SRDF Titan

Ok so I used to be in the honda game way back in the day (about 7 years ago) so I'm just getting back into it thanks to the wife.....I know strange. Anyway last August wife comes up to me and says, babe I don't want my BMW anymore and I want to get rid of some debt. I'm thinking ok, you can sell your car but I'm not selling my car (2008 black on black Charger). Well wife sells her BMW and I get her a civic (1997 Civic EX coupe 5 spd), I'm thinking hey a Civic is reliable, good on gas and if something happens to it I can fix it, you know the all american husband lol!! So we fast forward to January of this year (2012) and wife blows the head gasket on said Civic and is now stranded on the side of the highway at 3 in the morning. I meet her, make a quick fix and on the way home wife says; I don't want this car anymore, I want a EK hatch!! I'm thinking first off where did you get that chassis code from (EK)? You been watching that Top Gear show again lol? She said no I've been on Import Atlanta and Honda Tech. I'm like ok well we'll find you a hatch and I'll keep the coupe (in my mind I'm like hell yeah, she has no idea what I'm going to do with this car)!! Long story short I buy her a pretty clean 1996 Civic CX hatch and she loves it!! So now that I've kept the wife happy (for now) I'll move on to the build:
Now keep in mind I just started this build in January and still have a lot of work to do, but thanks to the guys and Mainstream Performance (Robert, Ben, James and you can never forget ole Scotty!!) this build is happening, so I would definately like to thank all of them!!!
Ok first pics right after purchase:





The car was in decent shape. I bought the car back when gas was a little higher than it was now and Hondas were going for the premium. Seller wanted $3500.00 but after picking it a part I ended up getting it for $2,060.00. I thought it was a pretty good deal with 124,000 miles on it.
So like I said earlier my wife blows the head gasket so now comes the hard decision. Do I stay single cam and throw a little boost on her, or do I go atleast with an LS swap and boost it. Well after visiting Mainstream the decision was much easier, I ended up picking up a jdm GSR swap that was fully built with only about 3k miles on it. The swap was full of aftermarket goodies like Eagle rods, JE pistons, block gaurd, magnetic drain plug, Skunk2 intake manifold, Wavetrac lsd, ACT clutch/flywheel and brand new seals and ****!! The motor and tranny was built at Mainstream with all Honda OEM parts and such and I got it on the low (thanks Charles!!) Anyway so after a few frustrating days (mainly because I forgot how to do everything) the swap was in!!




Ok so now the swap was in and now it was time to address a few things before the boost came. First order of business was the wheels/tires, suspension and brakes. I ended up going with the Eibach Pro System Plus, complete with springs, shocks and swap bars. As far as brakes I ended going with an AEM big brake kit for now with hawk pads. Will probably end up going with the Willwood kit before long! As far as wheels go I went with some 16" polished Rota slips, wrapped in Falken Azenis (215-45R16) to round everything out!!
More pics:






And yes these brakes do fit behind 16" wheels, I still have about 1/4 gap between the calipers and wheels with this setup. These AEM brakes kind of suck, good thing I don't have to much money in them. I wonder if Fastbrakes has figured out a way to mount the willwood calipers on the AEM big brake kit? Will have to find that out. Oh and by the way I ended up doing a complete 99-00 front end conversion (headlights, front and rear bumpers, both fenders, hood, foglights and both front and rear lips). I'm probably going to end up going with a Back Yard Special (BYS) front bumper before I finish the exterior though.
And now pics of the new stance:


Ok now the next order of business was to have Mainstream fabricate me a valve cover ventilation/catch can system for the boost to come!!
Lines and catch can mocked up:

Valve cover stripped and prepped for some welding:

Ok now that the ventilation system was taken care of it was now time to swap the Skunk2 intake manifold for an Edeldbrock piece:


End results:

Next up was mounting of the intercooler and some modifications to the intercooler piping to get everything to fit snug. I got the intercooler off of ebay and the dimensions are 28x8x3.


