# Low budget fun SQ build - 95 Acura Integra



## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

Due to some unfortunate circumstances I no longer have my 2008 civic that I did my previous build in http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...phoenix-gold-audible-physics-scan-exodus.html

Ive decided to make the best of the situation and purchased a 1995 Acura Integra. Ive never owned anything other than a honda and know these in and out. They are reliable, easy to work on and have tons of potential for cosmetic and performance upgrades.

The car I picked up is rough around the edges cosmetically on the exterior and a few things in the interior, but it is a SOLID car and I got a ridiculous deal on it. 3 NC owner, no accidents, completely stock. Just what I was looking for as buying a used car, and especially a honda can be sketchy. The owner I purchased it from was a retired NC State professor and he knew the owners before him so I had no doubts I was getting a good car.

In addition to the audio, I will be restoring/modding/upgrading the car and will keep those updates in this thread too, just in case anyone cares.

Onto a few pics of the car and what I have going on so far:

first are the day I picked it up. The car ran and does run fine but I had a very mechanically inclined friend go with me and take his trailer. We did a thorough inspection and negotiated a price and loaded it onto the trailer.










Got it tagged and titled and found out immediately that the front speakers didnt work at all. Wasnt sure if it was wiring or blown speakers. I decided to pull the door panels to look into the issue.

I had a tough time pulling the door panels. They were on TIGHT. I am pretty certain they had never been pulled based on the effort it took me to get them off. I found the reason for no sound up front:

21 year old OEM speakers had completely deteriorated



Not having any rings/baffles for the speakers Im using, I simply swapped the rear panel speakers into the front doors. I did not get pics as this was a 5 minute job. They ended up being some Pioneer low low end coaxials. Better than stock and much better now that they were playing in front of me.

Since the plan is to restore and repaint, I checked the condition of the pain in the jambs the same day since it was nice and I had time. All it took was wiping them out with some basic cleaner and then I rubbed a very minor polish on them to take off any oxidation.

Before:



After:



not too bad! Its crazy what sun fade does to OEM honda red. 

Onto a little more cleaning/restoration. The floor mats werent in horrible shape and theyre just going to get stepped on anyway. New OEM mats are $300 since they are discontinued and in demand, so for now, I decided to clean mine with carpet cleaner

Before:



After:



not sure where my drivers side pics went but it has more wear but still isnt beat.

The tail lights on the car are pretty oxidized and the plastic trim faded. I picked up a set of JDM ones online for a good price. They are not much different than USDM but JDM parts generally have very low miles (under 60k)

as received:



after cleaning and polishing them with my orbital buffer, they came out nice and glossy:



I removed the seats front and rear to clean the interior out. I once again used my carpet cleaner (red devil handheld, its pretty handy) to clean the carpet. The results are worth the hour it took.







Horrible pic but here are the rear seats after being cleaned and not dry yet. These are USDM Integra type R seats I have bought to replace the originals. They are in better shape than what I had and red stitched with alcantara and tweed centers. If I find another set in even better shape I may swap again.




This past week I ordered a Pioneer 80PRS. Knowing the Pioneer platform from my previous 99RS I decided to take it a step down but stay with something familiar. I picked it up from Jet.com for 203 shipped, good catch I saw from the thread on here.

Here is the head unit that was in it I removed:



Luckily when it was installed, a plug in harness was used to wire it to the honda wiring. They used these garbage things though, which I removed:




I reused the stereo install harness and wired it to the pioneer harness with solder connections and heatshrink, with a couple of loose zip ties to tidy up:



Plugged it in and hung over to start RCA wiring:



I had some high end Monster Cable RCA that I used previously in my S2000 stereo build that I ran. I secured them with some foil ducting tape Ive had good luck with and zip tires under the rear seat running them with OEM wiring.

Coming out of the center console down the shifter channel



under the carpet on the passenger side of the shifter channel



under the rear seat:



Next I started on the power wire routing. There is a grommet beside the battery that I snipped on until I could fit the 4AWG wire through it. 



I ran this down the passenger side channel but did not get any pics.


