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SK-R's NHB EP3 Journal

Time to update this ol' thread. Going to try and remember everything I did in order so bare with me.

Picking up from where we left off, the car was fully detailed and then brought back home. While protecting the arches, I noticed a lot of white clips were missing ( the type where you put a screw into ) so I decided to buy a few:
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Be careful when buying these as they are 2 different sizes for various parts around the car (hence why I just bought both to be on the safe side).


I then went around the front of the car to install new clips on the grille and make sure it is perfectly aligned with the bumper/headlights:
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For some reason my metal plates got major scratches during the last few weeks, probably me not being careful around them so I decided to order new ones, but with a bit of cheesy carbon look this time :p
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Also noticed that my brake light's bulbs were looking tired so got some Osram OEM replacements:
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Then one of my front speakers decided to pack up so I decided to just do the entire Audio some justice. First we start off with some sound proofing from Silent Coat:
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I carefully tried to cover as much as possible while making sure none of it goes at the bottom of the door since water will need a place to escape, and also since this is not waterproof, it is not a good idea for it to be soaking wet (it will just simply double it's weight).

Then I realised that I was sent the wrong adaptors for my speakers...
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But never the less, nothing a bit of soldering can't fix:
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Heatshrinked and ready to go:
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Front speakers I went for are the 130mm Kenwood KFC-PS1 1395:
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Added some soft tape to keep fitment and vibrations in check:
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And all in:
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Had to use some gaffa tape as there were a few rips caused by previous owners...
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While putting things back together I installed new clips all around the door card, however one piece had snapped off and was luckily still in the door card rattling away, so gave that a lick of glue and some heat and it was as good as new:
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Same treatment was carried over to the other door:
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Then it was time to do the rear:
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Rear speakers are the Kenwood KFC-X173:
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Some padding was added on this one too (much neater than my first attempt! lol)
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And it's safely in:
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I then bought a single din faceplate thing from ebay, which had an absolutely terrible fit!
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A bit of grinding and sanding down later, it was in with the stereo:
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I also decided to add a bit of sound proofing to the boot floor:
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And that pretty much finishes up the audio upgrade. It is much better than standard, and the sound is much clearer. That said, while bass has improved massively, it is still lacking compared to a nice BMW/Mercedes sound system, but that is simply due to the size of the speakers you can fit in there. I could add 6x9s on the rear parcel-shelf but I am not that bothered about it at the moment, perhaps an Active sub with a JBL Amp in the far future might not be a bad investment :)

Moving on, decided to give this door frame section a little rub with a very fine grit sandpaper (6000). It is technically a black vinyl/tape that covers the metal, so painting it will not work as it doesn't look right.

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And done. It now has a more matte OEM finish, rather than the glossy/oily one that has formed over time.

Next up was the bonnet heat shield as that was in a right state. Gave it a thorough clean with Autoglym Interior Cleaner and then had it steam cleaned too. Turned out alright to be fair:
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Got new clips for it as well:
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All fitted with new rubber hoses for the washer jets:
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Then all I had left was the rubber that sits at the front of the bonnet, but it too was in a bit of a state with most clips missing (had red paint somehow lol)
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Gave that a good clean too and bought some new clips:
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And voila:
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Got some rear indicator bulbs too from Osram. They have a slight chrome coating.
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Old:
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New:
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It was then time to tidy up the boot, the cables were a mess so I installed new clips on each plastic panel and then with the magic of zipties and a tiny fingers, I managed to get it clean looking:
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I also hate the random squeaks you get from those panels every now and then, so I added some extra padding:
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Sadly I didn't take a picture of it all together, but basically the plastics are back on and I no longer get blinded by my numberplate lights when I drive :D

I then decided to take the Mrs to Cornwall as it was shaping up to be a really sunny weekend. Everything went great, even when the weather did get a bit grey at the end of our stay:
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I didn't have the radio put in at this point btw, can barely keep track of what happened after what now :D

But anyway, I was surprised at how well the civic did on the 8 hour return journey and me driving in a spirited manner around Cornwall itself as the roads were brilliant, but my happiness was short lived... On our way back when I filled the car up to the brim I noticed a strong smell of fuel and when I went around the back to have a look, there was literally a massive puddle of petrol with more and more spraying out. I had a look underneath and it was flying in all sorts of directions from just above the rubber hose which connects the fuel tank to the fill-up neck pipe thing. Couldn't see sh*t anyway, so just waited for it to kick out about 3-4 litres worth of fuel and then it stopped, so I was able to drive home and park it up again.

