SirPaperbag

It seems you might be missing some kind of plastic cowling / housing that would go around the fogs inside of the bumper hole. And I can only speak for pre-facelift models here, but the OEM fogs would be attached from the backside of the bumper where there are a bunch of sturdy mounting points for the screws to bite into. That's the part I'm talking about, btw - that plastic trim around the projector.

I don't think he's got a Hondata, cause they provide you with a bunch of basemaps. My best bet would be either on the Hondata forums, or over at the folks who use Daemon and the likes. Strongly doubt that someone on this site would have a map for a D15 readily available.

If you want to prevent the crank from turning, for example to undo the crank bolt, then you can either get a special tool (see picture), or undo the dust protection plate for the clutch and either jam a sturdy screwdriver or something else against the teeth on the flywheel to keep it in place. But that bolt is often super tight (>200NM torque), so beware when you go for the flywheel route!

So, did a good bit of work to the car again. This time I installed a proper mounting bracket for the cold air intake as the old hacked-off and jury-rigged intake mani bracket looked pretty bad, to be honest. Also installed a pair of much more serious sounding horns than that little beeper that the car came with. They sound a lot better than the OEM one did, and are quite a bit louder on top! After that I installed a set of new bumper screws - the original ones were completely rusted and cruddy, and one almost stripped completely when I took that bumper off! Then I got to work on my seat-project. As I said in my last post - the original seats make me sit a bit too high for my own tastes and I have been looking for either some high-quality (road legal) seat rails for aftermarket seats from either Recaro or some other brand, or a completely different way to sit lower than the original seats would allow me to. As it turns out ... you can fit CRX seats on the original M-chassis rails if you drill out the rivets and fabricate an adaptor plate out of steel (10mm thick in my case). I got lucky a few years ago and managed to take a pair of these seats off a guy for jsut 250 bucks total. :) Here's how the first prototype looks like: This was only to take a look and see if my idea could even work to begin with, and if it would make me sit lower than the OEM seats would, but as luck would have it ... this combo works flawlessly and I sit about 5 to 8 centimetres lower than I do in the stock seats! :D They are also quite a bit more comfortable, if a bit worn-out. Real plushy. :) But as things stand right now I'll just make a few more refinements to my adaptor brackets, give those seats a thorough cleaning session and maybe add some more side bolstering to give them a bit more of a sporty feel and I've got myself a nice pair of OEM Honda seats that do exactly what I want from them! :D

I fitted an EG6 rear ARB last year, using the 'same' OEM mounting hardware as you probably do. (They were pretty rusty before I restored them) In my case, there were small pre-drilled (and tapped!) holes next to the lower control arm mounts (center of the car) that I just cleaned up before I installed the brackets. But if I remember correctly, I indeed had to drill a pair of holes for one of the brackets' mounting points. I also used some sturdy metal tubing as spacers between the frame and the mounts to reinforce everything. Also, you gotta have a pair of rear lower control arms that actually have the required holes to fit your ARB to! And a bit of friendly advice on top - don't go with an ARB thicker than 15 or 16mm, because everything above that is going to tear our and completely wreck your rear frame without any reinforcement done to it to take the brunt of the force. Hardrace, Beaks and loads of other companies sell those kinds of reinforcement braces, some of which even come with their own mounting points for your ARB! :) Here is how everything looks now: Hope I could be of help! :)

