06 Civic Build - New Build List on page 60

[scooter99]

Ok so I did a little bit of work last night. not much but just a little. It was nice to take a break from the tablet thing for a night. Although I'm excited again because there's been lots of progress made today and I think we're about home on that. If these things today work out, then I'll be ordering components and testing again. Then we should be a go for launch!

So like I said a little work. I basically painted the Lower Bar and got it ready for install tomorrow night. Here we go. Not much to say, pics really just speak for themselves.

2 coats on each side

2 coats on each side

THEN the sexy!

3 coats of this on each side.

Then 2 coats of clear. It was dark out so the picture sux sorry!

This was this morning on my dirty hood. But you get the picture. Color matched baby!

Now tomorrow night a bunch of us are getting together for a tech meet. I'll be getting my front fenders rolled so I can lower it a touch more, put this thing on, and maybe something else but I'm not sure yet.

More to come soon! I'm hoping to work on some other things this weekend, but we'll have to wait and see how that plays out.

Thanks for tuning in!

[scooter99]

Ok, just got notice that the converter shipped! Should have it tuesday or wednesday.

[scooter99]

Lots of pictures from the weekend. Not a ton got done, but a bit. Stay tuned, pics in the morning!

EDIT: I also think I have a new and better design for the trunk and the way I've drawn it up on paper, everything is gonna be super balanced out. I did not like where the last design had everything and I thought it was not as balanced out as it should be. I think I'm gonna go ahead with this one, not sure if I can port it, I have to decide if I have enough room still, but I'm most likely going to keep this one under wraps. The "SURPRISE" factor! I'm extremely happy with this one. I don't have to re do anything, don't have to stop and go back and make any pieces over again. Everything continues as planned!

[scooter99]

Let's get some pics up.

First thing here, I did the trunk floor a while back, when I did the rear component wall on rear seat. But I never did cover it with anything, so I've had the board bouncing around back there and I can hear it through the seats etc. Plus when I have stuff back there it slides around a lot and other things. So I decided to go ahead and temporarily cover it with some Home Depot black interior/exterior carpet I had left over from the temporary boxes I built before. So nothing fancy, just black carpet on the boards.

Next up, I started again working on the headlight retrofits. The shrouds really. The first one is just about done. Now I've filled in around the projector, taped the shroud in place where I want it to go, and when I did that discovered there was quite a gap on the bottom. So I started filling. Also filled in some other spots that needed addressing.

On the second one, I sanded it down a little and then covered it again. Same thing taped off the projector and got the shroud in there and started with the filler. This one for sure needs a lot of work and a lot of sanding. But that's all part of the fun in creating your own things. Onto the pics.

Driver side headlight

Driver side shroud, very rough still.

Tapped off and ready to go.

This is the passenger side. See at the bottom the big gap there. That's just not gonna work for me. The hard part about that, and on the driver side, is that it's pretty tight in there, so I'm having to use my finger instead of the spreader to fill it in. I guess it's not really that hard, just messier. LOL.

You can also see the spots on the bottom that still need addressing.

Both taped up and read to go.

To help with the process, I cut one of the spreaders in smaller strips. I found the smallest spreader was still a little big. I'm open to some tips if anyone has any. For something like this with lots of curves I'm not sure how to get a nice smooth spread around. Square angles on a curved surface makes a lot of lines, as you can well imagine. So I'm having a little bit of difficulty with that. I may abandon the spreaders and just do it by hand. Anyway, here we go!

See, Big ugly mess, lots of sanding to do.

So there's still lots of work to be done on these, but I'm pretty happy with the progress. Once I get them sanded down and smoothed out better, I'll be happier.

[scooter99]

More to come but I have a couple work errands to run. Be back in a bit to post more!

[scooter99]

Let's see, Saturday night I did a couple of things. This was my front fenders getting rolled. Not much to roll but with my wheels and wanting to go a little lower, I had to get them done.

I haven't had a chance to lower it yet, cause when my car was done, there was another one to do, so I had to back out of the garage. When I did I was in the street and while I did lift the rear of the car to do the next project, I didn't feel so comfortable with that and wanted to do it on a level surface, like a garage. But yesterday (Sunday) was a family day so it's still not done.

I will say this though, I can already tell a difference in clearance. I did rub this morning on a bump I always rub on, but it wasn't fender, it was fender lining. So I'm going to have to do something about that. See about somehow raising that or see how bad it will effect things if I take it out completely. I'll decide then.

So this was my next project. Recall that I painted this bad boy the other night. It came out wonderfully and I couldn't be happier with it. Too bad it's not really going to be seen. Oh well I know it looks good! Not much to picture other than a before and after. But it's there. These were taken at night too, so I had to use the flash. Not the greatest pics, but I'll take a better one when I have her skirt up again! LMAO!

