Post YOUR Hatchback here
By Motul_EG
#358961 Hey guys, new around here, but I've been in the shadows picking though the forum over the years. I'm from Australia so you might have to excuse me when it comes to some of the terminology.

Anyways, this is my first civic which I picked up quite a few years ago and it's been through a bit in it's life, this is kind of a running project for me, where I'm using the car to learn how to do shit myself. In saying that, if anyone has suggestions or helpful tips, feel free to let me know. Any help is appreciated!

I picked up the car in stock condition from a blonde girl my age who seemed like she didn't abuse it too much. The blonde was pretty tidy herself... back to the car... I don't have any images in it's fully stock form but here's one of how it looked after I stuck some lowering spring in it:

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Pretty much a fully stock civic eg running a d15b7. After the springs I got a set of a 15x7 Lenso D1R's.

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Then I did the whole super lowered can't get over anything thing... purchased some shitty ebay sleeves (I don't recommend ever doing that... Although I've had quite a few wins from ebay). Along with those I got a type r replica front lip and a carbon duckbill spoiler. Oh, and a hoodbra.

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It looked alright, rode like crap.

After a few months like that and a couple of tickets for being too low, I got invited out for a track day. That made me realize how truly bad my suspension setup was, so I ended up going back to the lowered springs, and I put some proper tyres on it as well and stuck a racing seat in for good measure:

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After a few track days I ended up grabbing a set of slotted rotors and some high temp pads, along with some Federal 595's. That actually cut my lap times by about 2 seconds... I ended up doing 15 or so track days over 2 years, apart from blowing a radiator (which was replaced with an all aluminium one), the car has never skipped a beat. after about 3 years of owning it, the civic took a back seat to a new honda in my life...

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And that's where it stayed for about 2 years.. up until about 6 months ago. I've always wanted a turbo car, and I've always wanted to learn how do things myself so I said fuck it, and purchased an Ebay turbo kit. I've had a few mates who've had pretty good luck running low boost, so don't shoot me! I've been reading up and I'm from what I can see there really aren't any internal mods (pistons and rods) for the d15b7. The solution is to buy a d16 and build that from scratch, which is the plan in the long run. The d15b7 should be able to handle low boost, and the kit should hopefully bolt onto the d16 in the future...

Anyways... Turbo kit time:

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Sorry for the tiny ass image.. That's all I have. The ebay kit seems alright, the manifold is cast iron, the turbo has very little play, no forward/backward play, only side to side, and thats very minor. I've had a mate of mine who builds turbo bikes check it out (he's guiding me through this slowly) and he says it'll be fine at low boost. I can't really boost high anyways form what I hear, so that's not going to be an issue. The aim is 8 pounds. Get that working then buy a d16 and do it properly...

So after sitting in a corner for 2 years, the civic was finally getting some love. I decided to clean it up a bit and spray a rising sun under the bonnet. Cause you know, that's what all the cool kids are doing:

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Shiny!

Then I put it back in the corner and started pulling it apart:

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Please note, that when it says bolt on... THAT IS NEVER THE DAMN CASE!... I pretty much ended up replacing all the oil lines, and modifying a crap load of the piping, had to get the down pipe cut and rewelded to fit... Good fun though, some new experiences for me. I also picked up a Sard Fuel pressure regulator and a walboro 255 fuel pump. I'm still running the stock injectors, but I've had people tell me they're good up to 11psi... same with the o2 sensor. Feel free to share input on this if you have some!

While waiting on parts I decided to change it up a bit... This is about two months ago now. I've always been a fan of the old school 80's and 90's motul liveries and especially this one:

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I'm not the best vinyl wrapper in the world but I've got access to all the equipment and I've done a couple of workshop on it so I though I bought some vinyl, cut some stickers and proceeded to wrap it... This was the plan:

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And it begins:

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Took me about a week on and off to get it all done.. still have a few more stickers to go, but it's now looking kind of complete finally... Also had some new wheels arrive and picked up some coilovers for fairly cheap...brand unknown but they seem alright, we'll see how they go once the car is running. Ordered black wheels, got orange... go figure. Although they're growing on me 16x8's so a little bit bigger and wider... and had the exhaust arrive, another ebay special, probably going to get a new muffler welded on it.

