06 Civic Build - New Build List on page 60

[scooter99]

Then came the real work. I wanted to go a bit lower all the way around. That was one of the main reasons getting the front fenders rolled. Otherwise I rub too much up front and that's just not gonna work.

First thing I did was take a look at the area. The fender lining was getting torn up, literally. You'll see that in the first couple of pictures.

So what I did was walk around and get a measurement of all the same spots.

Front Passenger Side (see the torn up liner sticking out of the top):

Front Driver Side (again the liner sticking out):

Rear Driver Side:

Rear Passenger Side:

So after I did that I decided that I wasn't getting accurate readings, or I didn't think I was anyway. So I got a little creative, and while this may not be the best way to do it, I went this direction cause it seemed good at the time. I got my level out and some tape, and went to work.

I went around and got some measurements and was able to write them down in two places. I took the center point, which is the line with the "C" in it, by putting the level in the center of the center cap on the wheel and leveled up to the fender.

Front Passenger:

Then took my measurement from the floor to the fender at the center line.

Then I took a measurement from the top of the wheel (not the tire) to the fender.

And wrote my measurements down as I went.

[scooter99]

For every wheel.

Rear passenger:

Rear Driver:

Front Driver:

[scooter99]

So after that I took all my measurements and wrote them down on a piece of paper and did a little math.

You may not be able to read my scribble so I'll explain a little bit about how I came up with my numbers. You've already seen all my measurements, so here you go:

Front Driver: 2 7/8" wheel to fender and 24 5/16" ground to fender

Front Passenger: 2 7/8" wheel to fender and 24 3/8" ground to fender

Rear Driver: 2 3/8" wheel to fender and 24 1/8" ground to fender

Rear Passenger: 2 5/8" wheel to fender and 24 5/16" ground to fender

**Ok I just noticed I wrote the wrong number down for the rear passenger ground to fender. It says 9/16" on the paper and it's 5/16" on the measurement. I thought I was going crazy there for a moment, cause the numbers weren't adding up. Also, actually going back and looking at the pictures, it's about 2 15/16" not 2 7/8" on the front passenger side. HA!**

So moving on, here are our differences and how I came up with what I did.

Basically between the fronts there's a wheel to fender difference of 1/16". Not bad, I could live with that. On the rears there's a difference of 3/16". That's a pretty big difference. So that's gonna have to be adjusted for sure.

So in looking at everything I decided that if I went by wheel measurement, 2" would be a decent number to shoot for all the way around. So that tells me that in the front I need to drop 7/8" and in the rear I need to drop 3/8" on the driver side and 9/16" on the passenger side. That should give me a level drop at 2" all the way around. That's what the paper shows. So, LET'S GET BUSY!

I measured, marked and taped where I needed to go with the drops (although I'm finding out now, that I didn't do that right.) I need to do the spring and I didn't do that the other day. No biggie, I'll get to it at some point.

Rear Passenger:

Rear Driver Side:

Then, it was time for the fronts! Here you can see a bit that I cut out the top half of the fender liner. I left the front and rear parts so that they could still block most of the road grime and water. I'll get back to this later at the end.

Front Driver Side:

[scooter99]

Front Passenger Side was done the same way, I just forgot pics of the process. Sorry!:

So was able to get about a half inch of drop out of it, and then I couldn't rotate it down anymore. I'm sitting about 1/4" above the axle as you can see in these pics. They are not touching even though it might look like it in the pics. I don't want to risk going any closer to that.

Front Passenger:

Front Driver:

So after all that, and a test drive, I measured.

Rear Driver:

Front Driver: <~~~There's an issue here too but I'll get back to that later.

So the rears were the same as before. No drop done unfortunately. Still at 2 3/8" and 2 9/16". Fronts are down to about 2 7/16" or 2 1/2". It's close. I remeasured this morning (10/6/2011) and it's dropped a little more to about 2 3/8". So it's settled a little bit which is good.

Now in order to get a little more drop I may have to do some front spring adjustments on it. On the paper, that you cannot see, is where I wrote down a measurement for the spring. I know it's not the correct measurement, but from the top of the damper where the threaded part stops and the damper shock rod goes in, I measured down to the top of the silver washer on the top spring nut. It's where the spring, washer, and top nut meet together. I've got 2 3/8" there. Both sides. The spring right now is just barely tight. So if I backed the top nut down a half to 3/4 turn, it would be pretty loose and probably would rattle around. SO I think I can get the 3/8" more out of that but compressing that a little bit. So I'll work on that next time.

