The Dark side - CB7 trashed and tossed, Welcome the new build 'Little Wolf' my Lemons effort

[miata13B]

Hey everyone, I figured it was about time to put up my own build here at GTP. It has been a longtime since I have built a car. The itch has struck again and I figured might as well let everyone at GTP see what I have going on.


A little history of the car and how I came to possession of it. Late Summer early Fall of 2012 I was looking for another Miata. Searching through a lot of ads locally I actually found quite a few that I liked, but people in Connecticut think their cars are pristine. They didn't like my attempts to take any of the cars off their hands.


Finally one day I ran into an ad talking about a 1992 Honda Accord that needed some work to get it going. It had a turbocharged H22a sitting in the engine bay along with an extensive suspension setup. I waited on this car about a month an a half while researching as much as I could on the Accord. Mind you this is not a Civic or Integra which means the aftermarket is not overwhelmingly huge; making matters worse compared to the 94-97 Accords and beyond this is almost the red headed step child of Accords.


Non the less I went to see the guy selling the vehicle, took it for a test drive. It was very quick and handled pretty damn good for being overly lowered. The brakes were spot on along with a good lift off oversteer that would make you poop your pants if you did not know how it would handle. After the test drive the owner and myself came to an agreement for me to purchase the car. I walked away happy with my purchase and also happy for the amount I paid for the car.


I knew that there were several things wrong with it, but most things I would be able to take care of myself. It had a lot to be sorted out to make it a "reliable" car - although a non sleeved H22a engine running 8-9 psi is a ticking time bomb.


Things have gotten very busy since 2012 and I had not gotten the chance to give the car as much love as I could. Unfortunately with my soon to be wife along with snowboarding and a couple different jobs I just did not have the time or energy to put anything into the project. Finally last December my recently married Wife and I moved into our house. I was blessed with a big 2 car garage where the 'White Devil' sits along with a hopefully soon to be Chumps car that is a 2001 Kia Sephia. Even after moving in I did not get a chance to turn a wrench because it was the middle of winter and the middle of snowboarding season.


Fast forward to the end of March and beginning of April I finally got to turning wrenches on this car. With the interior already basically stripped out my first concern was the electrics of the car. I noticed a lot of shortcuts the previous owner did to get the car running which is a major no-no in my books. Thus begins my work of labor. What started off as a "I'm going to fix up the wiring harness" turned into a "while I'm at it I may as well..." project. The deeper and deeper I dug into it the more and more I realized I do not want to turn into back into a street sleeper.


Although I do not know if I am just going to make a club race car or full out time attack car out of the Accord, I do know this; I want to make something that has not been done with this era of an Accord. With that in mind I have decided that doing a Chapman on this car is the only way. The car as is sat when I purchased it weighed in at 2600 lbs. Give or take with a half full gas tank and myself sitting in it. My goal is to bring it down as much as possible with adding all the safety requirements to keep me alive in case of any major incidents that may happen once she gets out onto the track.


All that being said here is an hypothetical punch list that I have been working over in my head that needs to be accomplished on this car. I am figuring more then 200+ work hours need to be put into the car alone which does not include sending the car off for major upgrades to safety I need.


The plans are this

- Totally Strip interior and sanded down for the installation of roll cage by a sanctioned shop that does roll cages for the SCCA or the NASA.

- Seat mounts for 2 FIA approved Racing seats.

- 5 or 6 point harnesses installed by shop

- Fire extinguisher system put into place

- Fuel Cell to replaced the current Fuel tank

- Fuel system revamp and a fully custom aftermarket setup

- Engine Sleeved (tossing around high compression versus low compression for boost) both have their advantages and disadvantages, but I'm leaning towards the high compression/low boost application

- custom built wiring harness I am doing in house to fix all the fire hazards the previous owner left me with

- Rust Repair : the car has a lot of it in the floor pan I'm going to cut out the floor pan and replace it with a new one before it spreads too far.

