CCColtsicehockey

This has been a long time coming and many have been asking recently and I have finally gotten this all finished and documented.

So as some of you might have seen in November 2010 my long standing continuous project, my Acura TSX met a terrible fate, I hit a dear at 70mph on the interstate. You can see the carnage from it below.



If you haven’t seen it or read about it you can read more and see pictures of what happened in this link.

https://acurazine.com/forums/car-talk-5/amazing-sunday-afternoon-pictures-798504/

After the accident it was about a month and a half till I had time to move the car from NC to PA so I could begin tearing it down to see the extent of the damage and what parts would be needed for the repair. It also took a while to get things coordinated with the insurance company since I was working in NC and they wanted me in PA when they had the adjuster look at the car so I could explain things about all the parts and what not to them. Below are some pictures from the tear down process.







I am always planning to do new things to the car and one thing I had wanted to do for a while was either RHD conversion or a 6MT swap along with increased boost with the supercharger setup. In this case I thought the 6MT swap was the more cost effective route. Since I wanted to do an 6MT swap I began looking for a wrecked 6MT specifically with NAV from 2004 or 2005 as I didn’t like the changes to the gauges in 2006+. Now if any of you know a lot of details about the TSX there were not a lot of 6MT sold to begin with and were even fewer sold with NAV and 6MT. So with all that being said I was not up for an easy task of finding a semi local (or even continental US) wrecked car with little to no front end damage.

After a few months with no success finding a donor car I decided to at least order the replacement parts that would be needed in March 2011 as they would take a while to arrive. It had taken a while for me to get around to ordering the parts after still being bummed about the whole incident in the first place so I was already getting a late start on things.

I continued searching for donor cars while also finalizing the plan for other upgrades I was planning to do during the rebuild. I didn’t really just want to buy parts to do the 6MT swap as I am a bit OCD and wanted everything about the swap to look factory perfect so a donor car was the only way to not have to buy any little missing piece constantly from the dealer.

After having looking for a car for about 9 months I was really beginning to get irritated. I had found a few but lost the insurance auctions for the cars cause of either loosing internet connection at work at the last second or just feeling that the cars were bid higher than they were actually worth. About this time my dad also mentioned he was looking for a good commuter car that got good mileage, comfortable to drive, and pretty cheap to maintain. I told him that the TSX would fit all those need and I had torn mine apart so many times I could do most of the service on it for him. He wasn’t opposed to the idea so I started searching for a good condition 6MT with NAV that I could have torn apart. After finding a few higher priced ones we found a few good candidates and went to test drive them. We ended up purchasing one in October so I finally had the donor car for the swap. The other car would be converted to an AT using the parts from my car. Below are pictures of the donor car.





Just after this I began receiving my various shipments of parts from Japan in November I was finally able to start to get everything together for the rebuild to start. At this point I began coordinating with the shops I had chosen for a rough timeline of how things would go from one shop to the next.

At this time I unfortunately got busy with things on a personal level with the holidays and also with work so unfortunately things didn’t get underway then until March 2012. Below are some pictures of the new parts that came in. I made sure to replace parts that were damaged or destroyed even if I was not going to replace them right away. I also picked up some parts I was not sure I was going to use right away as they flowed with the theme of the car of mostly J’s Racing parts.

J's Racing Temperature Switch







J's Racing Fan Switch







J's Racing Radiator Cap & Oil Cap







J's Racing Samco Blue Radiator Hoses (Discontinued)



J's Racing Upper Control Arms





J's Racing Rear Upper Camber Arms





J's Racing Rear Lower Camber Arms





J's Racing Header





J's Racing 70RR Exhaust







J's Racing Bumper









J's Racing Double Sided Carbon Fiber Hood (Only one that has been made)








The top is absolutely perfect






The underside isn't perfect but it is a race hood







Spoon Bumper











JDM OEM Bumper Support





Also have a replacement J's Racing Strut bar to replaced a cosmetically damaged one an a new J's Racing Intake as well but still are not unboxed yet. Unfortunately it turned out that I would not be able to use the J's Racing intake.