So, a few boxes full of fun-parts arrived yesterday... :D I'm still trying to find a good machining shop to get a port and polish, a valve-job and to get the rotating assembly properly balanced, but things are slowly progressing on the new engine build. It's going to be unconventional for sure, but I'm going to be fully building an N/A D16Z6 that I've bought for this project. Forged conrods, high compression pistons, stage 2 camshaft, lightened flywheel, the whole nine yards. I've also done some test-fitting already and it seems that the 'LITE'-series of conrods from Skunk2 doesn't require any notching of the block to fit, which is a huge win in my book! Though I had to cobble together a pseudo-piston from a few pieces of plastic and foam for the test-fit, as the pistons I bought are .5mm oversize and I haven't had the block bored out yet. Worked super well, though! But I'm super stoked to see what kind of power gain this is going to get me, and especially how high I'll be able to rev it. Components-wise it should be fine up to 9.000 or even 10.000 RPM, but we all know that it probably won't make much or even any power up that high in the rev-range. Based on my research into other all-motor D16 builds and B20 builds I'm confident that it should definitely hold up to 9.000 relatively comfortably, as many people in the states rev their stock-rod B20s that high without much issue, running only ARP rod-bolts and nothing else. (B20 engines have the same stroke as D16s, btw) It's going to be a while until things get moving properly, but the first step has been taken and all that's holding me back right now is finding that machining shop! :D Some folks are probably going to ask why I would take a D16 that far instead of just going B-Series, and I'm going to answer that by telling you that a B-Series swap costs around four to five thousand Euros where I live. If you can even find one... That's a lot of money for just a stock engine and trans. And it's also why I'm going to spend about the same amount of money to build a D-Series that is going to make roughly the same power, as well. I simply want a built engine. Simple as that. I've always wanted to build a proper all-motor engine and I finally got the chance, both time- and money-wise to do so, and I'm going to do it! :D I've also been doing some research into getting a road-legal bucket seat, or any kind of seat to be honest, because the stock seats are just too high for my tastes and I constantly have to lean forward when I'm stopped at a red light. Someone else on this forum already made an extremely helpful post about the seat rails from Planted Technology, which helped me immensely, but I've also found a local engineering company here in Germany which is able to fabricate everything in-house and even get it entered into the car's paperwork the legitimate way. That comes with its price though... Well, anyways. That's the current state of my project. See ya 'round!

Had the same issue a while ago. Engine ran fine and then suddenly - dead. You could even see the tach have a seizure a few moments before the engine died. My only fix was to get a new complete dizzy, as they don't sell just the pickups/sensors inside of them. Even a whole new coil and ECM module didn't help and I even tested out a different ECU altogehter. The problem is that most aftermarket dizzys for our Hondas are ... hot garbage, to be honest. If you buy a cheap-ish one, you'll quickly find yourself ordering the next one sooner than later. The only quality brand I've seen is based in the US, by the name of "Dragon Fire". I know, sounds kinda iffy, but their stuff even meets the IATF standard, meaning it really is better than all of that Chinesium-garbage off eBay, and I've been running it for almost half a year now without complaint! Costs a pretty penny, though. :/

Finally got around to installing my Hondata and let's just say that I might have been a little nervous when I turned that ignition key for the first time, hah! But everything went well, and I now have a running, chipped D16Z9 engine, woohoo! It might be running richer than Jeff Bezos at a marathon for now, but a few good street-tuning sessions are going to take care of that. And I'm talking Lambda-0.8-at-idle-rich; Even a few seconds of cold-start are enough to make the whole courtyard reek of marzipan. Sadly I barely had any seat-time during the past few months, as the bane of every D-Series owner struck - ignition problems. It started as a random ignition stutter (rev-counter visibly took a dip) that quickly ended in a complete engine shut-off on my way home from work, and the car refused to turn back on again for at least five minutes after the initial shut-off. But it weirdly enough acted as if nothing happened when it did decide to work again. Spent a few weeks hunting down the issue, buying a new igniter, new coil, the whole nine yards, but the issue persisted. I suspected that the sensors inside of the dizzy might be the problem and looked up part numbers, but quickly found out that those are not sold separately. Dang it. That's when I went "F*k it, I'm gonna buy a whole damn new distributor." But, as it turns out, 99.9% of aftermarket dizzys for D-Series are hot garbage and people always have to buy new ones as they break down faster than you can say K-Swap. That's chinesium for ya... So I looked at those funny looking "Dragon Fire" -ones, which I admittedly didn't take seriously at first, and through their homepage I found out that they actually meet the IAT standard - Success! If something meets that standard, it's at least not as crappy as all of those cheapo replicas from China. The car has been running fine ever since and even gained a bit of torque down low! :D [A few weeks later...] Last weekend it was finally time for yet another small addition, as I finally grew tired of the original pedals and imported myself these beauties straight from the land of the rising sun. The instructions might be slightly difficult to read, but at least they included some pictures. And, well, installing pedals is kind of self-explanatory, y'know? Quick peek at them, straight out of the box. The installation process is actually super easy, as taking off the OEM accelerator-plastic is the most difficult step in my opinion. But with a small-ish flathead screwdriver and a little bit of convincing you can lift the plastic nose on the top and then just slide it off! After that, simply remove the plastic strips from the double-sided adhesive, set the covers in place and attach the small metal clamps that screw through the pedal covers to sandwich the pedal between the little clamps and the covers. This is what the finished product looks like. :) The clutch and brake pedal have that extremely grippy texture to them, which looks to be some kind of metal foam that has been injected into the frame. (Has even more grip than skateboard-tape!) Oh, and heel-and-toe has gotten a lot easier, as these pedals are a bit fatter than the OEM rubbers. All in all - way too expensive, but worth it. Mmm, take a look at that close-up.

