Eyger

OK! Here's my car from way back then till now, including story as we go along!
DIY EVERYTHING!

Pictures of my car the first day I got it:






A little while after that, I got an AEM V2 Intake and an HKS Hi-Power Axelback:





Here are the next pictures, at that time, I got Full TEIN coilovers, aftermarket grill, Tinted windows and more stickers yay!




After that, I got a set of 18x7.5 Axis Reverbs, Gloss black, First wrapped in Assenza 215/35/18 then wrapped in Nitto Neo-gen, same variety.





Then I saved up and got a Carbon fiber GT wing and three strut bars:







Next are some pictures of the VIS EVO-Carbon fiber hood:





Oh yeah, I also made my own center caps for my rims, it's black fiberglass casted in clear resin:



Now this is where it gets crazy
About a year ago I was coming home from Las Vegas and traffic was stopped on the freeway, low and behold a driver about six cars back didn't stop and slammed into five cars, and I was the last car to get hit, nothing too bad, front and rear bumper messed up, but that's about it. It's enough to get me about a grand from the insurance company. So I decided to purchase a full body kit and fenders.
Here they are:




After they arrived it took me several weeks to rip it apart install and prep for paint I also molded the side skirts and the rear bumper. To make a long story short, I had to fabricate, fiberglass, fill, sand and prime a TON of parts of this kit to get it fit:

In this picture, the side skirts were like seven inches too short so I had to cut it, fiberglass it (bottom skirt) and fill it (top skirt)




The front bumper had to be cut in half horizontally and fiberglassed to the stock bumper:

And the side of the front bumper had to be shortened for less depth:

Ready for primer:




At this point I'm ready for paint. I was under the impression that I would be able to get it painted by my friends boss, who manages a fork-lift repair warehouse which has an open paint booth. However, at the time I finished the install he said he couldn't do it because there was too much stuff in the warehouse to get my car in there. So I decided to paint it myself. I bought a cheap *** set of HVLP paint guns, and got free black paint from that dude that was going to help me. I also chipped in and bought a small jar of blue pearl to mix in the clear coat. I woke up one morning, hung up a ton of plastic sheeting and painted my car, by the time that I was halfway done, my mother came home and was mad, and I screwed everything up, so then after it was done it looked like a blue/purple car. Not to mention that the paint AND the clear coat was dripped EVERYWHERE!

(This is the only thing I don't have pictures of)

Well it wasn't TOO bad, but pretty damn bad. So then I spend the next several months wetsanding it with high grit paper. Once I did that, that dude that said he would originally help me, was available so I took it down there and we all masked it up. And he started shooting everything:



he shot the primer, and the black paint, everything looked good. He shot the clear coat, and DRIPPED like 30 times on my car!!!! I was so frustrated I almost flipped out. But it was cool because he did it for free. He also said that he had a friend that could wet sand and buff it for free as well... So that calmed me down a bit. However I wouldn't be able to get him to do that until about FOUR weeks from then because it was christmas and then he was on vacation. But I didn't care, I jut wanted it to get done. Two pictures of what it looked liked after black paint:



Low and behold again, TWO days after I rolled it out of the paint booth, the rear bumper AND the side skirts were cracked at the seams in two places!!!! I was insane at that point. I also sold my rims because I was low on money, and I don't like the black rims anymore.

So at this point I just decided to rip the kit off and strip ALLLLLL of the paint off. If you want it done right, do it yourself right? it took me several weeks to do. Ok so I stripped off all the paint to the bare metal and then sprayed primer using a GOOD gun that I bought off the internet:
Materials:

Here's me behind my mask! Safety first!






I also had to fiberglass a small piece to fit in the corner of the side skirt, because that was short too:



After ALLLL of the body work was done, I rented a paint booth about a hour away from here, and took it in and painted it:



Right after I painted it:




This was a day of days, I was so happy I finally got it all taken care of and painted. (This time around I chose a red pearl.) The only draw back is that I shot it, and it went on the car with a lot of orange peel.
SOOO then I bought some 1500 grit sand paper, sanded it flat, bought a polisher/buffer used a rubbing compound, then finally polished it So here we are!! The pictures are below! It's a long journey, but it taught me a TON and a lot of respect for the paint/body industry:







Is it perfectly Flawless? No, but it's a great accomplishment for me and I'm really glad I did it.

Everyone might think I'm crazy, but yeah I'm going to paint it again in the near future. This time I wanna get a Two stage paint. And better equipment. And do better body work. There's a lot of small nit picky things that I didn't like with this paint, so I'm going to do it again, correctly.

Well, there you have it, my car from about three years ago till now. Hope you enjoyed.

