Hey all!

This is my official thread where I will be updating my progress on the car! Things will be slow going at first as I am finishing up some school right now and I am a Merchant Marine so I will be shipping out for three months over the summer.

The two main dates to look for right now will be the weekends of March 24th and April 6th. This is when I will be doing a bulk of the up-coming work to the car.

A little background on her:
2003 Acura CL type S
6 Speed Manual
Aegean blue pearl

She is actually getting the 105k service done tomorrow! so that should be interesting! On top of the service here are the planned mods! Feel free to share some input!

Mod List for 3/24/12:
1.) Hella Micro DE w/ 3k HID (from a member here!)
2.) Shifter Mods
2a. New bushings - Hybrid racing
2b. SS Braided Cable (Maybe, see 2c)
2c. remove check valve (Maybe I haven't had the car for two months so I want to see how it feels before doing this)
2d. New shift knob (any tips on this? will the skunk2 mess with the boot?)
3.) Intake Mods
Either AEM or remove resonator and put a new filter in. (really don't want to have to buy a new engine
4.) Exhaust set up
2x Magnaflow mufflers (14832)
1x Vibrant 12" resonator 2.25 in and out (Maybe haven't decided yet, want to be loud as possible without rasp)
5.) Relocate License plate to the lower right side (if facing car's front) with a custom bracket.
6.) Repaint my A emblems (plastidip didn't come out too well)
7.) Tints (thinking 30% front two, and 20 or 25 rear three)
8.) Fix seat recline
9.) Interior LED's i.e. map lights, dome light, and door lights(one thing that has been super unclear on this site, guess I will have to keep doing research)

Phew so there it is! My plans for that weekend, it will be a pretty penny but such is life! Thanks for checking my thread out and feel free to chime in and make suggestions!

 

use some 3m adhesive remover or autogoo off

 

FOrgot to menti

 

Forgot to mention that the car had te emblems stolen before I bought it. The adhesive has LONG since been removed by myself. These are older pictures from last summer. Thanks for the look as reminding me. When I am home I'll give her a good wash and upload new pictures!

 

Looks good. What the total mileage?

 

Total mileage is 103k right now I believe, bought it when she had 95k. overall she is in really good condition besides some scratches, the seat motor, and the door rust under the weather stripping.

 

I really like this color. Nice car!

 

Looks great for the mileage lets get some more pics up ehhh

 

Thanks guys! Currently debating engine torque dampers right now, but as with everything for this car its really split down the middle on preferences. Most people love it, but others say its not worth it and thy fall apart even? Decisions decisons!

 

You have rust there too? Thought it was just me. Im probably just going to find a new door to put on.

You need to secure them properly. They will fall apart from engine vibrations if you just toss them in. I used teflon tape on all the bolts and mine havent loosened at all.

 

If you want to make the plate relocation easier you can just use zipties instead of a bracket, i did it like that here is a pic

 

Morgan, I took it to a shop and was quoted 250-300 for the fix because of all they had to remove and whatnot to get to the rust. If i have time before I ship out I am going to do all the prep work myself and take the bare door to them for the respray and fix.

As far as torque dampers go, what brand is out there currently besides the expensive ingalls kit? Does it really take care of a lot of the wheel hop, we talked about this a few days ago and I believe your right, it is wheel hop, at the time I didn't even consider that!


Simon - You're taking all of the fun out of fabricating a bracket!! LOL, but seriously that's a pretty good idea! I was just planning on doing strips of aluminum and bending them and working them into the shape I wanted. Like I said the car isnt with me right now so I have an idea in my head but that will probably change quickly when I see what I am working with!

 

Black A



My Buddies civic si



Masked up



Job is all done



Baby blue from above



Nice ass



6 speed FTW

 

Well that didnt work and I can't edit posts so you guys will have to wait till Photobucket decides it will work on my internet

 

If you dont mind, can you take pics? What is the body shop going to do?

The 6MT has two torque dampers, one front and one rear. I replaced mine with an NRG torque damper from a Civic. You have to get the appropriate nuts and bolts to install it. There is a thread, I believe a link to it is in the FAQ.

The Ingalls damper is good as well. I have all three. The Ingalls didnt require any of the teflon tape to keep it secured, but I did need to trim the bracket that mounts on the strut tower because it was interfering with my strut bar.

The links have to end in the file type; .jpg for example. Flickr can sometimes be a PITA to hotlink pics from.

 

Morgan, I will be able to post pics in a few weeks when I have the car back. To describe it further it is rust on the downward sloped part that follows the curve of the windshield. Right above the mirror you can peel back the weather stripping and that's where the metal has been eaten away and it goes up maybe 6-8 inches until the rust stops.

Starting to get more and more self conscious about the shitty stock look of the CL's ride height. The fact that I love looking at canibeat and mayday garage doesn't help. I know our cars are nothing like the high performance rides that are featured over there but I feel like a joke. Decided today to ditch the intake and put the money in something else to help the appearance. I guess I will just remove the resonator and fabricate a tube to pull some colder air in like some have done.