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

Once I got the Pioneer in I decided to play with it a bit with the cheap pioneer coax up front just to see what they could do. I started to mess with time alignment and I got it dialed in pretty quick once I figured out the menus in the head unit. Doing 2 locations up front as opposed to 6 separate cut down the time it took significantly. 

First impressions: It sounded WAY better than it should lol. I noticed a couple of nasty peaks but I cant recognize a specific frequency by ear, so I went thru the EQ and made some basic cuts so the cheap speakers werent biting my head off. It smoothed it out pretty well.

Next step was to try something Ive wanted to do a while, which is rear fill. I pulled some Boston Rally 6.5 mid bass out of my storage unit that ive owned for 14 years. They dont even fit in the stock location but I wedged them in as a temporary solution to see if I would even like it.

A little more time alignment and playing around and I got them to dial in. It was interesting. I had the right more attenuated than the left as it was almost on axis, and the left behind me is blocked a bit by the seat. I ended up with -6 left, -10 right. Using Erins time alignment calculator once I got my initial values in, made the whole setup POP. They really dont pull the stage back but give the setup a more "full" sound. Hard to explain but its noticeable enough for me and two other people Ive tested to hear the difference with eyes closed.


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

Next thing I did was put my amp in. I have not wired anything up besides power and ground so that I could power the sub up. So my last build was multiple class A/B. This time around I wanted convenience, lower current draw and smaller size. After a little research I decided I wanted an Arc Xdi1100.5 and worked out a deal with Steve at Syracuse Customs for one. This thing is awesome! great layout, tiny, and powerful at 150x4 at 4 ohms and 500x1 at 2ohms.

With my iPod Classic on top for a size reference:



And as for the sub, I kept one of my SI BM MkIV because they impressed the hell out of me in my last car and once again, the less space and weight the better. I ended up finding a box at a local shop for $35 that is .65 cu ft. A little large for the subs intended specs but seems to be fine so far.




Erin came in handy once again. The trick he taught me on sub time alignment is to play the crossover freq of the mid bass to sub and move the TA until it has the most output. Two minutes later and Im set on that.


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

So currently here is the setup:

Pioneer 80prs
Pioneer flea market spec 6.5 coaxials up front
Boston Rally 6.5 mids rear
ARC Xdi1100.5 (only powering the sub currently)
SI BM MkIV in a premade .65 box

After a couple questions with Erin, I changed the rear TA a couple clicks.

As for how it sounds? It has made me laugh while listening simply because the most important speakers are junk, the rears are playing 100hz up on a mid bass, and I have less than a half hour in fiddling with the tune. The front speakers are below my knees but the stage height is right above the dash, which surprised the **** out of me. Imaging is pretty decent, not pinpoint but I wasnt expecting that either. 

Yes it has rattles in the doors as there is absolutely no deadening yet. Is it going to win any competition? Definitely not. 

What it does do is provide a fun setup that im not going to nitpick to death and just enjoy. 

Next plans are to add in the front door speakers I purchased. I found a set of Morel Integra hybrids for under $200 shipped on ebay. I picked them up before I even had a car. They are practically mint, but missing the crossovers. I originally was going to run them active, 150 per mid and tweeter, but that plan has changed.



with the added rear fill that I seem to enjoy, I bought a zapco crossover set for the Morels. It probably crosses them a bit higher than the Morel xovers(which cross the serious tweeter on these at 2500hz 12/db) but they will work for now. I plan to bridge the channels on the arc for 300 watts a channel at 4 ohm to send to the passive front speakers, and run rear fill on head unit power. Plans for that are probably going to be Dayton 5.25 classics. They are cheap and efficient at 92db.

Thats it so far. Questions, comments, criticism, let me know!


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## papasin (Jan 24, 2011)

Looking good casey! Sent you a PM as well.


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

papasin said:


> Looking good casey! Sent you a PM as well.


thanks Richard, messaged back


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## Serieus (May 27, 2011)

cool car man, i like those morel integras. excited to hopefully hear this soon


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

Serieus said:


> cool car man, i like those morel integras. excited to hopefully hear this soon


Thanks Chris. The Fit was my inspiration to give coax/point source a try since I enjoyed listening to it at the meet. I am looking forward to hearing the new setup!


