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MB2 K-Swap Civic project - from base spec to race spec


btjtaylor
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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... 🤪

 

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Scrap metal anyone?

 

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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

 

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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

 

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Edited by btjtaylor
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  • 2 weeks later...

Ended up with a spare pair of headlights so thought I would have a go at making some EK9-style ones (like this)

 

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Melted the glue and opened the lights (10 mins in the oven at 120c)

 

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Removed the chrome surround and the orange lenses for the indicators

 

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Scuffed up the chrome with a scotchbrite pad to key it for paint

 

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Gave it a few coats of high temp graphite paint

 

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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...

 

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Quick sand and polish and here's the finished result!

 

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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

 

Edited by btjtaylor
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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

 

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Took off the entire front suspension to start refreshing everything with new upgraded parts

 

Fitted hardrace compliance bushes and lower control arms

 

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Installed roll centre correction lower ball joints

 

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Edited by btjtaylor
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