My 97 Turbo Coupe

[Esotericimage]

Well, shes a little girl.. same thing..

probably weighs 100lbs.


Im just wondering about wheel spin since those wheels and tires are really suitable. If this is going to be a track car, buying heavy wheels with tires with no sidewall means loss of traction.


But hey, its not my build. carry on..

 

[Diana Nam]

oh the gold 16" xxr are my street wheels i have another set of 15s for track use only i have a set for road course/autocross and a set for drag strips. i'm in the market right now for some 17x9.5-17x10 for car meets/shows. yea i don't weight that much only 124 lb lmaoo... sometimes the heavier wheels helps with traction abit since my car with me in it maybe come close to the original full weight without me in it.

 

[Diana Nam]

Can't really drive with slicks on all the time. Even here in ny I'll get pulled over with the quickness when the big slicks on the car the proper wheels for racing only goes on the car when I'm racing other wise the car is gonna be sitting low on those xxr wheels

 

[Diana Nam]

some new update on the car i recently relocated my climate control to the bottom din and move my radio deck in place of where the climate control originally sat in. upon serching the web apparently i was only able to find one good pic of it done but as far as i know no one had actually done a write up on how to do this. so i figured i should do a write up. here is a picture, i'm in the process of figuring out what i can use or to make a radio bezel for that spot.

 

[Diana Nam]

For the most part on what i have read so far on what people have said about how they might go about it, some suggested in just doing the 99-00 center console swap. all tho the 99-00 center console does make it super easy to do since you can just buy a single din cover piece to cover the space under the radio deck if you choose to just use a single din deck rather then a double din deck that some opt out to do. this write up is just on how you can just use all the factory 96-98 radio brackets and cupholders. i personally like my gauges to sit closer to line of eye sight so you don't have to actually take your eyes off the road to see the reading off the gauges. this also allows you to put in a bottom flip out deck and the screen won't be blocking anything at all. so lets get to working...

first you need to open your glove box as it covers the side philp screws that hold the ac/dc outlet/ ashtray trim piece. the trim piece its self has 2 screws on the side by each corner then 2 on the bottom closer to the center. those 2 screws are accessible after you take out your shifter cover piece. once you got all 6 screws out you can now move to take the last screw inside that holds the climate control to the metal plate of the dashboard. you'll notice the screw when you have your radio deck out. best way nto get this screw out is to use a short stubby philps screw driver or in my case my allen key set has a flat head and philps screw drives in it. once you get this last screw out you should be able to just pull out the entire center console from the dash just enough so you can pop out the hazard and rear window defroster bottons and unplug them so you can pull it out a lot more and have more room to get to the back side of it.


next you'll notice the climate control unit is held on to the trim piece by 4 philips screws 2 on each side like so....



once you have all 4 screws taken out you should be able to separate the 2 from each other. at this time you have much easier time unplugging the climate control unit. Next you'll need to trace the cold/hot slider cable to the bottom of the heater core and take it off then you can completely remove the unit itself like so.



next step is to start removing the cup holder. Now from this point you'll need to do some cutting and trimming to the plastic interior pieces in order to make everything fit.



for those that have the 99-00 cup holder you'll need to cut down the side walls of the cubby area since it will get in the way of mounting the unit itself. only problem i had with the 99-00 ones it leaves a bit of a gap under the climate control. didn't like that gap there so i decided to use my 96-98 setup instead since the 96-98 cup holder have a lid that closes so it will cover that gap under it. next i cut off the plastic part that the cup holder mounts to as a bracket to mount the cup holder back on after mounting the climate control unit. n teh back of the unit it self i had to cut and trim off some material around the mounting hole on the back sideso i have it sit flat asgaint the dash board main frame where the cd disc/ cup holder mounts to.
i used the bottom holes to mount the unit so i can re mount my cup holder. Before mounting it you can plug the unit back in, as for the hot/cold slider cable its way to long and would need to be shorten at least by half the orignal length of the cable. i haven't done this yet since i'm trying to see if maybe i can find one off another model or from a different make/model. that would work. i have my already set on hot since i don't actaully have ac in this car. Another alternate to this would be to use the 99-00 heater core unit since they are electronic instead of cable operated, but then you would need to use the 99-00 center console. once mounted you can now put the shifter trim piece back on it should look like this.


now the area where the climate control originally sat is much bigger then the deck it self a lot of space and gaps from all around.

i took this picture when i initially tried with the 99-00 cup holder as you can see the gap under the climate control unit, didn't like that gap so used the other 96-98 cup holder setup. makes this mod easier to do.
but now seeign the deck just sitting there like that its gonna be bouncing around a lot when your driving around. so i figure i should make some sort of brackets to hold the radio deck in place. then i thought why not just use the 96-98 cd disc exhanger bracket from the cup holder assembly as a bracket to hold my deck in place.


as you can see the far left hole is almost right where the screw orginally screw into. the problem i ran into with this bracket is that it didn't sit flush down with my clock in place, so what i did was cut and trimmed off that got in the way until the bracket sat flush with the trim piece.

you can see what part of the bracket gets in the way.... and after doing a little trimming...


now it sits flush. Next i drilled the far left hole bigger so i can put the screws back in to hold the bracket firmly in place.