Eyger

And lastly, here is a photoshopped picture of what I want the car to look like in the next six months: (note, I took this picture before I wetsanded and buffed, so it looks hazy)

Christian Calim

iTrader: (2)

props to you man. like the theme that your going for and your car looks great.

DaSilverCivic

a lot of love went to that car. props for all your hard work.
good luck, hope you finish your project.

Suzy Q

iTrader: (28)

looks better without the wing

kcsays

looks good, what is that kit called? or is it mixed?? look like ings+1 ^_^

EM2Brande

iTrader: (1)

I am not really a fan of the wing, but its a great clean show car. I give you props for one clean bad *** 7thgen.

italy273

iTrader: (1)

I think the kit didn't fit b/c it is for a RSX not a 7thgen civic. Look at the lights. You could have saved yourself a lot of work.

YOURS:
RSX:

Props for doing your own work.

Ti71

iTrader: (1)

How many man hours did you put into your car? Great job on the fiberglass work, you got some talent and skills.

12345678910

holy crap

looks good, thats a TON of work

Eyger

That's exactly correct. ING+1 Front, INGS+1 Sides, and a buddy club rear.

I bought the RSX INGS+1 because they don't make it for our cars.

I it was a toss up between the RSX version, or the SI version, but then I got a good deal on everything, so I went with the RSX.

Eyger

Thanks for the props, I knew it wouldn't be easy. That was the main point of the whole thing, to have a body kit that no one else has on a 7th gen LX

Eyger

Thanks. Phew man I have no idea.....Hours and hours? It took so long, because I could only work on it after work and things like that. couldn't make too much noise after dark etc. Granted it would have been done a lot sooner if I did it right the first time, but you gotta learn somehow right?

LT2004ever

iTrader: (2)

good effort man! like how much u have put into your car, it looks good, and hopefully it will match the photoshopped pic in a few months

es*oneeCivic2k5

Now thats what i call thinking outta the box
almost everyone in here likes lips and no wingss
trend but u put on fenders and carbon
wing and a customm fronnt from an RSX
u gott good styylle, its a veryy nice carr =)
andd that wing actually looks good on the car.

great job

Christian Calim

iTrader: (2)

Thats what i did on my DX sedan. i got a front and side that no one on this site has. good thought about replicating an rsx front end and converting it onto our cars, thats what i did as well. Its cool to see different kind of styles of 7thgens rather than the same old style repeatedly. So mad props to you man.

TRIZ

iTrader: (14)

Man I love seeing people do their own body work. What kind of resin did you use the first and second time?

svtec

thats alot of work you put in.

Eyger

Thanks dude, yeah straight up, individuality is cool. There's only a handful of kits available for the 7thgen, I didn't like any of em.


First time around, I used the bondo fiberglass resin with MEKP hardener. But then I tried another kind which turned out WAY better, is actually Elmer's Fiberglass resin. I'm going to try some different types in the future. But I found that I like using a resin that's more flexible rather then brittle.

DsevenEm2

iTrader: (6)

A for effort. Not my style though. To each his own.

InanimateCarbonRod

iTrader: (6)

Turned out great after all that work. After all that painting, may I ask why you decided to keep the mirrors and grill black?

Eyger

Yes you may, I'm going to wrap em in carbon fiber. Or possibly carbon kevlar.

kcsays

damn, i was hoping they had one for our car lol but ****, looks sick though everything flows well.

i wish i knew how to do fiber glassing and stuff. =P

Eyger

Yeah that would be sick if they made it for our car.
But in spite of all of the work that had to be done, the kit fit relatively well considering the fact that it's for a different car altogether.

Fiberglassing is really easy actually, putting it to good use is another story.
How to fiberglass:
Get fiberglass resin,
get fiberglass cloth,
find something to put the fiberglass on,
mix hardener into resin, pour on cloth, let dry, sand and enjoy.

Eyger

Thanks, that's what I was going for. not only outside the box, but create my own box outside the original box then go outside THAT box. Ha ha

speedfoos

iTrader: (17)

From one amateur paint and body man to another, that's some fantastic work. You never really get the smell of bondo out of the garage either. Its always there. I'm in agreement on the wing, it flows really well with your car now that you've painted it. Excellent job man. Simply well done.

Eyger

^Thanks for the props. Yeah when I read your thread on painting your car, I was like Im doing the same thing! I think the work paid off. Considering that if we took our cars to pro shops it would have cost thousands.

dru106

iTrader: (13)

Wow!!!

mugenman

iTrader: (12)

wow dude new respect for you not my style one bit but that **** looks tight. what color is that? it looks great

Eyger

Thanks man. The paint is made by www.restorationshop.com the color is Fire Red Pearl. I'm thinking about re-painting it, but restoration shop has some really great quality products.