Next morning I decided to see what the culprit was, and well... this had happened:
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Rusty POS pipe lol. I managed to source another through eBay next day though, in a much better shape than mine:
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Gave it a good sanding and painted it along with the brackets, re-threaded all rusty nuts and installed new bolts with copper grease all around:

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And all done. Decided to go for a silver finish because I had no other plans on using silver anywhere else so might as well :lol:


I have noticed that there isn't many photos of my car actually together :lol: so I have a few for you here that I took just before we left for Cornwall:

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Hope you enjoyed the read, there is more to come as more "faults" find their way to **** me off. I shall update later this week :)

PS: Sorry about the picture quality on some of them, at times my patience was running out... lol
 
Well done! The car looking epic ....

beautiful work mate =D>

Car looks magnificent =D>=D>=D>=D>=D>

Thank you lads. She's getting there.

So I created a thread a few weeks ago about refurbishing my steering rack as it has a bit of play and also most recently I have noticed the engine is moving about more than it should as well. With that said I got the following bits:

Rack Refurb:
- Genuine Honda Boot Kit
- Genuine Honda Bolts (x2)
- Genuine Honda Guide
- K-System.pro Solid Rack Slider
- Meyle Inner Rack rod ends
- Meyle Outer Track rod ends

Engine:
- Genuine Honda Front torque mount
- Genuine Honda Rear engine mount
- Genuine Honda Aux Belt (AC)
- Genuine Honda Pulley

Misc:
- Genuine Rear Type R Badge

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Managed to get the belt, pulley and mounts installed earlier today, here is a pic of previous front mount:

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Will be booking the car at TGM to do the rack refurbish and alignment again. On a side note I think I have found another slightly worrying issue... There seems to be noises come out of the front, which when investigated comes down to play in the wheel hub area. Everything around there is practically replaced, and the only movement I can see is on the shock strut itself :/ Like the centre strut has about 1cm of movement left and right, and you can see it pushing the dust cap/rubber around. This is on the drivers side, the passenger side has less movement but still enough to make this knocking noise. This is quite worrying as the B14 kit has practically done less than 2000 miles, 1000 of which were done last week and this noise was present before hand, albeit not as bad.

Could the 2 front shocks be faulty? I know anything can be faulty at any point, no matter how new, but jesus 2000 miles and afterall they are Bilsteins... I will speak to TGM to see what they think, as the only other "bush" that isn't changed at the front is the ball-joint on the lower control arm, but those are in solid shape, no movement or even cracks in the rubber...

I ll keep you updated.
 
That’s some serious work you’ve done bud, looking gorgeous though, where did you get the plates from? I had Carbon gel ones on my EP2 but looking back when close enough to see they were faux carbon gel they were a bit tacky, these look much better!


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That’s some serious work you’ve done bud, looking gorgeous though, where did you get the plates from? I had Carbon gel ones on my EP2 but looking back when close enough to see they were faux carbon gel they were a bit tacky, these look much better!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Here you go bud: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3D-CARBO...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

And thanks, shame about the suspension issue though... I have a Warranty Claim Form to fill out from Bilstein now... ffs.
 
Little update on the Bilstein Warranty claim issue.. Both good and bad news.

So I visited TGM after work today and spent a good hour shaking every bloody part under the car, re-tightening all the bolts, removing and reinstalling front shocks to check top mounts ect.... And at the end it turns out the issue is not even there.

What it actually was, is the Intermediate Drive Shaft that sits right bang in the middle. It has a bearing which seems to be shot to pieces as there is A LOT of play, and around the bearing there is a rubber bush which is also almost f#cked. eh... So now I need one of those. The good news is the suspension works perfectly and I don't have to send it back or deal with any long winded claim forms, but the bad news is the part that needs replacing is £400+ from Honda lol.

The closest I could find to good quality aftermarket was this: https://h-tune.co.uk/insane-shafts-high-performance-intermediate-shaft-honda-k-series-m-t/

So I'm going to do some research on it and if all is well I shall get it ordered end of month.
 