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## Babs (Jul 6, 2007)

Howd I miss the build thread.. Fun!


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## Changchung (Aug 15, 2012)

Nice


Sent from my phone with camera with flash and internet on it...


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## Notloudenuf (Sep 14, 2008)

Nice build Casey. I like simplicity.


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

Thanks Kendal, It may get more serious later on but I want to see what I can do with the gear I have. 

I am going to get rings made for the Morels shortly and run wire into the doors (not looking forward to that)

I forgot to put a pic of the head unit installed so here it is


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## Notloudenuf (Sep 14, 2008)

Your pics must have gotten moved around. I'm seeing a lot of smiling cats instead. :\


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## capea4 (Sep 2, 2010)

Notloudenuf said:


> Your pics must have gotten moved around. I'm seeing a lot of smiling cats instead. :\


Awwwee I think he's hungry


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## DBlevel (Oct 6, 2006)

Hopefully I get me another demo next week.....


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## Coppertone (Oct 4, 2011)

Pictures weren't working for me either sadly.


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## Salami (Oct 10, 2007)

Damn, what happened to the Civic? 

Looking forward to see what evolves of the Integra, I always liked this gen. What kind of performance mods do you have planned? FWIW I have a complete B18C1 and S4C Trans with LSD from my old Civic sitting in my garage, I have been strong consider selling. Some random other stuff also.


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## cfennessy (Jul 4, 2015)

Lots of cats


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

sorry about the dead links! I moved the pictures to a different album. 

The civic took some heavy damage and totaled out. Ive always had great luck with golden years hondas (88-00) and got a hell of a deal on this car.

As for whats planned for it, right now Im focusing on the exterior. Mechanically the car is top notch but the stock Honda Milano Red is notorious for fading.

Here are some things I currently have stacked up. I am putting it in paint in a month or so. 

98-01 OEM type R lip with hardware



98-01 Headlights - OEM with 5000 miles



JDM Type R 5 lug suspension swap 
JDM gunmetal ITR wheels (getting refinished OEM color)



new JDM Honda centercaps for the wheels



96 Spec JDM tail lights



Rear ITR seats(pictured in a previous post)
Front USDM ITR seats





Also for the respray I have a 98-01 front and rear bumper for the "facelift" since the 94-97 is different. I also purchased every single exterior trim/molding as 21 years in the elements has taken its toll on the ones on the car. This was a pretty big hit on the wallet but will make a huge difference. 

As for performance - it will be slow and steady but more than likely will see some forced induction. Nothing over the top but a little extra power wont hurt.


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## Salami (Oct 10, 2007)

Damn!!!!! This thread is going to make me cry. I miss my hatch. 



Nice collection of parts so far!!!!!! Is is staying the same color?


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

yessir - going back with milano red with a high quality clear to keep it from fading. I can keep this thread updated with my resto/mods as well 

I am keeping the mods "OEM+" I would say. Everything will be subtle and aftermarket will not be over the top. Id rather have mint/excellent condition oem parts than a bunch of aftermarket stuff slapped on. I cant stand seeing a bunch of parts put on and the oem stuff is falling apart.

I messaged you about the engine swap


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## Salami (Oct 10, 2007)

Saw that and replied back. Just noticed your car is a '95, motor is OBD2 and '96. Not sure if that makes a difference for you. Oh and I have a fairly new '97 ITR air intake arm and BPI Flow stack to fit it and a BNIB '97 ITR shift boot kicking around here somewhere.


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

no worries. That wont make a difference. Distributor swap and dont hook up the knock sensor and its all the same after that.


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## vwguy383 (Dec 4, 2008)

I was hoping you would do an old school build in this car! But that's OK. Seems like you have a good plan on what you want to do and look forward to the OEM+ build. Those are my favorite. Don't really care for the riced out hondas. I am more of a VDUB person but also can appreciate a nice build like yours. 