The car started at the body shop first getting a new a whole new rad support , two new fenders, and new front wiring harness. Also at the same time more damage was found on the car regarding the supercharger setup as well.











I didn’t want to give the body shop the new carbon hood so I gave them the original factory hood to put back on the car for the time being so they could align the fenders properly. There is no bumper on the car yet because I had only just received the new bumpers and had not yet decided on which one of the two I was going to get painted to put on the car.





After the body shop the car was transported to Innovative Motorworks to have the transmission swap and supercharger upgrade done. These guys were real troopers as the process would end up taking much longer than anticipated as I was having two cars swapped together. It would end up with this not being the best option to go with money wise but I am rather anal for attention to detail and wanted everything to appear stock as far as wiring and bolts and what not in the engine bay and interior.

Being that I did not do the work on the car I do not have many pictures of these stages of work and those that I do are from a camera phones and were sent via MMS message to me. I am trying to get the originals emailed to me at least so they may be a little bit better quality down the road.

The swap was not easy to begin with and only got harder down the road as it was figured out since I was doing a swap from an AT non-navi car to a MT navi car that every wiring harness in the car except the trunk lighting harness would need to be swapped out. I wanted this done without breaking clips so it added quite a bit of labor to the project that was not expected unfortunately. However, at this point I was too far in and I was not about to turn back on the project. I had planned on doing the navi swap myself, not only to save labor but also because I like to work on the car myself as it is one of the most enjoyable parts of owning a modified car in my opinion. Unfortunately, it all needed to be done at once for the car to be able to run correctly.

The beginning of the swap




The motor was pulled from both cars and the sub frames were dropped and swapped to the opposite car as it made the MT/ AT swap much easier. While the motor was out the 06 camshaft, larger crankshaft pulley, 50 degree VTC gear with 45 degree limit, 1,000cc injectors, Competition 1620 clutch and flywheel, and MFactory Helical LSD were all installed on the engine.



It had already been known that the blower would need to be sent out for repairs but once the blower was removed and the manifold was removed it was found the manifold was cracked as well. Luckily the manifold was able to be welded and a new one was not needed. The blower repair though was one of the large setbacks of the project. It needed to have the actuator for the pressure release valve replaced as it was bent. The blower was sent out to Magnuson for repair. Nothing was heard back from them for basically a month.

About this time I received the two bumpers I had painted back from the body shop. I was unable to decide which bumper to go with when selecting parts for the rebuild so I ended up getting both and figured I would decide when I was putting the car together.

Bumpers finally painted






During the wait for the supercharger the engines and dashes had been put back in the cars and the donor car that was now an AT was done for the most part and put on the back burner until the other one would be finished. The new J’s Racing header and J’s Racing 70RR exhaust were installed on the car. The exhaust note should be loud but sound amazing as I have never heard a car with a 70RR exhaust not sound good.









After constant attempts to contact Magnuson they got back to the shop with a response to let them know that the blower was not repaired but rather just what all needed to be replaced. They also needed full payment before they would start the repair. So after payment was taken care of it still took them another two weeks to repair and another week for it to arrive back in PA from CA. This made it evident to me that my first hopeful completion date of the end of July would be missed with all that still needed to be done. I wasn’t worried though as there were still two events at the end of August I wouldn’t mind debuting the car at either.

Meanwhile the Innovative Motorsports Technologies Stage II aftercooler kit arrived at the beginning of August and was installed on the car. This quality of work these guys put into making these kits is amazing. Once the kit was installed the car sat for a while as they were still waiting on the supercharger. The kit would provide the necessary cooling needed for running the 3in pulley I would be running on the supercharger. Even if the blower had gotten in at this point a second problem had come up. I would be running a TL-SH AWD throttle body as it is 74mm instead of 60mm as the stock TSX throttle body is. The issue is I needed a special inlet for the supercharger so it would connect. I was getting one from IMT but they had become popular and were on a 5 week backorder at the time.

Innovative Motorsport Technologies Stage II Aftercooler Kit






Bumper installed after aftercooler put on to test clearance


Both cars in the shop showroom while partially back together






Well the blower finally arrived at the very end of August and so I missed the next chance of debut for the car. At this point I no longer was really concerned much with when it was finished as I did not have anything in particular I was looking to get the car to anymore. We also still were waiting on the new supercharger inlet.