Thanks! :D It really is right in the sweetspot in my opinion - low enough to look good and handle well, but still enough ground clearance to get over speedbumps without fearing for dear life. I also drive on unpaved roads from time to time, so I gotta clear those huge potholes. Living out here in the boonies definitely has its pros and cons. :'D

Had the same issue, fixed it by fabricating a set of roughly 15mm thick steel plates that go between the top of the shock assembly and the underside of the strut tower. Couldn't even drive into my garage anymore without scraping the front tow hooks. Now it sits at about the same height as before.

Yep, same experience here. Had to grind that little bracket for the brake hoses off my original shocks and weld them to that kinda dodgy, nondescript piece of metal pipe that came with the kit. Pretty disappointing imo. A big brand like Bilstein really shouldn't ship stuff that requires modifications on the customer's side to work, especially at that price point. If I had known that before I got them, I definitely would have gone with Spax dampers instead - those even come with adjustable damping!

Damn. that looks good! Didn't think that an Evo wing would actually fit that well... And what kind of spoiler is that on the boot? The smaller, lip-esque one, I mean. Kinda want one myself now.

The set I ordered was made for the M-chassis (in my case an MA8), but I also don't use the original springs anymore. The front was also a bit too low for my taste after installing the B6 dampers, so I fabricated some steel plates and put them between the shock towers and the top of the strut assembly to gain around 15mm height back. And I definitely believe you - putting them back together (even with lowering springs) was really tricky. Honestly a bit disappointed from how it all fit together. If I were you, I'd get a set of lowering springs and try them out, as driving around with over-extended dampers is actually even a bit dangerous. (For reference, I use ~35mm lowering springs from Eibach) Best of luck!

Got around to making a bit more progress on the car today. This time around, I did some work on the induction system. Had to take off the front bumper first, and I've gotten suspiciously quick at doing so. It's also ridiculously easy to take it off these cars! And this is the object in question today: that huge, ugly resonator box sitting inside of all our fenders, silencing those sweet, sweet induction noises. Truly preposterous. Three 10mm hex bolts later it's out of the car already. (Where it belongs) Look at all of that room! There is a (very small) German company that makes 3D-printed parts for this exact problem. [Link] Also, the bracket I used is some random piece of metal that I had flying around in my workshop and adjusted with an angle grinder. If I remember correctly, it might have come with the Z9 engine, like a bracket for the generator or something along those lines. Put a bit of electrical tape on the end and voilá - cold air intake with a stock airbox. Sure, it looks a bit janky on photo, but it's way better in person, promise. All in all - it makes all the right noises and I think it will be a big plus in these hot summer months, reducing intake temps quite a bit... Plus it's virtually impossible to see with the bumper back on, which is crucial here in Germany, as you either have to get your modifications entered into the registration of your car (which has a 0% chance of happening with this mod), or make it stealthy enough to not get spotted during our version of MOT or a traffic stop. For legal reasons I am going to emphasize that I put the stock resonator-box back on before putting everything back together, as I would never drive a car with an illegal modification such as this.

