Farquea

My wife has a 90 Civic CX and just bought a new car. We put this up on craigslist for $900 and I got flooded with replies! It got me thinking on whether I should maybe keep it and do some work on it as I do love these style Civics when done up, I think they look awesome. The model she has is very basic though so to get it to be looking and feeling what i'd like, I'm not sure if this is possible. I'm looking for opinions based on what I'd like to do as to whether the parts to do this are available and affordable. The real gem with this car is the engine, it only has 128km. Below is my wish list for it along with some pics of it attached and an example of how i'd love to get it looking. I'd love some opinions from guys who know a lot about these cars and if this is worth my time, effort and money


Wishlist
- CV axle needs repair, quoted $700 I think, wondering how much/easy this is to do myself?

- Hit a pole on the front right fender and door. Fender would need replacement or repair, possibly the door too along with the black plastic strip that runs along the side.

- Rear reflector, how available are the red reflectors?

- Front and rear bumpers, are there any different styles of these as opposed to the very basic black ones her car currently has? Again easy to come by or not?

- Power steering, as much as I like the feel of the steering when driving this doing some speed, practically speaking it's a real pain in the *** to city drive, can power steering be installed easily?

- Interior centre console, currently there is just the gear stick and e-brake-hand brake, I imagine higher models came with a centre console that encases them?

- Interior seats, currently its a fake leather, but i'd prefer fabric seats with the holed out head rests on the front seats

- Re-spray in black

- New rims

- Window tints

- Lower the suspension

- Any other nice recommended mods I should consider


I'd love some advice on whether or not people think this is worth a go at or if I should just sell the old girl.

Colin42

The body is super clean, I'd keep it and have some fun.
Check junkyards for body and interior pieces. Other years will have parts that fit, especially the wheels, 4 x 100 was used on civics until 2005, and is still used on the fit

You can diy the cv axle yourself pretty easily, last one I bought was $78.

Rockauto, or other sites for new aftermarket parts

RobertD

i've had 5-6 of those. all cost me between $200 and $400!!

Wishlist
- CV axle needs repair, quoted $700 I think, wondering how much/easy this is to do myself?
this costs $140 at autozone and takes less than an hour to swap

- Hit a pole on the front right fender and door. Fender would need replacement or repair, possibly the door too along with the black plastic strip that runs along the side.
fender is cheap, door should be 75-150 and the shop i use charges $300 to do a perfect job on a single a panel, likely 450 for the two at the same time.

- Rear reflector, how available are the red reflectors?
those lights are "period correct" and with a car that stock, the yellow are COOL! imo

- Front and rear bumpers, are there any different styles of these as opposed to the very basic black ones her car currently has? Again easy to come by or not?
those bumpers are the ones i'd prefer as you don't have to worry about scratching. wings west made a nice non-rice body kit, but realistically this car in it's best form is still slightly uglier than a similar era GTI and i would just enjoy it for what it is

- Power steering, as much as I like the feel of the steering when driving this doing some speed, practically speaking it's a real pain in the *** to city drive, can power steering be installed easily?
i recommend learning how to drive with no power steering. if it's rolling, it turns easy. no powersteering is a plus. one less thing to deal with. if this is a deal breaker you should sell it. you'll spend a fortune adding power steering if you'd pay 700 for an axle.

- Interior centre console, currently there is just the gear stick and e-brake-hand brake, I imagine higher models came with a centre console that encases them?
the CRX models have the center counsil, and i have also used the center from an 89 integra. it looks great and made me happy, but does not match up perfectly.

- Interior seats, currently its a fake leather, but i'd prefer fabric seats with the holed out head rests on the front seats
again, crx or integra seats from a similar era

- Re-spray in black
if you want a black car, pay 5k and do it right, or don't do it. if you go to resell that car poorly painted black people will wonder what you're hiding -rust, damage, etc, and it will make the car worthless to all but a teenage idiot.

- New rims
all rims look good on that car, but the wider the tires, the harder to steer. again the stock are period correct and COOL! besides cops don't see ricer with 13" steelies.

- Window tints

- Lower the suspension

- Any other nice recommended mods I should consider
leave it alone

-I'd love some advice on whether or not people think this is worth a go at or if I should just sell the old girl.
unless you plan to strip the car and pay 3-5k to paint it properly and do ALL the work to the car 100% correctly, you're going to ruin a classic. i think you should resell this car. list it for 2800 and stick to 2500 firm. if i wasn't half way through building a mustang right now, i'd hand you 2500 for that turd in a heartbeat and i wouldn't change a thing. you never see these cars original anymore. 99.9% have been ruined by young idiots. the reason people wanted it is because ricer cancer hasn't ruined it yet. if you need to pay $700 to have a $150 axle installed, you will have a 10k+ to pay people to do what you want to it.

if i could pick that car or my girlfriends 2015 si, i'd pick your car and the reason is all the stuff you want to change has not been changed...provided the car has a manual trans anyhow.

RobertD

if you're good at cutting plastic, cutting the bars out of the grill and painting the radiator silver usually made it look a bit sportier. (:

or get the other 90/91 JDM painted bumper. it has foglights and looks stock, but is pretty cool(i think anyhow)

sdaidoji

iTrader: (1)

woah!

nice car! Looks better than my 2002!