Rep Power: 511

>>>CLICK HERE FOR PART 1<<<
Well, well, whaaaaalllleeee... Today I learned that there's a character limit for posts, and that limit is 105,000 characters. That said, I'm continuing my first progress thread here. This half might move a lot bit slower than Part 1. That's how sequels typically go, though, isn't it?

If you're just stumbling upon this thread and you haven't seen part 1, here are the cliff's notes

• Azumi (my 2002 Civic EX coupe MT) was pronounced dead October 8, 2017. This gave way to me getting Miyuki, my 2018 Civic Sport Hatchback CVT, on November 11, 2017. She had her quirks (like being a CVT tranny as opposed to the MT I was longing for), but I quickly grew to love her. I also vowed to keep her stock because I dumped a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and money into Azumi, only to be left a broken man staring into a dead engine bay.
• I started off with small convenience mods, mostly transplanting any compatible LED bulbs from Azumi, and a "hack" to make my map lights turn on with my dome light. Was still adamant about keeping her stock.
• Then I decided I couldn't do with the crappy halogens because I was so used to an HID retrofit, so I caved to theretrofitsource's BF sale and got some PnP HIDs. OEM projectors, so it didn't really blind people (except for the stupid squirrel finder beam). Actual mod yet? Nah, not in my eyes. It'd be like trying to claim changing my headlight bulbs was a mod. Just no.
• Then I installed a dash cam I got for Christmas, but that was more of a safety and accountability thing.
• Another lighting mod, bc JDM yellow fogs.
• Then engine dress up bc why tf not.
• Then I made my own short RAM intake. At that point.. there was no turning back from the mods. What followed after that was audio, a little bit of vinyl wrapping, then the floodgates opened up with an ECU tuning solution by KTuner

Without further ado... PART 2 GOGOGO...
August 16, 2022 - Breathe in, breath out, breathe in, breathe in, breathe in... I'M A MACHINE HEAD - Part installed: 80292-TBA-A11 Cabin Filter
Yeah, I know, I know.. today's title was a bit of a stretch.. aaaaaand it's a boring update, no less. All I did was change out my cabin air filter after almost 65k miles... Free bump for the influx of new people we got, I guess. lol


August 23, 2022 - ♪ I'm blue, da-ba-de da-ba-dye.. ♪ Parts installed: Napolex BW-177 Broadway 300mm convex blue glass mirror
Not a huge update today, but I needed some consistency. I upgraded my 270mm convex broadway mirror to a 300mm blue convex broadway mirror to match my Suma Performance side mirrors. Now everything that reflects to my seat has the same hue, and I have a slightly wider, albeit noticeable, field of view. lol. Only downside is the circa 2004 Burger King Chewbacca I had chilling on top of the old one doesn't sit the same way anymore, so I had to wedge him in between the mirror and the windshield in a sorta sitting position. I'll have to figure out how to secure him down a bit better. Chewie's been my co-pilot since 2004, ain't no way in hell I'm leaving him behind.


August 27, 2022 More Mugen-y goodness Parts installed: Mugen door handle protector size S
Josh is impulse buying again... And Miyuki got herself a package in the mail today

That's right, more genuine Mugen-ness. Truth be told, if their FK7 aero wasn't so damn ugly, I'd probably consider it. Even their FK7 exhaust is fugly. However, some of the smaller stuff I like, so I grabbed some door handle bowl protectors. They come in packs of 2, so that's why there are 2 packages (bc 4 doors). Came from Japan (through Amazon tho), but not quite overnight. It was like.. 5 days. I remember seeing scratches out the wazoo on Azumi (for the uninitiated, Azumi was my 2002 ex coupe) in that door handle bowl, and I felt the itch to add more. lol
Here's an installed pic

I'm thinking about getting some of those door handle overlay things since my passenger side door handles have taken quite the beating and have nice little gouges in them from people's doors, kids, etc.

September 1, 2022 - New part, no cap Parts installed: Capless fuel cover P/N 17666-TGG-A01
Don't ask me why, but I decided to grab me a capless fuel door cover today. I don't run the risk of the fuel door freezing shut, but when it rains here, it comes down. Lots of flash flooding this year. Why not protect the fuel system for any water ingress, and for a <$10 price tag (okay, $15 shipped, but whatever). Honda P/N 17666-TGG-A01 (allegedly only fits the hatch), for those interested

Install is easy as hell. 2 little clips fit in the fuel door in some pre-existing holes.

And how it looks installed.

Now to find a sticker that says "91 octane or higher required) for her. lol

October 30, 2022 - Broken Parts?! Meh.. Parts installed: Front Fender Cover, L and R, P/N 74720-TEA-T00 and 74220-TEA-T00
Haven't been able to do anything in a while, but there were a couple trim pieces on the exterior lower corners of the windshield that have seen better days. The super flexible plastic rubber whatever they used is kinda ***** and got really brittle to the point of breaking. Had to replace both sides. I did one on the 17th and one just now. Figured one post per side would've been overkill. lol

Don't mind the dirty *** car. Severe windstorm kicked a bunch of crap in the air and been getting nothing but dustier lately. You guys might've heard the fallout from said windstorm with the cancellation of day 1 of the When We Were Young Festival



May 9, 2023- 27WON Needs Miyuki's Help?!
So, I've never been fortunate to live anywhere near a company that makes and manufactures car parts for any platform I drive. That is, until 27WON moved to Vegas from Washington state. gen. Okay, Henderson, but everyone that lives in Hendo says they're from Vegas. Literally a huge bit of grey area that you don't know if you're in Hendo or Vegas. ANYWAYS... For those that don't know, they started off manufacturing parts for the 10thgen, and specifically the 10thgen, then later the 11thgen and some Accords. For those that have been around long enough, much like how Dezod started making stuff specifically for the 7thgen, then later the Scion tC. But yeah, these guys make some pretty cool stuff: hybrid CAI intake (filter sits in the engine bay, but the primary suction source is the bumper), exhaust systems, strut tower bars, MAP sensor, drop-in turbo assemblies manufactured by them, etc. Def check 'em out.
They post up on CivicX and Reddit, asking for a volunteer for test fitment, local to Vegas, and specifically someone rocking a 1.5T with a CVT. I have a 1.5T with a CVT.... and I'm local to Vegas. Screw it, let me put my name and Miyuki out there to volunteer as tribute. Well, lo and behold, after a bit of back and forth for a few weeks (I was going out of town, and schedules lining up, etc..), one of the dudes from 27WON asks for my contact info and starts texting me directly. We hammer out a time to drop off Miyuki, and my roomie follows me to the shop so she could drive me home. While there, they were super nice, hospitable, and give me a tour of the facility. Not a huge facility, but still really cool. He asked if I ever considered buying a 27WON intake, I tell him I considered it, but went the DIY route, and admit it was mildly inspired by their design, albeit a bit more ghetto. At that point, I say screw it, buy an intake from them, and they were going to install it for free while the did the testing (and uninstall of the existing DIY intake).
This google maps street view is from 2013, and they def moved to Vegas in like.. 2020.

In any case, I drop off my keys, and tell Miyuki to play nice with our new friends at 27WON.