Thanks
Justind


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## BassMechanic308 (Feb 15, 2015)

i have to ask, were you not able to collect any of the gear from the civic? if so, that really bites bad......

btw, looking forward to seeing how this turns out. on my 18th honda, and its a 2003 odyssey i bough for the wife to drive, not sure i can live without one. to reliable.


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

vwguy383 said:


> I was hoping you would do an old school build in this car! But that's OK. Seems like you have a good plan on what you want to do and look forward to the OEM+ build. Those are my favorite. Don't really care for the riced out hondas. I am more of a VDUB person but also can appreciate a nice build like yours.
> 
> Thanks
> Justind




Thanks Justin! Wouldnt consider any of my builds in past rice but I definitely know "that guy" which is 90% of honda people so I dont blame you LOL. Old school would be cool but new gear is so nice 




BassMechanic308 said:


> i have to ask, were you not able to collect any of the gear from the civic? if so, that really bites bad......
> 
> btw, looking forward to seeing how this turns out. on my 18th honda, and its a 2003 odyssey i bough for the wife to drive, not sure i can live without one. to reliable.



Oh no, I definitely got all of my gear out of the old car. Unfortunately none of it is going to fit in this car and it has all been sold besides the SI sub Im using. That gear is what paid for all of this stuff pretty much (car included)


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## BassMechanic308 (Feb 15, 2015)

not bad bud, not bad at all. im thinking about spending more money on the odyssey and buying full coilovers for it.


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

Ive seen some odysseys dumped that look pretty cool, and ones with swaps as well haha


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## juiceweazel (Jul 28, 2014)

Wow, this makes me miss my 95 teg. That thing was so a blast. A little boost on the B18 will make just enough reliable fun power. Have fun!


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

Thanks! Im definitely having a good time. Im really familiar with the chassis and they are so easy to work on. Plus its OBD1 so thats a plus

I have ordered 20 SDS CLD tiles and some butyl rope. Looking to knock out the door deadening on Thursday


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## juiceweazel (Jul 28, 2014)

It was easy to work on. I was able to strip the interior, put down a good layer of dynamat extreme & button it up in a single day. Very well thought out car.
Just don't do the same thing I did & do a cold air intake & not do the bypass valve. I found out you couldn't compress water LOL. After that I cut the intake back....


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## Babs (Jul 6, 2007)

casey said:


> Thanks! Im definitely having a good time. Im really familiar with the chassis and they are so easy to work on. Plus its OBD1 so thats a plus
> 
> I have ordered 20 SDS CLD tiles and some butyl rope. Looking to knock out the door deadening on Thursday


Dumb question.. Where's the rope go? I've still got some on shelf and never really found the right way to use it. derp


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

I used it on the doors in the civic. I put it between the outer sheetmetal and crash support beam. I cant remember where else but it is good to put between two close pieces of metal that could potentially touch and vibrate


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

Got quite a bit done the past two days since I have Wednesday and Thursday off this month. I decided to bite the bullet and tackle running wire to the doors first. I was almost going to pay someone to do it simply because Im lazy but I had a garage available with decent lighting so I took advantage

I didnt get a ton of pics but heres what I took:


For starters, you have to pull the fenders to get to the plug on the chassis side. On top of that, you need to pull the front bumper to pull the fenders. Always fun. I took as little off as necessary as their is a bolt at the bottom of the fender to fully remove it, however you have to pull the side skirts to get to it. No thanks lol



I took one look at the Molex plug on the door side and decided my Knukonceptz 14awg wire wasnt going to work. Quick trip to Lowes hardware at 8pm to get some OFC 18awg wire. You can see it partially ran with the chassis side plug pulled



drilled out the plug carefully and got the wire through. As you can see, not much room, even with the 18awg



bad pic of the female side



popped the chassis grommet back in



door side back in place



And repeat for the drivers side, didnt take repetitive pics of that side as it 99% the same


Today I received my CLD and butyl rope from SDS. I left my car at my parents and borrowed one of theirs last night so the door panels were already off. I started by pulling off all the old plastic weather barrier and then cleaning up the caulking adhesive used to hold it on.



some products:





The baller Pioneer coax that are in the doors currently



SDS butyl rope 



No application pics since its pretty straightforward but here is the SDS CLD applied (sorry for the horrible lighting in the first pic). All in all, I used 8 tiles per door. I can always add more down the road but I felt this was a good starting point based on the coverage I got



large pieces on the outer skin



butyl rope on the crash beam



tile and rope



next I applied my Raamat CCF with its adhesive backing. In addition to that, I taped down the door harness with the foil ducting tape to prevent movement/buzzing. I also used the ccf under the speaker mounting to decouple it/pad it from the metal door.