- Cleaning up the Engine Bay and Cockpit to get rid of all the unnecessary brackets and such.

- respraying the engine bay and interior to look 'nice' not really caring for immaculate; hey Race Car you know ;-)

- Revamping the Brake system into something better; 5 Lug, Custom BBK possibly aftermarket or Honda/Acura OEM.

- Replacing the chappy Coilovers on the car with a better/simpler setup

- Making a proper vacuum system for the engine instead of the hack job the previous owner did. This includes the addition to a proper an environment friendly oil catch system that will not vent off the bad gases to the atmosphere. (Hey we all need to breath as fresh and clean air as we possibly can)

- Fix the downpipe I so gallantly flattened out but going over a speed bump.

- Install and tune a proper ECU whether it be an AEM Infinity system or go with a Hondata S300 System

- Convert over to a coil over plug system that Hondata created and supplies

- Make an aero package that does not exist for this car.

- give love to the wife for allowing this

- finally but not done have a blast once I get this car back on track and the road :-)

I know that I have not gotten everything in this list, but as more I think of an accomplish I will update. Now onto the pictures.




This is how Operation Untangled lays right now in my garage. I plan on having her up and running hopefully by the end of Summer 2016 if I am lucky. Got a lot of time, money and labor to sink into a car worth $500....

 

[miata13B]

Another day logged in the garage. It was more of a hangover day for me so not too much got accomplished.

Operation Untangled is now starting to come together. The interior wiring harness is completely out of the car now. I'm looking over the Schematics now tracing everything on paper that will be deleted. Once organized comes the tedious chore of tracking wires and depinning what does not need to be there. Once complete the wiring harness is going to sit for some time before it gets put back in the car. I will most likely be modifying the whole harness to relocate fuse boxes to new location away from the driver floor panel. The Fuse box from the engine bay will be relocated into the cabin in front of the passenger. That most likely will be where my glove box use to live.

Enough thoughts there, so with the lengthy 20 minutes it took to get the final parts removed to extract the interior harness it was time for a little clean up along with investigating how bad the floor boards were. I knew before removing the sound deadening material that the floor boards were in bad shape. This will lead to cutting and welding in the future :-). Just removing the sound deadening in the floor pan I removed about 11.8 lbs. Every little bit helps get closer to my weight goal.

Speaking of weight goal, I am a further away then I thought. The estimated base weight of the car is 2857 lbs. stock. After doing a little research on a couple of Accord forums from what other people have weighed parts, I estimate my starting loss of weight was at 239.2 lbs. Now with everything that had been removed from the car I believe there is more weight that was already removed, but I am going with the hypothetical weights someone else did and just main parts that have already been removed.

Today I started Tier 1 weight removal, aka free diet parts on the car. The while SRS system is fully removed. The rubber firewall mat, hood latch for both trunk and engine bay, remaining horn, the Heater Core, A/C components, Blower Motor have all been removed now. Using my neanderthal style of weighing objects this totaled out to 58.9 lbs.

Grand Total Weight - roughly 2558.9 lbs.
Thoughts on ways to reduce weight more. With the fuel system I am removing the OEM fuel tank and putting in a fuel cell. I am trying to figure out what size to put in. I believe the car is stock with 14.6 gallons, but that is from memory and well about that; mine is crap. I am tossing the notion of 6/8/10 gallon fuel cells. Should be good for 30 to 45 minutes track sessions seeking tenths of seconds. Anyone has thoughts do speak up :-)

Ok all that rambling aside I will post some more pics of the days events. I will also add in some interesting pictures to of the engine and transmission. This will show what a hack job was done before I took possession of the car. Of course no build thread would be complete without showing damage I did to the car. Look at the down pipe first then look at where it connects to the exhaust under the car. This one is good ;-) and probably why I had a huge power loss the last time she was on a dyno.