May 10, 2023 - ♪ Reunited and it feeeels so gooooooooood ♪ Part installed: 27WON CAI
So, today I picked Miyuki up from our friends at 27WON. Roomie drops me (and her 6 year old son, because he wanted to see race cars) at the shop, and she had to jet to go to work. He shows me what they were testing fitment of, and it was some complaints of their intake rubbing the wire harness for a CVT sensor, causing issues down the line. They noted no such issues with a proper install, at least on current gen 27WON intakes. Nevertheless, I drive home with a shiny new intake that looks so much better under the hood. It's not as loud on the woosh noises, and I may still retrofit the ram air tube to point to the suction for cooler air induction, but she def pulls a bit harder than before. The MAF housing on their intake is precision machined, so that may have something to do with it, compared to my extracted/hacked up MAF housing from the OEM intake.
Don't mind the dirty *** car or the cheeky 6 year old glaring at me. He got free stickers, and I got a t-shirt as a thank you, as well.

[NEW UNDERHOOD PIC COMING SOON]

May 14 2023 - ♪ LET ME SEE YOU SHOW YOUR GRILL(e) *E-40 grunt* ♪ Part installed: Ballade Sports Honeycomb front grille
So, Miyuki's front grill was... broken. She needed a new one. So I got her a new one. Fitment on aftermarket grilles for the 10thgen are always... spotty, and this was no exception. The build quality, however, was much better. This one rang in at about $150, but the honeycomb mesh, in person, looks so much better than the old FKX racing one. I also took some precautionary measures and plastic soldered the tabs in place. The tabs that like to break and cause it to look like poo and eventually completely separate from the bumper. The finish is so much better, too. You can kinda see the difference in honeycomb pattern if you compare it to the last pic in the this thread. Def matches the OEM honeycomb pattern a lot more.


November 12, 2023 - Miyuki's spirit animal is a guinea pig
So. If you recall from 6 months ago, Miyuki made some new friends at 27WON. We lucked out because they were posting up on forums and subreddits I frequent, asking for volunteers. Well, they needed another test subject, and instead of posting online, I get a text directly on the 1st. We work out the details over the next week and a half, and I find a time to have roomie bring me home, despite them offering a loaner car. I declined since the weather was kinda nice, Tifa just joined the family, so I had a mode of transportation, we closed down the office and I was perma-WFH. No big deal to go without a car for a couple days. While there, I make small talk, digging for a bit of info to see what they were tinkering with. All I can say is what they're testing may never see the retail market since it was super early in development phase. All I know is it's fuel system related. Nevertheless, I drop off Miyuki and leave her in the hands of our new friends. One thing to note is he asked me what my future plans for Miyuki are, and I said I was being a lot pickier with mods and explained my 15-year modding journey with Azumi. I then follow up with, "I have no plans of getting rid of her any time soon. I tend to get attached to my cars." He immediately responds with, "Good!" with a subtext of, "Sweet, I can hit this dude up if we need a test subject." That's the vibe I got out of that convo, at least.

November 14, 2023 - Welp. Yeah.
I get a text from them saying they hit a snag, will need the car for a few extra days, and wanted me to call him when I had a chance to give me a rundown of what happened. Long story short, they had to replace the high pressure fuel pump because something broke. They were super embarrassed because this is the first time they failed to meet a "deadline" (despite me saying it was 100% okay) and a spring broke. Unfortunately, they don't sell the spring by itself, so they had to replace the whole thing, and the delay was them waiting on the dealership getting the part in. He offers the loaner car once again, and I accept, since rain was in the forecast. While I was trying to figure out logistics of it all, he pulls my information in their system, asks me if I'm still at that address, and he says he was going to deliver the loaner himself. The cool *** part is what they loaned me. They gave me a loaner car in the form of their Honda Time Attack Challenge 11th gen Si build with a bunch of their bolt-on goodies, and prototype 6-pot BBK with 13" rotors that they never released to the public (they have a 4-pot for sale). One thing I noticed while driving it.. Clutch pedal was stiff as hell, had to have been a stage 2 clutch, at least. She also pulls like a ****, and it's a very linear power curve. Sure, you can tell where the boost hits, but it's a subtle hit. She's definitely making waaaaay the hell more power than stock. I can assure you that one.



ofc I had to peek under the hood.


Oh, she sounds goooooood, too.

November 16, 2023 - Sheeeeeeeeee's baaaaaacccccccckkkkkkkk Part installed: OEM HPFP
I get a text saying Miyuki was 100%, and we make arrangements to trade back. I get to the shop, he profusely apologizes about the delay, but made sure it was 100% before getting her back to me. We make some small talk, he recaps what happened, what the delay was, and what they did to make it right, and told me that if I ran into any issues with it, to hit him up right away. The offer of the open line of communication speaks volumes about how this company handles things, and it makes me want to put all their things on Miyuki. lol. Anyways, I ask about the clutch, what kinda clutch was in it. I asked if it was a stage 2 clutch because it was stiff as hell, and if it actually needed it. He lets me know it's a stage 3 then casually mentions, "well, it is putting down 360 to the wheels." Jaw just absolutely dropped. Nevertheless, Miyuki is home again, she's running good as ever like nothing ever happened.

December 3, 2023 - Separation Anxiety, take 2
So, today, they hit me up once again on November 30th. Started off with small talk about each others' holidays. After the small talk was done, he asks if he can borrow Miyuki once again, with the offer of the loaner car once more. We make the arrangements to trade cars at the shop, and I meet him there at 1800.
First thing I say, "More fuel stuff?"
"Yep," he replied, "we made some tweaks and want to check it out. Any time frame you need the car back by?"
"Nah, like I said on the phone, sister's coming into town on Wednesday, but I'll have the Si, so no big deal there. Take your time with it"
A bit more small talk later, we trade keys, and I go on my merry way with, what I've been calling, "the race car"

December 5, 2023 - Testing in Progress
I didn't expect a text from them until Wednesday at the earliest, but I get a text this morning saying the car was ready to go, and asks if we could trade at 1600-1700. I knew it was going to be a long day, but I let him know that I could do tomorrow at noon-ish (after picking up sister). He also offers to deliver my car to me, and we do the swap at my place. Well, as luck would have it, I needed to leave the office (i.e. my house) to handle some business-related change of address bs that somehow became my responsibility, and I needed to get it done yesterday, because tens of thousands of dollars worth of physical checks get mailed to us, and because they messed up telling me what addresses to initially set for the change of address, I needed to fix because that was a fair chunk (not a huge chunk, but a fair chunk) of our company's revenue. I shoot them a text saying I could make 1600-1700 work after my business at the post office was finished, and I could be at the shop at 1630. Well, I get to the shop when it's open (for the first time since the first visit), and the dude grabs my key, and says, "Alright Josh, let me give you a summary of what we did," while walking with me to my car. He then lets me know that they left a prototype part in the car, to monitor my fuel economy, and that he wants to see me back in the shop after a couple thousand miles. I then offer to keep an eye on my fuel trims and AFR with my KTuner, and offered to run some datalogs, too. His eyes light up as if he forgot about the tune, then asks me specifics on the tune I'm running. I could see the gears turning in his head as he seemed to find a way to leverage that tune and any adjustments with the mystery part that I'm testing out. I made note of my 74523 miles on the clock before I start her up. Drove home with zero issues. Fuel trims and AFRs were sitting happy. This is kinda exciting stuff. lol. I'll keep y'all posted with how it goes.