Thanks! I've still got lots of things planned for her, so there's definitely more to come in the future. And the VTEC controller definitely was one of the most challenging projects I have ever done. Period. That thing took a lot of R&D time and writing the code for the microcontroller took about three weeks to get it working properly. Google definitely is onto something with their 80/20 rule: "80% of the work gets done in 20% of the time." It still is in what I would call it's "Beta phase", as there are still some kinks to take care of like minor fluttering in disengaging the VTEC and so on... But now that I've got a proper ECU (and even a second one with some Hondata goodies inside ) there simply is no real reason for me to keep working on it. Power-wise I've got something real nice coming up, some real single-jingle love for y'all. #SaveTheSOHC

There are lots of modifications that I don't have any pictures of that also got left out, like silicon cooler hoses and a bigger radiator, but those kinds of mods aren't that exciting to begin with, so... Eh.

This spring, I finally received something I ordered almost a whole year ago. Worst part is, the shop I got it from also is located in Germany. Those guys literally took a whole year to ship something less than 500 kilometers. It took a lot of threatening them with legal action and dozens of Emails, but my babies finally arrived one day. Just look at that! :D As I installed those juicy B6 dampers, I also decided to give my rear drums a small makeover with high temperature paint. They were only a year or two old, but had already started to gather surface rust... The rear is starting to look real nice. :) Little beauty-shot of the whole rear. The front calipers do look a bit bland, but there is no real reason to do anything to them yet, as my wheels pretty much cover them completely. ... Until the car started to veer to the right everytime I brake. Time for some new calipers! Of course I painted them. ;) Even got new hardware to go with them. And that's it! At least mechanically speaking. Sure, I put a sticker on the rear window and installed some wind deflectors, but that's pretty minor stuff. But there is something on the horizon... Here is a little beauty-shot of the engine bay as a thank you for making it this far! Would you believe me if I told you this was shot on a cheap digicam from 2006? Well, it was. :P

After that, I went back to the interior and looked for options on how to get rid of that fugly fake-wood trim. As you might know by now, I do have a talent for finding rare stuff and actually managed to find a complete set of Aerodeck trim, center console included. :D Igonre the shift knob, it was a youthful mistake. But look at that 'carbon', look at it! That is what I call OEM+. Also got rid of the ugly, fake EP3 shift knob in favor of a genuine (yes, I do buy genuine if it's available) Spoon one. The interior looks so much better than it used to now! All the lights work, everything is hooked up properly. Remember, this car didn't come with fogs from factory. Also got some additional oil temp and pressure gauges from VDO. They are pretty much the go-to company when it comes to stuff like this here in Germany, as they have a lot of history with racing and even supplied the gauges to many OEMs, like Volkswagen and so on. For example, the gauges from a MK. II Golf are also made by VDO. And that ACL pump sure is doing a good job of building oil pressure, alright... Even during summer, it reaches 6 bars when cold! And we're now reaching the part where I start adding power to the engine. I finally got my hands on a P28 ECU and installed it, getting rid of my janky VTEC-controller and the original ECU. No pics for that one. But I also got a few nice bits that add a bit of power and lots of good noises while driving. >:) The throttle body and the intake manifold are both from the same company, but for legal reasons I am going to remind you all that the intake mani is most definitely an original Honda one, as you can see going by the PGM-FI lettering on it. (It definitely is not a Skunk2 intake mani with an aluminium plate glued on top to make it inconspicuous.) Oh, and a big throttle body completely transforms the engine's character. It revs insanely fast now and the sounds, guys, the sounds...! It definitely added power, as I got scared of my car for the first time when I got in the passenger seat during the test drive. It just keeps pulling and pulling until you hit the limiter. If you asked me, I'd say it makes peak power somewhere around 7000RPM now, but it doesn't fall off after that. The fuel economy, funnily enough, didn't change at all... Is that a bit of foreshadowing? Yes, it is. Why? Well, because I drove it like that for a few months and, doing a routine spark plug inspection, saw that it ran quite lean. Oopsie number two. Got a kit from BLOX racing to convert the stock fp regulator to an adjustable one, but that kit turned out to be utter garbage and it leaked badly. Got an AEM adjustable fuel pressure regulator after that. Don't buy cheap, or you'll buy twice. Lesson learned. Moving on, I decided to do something about the cheap looking intake pipe, as I didn't like the way it looks, and neither would the police during a traffic stop. But I had to run something bigger than that pitiful stock one, so tough luck. Did a bit of browsing the Internet and my old man, of all people, came to me one day and showed me the product page of an intake charge air pipe for a Fiat Ducato. Yes. A Fiat. Ducato. Guys, I'm not gonna lie, that thing fits like a f-ing glove. I only had to drill a hole for the breather pipe, but that was literally all it took to make it fit. The diameter is literally perfect. I was a bit concerned at first, because it looks like it might be just as bumpy on the inside, but no, it's completely smooth in there. Perfect for making power! >:D No, officer, it's stock! It fits way too good. The part where it mounts to the throttle body is even tapered a bit on the inside, making it a perfectly even inner diameter for the air. Fiat, I love you. That was everything up until the beginning of 2023.