I didnt take pics of the driver side as it came out practically the same. I did find out why my driver window sounded like it was banging against metal. Apparently it was banging against metal. Derp. The rear channel rubber was sitting in the bottom of the door. I cleaned it up as it was pretty beat up and reinstalled and then sprayed the front and rear channels of both doors with wd40 dry silicone lubricant.



and last but not least, I connected the 18awg to my 14awg to run to the amp. My soldering gun was not getting very hot and the solders were cold and came out like **** but theyll do. Ive had the soldering gun for 16 years so its had a good life but it may be time to buy a new one.





I dont have any of the trunk yet simply because its all just laid out. Now that I have everything ran I am going to find a way to mount the amp and get the box attached to the rear seat to hold it up since it is tall and narrow. 

After running wire into the doors, I dont see a reasonable way of running active point sources in the doors  so the Morels are up for sale. 

I decided to go ahead and run the fronts off amp power. Currently they are bridged getting 300 watts a side. I have only listened to it about 15 minutes but WOW is it going to sound great with some quality speakers up front. These little Pioneers arentt doing bad at all on the power Im throwing at them. I set gains with a -10db tone on front channels and sub. The sub output is a little low so I will probably adjust it a tiny bit when I have time. On the head unit, giving it 3-4 db puts it about where I want it.

As for what speakers Im going to go with? I am going to give Audiofrog GS62 coaxials a try. Andy has put a lot of time and knowledge into his speaker line and Ive yet to hear or see anything that would indicate Id be disappointed. 

I am currently having customer MDF rings/mounts made that will mimic the OEM plastic mount but allow an oversized 6.5" to be mounted.

Im sure some are wondering why Im not just going 2 way front active or passive so Ill answer. 1) I am trying to keep this as simple as possible. 2) I dont feel like dealing with mounting tweeters as I would only be happy with them molded into the pillars
3) I have limited processing and want to keep rear fill (for now) 4) A passive component set wont image like these coaxials since Im dealing with time aligning a mid and tweeter from basically the same location. 5) IT SOUNDS GREAT. It has a little rainbowing of the stage height but overall it is higher than I imagined it would be


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

Ive had a little more time to listen and I am actually really enjoying it so far. Only change Ive really made is a couple of cuts on the EQ for sub frequencies where it sounded fat. 

The width is excellent on this since they are in the door, imaging is pretty good. Tonality and midbass arent amazing but Im sure once the Audiofrogs are in that will improve a bit.

I am waiting for the Audiofrogs to come off backorder towards the end of the month and I am having some rings made as well.


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## niceguy (Mar 12, 2006)

Just a note that may not affect you, but if you bought those Zapco xovers that were sold in the classifieds, you'll already know that they were from the Slim comps. If you have the ZSL165 Zapco passives still (or at all), they were designed for the shallow Zapco mids and I believe high pass the mids above 100hz. For the Pioneer coaxials it may not matter but if you run some beefier mids later this may be an issue.

Of course if you have different Zapco crossovers or are already running active then please ignore all of this lol.

Btw I'm still running the ZSL165 passives on my ID OEM 6.5 mids along with the smooth original Zapco tweeters and it's not bad but low end is definitely attenuated.

Jeremy


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

thanks for the heads up! I was going to use them for the Morels before I realized the morel tweeters are 6 ohm. I only paid 20 bucks for the crossovers so Im not too worried about it, and have since sold the Morels instead of dealing with running a 2nd set of wires to the doors or finding the correct crossovers for them.

as far as passing mids, even in standard mode the 80prs allows you do that as well so these xovers will most likely sit in my closet till I find something to do with them if a friend wants a cheap setup


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## SO20thCentury (Sep 18, 2014)

NIIIIIICE! An unmolested Teg! Loved those original speakers! Nice to be getting such great sound with the simplicity of coaxes too. I can't wait for you to get your frogs in.