March 16, 2024 - Mirror, mirror, on the wall.. Parts installed: TInyBoy 5D gloss carbon fiber vinyl wrap on mirror caps
Sheesh it's been far too long since I did anything to Miyuki, but here we are. Truth be told, work and life has been kinda crazy, and this kinda came about out of necessity. So, as many of us know, the paint on 10thgens sucks. For some reason, on my driver's side only, the paint on the mirror cap and door handles has been cracking. I decided to do something about it, so I took off the mirror caps, sand down the ***** paint, and vinyl wrap it with some glossy carbon fiber (TinyBot 5k glossy carbon fiber) stuff I had laying around.
Freshly wrapped:


And installed:




You see some orange peel, but these pics don't do the pattern justice. It's pretty damn good, especially for vinyl.

May 2, 2024 - Miyuki's first taste of real carbon fiber Parts installed: XGENAUTO carbon fiber mirror cap (full replacements)
Tragedy struck on April 27th. One thing I didn't mention about the OEM mirror caps is they were a bitch to take off. Some of the clips broke when I was taking them off, but there were still enough clips to hold them on. That was, until they didn't hold them on. Was dropping girl child (I'll address this at the bottom of post #18 in this thread) off at a church youth group about 30 minutes away from the house, and the driver's side mirror cap decided to jettison itself into traffic. As we were waiting for the church group to open the doors, I started window shopping new mirror caps with the intention of buying that day. Weighed my options: $120 + shipping for OEM painted mirror caps or $180 shipped for real carbon fiber replacements? Girl child agreed that carbon fiber is where it was at, and so I ordered them from xgenauto, since they were the only ones with full replacements in stock. I would have ordered the Mugen style ones for an extra $20, but those were out of stock, so I settles with the traditional twill pattern. I also ordered a cheapo one off amazon so the mirror components were still somewhat protected. That one was actually pretty good quality and fitment. They came in today, and after about 15 minutes, they were installed. Boy, they were a pain in the *** to install, but that gives me a warm fuzzy that these won't yeet themselves into oblivion.



January 24, 2025 - ♪It's been a whillleeeeee♪ Parts installed: Custom LED footwell lighting upgrade -- front and rear
Maaaaan it's been way too long. Seriously, May...? I either need my job to ease tf up or I need to find a new job that pays the same but doesn't overwork me.

Today's installment isn't so much something new, but an upgrade to an existing mod. Back in 2019, I added front footwell lighting using some LED strips I had laying around for another project. I superglued some acrylic chunks (strips, really, from yet another project I was working on) to each other to mount the strips to, then mounted said acrylic chunks with the LEDs to something in the car. Well, if you know anything about superglue/CA glue and acrylic, then you know that, while it technically works, it's kind of a shitty solution. That said, the front passenger side, I had to glue up a T shape to mount it all. Years later, because of how much CA glue and acrylic sucks, the passenger side came apart and was kinda swinging there. I put it off because work was crazy and I didn't really have the time to come up with a better fix.

Fast forward to 2025. Daughter has been giving me **** for the dangling LED strip, saying I needed to replace it (though, she mentioned I should RGB it). Well, to keep my mind off of a life thing that's had me in my head, I started tinkering and acquiring things to upgrade it all. The strips I used before were just 3528 SMD LEDs soldered onto a flexible strip, and it was 3 LEDs per 50mm section. Because technology gets cheaper and better over time, my googling and amazon searching showed me that there were FCOB LED strips out there that were brighter and the same price as what I paid for the SMD LED strips back in 2019. Actual pic from the amazon listing (FCOB on the left, the ones I had were similar to the right):


p.s. I won't link anything from amazon because the forum auto-links them and makes a big preview thing that makes the post kinda messy. If you're interested in what I used, DM me and I'll shoot you links.

ANYWAYS, yeah, more even light distribution and just as easy to use (if not easier). Additionally, I now have a 3D printer, and am able to make mounts instead of jerry rigging some crap together, so that's just what I did. I did model it all after the existing jerry rigging mounts I had, but soooo much more of a sophisticated solution. Here are the mounts I designed (whoever wants and can, I can send you the STL files for these):

First row (left to right): driver mount, passenger mount, passenger mount with passthrough connector capability (designed this when I decided I wanted to add rear footwell lighting to mount under the front seats). These were all designed to mount vertically
Second row: rear driver side, rear passenger side. These were designed to mount to the bottom of the seats and fire downward (ish.. more explanation later). Sure, I designed them to accommodate an M6 screw/bolt, but really, I'm zip tying these bitches in place.
The driver side is set to mount the LEDs 90 degrees to the mount itself (straight backward). The passenger side, I designed it to angle the LED strip about 25-degrees downward (due to mounting position). The rears are both designed to aim the LED strips about 15-degrees toward the back instead of firing straight downward. The clear bits are solderless LED strip connectors, since I wanted these to be removable if needed. I used existing wiring that I had from the previous install, and they're taking power from a fusetap. Don't ask me what fuse I used because I don't remember at the moment.

I printed these out of high temp carbon fiber PLA, same stuff my chewbacca seat is printed with, so I know they'll hold up to the heat.

The next step was to figure out how to wire it all up. As I've mentioned before, I'm a fancy bitch, and I didn't just want to connect wires to the thing and call it a day. I wanted more versatility in case I do want to listen to my feral girlchild and get some RGB lights (of course, I'd get a module to allow for RF and bluetooth control. They're really not that expensive (like $15-25). One I'm looking at is literally $23, has bluetooth app control capability and an RF remote, and the box itself is only 2.25" x 2.25 x 0.8". I'd just have to mod the mounts to accept 10mm LED strips instead of 8mm. Whoop-de-do. Anyways, I'm getting off topic.
So yeah, I used about 8 feet of 18AWG wire, 3 pairs of deutsch connectors, and 6 total solderless connectors along with some braided sleeving and heat shrink I already had and made some pretty badass harnesses where each light module (except for the front driver and one side of the front passenger) could be disconnected. I also pulled my center console (first time doing that in this car) so I could route wiring under the center console and under the carpet for a clean install. Anywhoozles, enough talk, more show.

First, a reminder of what the front's used to look like:


and what she looks like now. Keep in mind that the street lights are shining into my front windshield and they're still this bright. Also, I'm fully aware that the rear driver is off centered by a few inches. It annoys me, but not enough to fix it. It's such a pain to work under there. Another thing, yes, I know I have a massive divot in my driver side floor mat. It's literally where my heel sits. Yeah, it's kind of annoying. I really don't feel like spending $200 on floormats though.



Yes, they're significantly brighter than before, but they're still not distractingly so. It borders distractingly bright, but easy enough to tune out. If I care enough, I might add a dimmer in there (or just up and get that control box which has a dimmer function.

February 1, 2025 - [insert [i]Mario Bros starman theme here] Parts installed: Upgraded footwell lighting to RGB LED strips
Alright.. Feral girlchild convinced me to RGB the thing.


If I ever want, I can default to solid red, but now I have bluetooth and physical remote control of the lighting. I tried to load the app on my head unit, but because the Honda OEM head unit uses an olllllllld Android OS (literally from the days where Android named them after foods -- it's 4.2/ice cream sandwich), the app isn't compatible. Oh well.