It was at this point that I started looking up foglights and I even found an original switch up for sale on good ol' eBay. I also got another steering wheel, as I didn't like the original one anymore. Sadly, the S2000 wheel I got for an absolutely incredible price didn't fit and I had to return it. :( This left me with two options: Get an Accord Type R / Integra Type R wheel Send my OEM wheel in for some work to be done With the prices of those wheels, I quickly settled for option 2, as I was not willing to pay 1000+ Euros for a grubby old steering wheel. Honda tax is insane, guys. Anyways, after sending the wheel away to get some work done to it, I found yet another goodie on the Interwebs and couldn't help myself but buy it. After both arrived in the mail, the interior started to look a lot better... The wheel feels a lot better now, and it even looks nice. :) And the cluster looks super mint. The rev counter might be a bit overkill right now, but that might change in the future... >:) But the now nice looking wheel and cluster also made me realise that the absolutely horrible looking fake-wood has to go. It doesn't match the look of the car anymore. The head unit also doesn't sit right with me. But, as life tends to do, I got a nasty surprise when I went to take a routine look underneath the driver side front fender, as I read that these cars tend to rot there. And yes, they do. :( Completely rotted through. Even getting the damned fender off was an exercise in frustration, as the bolt in the middle of the rust hole was completely seized. But with my pops being a car mechanic, we got to work. First, we removed the cancerous tissue. Second, we got ourselves some sheet metal. And then we welded it in, sealing it with rust converter and lots of wax on the inside. We then gave it some body sealer and painted it with 'color matched' spraypaint. Looks a lot better now. The fender was also rusted to hell and back down there and we basically replaced the whole bottom section. Sadly, the 'color matched' paint was ... not really matched. Eh, still better than rust. :) We also checked the other side and thankfully found only minor rust there, so we used various products to conserve the metal and prevent any further rust for now. With that problem fixed, I could finally go back to making things look better. Got a set of clear (I think it was) Prelude side-indicators and some tasteful stickers to go with them. You can see the mismatched paint if you look for it. Also bought a different head-unit from Blaupunkt for that sweet, sweet OEM+ look. And yes, the 'DAB' in its name stands for exactly that. This bad boy got Bluetooth and DAB+, alll while looking like a typical boring 90's radio. I can't stress enough just how much I dislike the look of most aftermarket head-units. They just look so goddamn cheap! By the way, we are now in the year 2022 (the steering wheel thing happened in 2021) and I am making progress on the foglights. Found some nice ones from Hella and slapped 'em on the ol' Honda. :) Also got a hold of a rear arb from an EG6, with the chassis mounts included! They might have been a bit rusty, though... Soaked them in a bath of coke over a few days and that took care of the worst of it. This is an almost thirty years old car after all, and it is allowed to have signs of age here and there, so I don't mind a bit of surface rust here or there, especially on suspension components. Got some EG lower control arms and hardrace polyurethane links to go with them and bolted them in. They ... 'fit'. There now is an order in which you have get them in or out, but they do fit. Rear ARB successfully installed! :D And this mod, again, dramatically increased the handling of the car.