The inlet finally arrived about two weeks into September. Now everything was on hand finally to complete the car once and for all. Unfortunately now though I had other things planned for the next two weekends and would not be able to get home to pick up the car anyways so I planned for October 4th as the day to be completed. The car still needed a custom intake as my J’s Racing intake would no longer be able to fit due to the new position of the throttle body so a custom 3.5in intake was built instead. Also the car would need to be tuned as well.





After the car was tuned the final numbers it made were 348whp and 254ftlbs at 10.2psi. Unfortunately those graphs didn’t get saved but the graphs from the tuning day show 343whp and 254ftlbs so they are pretty much the same. My favorite part is the lack of torque curve really as it is pretty much just constant consistent torque across the board.



To monitor the new setup I went with an AEM Failsafe Gauge which will prevent anything terrible happening to the engine should something malfunction.


I had previously cut my wheel studs to run bolt on spacers before. However, with the new power I did not feel this was safe. I decided to then have the studs changed out for ARP extended studs and will now run slip on spacers instead when I need them but I have a set of track wheels I hope to be able to fit without spacers as they have 265 wide tires on them.



There are still other areas of the car that are not completed yet to my final desire that I plan to work on through the winter. I plan to do a small wire tuck in the engine bay to at least hide the power wires a little bit and the amp wiring completely. The battery will still stay in the bay for the time being. I plan to try and relocate the overflow tank for the IMT Aftercooler up between the fuse box and valve cover. The bolts in the engine bay will all be replaced with chromed stainless steel hardware everywhere that is possible while keeping the proper grade bolts in place. Also, the supercharger, inlet, throttle body, and power steering pump I plan to have mirror polished this winter to help dress up the engine bay as well. Lastly, the stereo amp rack needs to be rebuild as the force of the impact caused the bolts holding it to the false floor to fully rip out and no longer be usable.

I was finally able to pick up the car on October 5th.



This allowed me one weekend to work on the car as much as I could before I would take it back to NC. I got the one off double sided carbon hood and the new 04/05 JDM headlights installed. They were one of the last sets obtained before Honda stopped making the headlights. Also included are a few pics of the ender panel mounting of the J’s Racing bumper as well as the hood vent grills I would need to recreate from the original hood.

New J's Racing radiator cap and oil cap installed





Some pics of the underside panel and mounting of the J's Racing bumper





New JDM OEM Headlights unboxed and installed











Canards finally installed



Underside of the hood after install




The new hood did not come with mesh over the vents. Apparently this costs extra. Luckily I still have the old damaged hood as I eventually plan to hang it in my garage when I get a house so I was able to pull the mesh grills off of it. They were held on with some rather strong adhesive. I am not sure what route I will go to attach them to the new hood since it is double sided carbon.


At this point I also installed my old center console video screen that is used to display my Brockway Engineering video gauge display which I use to monitor accurate engine temp, oil pressure, and intake air temp.



Everything all buttoned up ready to leave the next day.




After this it was finally time to load the car up for transport with help of my gf who thankfully almost always helps me load the car on the trailer which makes the process go smoother.





After finally making the trip to NC it was time to unload the car. I had a little incident getting the car on the trailer in PA so that needed to be repaired in NC as well once the car was unloaded. The new straight pipe titanium exhaust to race muffler was a slip fit exhaust held together by wire. I replaced the wire with springs as many other slip fit exhausts are held together.















The last two difficulties I have had with the car on getting it completely back to normal is the stereo install was destroyed by the impact as the bolts ripped out of the false floor and using larger bolts did not fix the problem so it will need to be redesigned. Also the shifter cable guide broke. I have temporarily fixed it and I am awaiting a upgraded solution hopefully from Hytech or KTuned so as to have almost a direct fixed shift linkage system in place.

My crazy shifter cable repair for now











Ok so enough typing now on for the completed pictures.



























Updated list of modifications: (New parts in italics)

COMING SOON!!!

carbonTSEX

Loved the old look and the new look is even better! Very nice rebuild.