Since I had to make changes to the existing setup anyways, decided to basically start "fresh" using the old setup as a template. First big change was the RGB LED strips were 12mm vs the red strip's 8mm width. That was an easy enough fix, take the original file, modify it to accommodate the wider strip. Easy peasy. Additionally, since they were RGB strips and have a bunch of different patterns, decided to go with 2 segments (100mm length) vs the old 1 segment (50mm length). Also easy peasy. What I ended up with was this:

The front driver, shifted down a bit to accommodate the original mounting holes. I also made a backer plate for ease of install (and so I didn't have to worry about losing a washer behind the carpet). Also had to mod the mounts to accommodate solderless connectors that were quite different. That was pretty easy. Another thing I had to change in the layout was the fact that these LED strips were 3-wire (pos, neg, data) vs the old 2-wire (just pos and neg). Went on an Amazon shopping spree and got some 3-wire Deutsch connectors and went to town. Also, I didn't have a crimp splitter that would accommodate 3 wires, so I just made my own splitter by soldering some wires together and heat shrinking the crap out of it. Once I physically made everything, ended up with these

Here's the (unterminated) splitter. I snapped a pic for a buddy of mine that started to be obsessed with my wire harness making abilities after I made him some replacement harnesses for his aftermarket headlights in his '13 Si.

Bonus bench test shot.

If you look at the far top left, you can see the control box, and another backing plate I printed for it.

OH, and one more thing I changed from the original solid red design. I decided to change the material I printed the mounts out of. Previously, I printed them from carbon fiber PLA. This time, I opted for carbon fiber PETG. It's a more ductile material than PLA that's also heat resistant (literally have to print it, at a minimum, 40C hotter than the PLA), and it's more resistant to chemicals, weather, water, etc. I printed my bike's tail tidy out of the same stuff (though, different manufacturer), and the tail tidy has held up quite well.

gif of it in action


May 10, 2025 - TRAGEDY STRIKES (but is made better) Part installed: Transmission Motor Mount (Honda P/N 50850-TBA-A81)
Late-ish one night, your boy got hungry and I was craving Hawaiian food, and they just opened some Zippy's restaurants here in Vegas (IYKYK). The two they opened also just so happen to be quite close to where I live. I placed an online order and waited a bit before I headed out. Started heading to the one closer to my house, then realized I placed my order at the other one. No big deal, since it's only a couple extra miles, but in the opposite direction. This small detail is quite important. I turn around and start heading to the one that's kinda right off the freeway. Now, the reason why that small detail is important is because the fastest way to get to that Zippy's is to get on the 215 freeway, take the exit before the shopping center, and take the frontage road (Roy Horn Way) to get to the shopping center. Roy Horn Way is terribly lit -- another important detail. Anywho, I'm cruising down the frontage road at like 60 and get into the turn lane. As I turned into the turn lane, my headlights hit a big, bright object in the road, and it was probably 25 feet in front of me. I only had enough time to think, "oh damn. Pleeeeeaassseeee be a plastic bag." Spoiler alert, it wasn't a plastic bag. It was a big *** rock. The rock was small enough to clear my bumper, but just big enough to grab Miyuki's underbelly pan/splash guard. It was also about a foot and a half wide. I hit that sucker at about 45, and it jostled the ever-living **** out of the car. After I got over the initial shock, I limped it into the parking lot while the sounds of the underbelly pan and the rock dragging was going on, and the car itself wasn't making the nicest sounds.

In the parking lot, I jacked up the car to assess the damage. Saw the underbelly pan hanging on by a thread, so I removed it and tossed it in the cargo area. The only sign of the rock was probably a softball sized remnant on the ground, so I'm willing to bet it was sandstone. In any case, I put all the tools away and tried to drive her. She was still making nasty, nasty noises, so I limped it to the restaurant, picked up my food, then limped her home taking side streets at like a max of 15mph. I opened my KTuner app to monitor temps the entire time, and all the temps stayed good. She was just accelerating like absolute *****, huge throttle response lag, and a nasty clunk noise every time I hit the gas. Got her home without any other issues, and got her in the drive way and up onto my Rhino Ramps. Went inside to put my food on the table, then went back out and I was in full inspection mode.

I looked at my drive path into the driveway to see if there was any sign of fluid leaks, and saw nothing. I then crawled under the car and saw this: just a bunch of scrapes and shallow gouges in the tranny oil pan. The plastic also saw better days. Also zero signs of fluid leakage.


Looked around as best as I could at 11pm, and couldn't find anything. I started the car up, and she was still making nasty, nasty sounds, and I couldn't figure it out. On a whim, I popped the hood, looked around, and couldn't really see much. I was also fairly unfamiliar with anything under the hood with the exception of strut mounts and the intake area. I took a step back and scratched my head while staring at my engine bay, then I saw it. I literally said out loud, "is... is my fckin engine leaning...? It looks like it's dipping down toward the driver side.." I took my flashlight and furiously searched for the engine mount, just to see if it ripped out the frame, and that's when I saw the issue. just a straight up sheared face from the aluminum mount. Thing is like 2" x 1.5", and straight up sheared.


I grabbed my hydraulic jack, put a piece of wood between the jack and the tranny pan, and jacked up the engine to minimize stress on the other mounts. Went inside, found the part, and overnighted it, praying to the car gods that the mount was the only real issue. As far as I was concerned, the underbelly pan was cosmetic. Here's a pic of the underbelly pan removed:


Fast forward 2 days, and the mount comes in, and I start digging in. I thought it was going to be an hour job, but I've never done it before, so I took my time, made sure I did everything right. There were also a lot of tight areas, so I needed to remove a lot more than I anticipated to get the mount pieces out. Another part of the install was the fact that I had to have my roomie literally grab the engine and pull it toward the front, just to get everything to line up. A third part that took a while was the fact that I mangled the top threads for one of the mount holes into the frame, so I had to hit my buddy up and see if his shop had an M14x1.5 tap I could borrow so I could get the last bolt in place. Good thing I had the bike. In any case, I cleaned up the threads, got all of the bolts to bite and be properly torqued and put everything back together and crossed all of my fingers and toes. Started her up, took a test drive around the block, and it was literally like nothing had happened. Zero steering/suspension issues, zero acceleration issues, zero engine issues. Just a missing underbelly pan at this point, and I took a chance and ordered a $50 off amazon (that fit perfectly, by the way). I cleaned up my work area, tossed the broken mount in my car, and headed to my buddy's shop to return the tap and show him the mount. Here's a closeup of the sheared face of said mount:


Got to my buddy's shop (ok, he's the manager of this shop, but same same), and the dude at the front desk immediately said, "bro, what.. the.. hell.. did.. you.. do...?" Told him the story and his jaw dropped. Other employees came up while I was waiting for my buddy, told them the story, and every single dude was saying how extremely lucky I was. My buddy comes into the lobby and the mount sitting on the counter stops him in his tracks. He tells me to pull it into one of the bays so he could put it on a lift and do a quick courtesy check. He saw the same thing I saw, just the scratches and shallow gouges on the tranny oil pan, and his ghasts were absolutely flabbered at the minimal amount of damage this big *** rock did.
__________________________________________________ _
To be continued...

 
Rep Power: 511

Not a huge update today, but I needed some consistency. I upgraded my 270mm convex broadway mirror to a 300mm blue convex broadway mirror to match my Suma Performance side mirrors. Now everything that reflects to my seat has the same hue, and I have a slightly wider, albeit noticeable, field of view. lol. Only downside is the circa 2004 Burger King Chewbacca I had chilling on top of the old one doesn't sit the same way anymore, so I had to wedge him in between the mirror and the windshield in a sorta sitting position. I'll have to figure out how to secure him down a bit better. Chewie's been my co-pilot since 2004, ain't no way in hell I'm leaving him behind.