 

[miata13B]

Finally the interior pics. Man I have a ton of work to do to this car before it ever sees a track or street again :-/

Also included is the Transmission and Engine Tags plus the Euro Intake Manifold with an S2000 Throttle body. I had the whole intake system from Throttle body to Engine Head port matched for the best possible flow I could get :-). Now onto the dirty porn.

 

[Hayden]

I love seeing people go off the beaten track when creating a circuit car, what a cool little Accord!

This photo really put a smile on my face! The front mount Intercooler makes it look like a seriously menacing bit of kit.

Good to see you chipping away and making progress and I'm looking forward to watching this build progress. I'm especially keen to see how you go about creating an aero kit and what you come up with. Hopefully something that really shows off that 'cooler!

Keep it up mate 👍

 

[miata13B]

I love seeing people go off the beaten track when creating a circuit car, what a cool little Accord!

This photo really put a smile on my face! The front mount Intercooler makes it look like a seriously menacing bit of kit.

Good to see you chipping away and making progress and I'm looking forward to watching this build progress. I'm especially keen to see how you go about creating an aero kit and what you come up with. Hopefully something that really shows off that 'cooler!

Keep it up mate 👍

Thanks mate :-). Originally when looking for a car I had my mind set on rebuilding the '93 Miata I lost... it was funny how life put this car in front of me. Even more I pulled the trigger on it with no real plans laid out.

It is extremely funny how the CB series of Accords are still one of the most stolen cars yet only have an aftermarket for appearance. It blows my mind. I was talking to my better half and told her that I was amazed that my hypothetical 200 hours of work is now down to about 176 hours. Even looking at the car now after taking out the rice C pillar bar I realized I am a lot more closer then I thought I was. It is still going to be a long journey with the 'White Devil' which was named by the previous owner. I came to the realization that once she hits the track again I am going to try to reach out to her previous owner. It only seems fair to let him drive her on a track which he never had the opportunity to do.

Also along with that pic, that was the day she got towed over to the new house that my better half and myself reside at. The guy that towed the car over to my place was a huge Mustang fanatic. Had a great conversation with him. The kicker was this. He was the guy that towed the totaled Ferrari Enzo that was in an accident from a dealer that is here in my town. I'll put a link of it up. Anyways, he showed me a bunch of pics of it. We had a great laugh over it but I feel for the ex worker for the company.

http://m.stamfordadvocate.com/polic...ashes-Ferrari-on-I-95-in-Stamford-5573009.php

http://m.nydailynews.com/autos/gonn...mashed-mechanic-connecticut-article-1.1843311

In that picture I work about 1/4 mile to the right of the buildings.

I plan on keeping this updated a bit. My only times of working on the 'White Devil' are weekends. With a $0 budget this build will be extremely interesting. We will find out how resourceful I can get.

For the Aero package, I will be starting with the rear wing. The reason for this is because the previous owner took out the rear antenna and let it rust over. Pic will be included; so now I want to cut out where it is at and have the anchoring points to the frame, having the wings base come out of what I cut. Here is the pic.

 

[miata13B]

Well another question has come up that I have been thinking about. I believe I will be welding the rear doors to the chassis. I would like some feedback on doing that. Any informative posts I would appreciate :-).

 

[Hayden]

Is it going to have a roll cage and with your intentions of road use, is it legal?

 

[miata13B]

Is it going to have a roll cage and with your intentions of road use, is it legal?

A roll cage will be installed on the car. It is all about finding a good shop close enough to me to tow the shell there and back once complete. I am going to search with both the SCCA and NASA sites to see who is certified to do it in my area.

Being road legal is going to be a stretch. I would loved to Drive it to tracks, but having a cage in there makes me nervous with the way people drive around these parts. Also have to look into Connecticut road laws to see what is legal. The car is old enough to get an antique plate on it which nullifies the need for emissions which is good because the car will not pass now due to the removal of the SRS system.