DVS-TSXER

Awesome comeback! I thought I was reading an article from Import Turner! Good Job!

07tsx20

iTrader: (1)

that is awesome, i recently hit a deer too but mine wasnt nearly that bad, did your insurance cover the racing parts? my insurance told me since i hit it theyll replace with parts that are similar but not exact ones because its cheaper.... not exactly happy about that

CCColtsicehockey

I had the car covered for all the modifications and for all OEM parts to be replaced with new OEM parts not similar ones. It makes my insurance cost a little more to do but it gives me piece of mind things will be good again. I would look into your insurance and fight it and get them to use new OEM parts.

07tsx20

iTrader: (1)

i was hit before so since it wasnt my fault they had to replace all the parts exactly the way i wanted, the other guys insurance wanted to do the same thing my insurance is trying to do and i told them "it wasnt my fault so your going to pay for all the parts even if they wernt originally on the car stock" they didnt really fight it but wernt happy cause it was really expensive lol

02ACTcLean

iTrader: (3)

You are my fucking hero. So much respect for overcoming the damage and pushing for what you wanted out of the TSX. The outcome is so sick.. all the rare J's pieces, the power your making, attention to detail.. seriously inspiring. Im thankful to have people like you in the Acurazine community!

tyreek77

nice....welcome back bro....the return of the beast!!!

1black_seven

iTrader: (2)

One word...
WOW!

BobbyC

story started out sad. ending was epic.


its 1st Gen TSX's like this that makes me want to get another older one to mod.
they look soooo good modded.

beautiful car!

diinhsterr

a lot of work put into this car. i was thinking of supercharging mine too but dont have the money for it atm. it has probably been posted but i was wondering how much did you spend total? (for rebuild + super charger etc etc etc)

nonentite

what a come back! nice to see her looking prestine. good choice with the j's front bumper.

EuRTSX

I did mention that I hate you right?! Ccongrats on getting her back buddy!

CCColtsicehockey

Don't hate the player hate the game

UA6

Beautiful

ACCURATEin

ho ho ho have a black and white postcard of your car ho ho ho.

jaydiemr

wow very nice!! BALLER

honda93a

really nice job. WOW!!!!!!!

Alexander.

iTrader: (1)

Need to commend you on your attention to detail and will to follow through - not sure how many people would have gone the route you did, but in the end i'm sure it was all worth it. Congrats on the rebuild, car looks fantastic. Watch out for deer

ArthurL

iTrader: (4)

Wow, nice rebuild! Glad you decided to rebuild her back up.

CCColtsicehockey

I can't drive my car completely to work because I have to go over a single lane speed bump going through a security gate. To date I have only taken it 4 times including yesterday and today. The first two times I said it would be the last cause it scrapes something underneath so bad it feels like you are going to get stuck. However, the first two times I couldn't pin point exactly what it was scraping on.

I finally think I have figured it out though. It is 3 different things.

One, it is scraping on the head of 4 bolts that almost appear as they are serving no purpose on the car but I find that a little hard to believe.

The 4 bolts I am referring too are the two on each side that would bolt up the back end up the Cusco 4 point brace. Really would like to figure out if they are needed and if they are maybe I can find some that are flat with an recessed allen key instead.


Two, it is also apparently so low and the speed bump so large that it is scraping a 2-2.5ft long section of the underside main uni-body rails. These rails actually sit lower than the main section of the exhaust and the side skirts if you can believe that.

You can see the bolts again in this picture but also the 2-2.5ft behind those bolts is where I am scraping as well.


Three, the one rear exhaust hanger is weirdly welded onto the bottom of the exhaust instead of from the top and the one point of it appears to also be scraping. I plan to look into finding some shorter exhaust hangers to alleviate that problem but most of the exhaust hangs extremely tucked up in the exhaust tunnel. I believe this is partly due to the fact I am running a k20 header which is shorter. With all these clearance issues I still don't scrape the bumper, side skirts, or diffuser at all.

I probably will need to get some paint on truck bed liner in grey to paint the under side where I scrape so it doesn't create rust problems. I either need to get a titanium skid plate made or raise the car up I guess as two short term solutions. Long term the ideal solution would be a full corner cup kit setup however that might not be the best idea since I would like to start tracking the car beginning next spring.

