93 Civic Si restoration
Circa 2015, some friends of mine picked up a 93 Civic hatchback to do some racing in.
They were looking for something cheap to race, and something they could walk away from if it went boom. They succeeded in racing, and blowing up ~3 engines. One of them was a bodyshop technician.
Within the 3ish years of racing and blowing up D-series motors, they also decided to do some rust repair, and repaint the car. This unfortunately involved bondo, but it was done on the cheap, and the labour was free.
Around Feb 2018, they blew the motor again, and decided to reuse the stock bottom end (~300k on it), and pair it with a known good head from the 2nd engine. They put them together, dropped it into the car, primed the oil, and never started it due to leaking fuel injectors. The car proceeded to sit for ~4 years. This was the last picture of it at the time:
During this time, they sold the wheels, the seats, the ebay header, and a few misc parts.
In ~ April 2022, they reached out to me, since I had been all over that thread from the beginning, asking if I wanted to buy the car as a non-runner. I expressed interest depending on price, but the matter was soon dropped before a price was provided.
Fast forward to Oct 2022, and they come to me with a Kijiji ad, a discounted price, and a hint to keep it within the community. After speaking to my wife, I decided to go for it. I was informed it was a non-runner, but likely just because the timing was off.
I book the uhaul, get told the closest full car trailer to Edmonton was in Cold lake, so I booked one of the smaller FWD trailers, and head up to Edmonton.
It comes with the 14" Enkei wheels with some winters, the stock seats, the "good" engine, and 3 boxes of spare parts, including a spare intake manifold, the deleted P/S, a bunch of small takeoffs from the various engines, oil filters, belts, etc etc.
After getting it back home, and pushing it into the garage, I get to work.
Turns out, the timing belt was off, causing no compression. It cranks fine, but just spins like mad. The cam gear is supposed to be at TDC (or have the "up" marking, point straight up), while the crank pulley is supposed to line up with some markings on the timing cover.
With the cam pulley in the proper position, the crank pulley is 180* off. With the crank pulley in the proper position, the cam pulley is 90* clockwise. So I do what any sane, lazy piece of shit would do. I pop the belt off the cam gear, reorient it by hand, and push it back on.
Suddenly, compression! But no starting.
I spent the next few days trying to get it to start. I tested spark plugs, which seemed okay. I drained the 4.5 year old fuel, and replaced the fuel filter. I checked the throttle body. Nothing seemed to work. I finally said screw it, and ordered a new dizzy, since I didn't have a spare in the box-o-parts (only a new rotor cap).
Rockauto got me a dizzy and some new spark plugs in 2 days. It took all of 10 minutes to swap it, and when I tried to start it, it caught so fast, I was caught off guard.
I pulled the code, which was 14 (IACV). After speaking to the previous owner, he mentioned that the IAT and IACV plugs are identical, and to try swapping them. Success!
Once it was running, I got it registered and plated the next day.
Once it had a plate on it, I took it for a small shakedown cruise, with a few notes:
The alternator belt needs to be replaced. I tried all the spares in the box, they all squeal.
The right turn signal was not working at all. Left was fine, 4-ways were fine.
Heater would not blow hot, but car was warming up.
The right rear creaks hard. As far as I can tell, it might still be the OEM suspension? Previous owners never touched it once.
The driver side window won't roll all the way down. It binds up about halfway.
Cruise control doesn't work. No idea why.
So obviously, I needed to address the heat. Using an old Ericthecarguy video as a guide, I just backflushed the heater core using some air, a bit of CLR, flushing it out and refilling the rad. A little messy, but not too much work, and now I have heat. While I was letting the car idle up to temp to burp the system, I left the right turn signal on, and once the car warmed up, it just... started working. Hasn't stopped working. Very weird.
I decided to take it on another shakedown, and drove it to the gym. It was a champ, but I noticed when I got home that I could smell some burning plastic or rubber. When I investigated, I thought it was the alternator belt, since I could hear weird rubbing coming from that direction, but imagine my surprise when I found out it was the timing belt rubbing on the timing cover.
Turns out, the timing belt guide was missing off the crank pulley. Not sure how that was missed. Checked my box of parts, and couldn't find one. Reached out to Balance auto about sourcing one and doing the timing belt on the car, but they couldn't get a timeline on the parts. I reached out to Village honda, and the guide was backordered to mid Dec.
Previous owner suggested maybe it was installed, but backwards, so I spent 30 minutes tearing it all apart to take a look (I'm confident I could do the timing belt on this thing <1hr now), just to find out it is completely missing. But now I have the whole thing pulled apart and all the work done, but the part is a month and a half out. What do I do? I rifle through the box one last time. And sitting there, at the bottom, pushed up against the side, is a single one. So I slap it on, slap it back together, and we're good.
Next up, I made another order from Rockauto, including:
Timing belt w/ tensioner
Hatch struts
Spark plug wires
Rear wiper
Alternator belt.
I also have some BNIB speakers that came with the car that I plan to install, as well as address the drivers window. I also have 2 different keys, one for the ignition, one for the doors, nothing for the trunk, and no spares, so I plan on re-keying the doors/trunk to match the ignition, and get a spare cut.
I'm missing a few interior trim pieces, including most of the trunk (tailgate interior piece, passenger rear speaker cover, spare tire cover), but I think I just want to enjoy the POS it is over the winter before going further.
I'd love to get a small drop on it, some decent summer wheels, a new exhaust, and maybe long-term do a K-swap. Just a cute little hard parker.
Originally Posted by heavyfuel
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