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Its been a long almost 4 years since I had the pleasure of owning a Honda Motor Vehicle, my Ruckus aside, and I missed it all to much. You can read here about the long and painful journey through terribly german car ownership back to my roots .
The car in question is a 2007 MRP/Ebony 6MT TL-S. It has 135,200 on the clock and its in semi decent shape. The long term goal is to get it back to mostly stock trim and cosmetically restore it, so I will be updating this over time as I make the changes and progression on the build as I hope this will be my daily driver for a very very long time to come.
Currently the car has the following things done to it:
Engine:
RV6 Pre Cat Deletes
XLR8 V2 J-Pipe
P2R Throttle Body Spacer
Maxbore J35 Throttle Body
K&N Typhoon SRI
Suspension:
17x8 BBS 05-07 STi wheels
20MM Ichiba Spacers
When I had my last TL I was 23, and all I wanted was to beat the guy next to me. I only cared about every last horsepower and torque that I could extract from the car. Now at 27 my philosophy has changed a bit. I will actually be removing some of the bolt ons and returning certain things to stock to restore drivability. Drivability > Maximum power.
My plan is to get the car to have a nice deep exhaust note again. Its very raspy due to being completely catless. Restore some of the worn and torn interior trim pieces, and respray the front end. It has a lot of wear from 110,000 miles of pure highway driving over the last 3 1/2 years.
It looks like the grill surround is color matched too!
It is, but its got its fair share of rock chips so I'll be replacing it with the stock chrome one. It looks good, but it makes the front of the car look a bit smaller.
Originally Posted by truonghthe
Dam he racked those milage up fast, last time i seen him the car has around 79k miles.
Yeah man. Commuting from Southington to Bridgeport everyday he told me, no thanks haha.
Originally Posted by N1h1l1ty
HFPCs and an aftermarket exhaust will go a long way towards a deep exhaust note
The plan is to put the stock pre cats back on, and keep the XLR8 V2 j pipe. Remove the Cherry Bomb resonator and straight pipe it. I had this set up for a while on my '04 TL and it was great. I really wish Greddy made a nice looking exhaust for the TL-S. I loved the note of my Evo2.
They're 17x8 05-07 STI BBS take offs. Not sure if I'm going to keep them yet or not. I might and just get new snow tires and use them for the winter since they're so damn light, but I hate using adapter spacers and the offset on these is really high.
Nice MRP by the way!! Needs a little love but I know you'll get it to where it needs to be. We have to get together and maybe do a nice photo shoot with both of the cars when your done with it. I don't even have your # or anything so message me your info
So finally got around to starting to fix some things on the TL. First things first, going to fix the interior and mechanical aspects of the vehicle. Exterior cosmetics are going to come last since they'll be the most costly.
Both Mirrors were delaminating on the car. Spent a few hours searching and searching and found the best prices at Acurapartsforless. Those guys are great, and thankfully in Jersey so I get parts the next day .
I love brand new parts & Honda OEM part boxes
Next was the inoperable Hands Free Link. Even though I don't use it that often, it bugged me that the module was fried. Happened in my old '04 so it didn't take more than 10 minutes to swap it out.
So I'll pause for a moment and share this. My epiphany to buy another TL to relieve the stress from my life endured by purchasing shitty German cars also included turning my entire internal combustion engine powered fleet to the big H, so here is Honda #3 LOL.
Next I decided to tackle the shift box. The car came with an HKS delrin shift knob. I like delrin knobs, but this one was just too small for my taste. I remember how incredibly crisp the shifting was in my last 3G so I did the exact same thing. The shifter legit feels gated, everyone who wants to get rid of the somewhat notchy clunky shifter MUST do this.
-Hybrid Racing shifter cable bushings
-eBay Shifter base bushings
-n3o's shift cable zip tie trick
-S2000 Ultimate Edition shift knob
This time though I made a mistake on the grommet from Lowe's and it ended up not fitting around the shift boot tightly, it was too small. I played around with what to do and ended up figuring out that I could turn the stock shifter ring around since its much shorter on the underside and pressed the rubber grommet into it to hold the boot up. Looks fine for now, though I'll have to clean up the shift lever with some steel wool.
Next was the passenger side inner kick panel. The previous owner must of dragged something across it to tear the finish up. It was an eye sore and a new piece is over $100 O_O. Big thanks to a member on here who was parting out a black interior WDP, I nabbed it for $22 shipped. Like many say, its the little things…
So thats all for right now. I've taken a few things off the car and listed them for sale as power is not the overall goal I have planned for the car. While I'm all for Clarkson's slogan I want optimized drivability along with comfort thus why I have removed the P2R spacer, maxbored throttle body, and K&N SRI. Installed the HPS to have one for now until I can get my hands on a beloved Fujita CAI, or I end up making one up. Eventually I might go with a ZDX 70mm TB and Magnesium intake plenum but that will be at the same time I pick up a FlashPro and get a proper tune.
I'll update next week once I get more goodies in, including new wheels .
Current Modifications list:
Engine
-HPS Cold Air intake
-RV6 Pre Cat Deletes
-XLR8 V2 J-Pipe
So its about time I bump this. I've been fairly busy with the house so I haven't gotten a chance to post up what I've been getting done to the car.
Ended up buying a set of 18x8.5+30 Enkei PF-01's. Running 245/40-18 Michelin PSS on them, and I absolutely love the fitment, couldn't be happier with it. Dropped the car on Tein S-Techs which ride decent, and due to not running any aftermarket camber kits I'm riding at -2.5 rear -2 front.
Was also able to replace the pcd's with the stock cats to eliminate the horrific rasp, replaced both axles since they were clicking pretty badly, installed new rotors and pads since the old stop tech drilled rotors were cracked , repaired the previously cut subwoofer wire, and flushed the transmission fluid with Synchromesh.
How she looks now.
Current Modifications list:
Engine
HPS Cold Air intake
RV6 Pre Cat Deletes
XLR8 V2 J-Pipe
Transmission
S2000 Ultimate Ed. shift knob
Hybrid Racing shift cable bushings
eBay shift box bushings
Check valve delete
Suspension
Progress RSB
Tein S-Tech lowering springs
18x8.5 +30 Enkei PF-01 / 245/40 Michelin Pilot Super Sport
Brakes
Centric Rotors
EBC Yellow Stuff (front)
EBC Red Stuff (rear)
Oh, and I just did this tonight as a test. Fairly happy with the results!
And its hard to believe, but nearly 5 years to the day separate these 2 photos.
Sounds like you're doing some of what I'm doing, refurbishing stuff you shouldn't have to replace to get the car looking good again. Sometimes previous owners don't do that great of a job maintaining
New brakes, new axles, and new GMSFM? Must drive awesome now! That GM fluid works wonders...
looks great!! make sure to put UV protectant or clear tint over those headlights otherwise you'll be doing that again in 3 months.
how much clearance between the rims and the brembos? did you by any chance get a weight on the wheels without tires before installing them?
I didn't weigh the wheels because Enkei has the information posted online. I believe they're 19.1 lbs or so. And I didn't yet, it was just a test. I'll be doing them both again next month when I do a complete detail on the car to see what condition the paint is in and then I'll be using a Urethane/Mineral Spirit solution that was concocted up on the Autogeek forums.
04-26-2015, 06:59 PM
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, repaired the previously cut subwoofer wire, and flushed the transmission fluid with Synchromesh.