Finally, I need to find some quality exhaust springs cause when I was looking under the car yesterday I noticed one of the ones from Home Depot I had gotten had already come off. I hope it came off on my property but who knows.

wong05tsx

iTrader: (6)

how much for the damaged euro r lip shipped to ca?

and welcome back! glad to see you're still inspired

PWP_Kai

Going balls deep! Much respect

CCColtsicehockey

I am keeping the damaged euro r lip actually sorry. I am leaving it on the cracked bumper and zip tieing the bumper back together to use when I take the car to the track.

clee109

Looks just as good as it did, if not a ill better. Where's the IS-F if you don't mind the asking?

CCColtsicehockey

The IS-F is still alive and kicking as my DD. It has almost 90k miles on it now.

Here is a shot from a recent car meet.


Here is a shot of both of them at the meet.

Yumcha

Pghpizzaman

amazing work man, ton of money spent on this. looks great!!

seen u were from pa, did u used to have green wheels and were at carlisle a few years back? in the walk through building? just remember a bad ass tsx in there looked like yours. i was there with my srt4 acr.
either way good job man, money well spent!

opboarding

All I can say is WOW. I admire the insane amount of work you've put into your tsx. I'm glad you(and your car) survived hitting the deer, could have been much worse.

CJams

what's up OG? Glad to see you kept her alive and brought her back to hotness.

purplerims

The isF looks killer as always! And damn that tsx got some serious work done but I'm sure it will be so awesome having a supercharged 6mt tsx. I do like the spoon bumper more but that's just my opinion

RaviNJCLs

iTrader: (4)

That's sweet. Hell of a road back.

RaviNJCLs

iTrader: (4)

I didn't know you were a chick.

CCColtsicehockey

Thanks. Yes that was my TSX at Carlisle.

Thank you. I was definitely lucky as it could have been much worse for sure.

Hey OG I have been good. How about you? You still have the TSX? I could never not bring her back, I think I will have the car for forever.

Thanks. I definitely love having a 6MT now for sure.

Thanks

Reading owns you. That is my gf if you read. Either that or you forgot the read text.

RaviNJCLs

iTrader: (4)

^^^

I didn't think red text was necessary.

AznAccord08

nice rebuild. OG

Italiano

Wow man...Had no idea you went through all that. Makes me appreciate your car that much more...

lilcim

Wow pretty nice! What a nice job you've done!

CCColtsicehockey

Thanks. I have been thinking of putting together a book of all the builds of the car and all the pictures from along the way.

CCColtsicehockey

So I have been having starting issues with the TSX for the past 6 months I would say. I had about a week back in June of last year that the car wouldn't start. It finally started just in time for me to take it to Honda Day in Charlotte. So I kept driving it on and off no problem. Well back in November I tried to start it and nothing. Kept trying once a week for about a month. I am in the process of moving right now and obviously needed the car to run to move it so finally gave in this weekend and replaced the starter.

For anyone that is thinking of supercharging their TSX I recommend just replacing the starter at the same time. You can get one for $100-$150 at most and having to take everything back out with the terrible manifold design is a bitch.

I didn't document the entire process but took a couple pictures along the way.

Fuel lines and rain tapped up.


Blower off but this is where it had to stay throughout the process because I didn't not want to drain the aftercooler system to disconnect it.


Cleaned up the gas inside the manifold from all the failed starts. Also tried to get some of the oil buildup out as well.


This bolt here is the reason I say to replace the starter ahead of time. It is so hard to get at. There is also another bolt that is a pain that holds the blower on but it is only an issue if you have an aftercooler setup.


Manifold finally off. At this point I called it a night because my gf and I were headed to a party for the evening. All taped up so nothing gets in anywhere.


The culprit. I took it to Advanced Auto Parts after I got it off before putting the new one on just to have them test it and be sure it was the issue. On their test bench it would barely spin at all.


Replacement installed


Tearing this apart to fix was also my first actually look at my aftercooler because the shop that did my MT conversion installed the aftercooler/high boost setup for me as well.


After she started I got her moved over to the garage at the new house.