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98 2.3 CL (automatic.... )
Now alot of people will call this car ricey, but I tried to keep it as clean as possible. I purchased this car bone stock from my uncle for $500. It was dark green with 194,000 on it. I'm at 216,000 and it runs even better now than it first did! It is also my daily driver (until I get a Tahoe) so that has made some mods and things difficult, or simply have been put off. And given the Minnesota winters, and it'll be -60 with wind chill this weekend, this car has been a boss with starting every day!
So here is my list of upgrades, and I know I'm forgetting a ton of little things, but here's the main stuff.
AEM Short RAM intake with K&N nose cone
Double Platinum Autolite plugs with Belden performance wires
DC Headers and manifold, fully custom straight flow exhaust (yet to be put on after snow melts) Engine rebuild and tune coming soon.
DRAG Dr-40 wheels all around, Kumho Ecsta summer tires, Michelin defense winters tires on factory rims.
NAPA Adaptive One brake pads and rotors all around.
NAPA OESpec struts with TEIN lowering coilovers
NAPA Legend 84 month battery with 250+ cca than stock battery.
3 10" Rockford Fosgate HX2s with an watt old school 2000 watt Sony Amp, 500k Scosche capacitor.
2 Polk Audio 4.5" speakers in the front, 2 Kicker 6x9s on the rear deck
Pioneer DEH series Bluetooth Stereo
Spyder 2 front bumper with custom HID fog lamps, LED turn signals in factory headlight housing
Full aftermarket gloss blue/black paint job with chrome trim
LEDs under dash and rear seats that stay on or go with the bass of the music
5-switch panel under stereo to control lights/sound system
Again I know I'm forgetting a ton of stuff, but that's the main portion. I'm new to these forums as a member, but I've used this site for years to help with projects and things. I'll post pictures I have from last summer when I can, but the true beauty will shine though this spring!
Let's add smoked tail lights; blacked out headlight bezel; converted all interior lights to blue LEDs, with the exception of the two above the rear view mirror; heated seat cover (Minnesota livin') and a custom made mesh grille.
Anything else give me ideas because I'll be continuing to do this until either I wreck the car or can't drive it anymore.
I got pics of my car and the 70MM Turbo im going use in My Album. Most of my parts are in my closet, the forged internals im going to get in time. Such as JE Pistons, Pauler Rods, Supertech Titanium Valve Springs & Retainers, etc.
Painting grill gloss black/ silver, next up taking off upper IM to clean iac and throttle body, and paint upper IM high heat gloss black
primed and ready for paint
my project is in need of advise. i have a 99 cl automatic. ill be swaping in a 03 cls j32 & 5 speed auto. i need advise from someone who has done this . please forward to someone who can help.i have complete 03 s type donor.
can u help me get info on my 99 cl 3.o automatic swap ? i have a complete 03 cl type s auto donor car. i have 2 weeks to take all i want off it .the salvage yard is making me a great deal. i plan on taking the whole sub frame ,harness ,ecu . can i use the 5 lug spindles & larger brakes ?what should i use off this car.there is no key . how do i bypass the imobilizer?? please point me in right direction . im an experienced mechanic /metal fabricator .never done a j32 swap .
Current project is to get the old bitch out of the garage and get her road worthy and inspected since she's been sitting for at least a year. On Saturday I took her to the tire shop and got some new Michelin's put in because my Falkens were starting to show steel brading
After that I took her to the car wash and washed all the dirty and dust off her from sitting for so long. Need to get her inspected, get the WW lips back on and actually drive this bitch this summer
She still cleans up well for a 21 year old car though
My project (besides posting enough to attach pics) is a slightly damaged silver '97 with 95k km. Stock with the exception of a questionable "aero" rear bumper (where's the rest of that kit?) and aftermarket head unit (completed the install today and it sounds SO good). I've got a big list of stuff I need to fix, and I'm using the insurance payout from my wrecked silver '97 (my first Acura - had it for less than 2 weeks!) to get started. I'll have some shop access in April, and that's when the modding begins and I learn how to use a spring compressor.
Anyone know of a good source for bumpers, front and rear? Canadian businesses preferred, or they need to ship here.
I need some turn indicators for the front, as well.
My project (besides posting enough to attach pics) is a slightly damaged silver '97 with 95k km. Stock with the exception of a questionable "aero" rear bumper (where's the rest of that kit?) and aftermarket head unit (completed the install today and it sounds SO good). I've got a big list of stuff I need to fix, and I'm using the insurance payout from my wrecked silver '97 (my first Acura - had it for less than 2 weeks!) to get started. I'll have some shop access in April, and that's when the modding begins and I learn how to use a spring compressor.
Anyone know of a good source for bumpers, front and rear? Canadian businesses preferred, or they need to ship here.