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## KrautNotRice (Nov 2, 2015)

I'm loving this build so far!
I appreciate a clean OEM+ build any day of the week.
The simplicity of the build while not skimping on the deadening is a great formula.


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

Thanks guys! Im glad people get what direction I am going with the car as a whole, and with the audio segment. 

I really dont have any updates audio wise, as I am waiting for the AF coaxials to ship from backorder, and my custom rings that will allow me to mount them using the oem mount locations are being built by Sound Mekanix Audio.

Here are a few resto/build thread updates though:

Came across a great deal for a few pieces I didnt absolutely need but would be great additions. Both from the same seller and I couldnt be happier with my pick up

First is an Apexi World Sport full catback exhaust. It was used and in need of a little TLC. Here is is after a little clean up, still dull looking. 



After a little paint and polish, I have sprayed the muffler satin black and polished the tip out. If you are familiar with this exhaust, you know it has a deep, throaty tone. I am very impressed with how well it came out with such little work!. No pics of the mid pipe as it just went from oxided/rusted to black lol.





Also picked up an old school Comptech brace and 22mm swaybar combo. This is a long discontinued piece that is functional. It braces the the rear sub frame and allows a larger sway bar to be used and not tear the sub frame. No pics of the sway bar yet unfortunately.




Here is the barrel of one of the wheels I will be running (JDM Type R 98 spec 16" wheel) They were definitely well loved track wheels



After a little elbow grease, warm water and bar keepers friend, they are clean enough for primer and paint



The Holy Grail of exterior restoration lol. This is every molding/rubber trim piece for the exterior. As you can see, you have to replace the quarter glass too since the molding is attached. Also picked up brand new front bumper corner turn signals, and a new red stitched ITR shift boot. Doing a repaint isnt cheap if you do it right. I have almost as much in this one pic as I paid for the car initially. 



Got a free 98+ valvecover from a friend. Shot some paint on it and installed



Complete suspension bushing kit to be pressed into my JDM ITR 5 lug suspension conversion before install



A before and after of the 98 spec JDM ITR front brake calipers. Brake clean, scrubbing and a fresh coat of caliper paint.






Thats it for now, but will keep this updated as much as possible on the audio and build


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## Mless5 (Aug 21, 2006)

casey said:


> I am keeping the mods "OEM+" I would say. Everything will be subtle and aftermarket will not be over the top. Id rather have mint/excellent condition oem parts than a bunch of aftermarket stuff slapped on. I cant stand seeing a bunch of parts put on and the oem stuff is falling apart.


Not a fan of JDM, but man, I can appreciate that: I don't think I've ever seen a clean, unmolested Integra around here. Keep it up, I really dig these "let's bring it back to life" projects!


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## knever3 (Mar 9, 2009)

Aww man, I missed all the cat pictures! Love what you are doing and enjoy reading and looking at all the little progress into your build.


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## Black Rain (Feb 27, 2011)

Casey, looks like your make good progress on here.


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## adrianp89 (Oct 14, 2007)

This is not my style of car what so ever, but I love this build. Clean and original. Good luck.


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## teldzc1 (Oct 9, 2009)

Honestly, this Integra is an absolute classic. Build and maintain it and it will last forever. Going to watch this build closely!


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

I didnt expect so many fans of the car/restoration. Glad I decided to post it up for you guys to enjoy too 

I just rolled 250,000 miles on Monday coming home from picking up the Comptech brace and sway bar and the exhaust. I drove to Virgina Beach and back (about a 9 hr round trip). I tracked my gas mileage. I averaged 35 mpg and the total price of gas purchased was under $25. Cant be mad at that lol


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

more resto updates:

Im constantly looking for mint/near mint parts to replace anything that is worn out on the car. My passenger door panel vinyl was creasing and coming off on the arm rest portion and the inserts are carpet which has faded to blue.

