Engine
No engine currently in the car
Suspension
Front:
Koni Yellow "Sport" shocks
Ground Control coilovers
FFC billet aluminum top hats
Ingall's adjustable ball joint camber kit
modified generic traction bar with off-road chromoly rod ends
'04-'08 TL-S/Sport front knuckles
'94-'97 Accord EX 27.2mm front sway bar
Energy Suspension sway bar mount bushings
Energy Suspension sway bar end links
Rear:
Koni Yellow "Sport" shocks
Ground Control coilovers
Cheddas Auto billet aluminum top hats
Cheddas Auto billet rear lower control and toe arms
SPC rear upper camber arms
'94-'97 Accord rear disc knuckles
'94-'97 Accord rear crossmember
'97-'01 Prelude rear hubs/bearings
Progress 22mm rear sway bar
Brakes
Front:
'04-'08 TL-S/Sport front Brembo calipers
Power Stop drilled and slotted rotors
Power Stop ceramic pads
Goodridge stainless braided lines
Rear:
Power Stop drilled and slotted rotors
Power Stop ceramic pads
Goodridge stainless braided lines
Wheels/Tires
Kosei K1 17x7.5 +45 wheels
235/45/17 Nitto NT850 tires
Exterior
stock
Interior
dyed black carpet
Audio
Boston Acoustics 6.5" front speakers (mounted with 3/4" MDF rings)
My previous 1993 frost white EX coupe has been taken off the road for a while now and I began to feel so overwhelmed by how involved I'd gotten into it that I wondered if I would ever finish. I toyed around with the idea of getting a temporary car to start stashing parts onto with the idea of continuing the restoration of my other one. You can see how torn down it is in the other thread. It's not that others haven't had their cars torn down that far before, because many have. I just felt the need to replace every single clip, fastener or seal anytime one was disturbed. The costs mounted and that played a lot into the overwhelmed feeling.
So, my search for a more suitable replacement began. I was dead set on finding a 1993 frost white EX coupe with a 5-speed manual in great condition. I drove over four hours on two different occasions to look at prospective choices but turned both of them down. The things that Craigslist sellers feel that they don't have to disclose because the age of that car should make you assume some issues will be present is staggering. I feel that it's not unreasonable to want to know that the ignition switch is now a push button assembly that hangs by the wires draped from the engine bay around in through the door. Or that the hood is so rusted that the latch is about to not have anything to grab onto. All among other issues that were present as well. I nearly got so frustrated that I quit searching. Then I found the one. It was up in Seattle from a small dealer on Craigslist. He wanted a little more than I felt reasonable paying for it, but we got the discussion started anyway. I ultimately decided that even though I felt I was still grossly overpaying for the car, I wasn't going to find one in the same condition ever again that was also exactly what I wanted. It ticked all of the boxes. So, I gave him an uprated offer from my previous one and he accepted. I booked a flight from Houston to Seattle, took a few vacation days and flew there to pick it up.
My mom flew from where she lives to meet me at the airport because she felt like coming along for the road trip. She's a teacher and has summer off so she wasn't busy otherwise. From the Seattle airport we took the light rail as far North as we could take it and transitioned to a bus from there. We had to walk the last 200 yards or so to the dealer from the nearest bus stop, but when I got there I was not disappointed. The Pacific Northwest neatly preserved an example of my favorite CB7 combination. Given the age of the vehicle and how crappy Honda's paint jobs are, I'd say the paint shines really well. It had rear tires that desperately needed replacement, a bad rear engine mount and an obviously replaced engine. The engine code is F22A4 but it has the F22A6 intake manifold and header still. I would come to find out later that the combination of The F22A6 manifold, PT6 ECU, F22A1/4 camshaft and 85-octane Utah gasoline make a performance dog in the mountains. Otherwise, it runs great. Just commuting, that is.
Here's the route I took:
I didn't really do much in Seattle. I wanted to, but I also needed to get to Portland to stay the night. I met c91bse7 to give him a couple of things that he was needing in exchange for checking out the car for me initially. Then I continued down to Portland. I stayed the night there and got up in the morning to do some sightseeing. We checked out the Lan Su Chinese gardens and ate at the food trucks for lunch. Soon after that we headed out.
Here are some garden pictures:
We drove through Oregon and Idaho into Utah that day. We just laid the seats back and crashed at a truck stop that night. I only wanted to rest for a couple of hours and didn't feel like paying a hotel $75 for the privilege. I woke up that morning and started driving the rest of the way to Salt Lake City. Talk about a gorgeous town.
We stopped at a dinosaur museum South of Salt Lake to look around before we left. I loved dinosaurs as a kid and Utah is one of the premiere locations for finding Jurassic and Cretaceous fossils in the world. Then we drove to Albuquerque. But not before driving through some of the most gorgeous terrain the US has to offer. I was just blown away. It was one of those moments when I wished I had a little extra time and a DSLR with the ability to use it. My pictures won't do it any justice. We had an accidental detour that ended us up down on a small road that eventually took us to the bottom of a canyon carved out by the Colorado river. Talk about the coolest wrong turn ever.
We got to Albuquerque late that night and stayed at a hotel. We quickly left the next morning and made it all the way to Tyler where my parents live. It was a pretty boring drive that reminded me how flat Texas is. I got to Houston the next day and the car sat for a week. That next weekend I got it up to College Station and it sat there for another few months until I had some time to do some things with it. The registration process was a pain, but now it's all legal and back on the road! Not before a few things were fixed on it, though!
A pretty clean engine bay:
Some questionably-wired aftermarket foglights:
An inexplicably-performed precautionary measure:
I had to replace the crappy muffler shop job on this car. The previous owner had a generic stainless muffler welded to the factory exhaust. I had the full 2.25" mandrel-bent stainless system and header from the previous car so I put it on with a new catalytic converter and new gaskets. It's still a round cannon muffler, but my Megan Racing M-DT muffler will be put on soon. I chose it because it looks very similar to the dual tip muffler these cars came with.
I got the fog lights out right before I had to go back to Houston that Sunday night.
I've taken some recent pictures, but I'll update the thread with those chronologically.
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