Mod list as of today -

hella micro de's - 200
exhaust (2 magnaflow mufflers and vibrant resonator) - 500
Tint - 200
shifter bushings - ?
relocate license plate - 30
interior LED - ?
intake mods - 30-60

Contemplating H&R drop with blue springs from tokio (sp)

I was looking at the set of 3 RJ legends fs in the BM but after talking to Rondy its looking like it wont be cost productive to get them fixed which is a huge bummer. Quickly losing steam over here, I am hoping its just because I have to wait two more weeks to get my car back.

 

Thats exactly where the rust is on mine.

I have a set of Nissan SE-R wheels, 18x8 +45mm. They weigh about 18lbs each.

 

Morgan those just so happen to be my absolute favorite oem wheels!! Are you saying that's what's on your car or that they are for sale?

 

lets see if this works. flickr BS

 

 

The plasti dipped A



Masked up



Finished the restore



With my buddies Si



The stock rear before adhesive removal



6 speed FTW

 

LOL i went from the car on the right to the car on the left

 

They were going on the car but I got something else, so theyre for sale.

 

How much you want for them? Any pics? Some good news... My Micro DE's from Henry came in today! Pretty excited to figure out how these are going to go in! Looking at springs and struts still.

 

Send me a PM. We can't sell things in a non-Black Market thread.

BTW, just polished my lights today too. Huuuuuge difference in output

 

Oh forgot to update the thread. Car got out of its 105k service today and my dad called to tell me. They said my rear wheels were low on tread (bull). They said I need new rear breaks (I smell an upgrade). And I'm missing a heat shield. Eh not too bad I guess. The old man said she is running like a top and he doesn't think I should do anything to her. Hahaha little does he know.

 

you dont need a heat shield tbh... you should come over to one of our meets in Edison NJ usually there is few ppl coming from yonkers bronx area

https://acurazine.com/forums/ny-nj-320/menlo-park-mall-nj-meets-every-tuesday-798484/#post13614245

btw im not going to englishtown they messed up my schedule at work so i cant go

 

Hell I'm down. I'll try and come out at least once when I get my car down here before I leave.

I really wanted to go to the sti EVO shootout but it's not looking I'm going to make it out. I am going to the huge meet on the 18th on the island though, but not with my car. Going with my buddy in his Lexus. I gotta say the hks cans on his v6 sound like sex. If my v6 sounds like that I don't care about rasp at all!

 

you should come over before you do anything and check out my car maybe there will be something you like it or you gonna get some ideas let me know... meet is every thuesday but i dont come there everyweek

 

Hmmmm......Im heading to NY Sunday and will be there until Tuesday. If the timing matches up, I may stop by Menlo Park Mall

 

woot that would be awesome, i hope my car wont break before that lmao

 

Good idea street, sounds like I might be making a trip out there as well this Tuesday!

 

So here is a quick update, as it is less then a week until I get liberty and can see my car again.

Hella micro DE fogs have arrived and in excellent condition. Thanks Henry!

Still doing research on a drop, not sure if I wanna go with springs or cheap coilovers (only have to last two years)

Exhaust is going well one last decision to make. Haven't decided between hks cans or magnaflow 14832's yet, want it to be loud and have a growl.

Will order hyper racing bushings soon as well.

For now that's all for expensive mods, will be doing various free mods to the car as well.

 

For those who are interested - Ordered new brake pads and Tein basis coils today. The coils along with my micro DE's and the pads are going on this weekend, as well as doing the intake resonator removal and making a custom bracket for my license plate. Tint is scheduled for 2 weeks, IDK about the exhaust before I ship out, but definitely after.

Any tips on the install, I have two days to get this done, I am worried that some of the hardware might not be in good enough shape to put back on the coils, any suggestions?

 

Hey guys, Coils came in today! Hopefully we will be installing them sometime next week!!

 

Got these and stoptech pads both at a killer price, with a fast turn around, and excellent service from XCLR8.

A special thanks to Casey over there and Josh. I appreciate all the help!!

 

Your headlight restore came out great, what did you use?
The car looks good!! Keep it up!

 

I believe I used the Mothers wet sand kit, The headlight is getting hazy again however, I was away from the car for many months and wasn't able to maintain the headlight and its reverting back which is disappointing. I wonder if you can do it again as I still have some of the stuff?

 

Yea, but if it required wetsanding, you can only do so much before it takes too much plastic off.

The best way to get rid of the haze is:

A) buy new headlights and periodically seal them

or

B) wet send, polish, then clear coat them with a UV clear. Im not sure how long that will last though, obviously longer then just wet sanding and polishing them.

 

UPDATE 4/3/2012

Hey all,
This was one busy weekend! Got the fogs in and wired up, made a custom bracket for the license plate and removed the intake resonator, all without removing the bumper (rusted on) I might add!!

Fogs proved to be pretty tricky without removing the bumper, but we got it done. Used a 90 degree angle bracket and hung it off of that to get the correct position of the light. Cut the stock black plastics with a hole saw and a hack saw to get the right angles to fit the light. Came out great!! Only thing is I am thinking of tinting them to make them even more yellow but haven't decided yet!



Laying out the pieces



The first mounting option, didnt go with this, used the right angle bracket instead.



The bracket we ended up using





work space



Me working



Stock housing



Resonator removal phase



Final product, you can see the license plate in this one too, (don't know if I like the angle)


*These were taken before the work was done*




Water was glass







Beach pic



Messing with the settings to highlight the blue of the car, water, and sky