 
Rep Power: 511

Josh is impulse buying again... And Miyuki got herself a package in the mail today

That's right, more genuine Mugen-ness. Truth be told, if their FK7 aero wasn't so damn ugly, I'd probably consider it. Even their FK7 exhaust is fugly. However, some of the smaller stuff I like, so I grabbed some door handle bowl protectors. They come in packs of 2, so that's why there are 2 packages (bc 4 doors). Came from Japan (through Amazon tho), but not quite overnight. It was like.. 5 days. I remember seeing scratches out the wazoo on Azumi (for the uninitiated, Azumi was my 2002 ex coupe) in that door handle bowl, and I felt the itch to add more. lol
Here's an installed pic

I'm thinking about getting some of those door handle overlay things since my passenger side door handles have taken quite the beating and have nice little gouges in them from people's doors, kids, etc.

 
Rep Power: 511

Don't ask me why, but I decided to grab me a capless fuel door cover today. I don't run the risk of the fuel door freezing shut, but when it rains here, it comes down. Lots of flash flooding this year. Why not protect the fuel system for any water ingress, and for a <$10 price tag (okay, $15 shipped, but whatever). Honda P/N 17666-TGG-A01 (allegedly only fits the hatch), for those interested

Install is easy as hell. 2 little clips fit in the fuel door in some pre-existing holes.

And how it looks installed.

Now to find a sticker that says "91 octane or higher required) for her. lol

 
Rep Power: 223

Did not know that existed. I wonder why they put it on the Fit and not the Civic?

 
Rep Power: 221

That should be on every car that has the capless system, I don't trust it for the long term. I'd rather replace a $20 gas cap

 
Rep Power: 511

Haven't been able to do anything in a while, but there were a couple trim pieces on the exterior lower corners of the windshield that have seen better days. The super flexible plastic rubber whatever they used is kinda ***** and got really brittle to the point of breaking. Had to replace both sides. I did one on the 17th and one just now. Figured one post per side would've been overkill. lol

Don't mind the dirty *** car. Severe windstorm kicked a bunch of crap in the air and been getting nothing but dustier lately. You guys might've heard the fallout from said windstorm with the cancellation of day 1 of the When We Were Young Festival

 
Rep Power: 223

I'm surprised they were that brittle after just 4 years.

 
Rep Power: 511

Yeah, it's been a while since I updated anything. There are a could of updates I'll have to add retroactively, but today, she got dropped off at a shop. Hol up, hol up, it's not what you think, since y'all should know by now, I like to do all my own maintenance, installs, and repairs. 27WON makes a bunch of cool ish for the 10th and 11th gen civics (and accords) and they're local to Vegas. Turns out, they needed a 10thgen 1.5T for testing/test fitting purposes (again. This is the 2nd time Miyuki is visiting her friends over at 27WON. I'll explain with another update since that's one of the big missing updates). That's about all I can say right now since this product they're working on is in the super early stages of development.

 
Rep Power: 0

Ohhh, providing a test car for a company has been something I've always wanted to do. That's cool. Cant wait to see the updates!

 
Rep Power: 511

I super lucked out when they decided to move from Washington to Vegas.

Not to get anyone's hopes up, I was told that, "hell, this might not even make it to production." Was funny, when we were waiting for my ride to show up to the shop, he asked what my long-term plans for my car were. I told him I was being super picky with my mods this time around compared to my EM2, but I wasn't going to get rid of it any time soon. I might be reading into this more than I should, but his eyes lit up and he said, "Oh good!" in a "if we need a 1.5T CVT for testing/fitting purposes, Josh is our guy" sort of subtext. I will say this however. One of the updates that I've been dragging my feet on, they posted publicly on Reddit and CivicX, and I was the test car for that. TL;DR version: there were reports of their intake box rubbing up against a CVT sensor, so they needed to research that fitment, and I volunteered as tribute. While I didn't come out with a free intake, I did end up buying one of their intakes, they installed, and I got some free swag out of it. Fast forward to last week, they texted me directly instead of asking for volunteers publicly.

 
Rep Power: 511

Alright, I got Miyuki back. No real update, didn't drive home with a prototype. What I was told when I picked her up, "man, we're still so early in this."

 
Rep Power: 221

Patience young grasshopper

 
Rep Power: 511

So.. Small update. One thing I failed to mention is that they had to replace the high pressure fuel pump because something broke. They were super embarrassed because this is the first time they failed to meet a "deadline" (despite me saying it was 100% okay) and a spring broke. Unfortunately, they don't sell the spring by itself, so they had to replace the whole thing, and the delay was them waiting on the dealership getting the part in. No harm, no foul. I have an open line of communication with them in case anything went wrong. Another thing I failed to mention is they first offered me a loaner car, but I declined because I had bike. Well, rain was in the forecast (I'm still a beginner rider, mind you), and they let me know about the delay and doubled down on the loaner car. I graciously accepted. The cool *** part is what they loaned me. They gave me a loaner car in the form of their Honda Time Attack Challenge 11th gen Si putting down 360 ft-lb torque. Yeah, she pulled like a ****. I only know it's putting down 360 because I asked if it was a stage 2 clutch because it was stiff as hell, and if it actually needed it. He lets me know it's a stage 3 then casually mentions, "well, it is putting down 360 to the wheels." Jaw just absolutely dropped. Anyways, I get Miyuki back, everything was hunky dory, and I just went on with life. It's really cool that they hit me up for test fitment stuff, and I'm happy to help. That just my nature.

Fast forward to November 30, I get another text message from the dude (yeah, I'm leaving his name out on purpose), started off with small talk, asking how my holiday was. Cool beans, right? A bit of small talk about each others' holidays, and he asks if he can borrow Miyuki again. Didn't disclose any deets, but that they'd need it for a few days, and they can loan me the Si again. Sunday night, I drop Miyuki off at the shop and just ask, "more fuel stuff?" He confirms, we trade cars, and I drive home with the same HTAC Si build they let me borrow before. The target day was supposed to be tomorrow to trade back, but I get a text at like.. noon saying everything was good to go. It was supposed to be a long day working, so I ask him to push the trade back to tomorrow, but I managed to escape work duties and let him know I'd be at the shop at about 1630. I get to the shop, walk into the office, and he greets me right away and says, "hey, let me give you a quick summary of what's up," as he walks with me to the car. Tells me they left a (prototype?) part in the car, but I wouldn't be able to see it (I'm assuming it's internal to the HPFP). He just asks that I keep an eye on my fuel economy, saying I shouldn't see anything different since it's not tuned for the extra fuel. I tell him I can do that and keep an eye on my fuel trims and AFRs, maybe run some datalogs for him. His eyes light up and then he remembers I'm tuned, asks me about the off the shelf tune, and I could see the gears turning in his head. Before we parted ways, tells me to keep an eye on my mileage and would like to see the car again in a couple thousand miles. I made note of my 74523 miles on the clock before I start her up. Drove home with zero issues. fuel trims and AFRs were sitting happy. This is kinda exciting stuff. lol

 
Rep Power: 221

Woohoo!

 
Rep Power: 366

350 is exactly what people say is the maximum a human driver can handle in the streets, they really do know what they doing
I have a stage 2 clutch from when I did not know the OE clutch would be enough... wonder if stage 3 is even worse...

 
Rep Power: 125

Except for me, but I'm basically a machine anyway

 
Rep Power: 511

March 16, 2024
Sheesh it's been far too long since I did anything to Miyuki, but here we are. Truth be told, work and life has been kinda crazy, and this kinda came about out of necessity. So, as many of us know, the paint on 10thgens sucks. For some reason, on my driver's side only, the paint on the mirror cap and door handles has been cracking. I decided to do something about it, so I took off the mirror caps, sand down the ***** paint, and vinyl wrap it with some glossy carbon fiber (TinyBot 5k glossy carbon fiber) stuff I had laying around.
Freshly wrapped:


And installed:





You see some orange peel, but these pics don't do the pattern justice. It's pretty damn good, especially for vinyl.

