23BdD1CPkhjJilbrB9rcTukI15yr1pC9FbnhiKokBoCeDkQAvD_BwE&aff_fcid=a41b7480c3234acabb05997aa673a8c1-1774543819938-06152-irey5Th&aff_fsk=irey5Th&aff_platform=promotion&sk=irey5Th&aff_trace_key=a41b7480c3234acabb05997aa673a8c1-1774543819938-06152-irey5Th&terminal_id=24f51958e50f4dda8253ef308c411e91&scenario=c_ppc_item_bridge&productId=1005006642306652&_immersiveMode=true&withMainCard=true&OLP=1116833308_f_group1&o_s_id=1116833308&afSmartRedirect=n Also useful for testing out exhaust and intake/PCV/etc leaks

The easiest way is to get a bar that mounts into the top mount studs of the suspension, like this However, I have been given an MB6 strut bar for free so I wanted to attempt this install. According to the internet I should do as follows: Offer up the bar Mark and drill 8.5mm holes into the strut towers Use M8 bolts (grade 10.9) with penny washers through from the underside and tighten it down I have all the parts ready to go and will report back soon ...

Yes, it's a shame. It's the same for basically every kind of specialist forum these days unfortunately. The barrier for entry is lower for posting on facebook, even though it's an abysmal format for specialist discussion. It's ok for asking questions, but thats about it. Any kind of long term logging of knowledge like this forum is full of is not compatible with their engagement/advertising driven format. Probably less said about that the better.

Rear disc conversion (pretty much) completed now My father in law managed to get all of the brake lines out of the factory prop valve without rounding any which I was very impressed with!! 40/40 prop valve (I believe originally from a non-ABS integra) swapped in New handbrake cables installed into car. This was a bit of a pain as I purchased non-genuine items from Autodoc ("Cofele" branded) and the build quality was awful. One of the tangs at the end where they slide into the handbrake "yoke" had been badly machined with a piece of cable hanging out of one side and I had to spend quite a bit of time with a grinding wheel on a Dremel honing it down to fit - the risk you take with cheap aftermarket parts I suppose. I'm not sure if you can even get original Honda handbrake cables any more, and even if you could they'd probably be a silly price. The only "snag" I have left is I wasn't able to swap the brake master cylinder as the bolt pattern is different. I managed to pick up an MB6 BMC locally for cheap but it didnt come with the servo/booster, but I thought it would fit ok .. obviously not. Here's a comparison of them for anyone following along at home: MB2: MB6: In summary, you need both the servo AND MC together if you want to do this upgrade. After doing a bit of reading, the brakes will work as expected now i've fitted the prop valve but the pedal travel might be too long. As my original BMC isn't leaking i'll just leave it for now and see how I get on, and probably get an MB6 or ZS180 booster if one pops up for a reasonable price.

That's more like it - 34mm piston calipers did the trick

Suspension all refreshed now Hardrace front ARB bracket bushes (21mm for anyone wondering - it was quite hard to figure out the size without measuring it in person!) and hardrace front compliance bushes Mostly new bolts … a few still on order (if you look really careful there's a subframe bolt missing) 🤪 Hardrace ARB droplinks (to fit a civic EG - the ones to fit an MB6/DC2 are a different shape)

Rover bolts came in clutch so the part numbers above are correct for anyone who's curious. Some of them were in MG Rover branded bags which was a blast from the past, they must've been 20+ years old! Removed the engine oil sump and fitted the 4PistonRacing baffle plates, really nicely designed piece. Much easier than weld-in baffles. Realised a massive fail with the rear brakes. The rear arms I bought were off a ZS 180, and came with 260mm discs installed. I purchased new discs and pads, and I could not for the life of me get the discs and pads to fit. I tried EVERYTHING, figuring I was doing something wrong. I then got my father in law to try and he couldnt get them in either. In the end, I looked up the part numbers on the rear calipers and found out they are for a ZS 120 which has 240mm rear discs and thinner pads.. so that explains it. The previous owner had obivous bought the wrong calipers, but managed to force the disc and pads to work .. somehow. I think they had removed a bunch of material from the pads .. the mind boggles. New set of ZS 180 rear calipers on order... an unexpected expense I didnt need but at least i've got to the bottom of the mystery (apparently the 30 in the part number means 30mm piston. Correct ones have 34mm pistons).

Good shout I had a quick look and it seems to be the same issue as the EK ones After doing a bit of reading, it looks like the MB rear bolts are based on European standards. The JDM cars are based on JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard). I knew something wasn't quite right because the rear bolts are 13mm / 15mm heads and normally on Japanese (at least JDM model) cars its 12/14. I've managed to order all of the rear bolts using the MG Rover part numbers instead. There are a few front suspension bolts that remain illusive, I may have to either try and clean up the originals or order generic bolts. I made a spreadsheet to try to figure this out (my starting point was based on the bush diagram from the powerflex website). Once I finally get them all replaced i'll post up a list somewhere, it might help someone else in the future.

Had a few days of time owed from work so spent a couple of days on the MB. Made good progress refitting all off the front suspension and then fitting the rear disc arms. The only snag is annoyingly I had to put a load of rusty old bolts back into my nice clean arms as I managed to order bolts for the rear of an EK civic not an MB. Turns out all of the MB bolts are no longer in production anyway so I'm going to take all the spares i've got and give them a soak in evaporust and see how they turn out ... next best thing I suppose. Calipers, brakes and feeding the handbrake cables up into the car to go but it all looks like it should fit Hopefully have the car on the road in the spring!