Once again, Integra Type R parts are what I plan to use. The have a tweed insert, and generally are in better shape because the people buying an ITR tend to take care of them better than other Integras.

I purchased a set of panels from another enthusiast in Malta. I was under the impression they were damage free based on his description and picture. He shipped them to me and the left side was near mint (YES!) but the right side was not great. I was a little irate considering the detail I want to put in this build. Here are pics of the damage he failed to mention and was not visible in the pic:







I contacted him and he acknowledged that he knew about the damage, but assured me that these were in better shape than others available. That doesnt really fly with me. Long story short, Im waiting on a small partial refund from him as returning a set of panels to an island country in Europe is not cheap.

I decided I need a solution. Keep looking for another set with a good right side panel, or use a little ingenuity with what I already have. My original passenger side panel from this car is in great shape. Besides the inserts, the panels are identical. I decided to do a little surgery.

I went ahead and pulled the tweed insert off the damaged ITR panel and washed it to get any dirt out of it.



The donor panel, right after pulling the carpet off. The black stuff is little balls of the carpet that are still stuck on with adhesive.



At first I was using a razor to clean them up, but it was tedious and not working great. I decided to try some 150 grit sand paper. It was a bit more efficient. Here is what I was shaving off the panel



all cleaned up and masked out for adhesive spray



and with the tweed applied 



cleaned and dressed up both panels to protect them. Would never know one was redone, which is what I wanted




These are panels that go on the rear hatch. My originals have sun faded pretty badly. I was given some near mint ones from a friend. I cleaned and dressed them and installed. Side by side pics to compare with the ones I replaced







And lastly, I taped up and sprayed the brake rotor centers with the brake caliper paint to help prevent them rusting as fast (sorry no in progress pics)


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

Got a little more done and got the speakers I plan to use.

Here are a couple more pics of the wheel clean up. After scrubbing out the brake dust, I used a high build primer and then sprayed some Kaiser silver aerosol I had mixed up. It is a little darker than 2 stage would be, but should be great for the barrels. The faces of the wheels will be sprayed by my painter when the car is in paint

nice coat of primer on 



blurry pic of two finished barrels



and the speakers. I am going to see if I can rig them up on the oem speaker mounts with the rings Audiofrog provided as a temp solution until my custom MDF rings are finished. These are very nice looking speakers and Im excited to get them in


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

I decided to not wait for my custom rings since the Audiofrogs came with their own adapter. I figured it would not be too much work to use them with the oem mount as a temporary way to install them.

Here is the OEM speaker mounting cup before cutting it up



Here it is after cutting the rear section out with tin snips and smoothing out with a file



here is the Audiofrog adapter



Everything installed 



and a clearance shot. I had to shave down and file the backside of the grill mount so that the surround wasnt touching it. It doesnt get any closer than this



First impressions: These are great sounding speakers. They are very smooth with good detail. No complaints on them at all. Ill give them some time to break in and report back.


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## Lymen (Aug 9, 2011)

Love the detail going into making the car as new as possible, so clean.


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## adrianp89 (Oct 14, 2007)

That AudioFrog spacer looks identical to the one that comes with the Alpine Type-S. Good stuff so far, keep it up.


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

the727kid said:


> That AudioFrog spacer looks identical to the one that comes with the Alpine Type-S. Good stuff so far, keep it up.


yeah its not fancy but definitely got the job done. I was thinking I would be waiting until my custom spacers are done and was pleasantly surprised that these allowed me to use the factory mounts


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

Got a bit of work done over the weekend. I had a few lthings I wanted to take care of and also decided it was time to get the trunk cleaned up.

First thing I decided to do was redo the undercoating on the spare tire well and rear tire wells. 3M makes a great aerosol rubberized undercoating. This doesnt take much time and can really help with bringing a car back to life.

before:





after:







Sorry for the bad pics, but looks much better in person.

I wanted to address a couple leaks. One in the left side of the trunk/hatch and one on the right front floor board.

I assumed it was the drain tubes for the sunroof. I decided to open the sunroof and pour water on the side pan to let it drain which confirmed my thinking.

Left hatch area:



I decide to pull the exit/grommed and clean out any trash that had accumulated.