Next I ordered some 1000cc injectors from Fuel Injector Connection up in Cumming GA (freakin awesome deal) and a Walbro fuel pump. Now you would think that all the hard crap was done...........wrong (rant time!!) I swear I had never seen people that will post something online that they are trying to sell and then when you call them and tell em that you want to buy it they flake!!! I probably found 3-4 nice quality turbo kits ranging from $1500.00-$3000.00 that people were trying to sell that I could not buy for some reason. I would get in contact with them and say:
Me: hey bro saw you had a turbo kit for sale on the forum and wanted to know if you still had it.
Them: uhhhh yeah I still have the kit
Me: ok well I have cash in hand, front pocket, back pocket, your pockets, my socks, your socks and I'm sure if I looked in my glove box I would probably find another dollar!! (you get my drift)(for all the slow people: I was basically saying hey I have all the money in my hand right now, not part of the money, not can you wait until I get paid?).
Them: well uhhhh hmmmm I don't know man I was about to go to the gym and work out. Think you can come get it next week?
Me: WTF? Are you serious. Ok guys I know people are busy, but I wouldn't care if I was loaded and trying to sell something. If someone called me wanting to buy one of my parts that I'm trying to sell for like 3 stacks, I'm going to get my fat *** up and meet so I can get paid. Atleast thats what I thought normal people would do. Ok enough ranting. The above scenario happened 3-4 times and I finally got fed up with it, so I called a buddy of mine who had a slightly used (50 miles) ebay kit. Now at first I didn't want the kit for the obvious reasons, plus the kit was intended for a SOHC so the turbo was a t3 t4, but it was a 50 trim. So I rolled my happy *** up to Rome and bought it for $300.00 complete with everything, turbo (zero shaft play), mani, intercooler, intercooler piping, bov and a bunch of other stuff. I hopped on ebay and bought a log style manifold for $40.00 and I also picked up that intercooler that are in the above pics. I ended up getting a tial waste gate from a fella on here (can't remember his screen name, but I appreciate the good deal). After the new mani got here I installed the kit. Had a couple of issues as they should be expected from an ebay kit but none the less the kit was on and working fine.
Pics:



Next was the tune which Scotty @ Mainstream did for me. Setup ended up making 360hp @ 14-15lbs. The turbo responds very quickly and was at full spool around 4k rpm. The boost comes in real smooth and has a very broad power band. We tried to go higher (19psi) but the waste gate spring (6lbs) said hell no. No worries because very soon I'll be purchasing some cams, valve train, throttle body, equal length mani and some other crap that I can't remember then I'll retune and see where I'm at. I am very happy with the power output or hp per dollar spent. At 300hp (9-10psi) the car is a beast (ripped the welded driver's side motor mount 3 times and counting). So don't hate on the egay to bad, when this turbo decides that it wants to take a poop, I'll replace it with a 60-1 Garrett variant FTW!! I don't have any pics from the dyno but as soon as I'm done posting this thread I'll upload them to Youtube and edit in a link.
Here is your link:
http://youtu.be/8EW8a4whQqk
Ok now came the exhaust, I didn't want anything loud at ALL!!! So I modified my stock muffler. I started by removing the muffler and cutting it open:
Took out one of the walls and several baffles.

Replaced the 1 3/4 pipe with a 3" pipe (outlet):

And welded it back together (I know my welding sucks as I haven't welded in 7 years), you'll be fine. Mocked it on the car and welded a 3" inlet, then took it all back down, welded the axle back portion to the muffler and mocked it back up. We then welded and angled 3" outlet that continued to meet the bumper, then painted everything black to hide my shotty welding.
Enjoy:




Ok so to me it looks good because it looks stock, but more importantly its flows very well and is quiet as hell (some of my buddies that have rode in my car call it the quiet demon) lol. The entire exhaust is 3" mandrel bent piping all the way out. I also recorded a video of the exhaust and once again as soon as I'm done posting this I will upload one, you should like. Haters go ahead and blast, but it flows well, looks good, sounds great (quiet) and didn't cost me a dime!!!
Vids:
http://youtu.be/XiE7AcYxKtk
http://youtu.be/40_mLFHlmiY
Ok so now that I can pause on the engine I started on the interior!! First thing I bought was an 99-00 SI gauge cluster. I took the gauge cluster a part so that I could re-paint the needles and put some carbon fiber vinyl on the trim piece. I painted the needles with some flourescent amber/orange paint so the needles can glow under some uv bulbs (still haven't ordered yet). I then took some 3M carbon fiber wrap that I had laying around and wrapped the trim.
Enjoy:
Stock before mods:

Carbon fiber cut out for trim piece:

Carbon fiber applied to trim piece:

Trim piece installed back onto newly painted needles:

Almost there:

Money shot:

