Belle Slo

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Belle Slo

By EconoBox
- Thu May 30, 2019 1:28 pm #6908937 Long story short... My brother in law bought a Del Sol with a GSR swap for a really great price. It's a miracle the car ran at all, and an even bigger one that it never caught on fire.

As I started doing all the work to repair it for my brother in law he realized he was in over his head with this project and offered me the car for a deal I couldn't pass up. I've owned every 92-95 Civic chassis but never a Del Sol... I've always kind of wanted one.

That said the list of issues with the car is massive. Don't worry I'll share them all.

Anyway my wife calls my sedan "The Beast" because its ugly, loud, and secretly really nice under the hood.

So she thought "Belle" was a great name for my new Del Sol.
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Got her home in one piece.
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Re: Belle Slo

By EconoBox
- Thu May 30, 2019 1:59 pm #6908938 I've still got my TSX project so this Del Sol isn't priority yet. It's going to get A LOT of work but nothing fancy yet, just cleaning to save it from rotting. Right now the goal is to strip it down, clean everything, and part out all the B swap parts, it's awful stance wheels, and cheap suspension parts.

In my first post I've said it's a miracle the car ran and didn't catch on fire.

Whoever owned this before should not have been allowed to touch cars...

The LIST of why it should have caught on fire and should not have even run.
Sorry I didn't take pictures of everything. It wasn't suppose to end up being my car :lol:
-battery relocated to the trunk, just sitting in the trunk
-zero gauge copper plated aluminum wire run straight to the starter, no grommets where it was run through bulkheads.
-see the pictures for how they spliced in the fuse box connection I CAN'T even explain that one
-used a side post battery terminal to attach wire to starter and the connection was melting
-one 10 gauge wire grounding the whole engine and the paint underneath the ground wire was still there on the valve cover and frame rail
-main engine ground not attached to thermostat housing, it was attached to the firewall inside of the car using a self tapping screw
-no crimps or solder on the engine harness, it was tucked by twisting and using electrical tape
-harness had a injector resistor box spliced in but was still running stock saturated 240cc injectors
-has a walbro 255 fuel pump and a pressure regulator but no fuel pressure gauge, I checked fuel pressure it was at 70psi :?:
-someone used a whiz wheel to clean the deck of the block
- uhm… they tried to remove a block guard and destroyed the cylinder liners and deck
-paper headgasket
-tap broken off in the cam cap bolt hole and they tried to grind It out
- fuel filter is just hanging loose under the intake manifold, they just bent the stock line out of sight
- I don't know how to explain the brake tuck... the car shouldn't stop
- they ran the factory clutch hardline under the oil pan and over the header and up to the slave cylinder, after about 10 minutes of running the clutch pedal would get really soft [smilie=BangHead.gif]
-The only thing they 'shaved' was the fire wall (Thank God) but their idea of shaving the holes was covering the inside with masking tape and filling the front with bondo. Smacked all of that off where you'll see the AC hole in the pictures.
-Wheels are 15x8.5 plus 17mm with a 175/50r15 tire stretched waaaaay to much
That's it for now... but as I dig in and tear down the car I'm sure there will be even more I find.


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No Heat, No AC, just a boost gauge that isn't even hooked up...
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Driver's door has a quality speaker of the correct size installed.
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Last edited by EconoBox on Thu May 30, 2019 2:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Belle Slo

By EconoBox
- Thu May 30, 2019 2:19 pm #6908939 I've started working on the car and the first thing that needed attention was the removable top.

It didn't have any of the handles to remove it. I ordered a couple from work and got the top removed. And I took out the awful cloth Integra seats and picked up a really cheap set of Del Sol seats.

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The car has been sitting at my brother in laws for almost a year, and it's a Del Sol so I'm sure the roof had been leaking even before then. The next thing that needed addressed was cleaning... I didn't take pictures but I'm in the process of removing everything but first it all had to be scrubbed down. While wearing gloves and a mask. [smilie=puke.gif]

Before of a door panel
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After the first pass of cleaning.
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I eventually got it all scrubbed down enough to start taking it apart to remove that red vinyl on everything. I pulled out everything with the red vinyl so I could start working on that when I can. Unfortunately the cargo box was missing, and all the little door on the center console panel are broken.
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Next on the interior is to get the dash and carpet pulled out to assess all the wiring, the 'shaved' firewall, and to clean the carpet.
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Re: Belle Slo

By EconoBox
- Thu May 30, 2019 2:32 pm #6908940 Next up was yanking out the drivetrain so I can part out whatever is salvageable.