Heres the one from the hatch. It was clogged and would not let water flow quick enough and the clear tube would overflow into the trunk. I cleaned it out and reattached it and retested and all was good.



Where it exits, behid the rear bumper/beside the vent



The front one wasnt so easy. It exited behind the fender, so I removed the fender liner. I found a bunch of build up of leaves, dirt, sticks etc



I cleaned all this out just because, but it wasnt what was causing the leak. The exit grommet for the front is basically 2/3 of the way up under the dash. On this one, the tube had shrunk from age I assume, and the grommet was clogged. So it would fill up and then overflow since the tube wasnt in the grommet tight. I cleaned it out and had to find something to seal it up. I normally would use RTV or honda bond but I didnt have any available. I used JB Quick and reassembled it. Ill know if it worked next time it rains. 

I have no pics, the grommet is so far in the dash I could only feel it, and was a huge pain in the ass.

I moved back to the trunk. I removed the carpet, cardboard floor and the spare. I scooped up any loose garbage that had collected

quite a collection:



a view before any degreaser



after 15 minutes of wiping and 50 paper towels later:



not too bad 

After that I went ahead and drilled a hole for the amps ground to the chassis. Cleaned it up and then sanded to bare metal:



with some 4 gauge hooked to it and showing placement



fits perfectly under the spare with no interference:



I put the cover and carpet back down and started focusing on how to mount the amp and brace the sub box. I decided using the seat backs would be the best option for both. I did a little measuring and drilled some pilot holes for the amp mounting and then poked holes through the seat back carpet.

Heres a pic of part of the sub mounting bracket on the back of the left side seat back:



with carpet attached:



this a pic of the sub (left) against the seat back (right) I bent another bracket for the sub that mounts with 2 screws to the back of the box. I then used a (long) bolt with a wing nut. I can get to this easily to move the sub or remove it for large cargo if needed.



sub mounted with amp peeking out behind it



with the privacy cover on



Heres the amp mounted on the back of the ride side seat. It fits behid the sub with plenty of room to spare. 



after shortening, arranging and zip tying:



Ill have some pics of the amp with the cover plate installed tomorrow along with a couple other pics.


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## Babs (Jul 6, 2007)

Lot of great great work on the old girl. Bravo!


Sent from iPhone using Tapatalk


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

Babs said:


> Lot of great great work on the old girl. Bravo!
> 
> 
> Sent from iPhone using Tapatalk


thanks sir

heres the other few pics.

I went ahead and wired my ipod for usb2 and wired it to the glove box



while i was back there i went ahead and ripped out the 2nd set of rca so that im only using the 1 4ch to power the whole setup (shown in the last pics post)



and while the center console was apart I went ahead and replaced my boot and the plate with the new red stitched boot and a better condition plate

old:



newer plate



new boot



and installed with the Vision Technica shift knob. 



Put the cover on the amp so now it is complete


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## upgrayedd (Apr 19, 2011)

Nice and simple. I like it.


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## lucas569 (Apr 17, 2007)

very nice!


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

Figured I would post an update - I have not changed any components on the audio system and am thoroughly enjoying it!

I took a step back on restoring this car and decided to keep it as a daily. I did get a less expensive paint job, new signal markers, and new headlights. Also cleaned up the bay and did a valve cover








Car currently has 262k miles on it and runs like a champ. 

I ended up picking another gem up for my fun car but it has no audio at this point so i havent made a thread on it


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## Babs (Jul 6, 2007)

Lookin good!!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Salami (Oct 10, 2007)

casey said:


> I ended up picking another gem up for my fun car but it has no audio at this point so i havent made a thread on it


So what is the gem?


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## BrianP (Nov 21, 2016)

Your detailing skills are impressive sir.
That system transformation is well executed and looks solid.


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## casey (Dec 4, 2006)

BrianP said:


> Your detailing skills are impressive sir.
> That system transformation is well executed and looks solid.


thanks!



Salami said:


> So what is the gem?



92 Civic Si 

build thread here: http://honda-tech.com/forums/appearance-build-threads-122/caseys-1992-civic-si-build-3278117/


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