May 2, 2024
Tragedy struck on April 27th. One thing I didn't mention about the OEM mirror caps is they were a bitch to take off. Some of the clips broke when I was taking them off, but there were still enough clips to hold them on. That was, until they didn't hold them on. Was dropping girl child (I'll address this in a bit) off at a church youth group about 30 minutes away from the house, and the driver's side mirror cap decided to jettison itself into traffic. As we were waiting for the church group to open the doors, I started window shopping new mirror caps with the intention of buying that day. Weighed my options: $120 + shipping for OEM painted mirror caps or $180 shipped for real carbon fiber replacements? Girl child agreed that carbon fiber is where it was at, and so I ordered them from xgenauto, since they were the only ones with full replacements in stock. I would have ordered the Mugen style ones for an extra $20, but those were out of stock, so I settles with the traditional twill pattern. I also ordered a cheapo one off amazon so the mirror components were still somewhat protected. That one was actually pretty good quality and fitment. They came in today, and after about 15 minutes, they were installed. Boy, they were a pain in the *** to install, but that gives me a warm fuzzy that these won't yeet themselves into oblivion.



So, the girl child thing, for those of you that are interested in my personal life. I think Sandro is the only one that knows me well enough to know that one of my ex's is still one of my best friends, and I live with her and her husband, brother in law, and kids. Yes, plural kids. They have 2 between them (boy and girl), and her husband has 5 kids (1 boy, 4 girls) from a previous marriage, and they spend half the week at our house. Whhaaaalllleeeee... one of the girls, the 13 year old, has had an affinity for me since she was 7, and we've always had a good relationship. In the last 8 months, she's grown to be like a daughter to me, and when I told her that while she was riding backpack one day (she's my perpetual backpack, and yes, she's fully geared up), she replied with, "I'm glad you said that, because I tell everyone you're my actual dad. Either that, or I say you're my uncle, but that you might as well be my real dad." As you can tell, her and her father don't have the best relationship. The collective step-kids' relationship with their bio-mom isn't the best, either, but I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole with you guys. That's a whoooolllleeee *** situation. Anyways, I digress. 13 year old girl child is basically my daughter, and my ex acknowledges the fact that I'm essentially that girl's father (I'm not going to get into the sitch with her and her hubby either. lol)
She hates showing her face in pics, but here's a cool candid shot I took of her one day

 
Rep Power: 223

Get her into cars so you'll have someone to help!

 
Rep Power: 511

Oh, she already is. She's been my assistant mechanic for at least 4 years now. When I told her I was planning on re-doing the vinyl on my hood, she damn near begged me to let her help

 
Rep Power: 223

I've been trying to get my 2 year old daughter into cars in general. She loves getting in my car and "driving" (actually just messes up every ****, button, vent, etc.).

 
Rep Power: 511

Maaaaan it's been way too long. Seriously, May...? I either need my job to ease tf up or I need to find a new job that pays the same but doesn't overwork me.

Today's installment isn't so much something new, but an upgrade to an existing mod. Back in 2019, I added front footwell lighting using some LED strips I had laying around for another project. I superglued some acrylic chunks (strips, really, from yet another project I was working on) to each other to mount the strips to, then mounted said acrylic chunks with the LEDs to something in the car. Well, if you know anything about superglue/CA glue and acrylic, then you know that, while it technically works, it's kind of a shitty solution. That said, the front passenger side, I had to glue up a T shape to mount it all. Years later, because of how much CA glue and acrylic sucks, the passenger side came apart and was kinda swinging there. I put it off because work was crazy and I didn't really have the time to come up with a better fix.

Fast forward to 2025. Daughter has been giving me **** for the dangling LED strip, saying I needed to replace it (though, she mentioned I should RGB it). Well, to keep my mind off of a life thing that's had me in my head, I started tinkering and acquiring things to upgrade it all. The strips I used before were just 3528 SMD LEDs soldered onto a flexible strip, and it was 3 LEDs per 50mm section. Because technology gets cheaper and better over time, my googling and amazon searching showed me that there were FCOB LED strips out there that were brighter and the same price as what I paid for the SMD LED strips back in 2019. Actual pic from the amazon listing (FCOB on the left, the ones I had were similar to the right):


p.s. I won't link anything from amazon because the forum auto-links them and makes a big preview thing that makes the post kinda messy. If you're interested in what I used, DM me and I'll shoot you links.

ANYWAYS, yeah, more even light distribution and just as easy to use (if not easier). Additionally, I now have a 3D printer, and am able to make mounts instead of jerry rigging some crap together, so that's just what I did. I did model it all after the existing jerry rigging mounts I had, but soooo much more of a sophisticated solution. Here are the mounts I designed (whoever wants and can, I can send you the STL files for these):

First row (left to right): driver mount, passenger mount, passenger mount with passthrough connector capability (designed this when I decided I wanted to add rear footwell lighting to mount under the front seats). These were all designed to mount vertically
Second row: rear driver side, rear passenger side. These were designed to mount to the bottom of the seats and fire downward (ish.. more explanation later). Sure, I designed them to accommodate an M6 screw/bolt, but really, I'm zip tying these bitches in place.
The driver side is set to mount the LEDs 90 degrees to the mount itself (straight backward). The passenger side, I designed it to angle the LED strip about 25-degrees downward (due to mounting position). The rears are both designed to aim the LED strips about 15-degrees toward the back instead of firing straight downward. The clear bits are solderless LED strip connectors, since I wanted these to be removable if needed. I used existing wiring that I had from the previous install, and they're taking power from a fusetap. Don't ask me what fuse I used because I don't remember at the moment.

I printed these out of high temp carbon fiber PLA, same stuff my chewbacca seat is printed with, so I know they'll hold up to the heat.

The next step was to figure out how to wire it all up. As I've mentioned before, I'm a fancy bitch, and I didn't just want to connect wires to the thing and call it a day. I wanted more versatility in case I do want to listen to my feral girlchild and get some RGB lights (of course, I'd get a module to allow for RF and bluetooth control. They're really not that expensive (like $15-25). One I'm looking at is literally $23, has bluetooth app control capability and an RF remote, and the box itself is only 2.25" x 2.25 x 0.8". I'd just have to mod the mounts to accept 10mm LED strips instead of 8mm. Whoop-de-do. Anyways, I'm getting off topic.
So yeah, I used about 8 feet of 18AWG wire, 3 pairs of deutsch connectors, and 6 total solderless connectors along with some braided sleeving and heat shrink I already had and made some pretty badass harnesses where each light module (except for the front driver and one side of the front passenger) could be disconnected. I also pulled my center console (first time doing that in this car) so I could route wiring under the center console and under the carpet for a clean install. Anywhoozles, enough talk, more show.

First, a reminder of what the front's used to look like:


and what she looks like now. Keep in mind that the street lights are shining into my front windshield and they're still this bright. Also, I'm fully aware that the rear driver is off centered by a few inches. It annoys me, but not enough to fix it. It's such a pain to work under there. Another thing, yes, I know I have a massive divot in my driver side floor mat. It's literally where my heel sits. Yeah, it's kind of annoying. I really don't feel like spending $200 on floormats though.



