First step was to send off to frame shop to get a pre-pull done. Had some extensive damages on RH side apron & radiator support. Was kinked in 4 spots towards the front section of rail as well. Ill be sectioning in a whole used OEM complete frame section as youll see in upcoming pics.

 

While waiting on the front frame section to arrive from my vendor I went ahead and decided to get all glass cut from car, do a remaining teardown on body and start stripping for epoxy primer.(you'll see old bodywork on door from previous damages) The paint was completely sun damaged & oxidized as I'm sure many of you have had to deal with on these cars. Exterior body panels that aren't getting replaced are all going to be stripped to metal, epoxy primed, bodyworked and depending on amount of bodywork 1/2 rounds of blocking & reprimed.You can see some rust and seam sealer failures behind rear reinforcement beam. Which is to be expected on something 18 years old. No matter, it's all getting replaced.

 

Front Frame Cutaway section arrived, and I gotta say I feel like I got a STEAL on it. $105 shipped. Honda doesn't offer alot of the structure components separately, so this was definitely a no Brainer to go this route. Cutaway old damaged areas on apron and rad support. Honda has stamped seam lines for recommended section lines on rails, thats what's in some of the pics. Besides that, I also flanged the rail on the RH side with 11 gauge sheet metal plates (1/8") so it will have more than enough structural rigidity and strength if I should ever get in an accident again. Also had ro replace LH Frame horn brackets bc it was ripped in 2 spots from accident.

 

All new front end sheetmetal hung and pre-fit before any welding was done. Besides apron section & rad support i also Replaced hood, both hinges, 2 fenders, both Frame horns and front re-bar.

 

Got all the structure welded up, grinded, bodyworked & seam sealed. I know alot of ppl wait to tease color......... but since engine compartment is getting done 1st it couldn't wait. This is a custom mix I did using a factory Lambo Yellow as a base with a custom gold pearl tri-coat formula on top then cleared. I knew i was going to paint the whole car from jump and didn't want to do it ANY color the FG came in for U.S models. Lmk what yall think please. I am not pulling this motor rn bc I have plans to clean up bay and build a low mileage R18 to swap when this ones life is over. Until then I'm just going to do a full refresh underhood.

 

Looks like a fun project bringing the car back to life! The detailed updates are cool.

 

Untaped engine bay after it was fully cured. Next is to degreese, teardown and refinish motor/transmission. Like I stated in earlier posts I do not want to pull this setup rn because I plan to fully build a low mileage R18 setup on a stand and replace every nut/bolt on it. This setup had a tremendous amount of gunk build up around the entire engine. Im assuming it had a bad valve cover gasket to be leaking so bad in all directions. Last pic is after a few rounds of degreaser & oven cleaner with a hot tank washer. Im also collecting all brackets & plates that ill be reusing and sandblasting to refinish them in satin black. Also, didn't take pics of them, but I replaced the water pump/tensioner & power steering pump while I had the LH side apart. Ill eventually change out the alternator/starter & AC compressor as well.

 

Pulled all the brackets i could from the engine/transmission. Blasted them all, epoxied and some got a few coats of Seymours Alumi-Blast while the others got black base and satin clear. New JDM sidemarkers were the 1st of new parts to arrive (EG's) besides the new body panels i replaced, much more came on the following week. I threw on the power steering bracket and new resivoir once they dried fully. I'm going to run all new Yellow Zinc hardware in the bay and on body as well.

 

Last week was a good week, got my 1st big batch of new parts in. A bunch of Yellow Zinc hardware for engine/transmission & bay. New Honda parts (hood release cable, radiator/condenser grommets, condenser brackets) new AC Condenser, new Aluminum Radiator, new Mishimoto polished fan shroud. Also got all the things needed to redo complete harness (heat shrink, cloth tape, braided split wire loom & sautering butt connectors) as well as some assorted polished clamps for hoses. 😬

 

I can not describe how much sludge & gunk i had to remove from engine/transmission to get back to bare metal. Some spots were almost a 1/4" thick. After alot of degreaser/hot washing/steam cleaning, oven cleaner and then hitting it all with a wire brush set on a Dremel I masked off, wiped down with wax and grease remover, sprayed a good coat of PPG DP90 epoxy. Let that dry overnight then topcoated with the Seymours Alumi-Blast. To say it brought it all back to life is and understatement. Started working on getting smaller parts and brackets blasted and refinished then install little by little. Also replaced all the ugly dryrotted plastic loom with split braided loom and Tesa Tape. Recieved some of the new gasket sets for engine as well. Got aother pretty big shipment of parts coming next week to update yall with.