 

[Hayden]

I definitely can't blame you for being nervous. A roll cage may stop you becoming a pancake on track, but in a side impact with no helmet it may as well be a baseball bat.

Either way I'd hold off on welding the doors until you've decided on the cage. It'd be easier for them to install with opening back doors and save them crawling through the car. I think its a good idea, I just wouldn't rush into it.

 

[coryclifford]

Roll cages (and harnesses) are not legal. Not DOT approved and for good reasons.

 

[Ronald6]

If roll cages are illegal how do stage rally cars drive on public roads to go from one stage to the next?

Answer: roll cages are street legal if done correctly.

 

[miata13B]

I definitely can't blame you for being nervous. A roll cage may stop you becoming a pancake on track, but in a side impact with no helmet it may as well be a baseball bat.

Either way I'd hold off on welding the doors until you've decided on the cage. It'd be easier for them to install with opening back doors and save them crawling through the car. I think its a good idea, I just wouldn't rush into it.

Yeah, the car is going to be sent off to the shop basically stripped of everything before I start putting her back together. It is still all about pulling the trigger on the cage first, which is going to take some time and money I need to put together.

Roll cages (and harnesses) are not legal. Not DOT approved and for good reasons.

Also not my first rodeo with a caged car. In my youth I was stupid enough to drive around with one to and from track. I look back at that and realize how lucky I was that I never had an incident.


On another note, no pics but the Engine Harness has finally been removed today. Very happy this project started out with finding 1 wire clipped under the dash which turned into a full makeover of the car. There has been a hack job done to it. Tossing around the notion of purchasing a rywire milspec harness up with a quick disconnect. That will happen after I attempt to rewire the whole car myself first.

I keep remembering it is not about the outcome but the journey getting there. It is nice to feel like taking a Lego fortress apart and slowly piecing back to something better then it started off as :-)

 

[miata13B]

If roll cages are illegal how do stage rally cars drive on public roads to go from one stage to the next?

Answer: roll cages are street legal if done correctly.

We can discuss different countries and their laws all day. Although I do agree with this argument this is not the place to do it.

Ultimately, since technology has gotten better and it is easier to share things I felt robbed over the fact I could not share my old 93 miata with everyone here back in the day. I wanted to share something and this project felt right. :-)

 

[miata13B]

Not a huge update, but an update non the less. Ended up getting the engine bay ready for the engine removal over the past week. Today finally dealt with the last issue. The oil pan had a rounded off oil plug. Had to make a trip to the auto parts store to get an extractor set. Should already have had a set but unfortunately I did not have the right sized socket (14mm). These things work like a charm, took all of 2 minutes to tap it on and remove the oil plug.

Now the engine is fully drained of oil and coolant. I have released the fuel pressure along in the process which had my garage stinking of gas vapor for a little time. Good thing there is an exhaust fan installed in there.

Also got the soon to be lemons racing KIA out of the garage to give me more room to organize and work with. I do not think they will ever make garages big enough for me and 1 car .

The next steps are first removal of the gas tank and all gas lines. Then remove the engine which I was hoping to accomplish this weekend, but that will have to wait for a week or two right now.

Obviously with any makeover on a car our best friend 'Medulla Badidea' has reared it's ugly head again. This is not a direct swap but taking a F23a's block and swapping the H22a's head onto it has been a thought in my head. It will take a little machining and some Honda parts bin search for proper gaskets and such. It is an incremental displacement increase but it saves me the hassle of sending out the H22a block to get sleeved. Depending on the F-series motor most in the family can take quite a bit of punishment from boost compared to the H - series family which normally cap out about 8 psi which is what I have been running. The H is literally a ticking time bomb it could last another 100k miles or another 2 miles. The ring lands which are the weak point of the engine when dealing with boost eventually will give.