Ok so hope you liked it but if you don't, don't worry about it lol!! Next I went on to fix a failed attempt to due a complete interior color change from grey to black. I had already attempted to do this once using the Krylon Fusion for plastic paint. A little advise.....DON'T EVERY USE THIS ****!!!! Ok now that thats over I can proceed. If you are going to paint the interior of your car only use products from a company called SEM. You can only buy this stuff at automotive paint supply places. This stuff works wonders, I bought the Laudau Black and everything I painted looks like it came from Honda black!!! Anyway I'm almost done with the interior but I'm having to wait on my headliner, sunvisors and center arm rest. As we all know the back upper plastic pieces all play a role in holding up your headliner so I'll just have to wait. I'm getting the headliner, sunvisors and center arm rest all done in black suede with red stitching for the low ($110.00) and they do great work!!! Will post pics when its done. Anyway I ended up buy 4 guages (Depo) to help me monitor my engine so I made a custom gauge holder out of acrylic but I ended up breaking it when I went to drill the 4th hole. Good thing for me my wife is the shiznat with CAD and we have a laser cutter. It took me 2-3 hours to make a gauge holder that ended up breaking. It took my wife about 10 minutes, ain't that some bull shi!. Anyway hope you guys like as I've gotten tons on compliments on it even though we're still working out the kinks to get that perfect fit. I ended up moving my radio and taking out that coin tray that sits next to the radio to run all 4 gauges all the way across.
Krylon Fusion crap, this is what you'll end up with:

Get this instead:

Remember this?

Now (straight sex):


Waiting on that headliner, cool shot of my frost king (STUFF WORKS) FTW!!:








Picked me up a pair of Delsol seats that just need some touching up, I've pulled that fabric off of the passenger side seat so that I can re-attach the fabric to the foam with some 3M fabric adhesive!!

More sex with the gauges!!:

Now if some of you guys are wanting something like this gauge holder that is made to fit perfectly for YOUR vehicle (not that egay universal crap) let me know. I've got several friends that are letting me use their cars to mock up these block off/gauge holders for their year civics. So far were making these for the 88-91 civic, 92-95 civic, 96-98 civic, 99-00 civic single and double din sizes, 94-01 integra single and double din sizes, 02- up RSX, Honda Prelude and others coming soon. And the best part is say you only want a holder that can hold one or two gauges, but your car is boosted and you can't find a good place to mount you electronic boost controller or turbo timer and such. I'm currently getting the dimensions for all the popular electronics to include Greddy, Apexi, HKS, etc, etc. After I get these dimensions I will be able to cut out gauge holders that can also accomodate your electronics for a very clean look. Best part is I'm going to be selling these anywhere from $20.00- $30.00!!! Let me know what you want, I've included some pics of some of the R&D thats going into these things to get that perfect fit. I also recorded a video of the laser cutter in action, it's pretty nice that I'll post up as well. I'm going to try and have some of these on hand this weekend as I may ride out to Barrett Pkwy, so if you want to see one in person or buy one I'll be there.
Designed on CAD:

Computer generated picture:

Various pieces of cardboard (used for mock up), trying to get that perfect fit.

Finished product:

I just bought a huge sheet of black acrylic that I'll be using to make these, so the default color will always be black not clear lol.
Hope you liked the car, stay tuned as there is a lot more to come!!

SRDF Titan

tttt

SRDF Titan

I bought a used ramhorn turbo manifold (Slowmotion Motorsports), that just arrived in the mail yesterday. Looks pretty good, going to get in on sometime next week. Only reason why I'm waiting is because I just ordered a t3 60-1 with a stage 5 wheel today and it won't be here until next week. Very excited about the turbo, Jesse and Usedturbo.net custom built the turbo for my particular setup. He is messing with the inducer wheels and stuff like that. With everything that he is doing to it, its going to flow like a GT35 with less back pressure than your typical 60-1. I'm going to do a complete write up on all of it. I also am going to have some cams and a complete valvetrain coming some time soon. I'm going to do a complete write up on all of that as well. Stand by for pics of the ramhorn, bought it used and got a good deal on it!!



I just read a thread on how to clean and polish this mani, so I'm going to give it a try!! Stay tuned!!!