Yes, they're significantly brighter than before, but they're still not distractingly so. It borders distractingly bright, but easy enough to tune out. If I care enough, I might add a dimmer in there (or just up and get that control box which has a dimmer function.

 
Rep Power: 221

Nicely done dude

 
Rep Power: 511

Alright.. Feral girlchild convinced me to RGB the thing.


If I ever want, I can default to solid red, but now I have bluetooth and physical remote control of the lighting. I tried to load the app on my head unit, but because the Honda OEM head unit uses an olllllllld Android OS (literally from the days where Android named them after foods -- it's 4.2/ice cream sandwich), the app isn't compatible. Oh well.

Since I had to make changes to the existing setup anyways, decided to basically start "fresh" using the old setup as a template. First big change was the RGB LED strips were 12mm vs the red strip's 8mm width. That was an easy enough fix, take the original file, modify it to accommodate the wider strip. Easy peasy. Additionally, since they were RGB strips and have a bunch of different patterns, decided to go with 2 segments (100mm length) vs the old 1 segment (50mm length). Also easy peasy. What I ended up with was this:

The front driver, shifted down a bit to accommodate the original mounting holes. I also made a backer plate for ease of install (and so I didn't have to worry about losing a washer behind the carpet). Also had to mod the mounts to accommodate solderless connectors that were quite different. That was pretty easy. Another thing I had to change in the layout was the fact that these LED strips were 3-wire (pos, neg, data) vs the old 2-wire (just pos and neg). Went on an Amazon shopping spree and got some 3-wire Deutsch connectors and went to town. Also, I didn't have a crimp splitter that would accommodate 3 wires, so I just made my own splitter by soldering some wires together and heat shrinking the crap out of it. Once I physically made everything, ended up with these

Here's the (unterminated) splitter. I snapped a pic for a buddy of mine that started to be obsessed with my wire harness making abilities after I made him some replacement harnesses for his aftermarket headlights in his '13 Si.

Bonus bench test shot.

If you look at the far top left, you can see the control box, and another backing plate I printed for it.

OH, and one more thing I changed from the original solid red design. I decided to change the material I printed the mounts out of. Previously, I printed them from carbon fiber PLA. This time, I opted for carbon fiber PETG. It's a more ductile material than PLA that's also heat resistant (literally have to print it, at a minimum, 40C hotter than the PLA), and it's more resistant to chemicals, weather, water, etc. I printed my bike's tail tidy out of the same stuff (though, different manufacturer), and the tail tidy has held up quite well.

Edit: gif of it in action

 
Rep Power: 511

So.. I was looking through my old Part 1 post to see what style phone mount I was using (because I want to get a longer arm from Ram mounts), and got a bit nostalgic about when I used to just post random things I did, then post a summary of what I did in the OG post, instead of straight copy and paste. I might start that up again.

However, I didn't do anything new. What I am going to do is post up the things I have planned (in no particular order), so when I do post up about it, y'all get to say, "hey, he actually did it!"

1) Re-wrap the hood. The 3M 1080 I put on, jesus, like 5 years ago is starting to look like faded black plastic if I don't keep up with the Meguiar's back to black treatment. I think I'm going to go with gloss this time around as opposed to matte, since it's easier to keep clean, but it's hard as hell finding a good looking carbon fiber vinyl. I did stumble upon this from aura vinyl, so we'll see. I also have a small bit of gloss carbon from TinyBot, which looks pretty good, too. I'm also fully planning on doing the red stripe again, but not sure about the gold next time around. We'll see.
2) Another "must do" is replace my fog lights. Why, you ask? Well, one day when I was taking the bumper off for.... something... I don't remember at this time, I noticed my passenger side had a fatty hole from a rock. Fully planning on swapping them for a set from Diode Dynamics (specifically these)
3) I, very badly, need to refinish my headlights. I did them once, and the clearcoat I used was old and shitty, so they look like aged as hell headlights. I just need to find a weekend where I can go without my car for a day. Some of you know that I unofficially now have a feral girlchild (pseudo) daughter (long story, but cliff's notes: I've always been close to roomie's step daughter, over the last year and a half, our bond grew even more, so much so that she tells everyone I'm her real dad, and she's been devising ways for me to adopt her without bio parents having to sign off, and I would in a heartbeat), and my favorite parts of my week are when she and I can just go out and about without anyone else bothering us. So yeah, time is scarce to have downtime with the car.
4) If I get more disposable income (I'm allegedly getting a 25% raise, hopefully more considering how much I do, this April, so we'll see), wheels and tires are still a plan. Aodhan Aff7's in matte bronze, 18x8.5 ET35 are still my #1 choice
5) Maybe if I get some downtime to tinker, I'll start upgrading the sound system. I'd need to figure out stealthy ways and locations to mount the amps and the sub. After installing the under-seat LEDs, there is so little room under there, and I do harbor passengers quite often, so their foot room would be significantly reduced if I got an under-seat sub.

Anyways, more to come.

 
Rep Power: 511

So, sitting around this weekend and had a good, long talk with Miyuki. She brought up a good point: 1) She's having trouble seeing at night, 2) Ellie was at her mom's for the holiday weekend, 3) it's a long weekend and 4) the weather is gonna be beautiful.

That said, Miyuki went under the knife yesterday for some eye surgery.

First things first, she was having troubles with the passenger side HID bulb firing, so I ordered new ballasts. The ones I had were like.. 7 years old at this point anyways. Those were supposed to come in today, but they came in a day early. Didn't think FedEx was going to deliver on a federal holiday. I also took inventory of my high grit sandpaper collection, and replenished my supply so I had a good amount of 800-3000 grit.
At about 11, I got to work. Took off the bumper and removed the headlights so I could position them better for sanding purposes. I also wanted to troubleshoot the ballast situation (and I have like.. 10-year old ballasts on hand in case I needed to swap them out. At this point, the ballasts hadn't arrived. In any case, I took a look at the passenger ballasts, then felt a drop of water. I turned the ballast, and that sucker was literally leaking water (we had a good rain a few days ago, and that's when it stopped working). Grabbed one of the old Morimoto 3five ballasts I had, and I was mocking up the mounting position and bumper fitment with the location. Funny enough, when I was mock fitting the bumper on to make sure there was not interference (there was, because those 3five ballasts are chonky), the FedEx guy rolls up and drops off the new ballasts. I decided to put off new ballast mounting so I could take advantage of the warmer weather to help the clearcoat dry faster. That said, I got to sanding.
First thing I needed to do was to get rid of all the old, yellowing clear coat, because I previously used an old rattle can of some random clear I had. Yeah, I know. I started wet sanding with 800 grit, but realized it wasn't cutting fast enough and was wearing down pretty fast. That said, I dropped down to 440 grit, but with light pressure. After (most) of the old clearcoat was off (I didn't go too hard in the sharp corners so I didn't burn through the lens), followed up with 800, then 1000, then 1500, 2000, then finished it up with 3000 grit. After that, cleaned and dried the lens, followed up with 5-10 minutes of polishing (whatever car polish I had on had, I don't remember), then followed that up with some mother's surface prep stuff I have (it's designed to prep a surface before you use their ceramic spray coating. Once it was all clean and stuff, I taped off non-forward facing parts of the headlight, and sprayed a few good coats of clear on the lenses to protect them.