The huge problem with Medulla Badidea is that all of a sudden turning from boost to NA comes into play. I could grab a different crank from another motor from Honda, change the rods up and then add a K-series piston to the engine then all of a sudden have a Frankenstein NA engine pumping out 250 whp which is a drop from my boosted motor, but will leave me a little more secure with an engine that might not pop because of that great boost addiction one gets. Like I said it is just Medulla Badidea.

A recap the car is almost fully stripped of everything at this point minus the engine and fuel system. She is almost ready to send out to a shop to install the cage. It is time to start putting together some funds for that cage.

Back to the original thought of this post before that tangent started, here is a pic of the rounded oil plug.

 

[Korza]

F23A block with a F22A head + turbo would be a good recipe for power.

Also, I expect you to paint it in the full Castrol Accord livery.

 

[miata13B]

F23A block with a F22A head + turbo would be a good recipe for power.

Also, I expect you to paint it in the full Castrol Accord livery.

That is correct, the SOHC head from the F22a does flow a lot better then the DOHC head of the F23a. That would be around 9.3:1 compression ratio which you could boost the snot out of that engine.

I know a few guys that have done this setup and pushing out tons of power. It is definitely up on the drawing board. It is all the matter of sticking to one and pulling the trigger.

As for the Paint, although this team never ran an Accord, they have probably the best win record for Honda since the early to mid 90's. I am just drawn to their paint scheme as simplistic as it is.

Spoiler

 

[coryclifford]

Those guys kicked ass.

 

[miata13B]

Well rolled into some very bad news today with the car. I finally got it up to look at the under carriage of the car. Found both sides of the frame rails dented really bad up into the floor pans pretty bad. This was the one thing I worried about on this car. I am not sure what to do right now. This is something that I do not have any experience with or ability to fix. Got a lot of hard decisions to make right now about the car...

It is hard to see in the pic but both sides at the same spot have a big dent upwards about 2 inches from the rest of the frame rail.

 

[CyborgGT]

Sick build. I've been hanging around a CB7 forum for something like six years now and can't remember hearing of one made into a serious track car. A handful of big turbo builds or show cars (as is the trend these days), but... yeah, it's no Civic.

I love what you're doing with yours, good luck with it!

 

[CyborgGT]

Being a longtime CB7 owner, I thought I'd throw up some sites that cater to the chassis should you need parts. If you haven't already found these...

TASauto - The Accord Store - all gens. OEM parts, they've got a rotor-over-hub conversion kit and some other misc. custom pieces.

Explicit Speed Performance - solid, steel chassis bars and engine mounts for most Hondas. At ESP the CB is treated just as well as any other chassis. They're on a bit of a hiatus though, waiting for demand from customers to pick back up. I hope they come back by the time I'm ready to get my car, I want their strut tower bars (they make a friggin' four-point for the rear! Takes up too much space for my taste, but damn!), traction bar, and lower rear brace (many argue this part is pointless because ours is so much stiffer than Civics/Integras from the factory...)

A guy on CB7Tuner.com got Innovative's Prelude traction bar and says it's a straight bolt-on to the CB.

Fat Four Customs - mostly crap ricer parts, but they've got a nice caliper bracket for a front upgrade to '05 Acura RL calipers. I recently bought their billet aluminum rear lower control arms and toe links... I don't have a CB at the moment, but I'm pretty sure they're heavier than stock! If you want these parts, you're probably better off looking into F2Autolife and Megan Racing even though I wouldn't trust suspension parts from either of them for track use - luckily BC Racing and Fortune Auto make great coilover systems for these cars!

Bisimoto is/was good for F-series engine parts. I'm not so sure now, it looks like he's trying to phase Honda out of his product development to improve the brand image. If you stick with the H... Rosko Racing, KS Tuned, QSD/Quarter Sports Drag.

CB7Tuner's easily the most informative forum. HondaSociety also focuses on Accords of all gens from '90 on up. PreludePower for more H/F engine/trans info, NWP4Life, obviously Honda-Tech...