At that point, I decided it was time to give the engine bay a small glow-up and started with a good clean. And some knock-off goodies. ;) I know, I know. But there simply are no legit Mugen valve covers made for D-Series engines... Me personally? I like the way it looks, and that's what's most important in my opinion. :) This was around July of 2020, and my next step was a reliability mod. Oiling, to be precise. I heard that D-Series engines suffer from cavitation and oil starvation if you give them a good thrashing, and with this being the legitimately only D16Z9 you could purchase off the Internet, I didn't really plan on blowing it up... So I got myself an upgraded oil pump from ACL and installed it real quick. Also checked the oil pan for any kind of debris or other stuff. It is a used engine, after all... But there was nothing out of the ordinary, thankfully, and the installation went pretty smoothly. I even had a chance to check out the bores from underneath. And I found out that this engine is even more interesting than I thought. Turns out, this engine comes out of an automatic EJ1 from the US of A. This bad boy went trans-atlantic at some point. Buttoned everything back up, took out all the spark plugs and cranked the engine for a few seconds to see if it build oil pressure. A minor oopsie on my part, as I quickly learned. Cranking the engine with the plugs out fried my ignition coil. Oops. Well, bought a new one and installed that as well. Guess which is the old one... With more power and reliability checked off on my to-do list, I went on to improve the handling side of things. I got lucky and actually managed to snag a used MG ZS180 front-arb for very little money. That thing is a certified chonker. Paired it with new links and slapped it under the car. To say it was an upgrade would be an understatement. That thing transformed the handling of the car drastically. With that also checked off, I decided to address the looks. Appearances matter, you know? :P Got a new set of headlights, and to round everything off, I got a set of used taillights. Not that big of a difference, but lots of small changes quickly add up. The taillights were a huge upgrade though, they look a lot better than the pre-facelift orange ones!