Yeah was a bit unexpected but got there in the end. The pipes were not the easiest to get off - after a bit of heat and loads of wd40 they did eventually shift but they're a little chewed up. I managed to get them on tight but if there are any leaks I fear I will have to remake them which won't be the easiest as there's quite a lot of tight bends. Potentially I could also use some kind of flexible PTFE pipe and AN fittings to make the routing a bit easier. Apparently on other hondas (eg/ek/etc) you can just swap the pinion shaft piece across rather than changing the entire rack as it seems like the racks are all the same it's just the teeth on the pinion that affects the ratio so I would probably try to get another MB2 rack (they're a lot cheaper!) and swap the pinion over from the ZS one rather than another attempt at removing the pipes.

Got the grille fitted to the car, that was the easy bit as the rest of the day turned into a bit of a nightmare! Could probably do with painting the metal behind black (its not quite as obvious in real life) but other than that im happy with it for a DIY job We then tried to swap in the MG ZS 180 steering rack that I bought... what a pig of a job Once we've eventually wrestled it into place after removing engine mount and subframe bolts, we found it didnt fit because these pipes are shaped differently, meaning it fouls on the engine mount bracket (the factory MB one so I can't even blame this on it being a k swap!) MB pipe: So I had to remove the rack from the car again and then remove the pipes from the MB rack and swap them to the ZS one. I've never seen that mentioned before but it's worth knowing if you are attempting this... Didn't get as much done as i'd like but onwards and upwards

Made a custom EK9 style grille to go with the headlights Dismantled the grille, scuffed the chrome surround and rattle can painted it the same as the body (Titan Silver NH614M) Here's it drying, I didn't paint it on the dining table, i'd not be alive to tell the tale! Removed the inside of the grille with a dremel and then painstakingly cut some black mesh from ebay (as close to the EK9 mesh as I could see from photos) to size and sandwiched it in between the grille pieces Hopefully it fits on the car properly as I had to remove a lot of material... will find out tomorrow!

Looking at these photos again it felt like a shame to put rusty parts back on the car As I'd already installed the ball joints and I didn't really fancy pressing out the wheel bearings I masked up the arms and knuckles as best I could and gave them a few coats of the same Hammerite paint i've used on the rear arms Pretty happy with the results all things considered. It's not a full strip down and restoration of course but it looks a lot better and should protect it for the next few years.

Managed to spend a good day on the car for the first time in a while Fitted a Leoch XR600 lightweight AGM battery in a custom made battery holder from Alloy Race Fabrications. Drilled into the factory battery tray and used some rivnuts to bolt it down. I will probably end up relocating the battery eventually but the stock battery was completely knackered so it made sense to upgrade to a lightweight one. Also fitted a twist-style battery isolator to prevent the battery from running down when the car isnt being driven Took off the entire front suspension to start refreshing everything with new upgraded parts Fitted hardrace compliance bushes and lower control arms Installed roll centre correction lower ball joints

Ended up with a spare pair of headlights so thought I would have a go at making some EK9-style ones (like this) Melted the glue and opened the lights (10 mins in the oven at 120c) Removed the chrome surround and the orange lenses for the indicators Scuffed up the chrome with a scotchbrite pad to key it for paint Gave it a few coats of high temp graphite paint Went to put the lights back together and found the amber bulbs I bought don't fit. Apparently this is a common issue as they're "keyed" differently to the white ones, so I filed off one of the pins which actually seems to work... Quick sand and polish and here's the finished result! I will probably give it a more agressive sand and apply some clear coat at some point but happy for now, it looks 100x better than the stock ones imo

Yes, pirate's black is definitely the best colour - personally I wanted any colour but silver... but went and bought a silver one anyway. Part of me wishes I held out longer to find one in that colour but its very hard to find clean ones these days so I prioritised lack of rust over it. I saw an old thread on here with someone who painted theirs championship white, that would also be cool.. that or phoenix yellow!

Nice car, factory wind deflectors are always a good choice I spent far too much money getting some JDM ones for my accord !

Stripped the rear arms down (photo half way through the job, lots of swearing and removing of extremely rusty bolts later). One of the attachment points for the handbrake cable totally stripped so I had to drill it out and use a helicoil on it, which wasn't a brilliant idea as the insert was deeper than the hole and I had to cut the helicoil down to size with a pair of snips, hopefully it'll be ok, i'm sure I've done worse in the past... 🤪 Scrap metal anyone? Wire brushed as much of the loose rust as I could and gave them a few coats of Hammerite "direct to metal" paint, looking much better. In an ideal world the hubs could do with coming off and the whole arm being sandblasted but it's good enough for underneath the car i'm sure Next job is to press out the bushes once I have access to a press Cleaned up the brake callipers and brackets (which under the terrible paint job seemed almost brand new!) and gave them a coat of Jenolite silver brake calliper paint which came out really well

Managed to pick up a few more MG ZS 180 bits off a car being broken - A set of disc rear trailing arms, complete with calipers (almost look new although with an unfortunate colour paint job..) There is a lot of general grot and surface rust but they should clean up well enough. The rear caliper brackets are an abolsute nightmare to find so this is a good result. It also avoids having to change my wheels/front hubs as with the MG parts I can stay with 4x100 which is a lot easier/cheaper. - Steering rack. The MB2 came with a very slow rack so this will be a nice upgrade (it might even be too fast, but we'll see) The rear arm bushes are totally gone but I have a set of Hardrace ones to replace them with along with other arms etc so hopefully none of the 20+ year old rubber should get reused. I still need to pick up a few bits like an MB6 brake master cylinder/booster and a proportioning valve but I will tackle that later, trying to get all the suspension overhaul completed for now.