Anyways, this is how it sits as of this moment, still haven't started her up. Probably won't do that until I get a hondata:

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To do list:
Install arp headstuds (have them already)
Connect downpipe to exhaust and get dump welded in as well while i'm there
Get hondata
Maybe grab some injectors
Do gaskets
Install boost guage and manual boost controller. (have these already)
Get tune.

Once I'm that far, and if it survives, I'll be looking for a clean d16. Hopefully the d15 doesn't blow till then. There's always the bike if it does though.

Well that's it for now... I'll start taking more detailed images as I update this thread, didn't really think I'd do a build thread so you'll have to excuse me for that! I'll also do up a full list of mods soon.

Thanks for reading.
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By vince72310
#358962 that livery looks really good!! reminds me of a guy out here in San Diego on his EM1 i always wanted to see this on a EG!
https://www.instagram.com/latommyla/ this is his car
By Motul_EG
#358971
vince72310 wrote:that livery looks really good!! reminds me of a guy out here in San Diego on his EM1 i always wanted to see this on a EG!
https://www.instagram.com/latommyla/ this is his car


That one looks amazing!

Plus more updates... did the fender mod today because of too much poke. Here you get a defective vehicle notice if you get pulled over with it. Also lowered it a bit more.

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By TrailerTrash
#358976 wow man this is awesome!

im excited to hear what you put down to the wheels :hehe:
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By rusty_eg3
#358978 Dude your car looks awesome and all that work you put into it really paid off in the end but I'm amazed by how the car looked when you bought it. It was extremely CLEAN and unmolested. Here in Europe, all the EGs are either built, either rusted as hell and just plain old junk cars (like mine was). You're really lucky you didn't have to spend money on rust repair. I'm looking forward to seeing more mods. Cheers!
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By iLLson
#358982 looks great!

imo, it did look better with old wheels. gives it a kanjo look lol.
keep us updated on the turbo setup too
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By teal_dx
#358998 You nailed it, looking at your original comp and the after photos. :thumb: You have great vision and it came together perfectly :woot:
By Motul_EG
#359016 Thanks guys! I was also kind of going for the Kanjo look... that's why I initially ordered black wheels but got orange.. oh well.. when I stick some fatter rubber on there it should go back to more of a kanjo look hopefully. I'm probably going to get the wheels painted later down the track though.

Started the car up for the first time in a while. Had a small leak in the oil feed like at the adapter on top of the turbo, go to tighten it a bit and I snapped the nipple off... F*ck that was annoying... Took a few days to get some new parts but finally got it running so I can move it around. Still can't hit boost. Running on the stock ECU too. Got a little video of it moving, nothing special.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hibJpHVnI-U
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By teal_dx
#359083 Submitted for Ride of the Month! :thumb: Also just noticed that this thread is missing pics of the car's previous owner :P

Do you have a list of all mods that I can out in the voting page?
By Motul_EG
#359089 Sorry! Been busy with work life...

Here's a Mod List so far:
Interior:
Stripped. 2 seater conversion / SAAS Drivers Bucket Seat / Deep Dish Wheel / Takata Harness / Boost Guage /
Stuff sitting at home waiting to be installed: Rollcage.

Exterior:
Carbon Duckbill Spoiler / Mugen Replica front lip / Motul livery scheme Wrap / Fender mod

Running Gear:
DBA Slotted rotors / EBC High temp pads / DD Coilovers / Avid 16x8 wheels / Falken rubber.

Motor:
Ebay T3 Turbo / Front Mount Intercooler / ARP Headstuds / Sard Fuel pressure Regulator / Walboro 255 fuel pump / Ebay BOV / Emusa Wastegate / MSA Boost Controller / MSA Vacuum Manifold / P28 ECU running crome (Soon to be neptune) / 3" Exhaust piping

And here's another photo.. finally in a different spot.
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Last edited by Motul_EG on Thu May 12, 2016 12:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
By Motul_EG
#359092 Nah, not tuned at the moment, I picked up the ECU last week and it already had a pretty shit basemap on it that I'm currently using to move it around (crome). Stock ecu would probably work better right now. Reason for Neptune is because my tuner already is pretty familiar with it, and there's more features than crome. I was going to go hondata, but I've been told to go neptune instead, so that's what's happening. No real major reason except making life easier for the tuner.