Finally found the time to continue this thread. Work has been hectic lately. Anyways- When I finally saved up enough money to buy myself something nice, I reached out to a buddy of mine who (at the time) worked for a certain wheel manufacturer... Guess which one it was. I got that set of Turbos for an amazing price and let me tell ya, unboxing a set of brand-spankin' new wheels is really something else. :D Ordered some nice tires to go with them and did a test-fit. With the car being my daily driver, I chose some with good grip in wet conditions. Sadly, it was in the middle of winter and I had to put the ugly ol' steelies back on, as I didn't want to get into trouble with the race marshalls. ;) A few months of pretty much nothing happening went by and a peculiar thoght crossed my mind. 'Didn't my pa tell me he did lots of engine swaps back in the day? Maybe I can do one, as well?' Well, you can guess what came next... I actually consulted the owner's manual (of all things) to find out which engines I could choose from, as swapping in an engine that came stock in your chassis is a lot easier and cheaper to get entered in the car's registration. So, some scrounging up money and searching the interwebs later, this ugly duckling arrived on my doorstep: A D16Z9, a 1.6 liter single-jingle with 126hp. Not that much, sure, but a huge upgrade over the stock 1.4 engine, barely coughing up 90hp. About 8 hours of work later, the engine was installed and we fired it up for the first time- Success! The swap was surprisingly straightforward and actually... easy? We could'nt believe ourselves how simple it was. This was around spring of 2020, mind you. Half a year after I bought my first car, it had already been engine-swapped. I would call that a resounding success. ;D By the way, I was still running the original 1.4l ECU. Without any problems, I might add. Oh, and I also kept the 1.4l transmission- the gearing is *chef's kiss. Perfect. Folks talk a lot about S20 transmissions on D-Series engines (A000 is what you'd want, by the way) but nobody ever talks about the fact that trannies made for lower displacements are also naturally geared shorter than those made for higher displacements. Makes sense, no? Less torque = shoter gears for same acceleration. My pa also told me that folks often used Diesel trannies for their builds back in the day, as they were a lot shorter than the 'regular' ones. Here is an excerpt from the manual, please ignore the fact that it's all in German: As you can see in the table, the maximum speed per gear (when revving up to the limiter) is the shortest in the 1.4l version. Coincidence? I think not! As I now got my hands on a VTEC engine, yo, I also wanted to use the VTEC. Duh. So, I grabbed some tools and, as I was learning the trade of an electronics technician, got to work. After about a week, I had managed to create this absolute abomination: Behold, breadboard! It's a super simple cicuit actually. A simple step-up converter for the power supply, a microcontroller for the logic and a 12V relay to switch a bigger relay in the engine bay, finally switching the VTEC solenoid. It didn't work. Turns out, the RPM signal is not a voltage-based signal, but a pulsing signal with rising frequency as the RPMs increase. Had to get an oscilloscope to figure that one out... This is what the signal looks like @4800RPM, for anyone interested. With that being the case, I had to go back to the drawing board and design a new curcuit, capable of boosting the roughly 1.4V signal to a nice 5V signal so the microcontroller is actually able to detect it. With the added difficulty of not changing the signal as it does so. Lots of research later, I came up with this: (again, in German :P) This cicruit uses a voltage divider to supply an operational amplifier with a fixed voltage of 0.5V to compare with the 1.3 to 1.4V signal coming from the ECU. Why 0.5V and not 0V? You might ask. To filter out noise, of course. :) The rest stays the same, with an Arduino (microcontroller) to do all the comparing and deciding when to switch the solenoid on, and a few relais to do the heavy lifting. Writing the program for that thing was ... enlightening. You see, I already had a pretty good grasp of programming languages, as I went to a technical school and had IT as one of my four 'major' school subjects. Different countries and school systems, you know the drill... But even though I already had, ehh, maybe three years of programming experience, this was a challenge to pull off. Not only does it have to count the individual pulses of a relatively high-frequency signal, but it also has to evaluate that signal an decide whether to switch fun-time on or off, while staying accurate in reading the RPMs... I did it, though. :) I now had a fully working D16Z9 with functioning VTEC, all while keeping the original ECU. :D

Hi, I'm Patrick and this is my '96 Fastback which bought in late 2019 as my first car. Or at least how it looked a few years ago. Lots of stuff has been done to it since then and I will try my best to dig up some pictures of the process as we catch up to the present. :) The previous owner, who bought it brand-new, was an old man and pretty much all the dents are his work, by the way. Just wanted to clarify. ;) It is (was) a bone stock, base-spec, MA8 with the optional 'Comfort' package installed from factory. Meaning it's got a 1.4l engine that makes 90hp, electrical windows in the front, power steering, A/C and no ABS, with drum brakes in the rear. Oh, and that atrocious fake wood that fools absolutely nobody and looks cheap as hell. What were they thinking? Oldest pictures I could find, was already on some lowering springs by then. Also removed some fugly flower-stickers from the doors and got rid of the 'Comfort' badges. Like every responsible young man before me, I of course immediately went ahead and installed some lowering springs and got myself a nice, quality exhaust. The springs are from Eibach and, if memory serves me right, the exhaust is made by a Polish company called 'Ulter'. We did some proper maintenance, though. You need a good foundation to build a house, right? That, and my old man never would have let me get away without doing some maintenance anyways. :P Beauty shot of the freshly unboxed exhaust. The exhaust arrived on a weekday at around 7PM and me and my old man got giddy like a bunch of kids on christmas eve as we put or grubby hands on it. We immediately went out into the freezing cold to get it installed ASAP. :D Roughly an hour later we were done and it felt like it was the coolest car on the planet for that moment. If I only knew what was to follow... ;) Might be able to find a video, but no promises. In the next episode...! Broke 18 year old me finally saves up enough money to get a set of wheels. And...! Something big on the horizon.