So, more on the clear coat. I learned my lesson of using some random clearcoat that I probably picked up at Home Depot years ago. I found out that Duplicolor came out with a 1K clearcoat meant for paint, and I picked up a can of it mid last year with the intention of refinishing my headlights. Well, I didn't want to go all in with it just to have it turn out like crap, so I tested it on Tifa's heel guards. I didn't like the raw aluminum look, so I painted them black, but I wanted something that would protect them. Enter the 1K clearcoat. Here's the original post of me testing it out there. They honestly turned out really good with zero post-processing, and they've held up to my heels rubbing up against them for about 3k riding miles so far.

Anyways, after both headlights sanded and clearcoated, I went to mounting the new ballasts. The design change of the XB35 2.0 ballasts (from the previous xb35 1.0) forced me to re-think my mounting strategy. The 1.0's had a metal bracket that screwed onto the backside, and I was able to bend that bracket to my needs. This time, with the 2.0's, the mounting bracket holes were cast into the ballast housing. Luckily, I had a bunch of spare metal bracketry laying around, and a few drill bits to make holes in metal. With the ballasts mounted, everything tested, and everything put back together, Miyuki's eye surgery was a success. HID light output is significantly brighter, and the cutoffs are sharp once again. This is the only pic I snapped last night. I also scoured my phone and couldn't find any "before" pictures, but trust me, they were bad. I think the imperfections you see are on the inside of the lens *shrug*

 
Rep Power: 511

Haven't done anything in a while, but I had to do some reparative maintenance. Leaving this as a place holder because I want to elaborate, but here's a pic for y'all to look at and be like, "wtf..."

Obviously, new on the left, old on the right.


Alrighty then. Take 2.

So, first and foremost, sorry for not updating. Work's been crazy and I haven't logged onto the forum in like 2 weeks.

SAUR... to elaborate on the picture above, I'll just tell the whole story.

Late-ish one night, your boy got hungry and I was craving Hawaiian food, and they just opened some Zippy's restaurants here in Vegas (IYKYK). The two they opened also just so happen to be quite close to where I live. I placed an online order and waited a bit before I headed out. Started heading to the one closer to my house, then realized I placed my order at the other one. No big deal, since it's only a couple extra miles, but in the opposite direction. This small detail is quite important. I turn around and start heading to the one that's kinda right off the freeway. Now, the reason why that small detail is important is because the fastest way to get to that Zippy's is to get on the 215 freeway, take the exit before the shopping center, and take the frontage road (Roy Horn Way) to get to the shopping center. Roy Horn Way is terribly lit -- another important detail. Anywho, I'm cruising down the frontage road at like 60 and get into the turn lane. As I turned into the turn lane, my headlights hit a big, bright object in the road, and it was probably 25 feet in front of me. I only had enough time to think, "oh damn. Pleeeeeaassseeee be a plastic bag." Spoiler alert, it wasn't a plastic bag. It was a big *** rock. The rock was small enough to clear my bumper, but just big enough to grab Miyuki's underbelly pan/splash guard. It was also about a foot and a half wide. I hit that sucker at about 45, and it jostled the ever-living **** out of the car. After I got over the initial shock, I limped it into the parking lot while the sounds of the underbelly pan and the rock dragging was going on, and the car itself wasn't making the nicest sounds.

In the parking lot, I jacked up the car to assess the damage. Saw the underbelly pan hanging on by a thread, so I removed it and tossed it in the cargo area. The only sign of the rock was probably a softball sized remnant on the ground, so I'm willing to bet it was sandstone. In any case, I put all the tools away and tried to drive her. She was still making nasty, nasty noises, so I limped it to the restaurant, picked up my food, then limped her home taking side streets at like a max of 15mph. I opened my KTuner app to monitor temps the entire time, and all the temps stayed good. She was just accelerating like absolute *****, huge throttle response lag, and a nasty clunk noise every time I hit the gas. Got her home without any other issues, and got her in the drive way and up onto my Rhino Ramps. Went inside to put my food on the table, then went back out and I was in full inspection mode.

I looked at my drive path into the driveway to see if there was any sign of fluid leaks, and saw nothing. I then crawled under the car and saw this: just a bunch of scrapes and shallow gouges in the tranny oil pan. The plastic also saw better days. Also zero signs of fluid leakage.


Looked around as best as I could at 11pm, and couldn't find anything. I started the car up, and she was still making nasty, nasty sounds, and I couldn't figure it out. On a whim, I popped the hood, looked around, and couldn't really see much. I was also fairly unfamiliar with anything under the hood with the exception of strut mounts and the intake area. I took a step back and scratched my head while staring at my engine bay, then I saw it. I literally said out loud, "is... is my fckin engine leaning...? It looks like it's dipping down toward the driver side.." I took my flashlight and furiously searched for the engine mount, just to see if it ripped out the frame, and that's when I saw the issue. just a straight up sheared face from the aluminum mount. Thing is like 2" x 1.5", and straight up sheared.


I grabbed my hydraulic jack, put a piece of wood between the jack and the tranny pan, and jacked up the engine to minimize stress on the other mounts. Went inside, found the part, and overnighted it, praying to the car gods that the mount was the only real issue. As far as I was concerned, the underbelly pan was cosmetic. Here's a pic of the underbelly pan removed:


Fast forward 2 days, and the mount comes in, and I start digging in. I thought it was going to be an hour job, but I've never done it before, so I took my time, made sure I did everything right. There were also a lot of tight areas, so I needed to remove a lot more than I anticipated to get the mount pieces out. Another part of the install was the fact that I had to have my roomie literally grab the engine and pull it toward the front, just to get everything to line up. A third part that took a while was the fact that I mangled the top threads for one of the mount holes into the frame, so I had to hit my buddy up and see if his shop had an M14x1.5 tap I could borrow so I could get the last bolt in place. Good thing I had the bike. In any case, I cleaned up the threads, got all of the bolts to bite and be properly torqued and put everything back together and crossed all of my fingers and toes. Started her up, took a test drive around the block, and it was literally like nothing had happened. Zero steering/suspension issues, zero acceleration issues, zero engine issues. Just a missing underbelly pan at this point, and I took a chance and ordered a $50 off amazon (that fit perfectly, by the way). I cleaned up my work area, tossed the broken mount in my car, and headed to my buddy's shop to return the tap and show him the mount. Here's a closeup of the sheared face of said mount:


Got to my buddy's shop (ok, he's the manager of this shop, but same same), and the dude at the front desk immediately said, "bro, what.. the.. hell.. did.. you.. do...?" Told him the story and his jaw dropped. Other employees came up while I was waiting for my buddy, told them the story, and every single dude was saying how extremely lucky I was. My buddy comes into the lobby and the mount sitting on the counter stops him in his tracks. He tells me to pull it into one of the bays so he could put it on a lift and do a quick courtesy check. He saw the same thing I saw, just the scratches and shallow gouges on the tranny oil pan, and his ghasts were absolutely flabbered at the minimal amount of damage this big *** rock did.

Welp, @chozobody that's the story. I dunno if that mount shearing was by design, but I'm sure as **** glad it happened, and my engine/tranny are seemingly fine. Been driving it for a couple weeks now without issue.

 
Rep Power: 0

Lmao what happened?! I need details, Josh!

 
Rep Power: 511

I suck and forgot to update. I'll do it tonight

On second thought, I don't feel like doing work, so I'll do it now.

edit: omfg. I had it all typed out and accidentally closed the damn tab.

 
Rep Power: 0

Talk about lucky! The proof is in the pudding when it comes to what materials get used where. The sheering is probably designed into the part to aid with crash safety. 🤷🏾

Thank you for the story. I needed something fun to read the night before my work from home Friday. I appreciate the update!