SRDF Titan

Got the manifold put on today and even got a chance to clean up the engine bay a little. Was able to relocate some wiring, vacume lines and removed the cruise control. Found out yesterday that my turbo will be here next Thursday, but in the mean time check out a couple of photos.

sl33pyriceboi

iTrader: (3)

excellent.

tipnitty

Looks awesome man. I've got some 3m di-noc and I'm looking forward to using and seeing this makes me want to start asap! Keep up the good work man.

SRDF Titan

Thanks guys I appreciate it!

sl33pyriceboi

iTrader: (3)

tell me more about your brakes...

how big are those rotors and did you use a different caliper for ur application?

SRDF Titan

The brakes are the old AEM big brake upgrade, there 12.19" in diameter and just simply relocate your factory calipers to fit. Takes about 10 minutes per side. I really like them although I'm going to upgrade to a 4 or 6 piston setup. I like doing a lot of high speed highway pulls and it doesn't matter what setup you have your going to wear them out!! Whenever I upgrade this setup that I currently have will be for sale. I have Rota 16" slips right now and I still have about a 1/4" clearance between the caliper and the rim.

SRDF Titan

Hell yeah for the new turbo, very excited!!
Specs:
It is a Precision 60-1, but it was put together with a stage 5 wheel and .82 a/r hot side with a 60 trim 60 a/r compressor side. I needed a combination that would be high flowing and relieve as much back pressure as possible because I'm going to be running high lift cams. I'm going to do a full review on it once its installed. I purchased it from Jesse at usedturbos.net (760) 721-7669, make sure you ask for him (Jesse). I was very pleased from the very beginning because they rebuild turbos and include a one year warranty on all of them. The best part is, is that I paid just over $500.00 for this turbo and it came with the same warranty that I would have gotten if I bought it brand new directly from Precision or one of their distributors but for alot less! So it was a pretty easy decision for me, plus if you have a question (I had plenty) Jesse was more than happy to answer them. Now I'm not saying that he will do this for everyone (because the man has to work lol) but I was on the phone with him for about 20 minutes talking about my particular setup and what I was trying to achieve. By the end of the conversation we settled on the 60-1 with the stage 5 wheel and .82 a/r turbine housing. A few days later and it shows up on my door step, can't wait till tomorrow so I can get this on!!! Here are some pics:








Let me know what you guys think, check out their website. Their website is easy to navigate because you can select how much power you want to make and it will pull up the turbos that will work. Remember even after you pick one give him a call if you want to make changes or have any questions. Hope you like it and I will update this tomorrow with the in car driving impression video..........hopefully!

VTEC-4.0

How'd i miss this thread....Good job on the build so far!

MatthaiN

iTrader: (1)

Seriously! I am loving the interior, it looks fierce. Also, I would like to ask how you like the Victor X manifold right now? I have pretty much all the same internals you do with a smaller Greddy T28 right now running 10 psi with just a typical manifold. Stock intake manifold as well. I am only making 260 whp right now. I want to be around three hundred and call it good.

MindBomber

Nice!

It started off awesome, then I read about the ebay turbo kit and recalled pictures of an impeller exploding and destroying a built motor, and then suddenly you've got an awesome Precision turbo! That's a great site, I've never seen it before.

Build looks great so far! Welcome back to the Honda scene

SRDF Titan

First thanks to all for the compliments, to answer your question I really love the victor x. But you have to keep in mind with the victor x that it's going to add power up top (7000 rpm plus). Because of the short runner design its going to keep air velocity up, which translates to more hp. On boosted applications victor x manifolds are great!! The larger plenum design of the victor x is good as it increases the available volume of air. If your happy with the characteristics that your setup provides for you right now. ie, very, very quick spool up, you can still have some of those characteristics with the right manifold/turbo combination. If your goal is 300hp wheel it can easily be had with a setup that is similar to my old one. I had a cast manifold, very good for quick spool up because of the diameter and length of the individual runners. I like cast over tubular log manifolds because you just can't beat their reliability. As far as a turbo goes a simple t3 t4 setup would work. On the hot side try to make sure that your turbine housing is 63 a/r, this will give you that quicker spool up but will also flow enough to get you to your goal of 300hp to the wheels, you can even go a little higher if you want. Now for the compressor side I ran a 50 trim, some people hate them but I made 360hp to the wheels on 15psi, I think thats pretty good and I hadn't even maxed it out yet, I was at about 62% of that turbo's effeciency (don't go past about 80% on any turbo). With this setup I was seeing full spool at about 3250 rpm, it had a really fat and broad powerband with plenty of torque and the power never fell off even at 9000 rpm. So sorry for the rant but hopefully it helped you a little.