Next time I have it in the air, I'll get that done as well as the rear springs adjusted to drop the rear a little bit more.

Now onto my issue with the front driver wheel. I took a measurement cause it looked off. It looks very sunk in vs the passenger front wheel. The measurements are showing that there's a 1/4" - 3/8" difference in depth. The passenger wheel is more flush and the driver is sunk in by 1/4" to 3/8". That CANNOT be good. It's always seemed to pull right, and never really ever been centered, or so it seems to me and my horrible memory. And with it like that, aside of the more important functionality, it looks like CRAP! Irritating!

The fender liners. So as I said above, i cut the top of the liners out of the wheel well so that they wouldn't rub or flap. They were getting wrecked so I said "F-IT" and just cut it out. I cut just above both the upper pins on the front and back. That way those two pieces could be on there securely and there would be no flapping around. I think in the future, probably far future, I'll make some fiberglass liners that go the whole wheel well area to replace it. That way there wont' be any rubbing, it'll be stout, and then I'll also do some sort of hardware to secure it instead of the POS plastic pins that easily break. More projects! I'm going to also, at some point in the near future for the audio portion of things, deaden the inside of the fender, as well as the body next to the door portions. It's pretty thin and flexible in there. I'm going to have some beastly mid bass in there and I don't want any issues. I'll then probably spray down the whole thing with some under body spray or bed liner or something like that to protect it and dress it up.

Oh, almost forgot, here's my ghetto fabulous exhaust hanger fix. Drilled a hole, stainless steel screw, washer, and nut. That crap aint dropping anymore!

Ok that's it. Tonight and tomorrow I'll be working on headlight shrouds! Hopefully those will be done this weekend!

[scooter99]

Ok guys, I've been trying to fix the picture sizes, I'm about half way there. This is a tedious process. I'll have to get back to it later. I'll let everyone know when the pics have been fixed.

[scooter99]

Ok folks, all the pictures are fixed now. Sorry about it taking so long!

[Parentnoia]

They were fine on my end all along.

[armykyle1]

the updates look good man. You have some serious time in that car. the adjustments look great btw. I really want to do coil overs on my car but I don't feel like dropping 2 grand lol. How does it ride? any plans on HIDs or 4 wheels disc conversion?

[scooter99]

They were fine on my end all along.

Hmm interesting. They were big over on mine. Oh well it's fixed now for whoever had problems. Thanks for letting me know though.

[scooter99]

the updates look good man. You have some serious time in that car. the adjustments look great btw. I really want to do coil overs on my car but I don't feel like dropping 2 grand lol. How does it ride? any plans on HIDs or 4 wheels disc conversion?

Thanks! I'm still going to drop the rear to match the front drop. And I still need to go about another 1/4 - 3/8 drop up front. It's a work in progress but I work on it occasionally.

Coilovers aren't that expensive. You can get what I have, Buddy Club N+ Spec Dampers, for anywhere from 900.00 - 1100.00. They're different and more improved now too. Hell you can have mine for 700.00 and I'll go buy the new ones. And really depending on how much you want to drop, you may not need camber arms. Not sure what kind of car you have. Anyway, I think overall, I've got 1050.00 on the coils, 250.00 on the rear camber arms, and 75.00 on the front camber bolts - 2 sets. So about 1375.00 total and no labor cause I did it myself. Course I made a little mistake when I first put them in, so it cost me another $75.00 to get that fixed, but that was on me. Anyway, I love them and I don't think I'd ever go back to stock unless I sell it!

As far as HID's I'm doing a Headlight Retrofit right now. It's not a full on retro fit cause I'm using the Morimoto Mini H-1 Projectors which are pretty much plug and play, no cutting or epoxying or anything like that needed. Then I'm using Morimoto HID's (5000k)for that. I'm also doing a Fog Light Retro fit with Blazer projectors in OEM housing, changing the front lens to Lexan Acrylic, and Morimoto HID's (3000k) for that. Definitely got some lighting work in the mix right now.

I wanted to do a quad set up, but with the Mini H-1's it's a little more difficult. The 9006 hole and the 9005 hole are not lined up exactly even or level. So if I went with the same projectors for the 9005 area for the quad set up, those would cut off above the 9006's and I don't think it'd look right. So I'll have to wait until I have some more money and then see if I want to pursue that route or not.

Right now it's all finished with exception of the shrouds, which I'm custom making now. I'm going to be completely done with one of them today, and I'm hoping that I can get the second one done, or really close to done today as well. If so, they'll be ready for install. But that'll take time for sure.

More to come later!