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whoops left some coolant in the motor...
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and it's out
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The GSR head is already at a local machine shop who owed me a favor and is hopefully being saved. Despite them grinding at the broken tap the way they did it does look like the head wasn't totally destroyed. The block can't be saved without a serious investment in it. I'm really tempted to just throw a cheap B20 from JDM Orlando in the car just to be able to drive it. But as of right now I am still planning to part it out so we will see what happens as I get in to the rest of the wiring.

And that's the first bunch of posts for Belle Slo. I'll update more as I keep tearing her down.
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Re: Belle Slo

By teal_dx
- Mon Jun 03, 2019 12:34 pm #6908941 Wow :o
Like you said... it's a miracle that car didn't catch fire [smilie=BangHead.gif]
With all the shoddy electrical & engine work... did they at least do a half way decent job on the paint & Body work? Is the hood carbon fiber that warped or an OEM hood that they didn't take 2 minutes of time to adjust the stops to get it to sit level?
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Re: Belle Slo

By EconoBox
- Wed Jun 05, 2019 1:23 pm #6908944 teal_dx the body work is bad but from what I've seen it's all repairable. The doors are wavy and they aren't hung back on the car correctly, I won't even try to save them I'm just going to grab a set from the local you pull it. Actually none of the removable panels were really put back on well.There is a little bit of really bad body work that was done in the rear tail light pocket on the drivers side that will have to be addressed, but no rust like my sedan taillight pocket. I haven't pulled it apart to see how bad the repair really is yet I just see the taillight doesn't line up correctly. As for the hood... it is a stock sheet metal hood and it is not lined up correct and it is warped quite a bit. I'll probably replace it with a carbon hood. The hood on the Del Sol is incredibly heavy or at least compared to my sedan it feels that way.

This shell is still in much better shape than my rusted out $200 sedan. I'm going to get my TSX moving again and then I'll probably paint the Del Sol and transfer all the suspension and K parts from the sedan to it. As bad as the Del Sol is it is rust free and It's a pretty cool little chassis. You feel like you're sitting on the floor when you get in it. I'm just not going to start painting two cars at the same time I have enough TSX parts laying around that it's going to be fun putting that puzzle back together without mixing in a Del Sol.
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Re: Belle Slo

By EconoBox
- Mon Jul 29, 2019 2:19 pm #6908974 My friend decided to sell his EK to buy a 2019 Civic Si. I couldn't let him sell the EK on these brand new SBC RPF1s so I picked them up for the Del Sol!

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Re: Belle Slo

By EconoBox
- Mon Jul 29, 2019 7:22 pm #6908979
teal_dx wrote:Polished goes perfect with yellow 8) :love:


They are actually Enkie's "SBC" finish or "Super Brilliant Coating" it's almost like a black chrome. I think it suits the car really well with the yellow.
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Re: Belle Slo

By EconoBox
- Fri Aug 02, 2019 8:02 pm #6908980 My TIG welding adventures will be beginning soon. My AHP AlphaTig 201XD just showed up. I ran to my local E.S.S.I. welding supply store yesterday and grabbed all my tungsten, filler rod, Argon tank, and other supplies. And today I swung by harbor fright and picked up a cheap welding table to get started.

I'll have pics soon. Have a whole lot of learning and practicing to do. Even going with a budget welder I can really see why this isn't a hobby/skill that more people are interested in. The initial cost to get started is kind of a hard pill to swallow.
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Re: Belle Slo

By EconoBox
- Mon Aug 19, 2019 11:33 am #6908988 Been practicing for a couple hours almost every single night with the TIG welder. Slowly getting better. I need to order some more practice coupons. No one local seems to sell nice aluminum sheets or stainless and I've got more mild steel than I'll ever need from the body shop scraps at work.

Here's an 1/8 inch aluminum corner joint.
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And a 1/16 stainless butt weld.
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