Thanks bro I appreciate it, yeah I took a gamble with one of these turbos and had really good luck. I made sure that if fully inspected it before purchase and it everything seems to have worked out right. Yeah I think I got lucky when I found usedturbos.net and I'm glad I did, I mean this turbo that they sent me looks brand new inside and out. Just really good craftsmanship!!!

MatthaiN

iTrader: (1)

No, that helped quite a bit. I have never known anyone to actually use the Victor X till now. Its good input. I do have just the cast manifold as it stands right now and I know the thing is reliable as all can be and you are right, I am trying to maintain that quick spool up like I have now, so Ill keep in mind the ratios you were talking about.

Damn I have to get some videos up.

On the exhaust note though, I think you need to see how quiet my Si is with the Apexi' World Sport 2 Catback... you would be surprised. I think it may even be quieter then yours.

SRDF Titan

Glad I could be of some assistance, and I'm going to have to check out that exhaust. Actually today after I put the turbo on I was going to play around with the exhaust a little because I need to make sure that my current setup is going to support the new setup as far as flowing goes. Don't really want any back pressure. Bout to youtube some Apexi world sports!! lol

SRDF Titan

Well got the new turbo put on today, ran into a couple of issues but we got everything worked out and it turned out nice. Ended up having to make a downpipe flange (4 bolt), and then the rest of the downpipe. As far as the difference in how it drives is night and day. My previous setup was a cast iron log manifold with a t3t4 50 trim turbo and a 2.5" downpipe. I would see full spool at around 3500 rpm and because of the back pressure with this setup my torque curve was nice and broad. This setup is really nice for dd and for the person that wants to stay conservative with their tune and power goals (under 400hp). I liked this setup because it felt like there was always power on tap whether you were at 3000 rpm or in 5th gear cruising and you needed to pass somebody without having to downshift!!
Now with the new setup I have a ramhorn manifold and a 60-1 turbo .82 a/r hot and 60 trim cold and a 3" dowpipe. I picked this setup because I'm wanting to run a higher lift cam and make the same mid 300hp with less boost= more effecient. Because of my want to run the higher lift cams I had to reduce the amount of back pressure after the exhaust cam. Going to a ramhorn manifold, a larger (.82 a/r) turbine housing and a 3" downpipe achieves this perfectly.
First Drive:
Like stated earlier the difference is night and day, instead of full spool at 3500 rpm, I'm at full spool around 5600 rpm (right at vtec engagement). I can tell that a little bottom end (torque) has been loss, but with the addition of higher lift cams I should be able to get some of that lag and torque back (closer to maybe 5000 rpm spool up). Even though I was expecting this drastic difference I was still thrown off a little, but I will tell you one really, really good advantage. Because I'm not reaching full spool until around 5600 rpm, I can stay out of boost when I'm just put putting around town which= better gas mileage. Just on one tank of gas I went from an average of around 24 mpg to 28.3 mpg. Another great advantage is when this turbo finally spools man oh man is it nasty, I have a 6lb wastegate spring in right now and it feels like when I was running at 10lbs of boost with the smaller turbo!!! Freakin Nasty!! Ok sorry back to the great gas mileage lol- I'm going to keep tabs on it but I was able to go a substantial amount of miles more than normal.
A couple of things that I'm trying to keep in mind as far as the cams go is I'm wanting to make sure that the primary and secondary cam lobes are going to be a little larger than the current GSR cams that I'm running now. This will aid in reducing lag and hopefully getting my torque back up there a little. I'm trying to not just get tunnel vision on the max amount of lift (vtec lobe) that the cam is going to give me, I want it all!!
I'm planning on trying to do some videos of some driving impression on Sunday, if I'm able to do it I'll try to edit it really quick and get them up. Then that way for some of the guys that prefer videos (like I do) you can physically see what I'm talking about.
Stay tuned....pics:

As always a big thanks to the guys at Mainstream Performance, there the only guys that I would trust!! www.mainstreamperformance.com

Turbo comparison, t3t4 50 trim on left, 60-1 on right!!

Undercarriage shot, had to modify a few things to get everything to fit propery.


New turbo mounted:

Close up (well kinda) of the downpipe.

Thanks for watching!!