There are a couple of things to add to this.

First off: There are a lot of people I've seen who've comment after they've done this to their car. A lot of reviews are saying that they just don't feel much of a difference and that it's mostly for show. I'd have to beg to differ. I really pulled on it on the way home around turns and taking off ramps, specifically the one I get off the freeway on near my house DAILY. I felt a huge difference. It feels a lot stiffer to me, and I felt way more under control, especially around that off ramp which is off and a complete loop around where the recommended MPH is 25. I did it at 45 with no problems and didn't feel out of control what so ever. Again I take this one daily and I can tell you from the afternoon when I took it and then again later that night, it was a big difference.

What do I have on my car for suspension? I have Buddy Club N+ Spec Coilovers, an Si Rear Sway Bar with OEM endlinks, and Buddy Club Rear camber arms. Now the P2R Lower Tie Bar. So the only thing that's changed is the tie bar being added. It does make a difference.

The other thing I'm going to be doing in the future is most likely adding a bed liner or something like that under the car. Specifically in that spot where the spare tire well comes down, you can see in the pic above. I think that will go a long way in doing a couple of things. One, even though it's under the car, it'll dress it up a little. Two, it will hopefully help deaden it a little and if I put it under the exhaust, it will hopefully take some of that drone out of the cabin area that we get now. I do have the bottle resonator ready to get welded in, but I have to replenish the funds a little bit before that happens.

So, on to the next project. This is the one I'm actually pretty excited about! This was the Scan Gauge II pod that I'm building. I'll go through the steps and the pics as I post them. Here we go!

So the last time I left this project I had just kind of described the pod design. This weekend I made it and it's coming out great, in my opinion. As the creator, that's what counts right! But I'm as always happy to hear your thoughts on it.

The cut out was already made in the piece itself, now it was time to trim it up, get it straight and get to work. Then make some templates! Right and Left templates were made of card board.

Got those done, then I taped the frame back in, and got the fit as close as I could with the sides. I simply put the card board cut outs up to the sides of the frame, and traced the outer part of it.

[scooter99]

Here they're ready to be cut out.

And they're side templates at this point.

Now it's time to take the templates and make them out of the abs. The abs is going to be the base of the pod. There's going to be some body filler involved and some shaping, but the abs will give me my pod in itself, and then everything else will go on top of that.

They're rough, but they'll work.

Hot glued the gauge fame in place, this way I can remove it later without issue.

Glued the sides in place.

Little heavy on this side! Oops!

Front view!

[scooter99]

Time to make the top. Got my card board out for template.

Then cut the abs with the template.

And glued it in place!

Can anyone see where this is going yet? Making more sense yet?

I then removed the frame to take it apart. At this time the front of the frame is what's going to permanently stay in the dash piece. The other piece, the back, is going to be what's removable. That way I can mold it in and make it look like one piece and not ruin the screen etc.

And this is the "pod" you have left over!

a quick in place pic.

Now it's time to get the face in there and make it permanent. I guess there's a certain nervousness with this, but I'm assuming if I had to I could always get another one from Scan Gauge company. We'll see.

[scooter99]

Hot glued it in, so it would be in the place I wanted it in.

Time to get serious and make it permanent!

There you go! It's a little messy, but it'll sand down. Everything about the face will stay the same, with exception of the fact that you won't see the indentations next to each button, and the scan gauge symbol will go away as well.

Here's another quick in place view!

I love the way it looks, and if you look at it, you'll see that everything is visible around it. Nothing is obscured by the gauge itself. That was what I was looking for!

So that's what I got done this weekend. I'm hoping to get some more done this week. The problem I'm having at the moment, is I'm going to have to go into "payoff" mode. My credit cards are pretty high again, and I need to get those paid off as well as a loan to my mom for the truck. Going to have to stop buying stuff, and start working on my overtime. That's going to start taking a lot of my weekday time up at night. Some weekend time as well. So this thing may slow down a bit, but I'll see what I can get squeezed in. I want to get those retros done, it's kind of my priority at the moment, before it starts getting dark at like noon (just kidding it's really like 430 around here.). Anyway, more to come.

Also, after thinking about my new design, I'm getting more and more excited about it. However, I'm thinking that ported enclosures are just not going to be able to happen with it. I'm going to do some foam mock ups to see if it'll work or not, but it's probably not going to be anytime this week. Like I said I have other things, even in the car, that are more important than that. But I'll have to get that done and then figure out what my air space is with that. Once that's done I'll know which direction I can go, meaning ported or sealed.

Thanks for tuning in! Thanks for the support!

[Parentnoia]

About how much did the ScanGaugeII cost? Looks like something I could get some use out of, but I'd like to know an estimated price prior to making the trip to AutoZone.