I need some turn indicators for the front, as well.
You can get bumper covers on ebay for pretty good price
You can get bumper covers on ebay for pretty good price
Thanks. While I was initially thrilled at the $200 bumpers on ebay, the $500 shipping charges chased me away. I did, however, find some nice clear replacement turn signals I'm likely to buy. For bumpers, I'll stick to local vendors, possibly repairing a used bumper from salvage.
Sadly, I don't have the option to bring home a parts car, strip what I need and leave the bones to be hauled away. Renting w/o garage access sucks.
Yeah, gotta search locally, but I got the turn signals and a window regulator for cheap. They'll arrive in the 1st week of March, I hope the car doesn't get totaled before then - too many idiots on the road this winter, daily driving in BC is daily dodging close calls.
Started working on the Ack to get it ready for inspection in the spring. After many years I finally was able to convert all the rear bulbs to LED. They didn't make these old style bulb bases for LED bulbs for a lot of years. Here's a before of the reverse.
And the new LED bulbs side by side with stock
Testing one out, these things are really bright!
And here's with the LED bulb installed, quite a difference
And here is all the tail lights with LED (except the corners I swapped them out after this photo)
A small mod, but something I've been wanting to do for a while now, especially with the tail light tint.
Been working on a number of small projects to get the Acura back to daily driver status. One of the main reasons I haven't been driving the car was because the audio system had gotten unbearable to listen to. The highs amp blew a channel and the head unit just wasn't cutting if for me. I had the JVC Navi head unit from my last 4Runner that I traded in, so I decided to swap out the Pioneer for the JVC that I had sitting around. I also had a brand new JL highs amp that I had bought for that truck and never installed. So I went to work, first I had to remove the Toyota wiring harnesses and wire up my Acura harness with all the add ons.
Next I got the wiring harness all soldered into the car
The amp on the right has blown the passenger front channel 3 times now so I'm done with it. Here's a before of the amps before I yanked out the old 4 channel amp.
Here's the brand new JL digital 4 channel amp that's been sitting in the box for 7 years I believe.
Time to remove the old and swap in the new. You can see that the ground wire also ripped out of the terminal, doh!
Got the new amp all wired up to the speakers, here's a size comparison of the old school 4 channel vs the digital amp
All wired up
Everything installed and ready to jam out.
I also hooked up the radio and tested everything out. Everything sounds great, I still have some tweaks and tuning to do, but I'm getting a lot closer to driving this thing.
Got some more work put in on the Ack this evening. Back in 2012 my inner fender liner came loose and was rubbing on my tire one night when I was driving home. I ended up having to ziptie it and order new ones, but I never got around to installing them. I also had been needing to do something about my old ass K&N filter that I've had on the CL since 2005. This was dustbuster4's old K&N that I bought off of eBay after his car was wrecked, and a true piece of A-CL and Azine history.
I never cleaned it or did anything with it since it was re-oiled in 2005. So off to work I went, loosen the lug nuts and jack the car up
Took the wheel off to gain access to everything.
Here's a look at the original fender liner that was all tore up and zip tied to the front of the bumper. This is a REAL cold air intake lol
Removing the old fender clips was a bitch and I didn't take any pics. The clips were so brittle I had to drill most of the clips out to get the liner out. Here's the old trusty dustbuster K&N from 2005 lol.
Here's the fender liner all removed, this should be all one solid piece of plastic lol
Here's a side by side of the old and new fender liners, these things have been sitting in my garage since 2012
Here you can see the side by side of what it should look like vs the old tore up one
And here's a pic of Rick's old filter next to my new 3-4" bigger K&N filter. It was time to give the old girl a new air filter, and you can see that this one is significantly bigger than the OG filter. I don't know how well a 20 year old filter would clean up, so figured it was time to retire the old one and buy a new
Here's another side by side, you can see the difference in size plus how old and rusty the OG filter is.
New intake tube and filter installed.
Also since I had access to the back of the turn signals I went ahead and swapped out the amber chrome turn signals and old ass white LED corner bulbs to match the bright ones I put in the upper corners.
Here's a little side by side of the old and new bulbs.
Here's the new LED corners in the top and bottom.
And here's the new fender liner all installed and clipped in. I need to mold a few spots with a heat gun since it's been sitting for so many years, but all in all I'm happy that I knocked these tasks off the list.
Lots more stuff to come! Feels great to be back working on the Ack again!
Fired the car up and took it for a spin around the neighborhood. Fired right up and drove nice and smooth. The new intake filter flows really nice and was a noticeable change from the last time I drove her. Also got a kick out of this evil mileage number.
Got her flipped around and backed in the other way so I can continue to work on her and the various projects I'm working on. Can't wait to get her on the road soon
01-03-2014, 01:11 PM
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