Is it "just" the bearing and bush? Because the bearing itself is something like £40. Not sure which bush you mean though?

http://www.tegiwaimports.com/genuin...mid-half-drive-shaft-bearing-most-models.html (91057-SR3-008, £36) for the bearing, and I'm guessing you'd need 90681-SR3-000 (circlip, £5), 91260-SDB-A01 (seal, £10), and a different circlip (9452-055-000, also around £5). Still seems a lot less than £250 if the shaft itself is okay and you have the ability/time/equipment to press the old bearing out and the new one in.
 
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Is it "just" the bearing and bush? Because the bearing itself is something like £40. Not sure which bush you mean though?

http://www.tegiwaimports.com/genuin...mid-half-drive-shaft-bearing-most-models.html (91057-SR3-008, £36) for the bearing, and I'm guessing you'd need 90681-SR3-000 (circlip, £5), 91260-SDB-A01 (seal, £10), and a different circlip (9452-055-000, also around £5). Still seems a lot less than £250 if the shaft itself is okay and you have the ability/time/equipment to press the old bearing out and the new one in.

From what I could tell it's most likely just those yeah. That said, I am not sure what condition the teeth are in on the driver's side end. Ideally I need to remove it to have a proper look.
I know that these can also suffer bracket damage as it cracks under really harsh driving, but from what I could see at the time mine was fine.

Where are you finding those part numbers by the way? I had a look on Lings, and found it on the L30 diagram: https://www.lingshondaparts.com/hon...1&block_02=B__2100&block_03=9725&block_05=hcr

But the part numbers seem to be in a different format?
 
Incredible work going on here! Lots of inspiration for mine; stock at the moment and I've just been doing maintenance work for now but I was planning on spacing the stock wheels too. I don't mind the styling and would rather spend out elsewhere at the moment but they are a bit tucked. What width are those spacers? I had looked into extended APR studs and open ended nuts with slide on spacers but this may be a better option.
 
Remove the _pfk from the URL so that https://www.lingshondaparts.com/hon...1&block_02=B__2100&block_03=9725&block_05=hcr becomes https://www.lingshondaparts.com/hon...1&block_02=B__2100&block_03=9725&block_05=hcr

I'm trying to get a PDF together (for the Premier Edition since that's what I own) just to avoid needing to go back and forth on that kind of hunt each time. I'll see if I can share it once it's done.

Ah that's much better. Thanks mate, their website is really slow for me as well so it's a right pain in general. That doc would be great :)


Incredible work going on here! Lots of inspiration for mine; stock at the moment and I've just been doing maintenance work for now but I was planning on spacing the stock wheels too. I don't mind the styling and would rather spend out elsewhere at the moment but they are a bit tucked. What width are those spacers? I had looked into extended APR studs and open ended nuts with slide on spacers but this may be a better option.

Thank you bud, maintenance is far more important than mods so keep at it while it is at a state where you are happy and the car runs well.

Spacers were Eibach and were bought directly from their website and shipped to UK. Exact part name was: S90-4-15-010: Eibach Pro-Spacer Kit (Pair Of Spacers) 15mm Per Spacer (System 4)

They are 15mm all around and do not require longer studs like the H&R's I had before :)
 
Small update

Was getting some weird vibrations from the speakers at the back, turns out the OEM speaker covers flapped about a few millimetres so had to put some padding, and that has sorted that:

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Then I had the privilidge of changing my fuel filter, what a b*stard of a job that was haha. I don't think it has ever been changed before because when I took out the metal cap from the seat base, it was full of cobwebs and layers of dirt. Took a good few minutes of scrubbing with APC to get it all sparkling again in that area. Anyway, here is the unit out:

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You can clearly see the plastic fade from all 100k worth of miles take its toll on it :D

New one on:

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And back in the car, all cleaned up:

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Decided to also put some sound deadening under the seats for that extra bit of silence, and also because I had 4 sheets left that I didn't know what to do with :D

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And that's it. Currently saving up for the intermediate shaft and a few other bits and bobs to fit at once at TGM most likely next month. Fingers crossed she will be ready to be my daily by the beginning of December.
 
Thanks :D

I decided to be a little productive tonight and sort out a small niggle that's been bothering me at night. Basically as you can see below the speedo (km/h section) does not light up very well on the left hand side:

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Thought this was due to a burnt out bulb, so I bought a pack and replaced all of them.... well I say I did it, I got the mrs to do something for the car for once other than moan about it :lol:

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And it actually did f*** all ;d it's still the same (albeit a bit brighter so bulbs were probably worth doing. Anyone have this on their EP3, is it normal?

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