GR33K's 1989 Civic hatch
GR33K
Wagonist
As you may know I crashed my 1988 Civic Wagon at the track. I recently purchased a new to me 1989 Civic hatchback. I am transferring the motor and transmission, all suspension,
and brake related parts. This will be a much better platform for racing which will make me happy because I was always frustrated with trying to make the Wagon into a 'racecar'.
http://www.civicwagon.com/showthread.php?9785-GR33K-s-Wagon-Updated-3-24-56K!!!!
All stock besides coilover sleeves which were installed upside down. There appears to be no rust in the usual spots which is nice. And it's now the lowest mileage car I have ever owned!
Only 133,000 miles. haha. A week and a day later the work started. My friends Josh, Dalton and Corey came over and we pulled the engines out of both the Wagon and hatch. We touched
up the engine bay with some silver paint and reached a stopping point.
Just today I managed with the help of my lovely lady Josie to bolt the subframe in and with the steering column and then shortly after we completed the heart transplant on the hatch.
It is pretty sad to see the Wagon in this state, but I need to get over it. It's difficult though. Luckily I have the support of family and friends to help me with this process! More updates will be posted as they happen.
and brake related parts. This will be a much better platform for racing which will make me happy because I was always frustrated with trying to make the Wagon into a 'racecar'.
http://www.civicwagon.com/showthread.php?9785-GR33K-s-Wagon-Updated-3-24-56K!!!!
All stock besides coilover sleeves which were installed upside down. There appears to be no rust in the usual spots which is nice. And it's now the lowest mileage car I have ever owned!
Only 133,000 miles. haha. A week and a day later the work started. My friends Josh, Dalton and Corey came over and we pulled the engines out of both the Wagon and hatch. We touched
up the engine bay with some silver paint and reached a stopping point.
Just today I managed with the help of my lovely lady Josie to bolt the subframe in and with the steering column and then shortly after we completed the heart transplant on the hatch.
It is pretty sad to see the Wagon in this state, but I need to get over it. It's difficult though. Luckily I have the support of family and friends to help me with this process! More updates will be posted as they happen.
Comments
Glad you found a nice EF for the motor and parts swapping ..
But I can't wait to see the best swap of all ......
That front bumper & lights
Good Luck
Thanks man! The fog light swap is going to be later on because I am just trying to get her running and have a car of my own again. I just got an iPhone today, so updates will definitely be more frequent now!
I appreciate it! I got lucky a friend of mine spotted it and lucky that they decided to sell it when I really needed it. Super happy about the fact there is no rust too!
It is always a good thing to find an EF that has not been molested.
Me too! I'm so stoked to be able to get bolt on parts and have more availability to parts cars!
It's actually an 89. And I was surprised to see an EF with no rust anywhere! All I needed was a clean shell!
I am getting close to 'completion' with this thing!
Me too! I think they should actually be going on tomorrow hopefully!
I actually didn't install that garbage. Shocked the hell out of me when I saw it though. I didn't
even think it was possible to do that. All my suspension is put on mow though... correctly! haha
You know you love your car when you work on it in conditions like this!
Skip ahead a little and here we have my new to me EF hatch. I had it aligned and corner balanced at Custom Car Care. I have been going here for the
last five years and trust nobody else but them with my cars. When they put the Hatch on the scales and I hopped in the car the distribution was a near
perfect 50.4%! They said they have never seen a corner balance be so close without tweaking on it themselves. I felt pretty proud! And I was pretty
close to perfect with the Wagon too! It was at 52.8% prior to setting the corner balance. I also got some shots of the Tanabe Medalion Touring catback
exhaust I put on. I love it! So quiet, but still an aggressive tone when you get on it.
And on my lunch break I went to Chic-fil-a and saw another EF hatch and had to park next to it. I saw when he came out he was eyeing mine pretty hard! haha.
I have that exhaust on my Si (w/SiR swap) with stock exhaust manifold, always curious about the noise difference.
I won't mention the fact it's missing a pair of doors but I guess it's weight reduction @ it's best
LoL
I plastidipped the wheels black until I got tired of it. It turned out better than I thought.
When I took the front bumper off I found that it had been wrecked in the front. Luckily I had kept the front radiator support from my old blue wagon. My friend Josh and I were able to swap out the supports. Here is the carnage.
I don't have an after picture of the wagon support on the hatch, sorry. Anyways, I tried my RTi fog lights on the hatch and didn't like it. Don't worry. I put them on my RT wagon I eventually bought from Simplyhonda.
Here is the test fit before I mounted the tires.
Such a close fit before I had my brother roll my fenders for a second time.
I took my intake manifold off to get the black paint off. Looks much better now just plain silver. I also got this stuff
called Hondabrite from work. It worked really well cleaning up the bay! Here is a picture of the intake manifold, which
is stupid clean on the inside and a picture of the bay after cleaning and stripping the paint off the intake manifold. I also
took the AC harness out to get rid of clutter.
It snowed twice between now and then. Here are snow pictures.
And then I finally bought another wagon. This time it's an RT! this is the first time they met eachother. It was a very tense moment.
And lastly here are some pictures from the race events I have been doing.
This is who I do all of my race events with. He had a Miata, but a deal came up to get this and he jumped on it. I am super jealous and bummed now because I can't beat him anymore. Oh well. Just one more reason I need to graduate to a B series.
Thanks! I try to keep it as clean and original looking as possible. I have more updates coming very soon!
I did a wire tuck on my blue 2WD wagon and hated having to rip the bumper and fenders off whenever I had electrical issues. All it did was make more problems.