 

[Diana Nam]

with the brakets in place it would look something like this

once the brackets are mounted you can now put the center console back in and should look something like this now..


and now you can slide the radio deck back in its new position..


now i just need to find something to make a cover bezel for it to cover up the space around the radio deck. this setup also allows you to use those single din flip down deck and the screen won't block any air vents or controls and plus you always end up playing with the radio a lot more then you would with the climate control while driving around so it makes it much more convenient this way(just my personal opinion).
this whole mod cost me literally Zero dollars to do. so now at least for those that's been wanting to do this in a 96-98 civic. 92-95 civic climate control is already in the same size as the radio deck but the trade off would be that you'll have to take the whole dashboard down to access the screws that's holding the unit in.

 

[Diana Nam]

Today decided to see if Subaru RS/wrx/STI interior would fit mainly the front seats since I've been really keen to pick up a set. My friend happens to be parting out his old his 02 bugeye RS and let me hold on to them for abit I did noticed that the rear mounting brackets is different but not in a such a way that a citing and welding is needed but rather just need to to make new holes. Here's the pics of the interior.

 

[Diana Nam]

Here's another pis with the rear arm rest out

 

[Diana Nam]

been re-doing interior/dash harness wiring, manual switches, done some deletes and relocating. i do have different seats in the car and will be getting another pair of seats

spaghetti of wires to sort through.




moved this fuse box over where my air bag used to be. finally piece i need to put on is to mount this to a airbag delete tray. This setup is more convenient for me, may not be the case with others.



things are going smooth extended some connector plugs that needed to be extended.the silver piece that you see is my WRX cup holder that i have mounted in


started wiring in some of my switches for starter, fuel pump, and ecu need to get more switches for headlights,wipers,turn signal, and fan. i still have my water temp and oil pressure gauge to wire back in and mounted back in. Still coming up with some different ideas or different approach to certain things as i go along an dfiguring some stuff out.

 

[5SpeedEJ6]

Any updates friend?! Haven't heard from you in so long.. wondering if you still have the coupe

 

[Diana Nam]

Any updates friend?! Haven't heard from you in so long.. wondering if you still have the coupe

Hey a lot has been going on lately and over then next month or so. But unfortunately I lost the title to the car. but my long time friend still owed me for helping him out in the past so he gave me his shell. So everything in the coupe is taken out. The new shell is same yr and it's a civic also

 

[Diana Nam]

Took the front end and the front suspension off


My friend Gab helping me get my swap out,..... he's the previous owner of my new shell. Me and him go way back lol.


Swap is out, then rest of the interrior and shifter/shift cables


Almost bare


This was taken at a previous time


Everything pretty much out, I'm sure most of these stuff are just gonna be extra/spare parts.


Pretty much empty. Just need to replace my rear coilover and lca with something else. As this still need to have the rears rolling. Since he said he gonna be using a dolly to take to the scrape yard.

 

[Diana Nam]

I was finally able to get my new shell here and get the old one out.

sucks that it was only just me and my friend doing all this..... pain in the ass to do when you don't got extra set of hands on deck to help you move and load/unload.



this is the new shell.... same year 97, dx sedan in cyclone blue metallic. I think its a much prettier color over the black.
Has only one small rust spot by the rear driver quarter panel where the rear bumper meets with the body, and no rust anywhere else.
this one is also in way better shape then the coupe was. it currently has polished engine bay that was done by my friend when he owned this car.







took this pic earlier today when i was putting my nrg hub and sparco steering wheel back in along with my wink mirror. Also had put my black housing headlights and my old front bumper. pretty clean besides the sun faded roof and and trunk lid.


tomorrow i should have some interior pics and engine bay pics up. Has stock interior just missing headliner,stock seats front and rear and has Black carpet from 2006 TSX.

 

[Diana Nam]

pic of the bay as promised...


another view.

some interior pics. As you can see i had already put my steering wheel and my wink mirror back on.

 

[5SpeedEJ6]

Reminds me so much of my old EK Sedan! It was also a 97 and the same color minus that white line across the side of the car.. Glad to see some progress already

 

[Diana Nam]

Reminds me so much of my old EK Sedan! It was also a 97 and the same color minus that white line across the side of the car.. Glad to see some progress already

yea the pin strip on the side, yea need to get me those eraser pads to take them off it looks sooo out of place on the car.

 

[Diana Nam]

idk i've been really liking the new car more then i ever have when i first got the black civic

 

[MotorMo]

Wow, sweet work. Enjoying the progression of it all. Keep up the hard work!!!

 

[Diana Nam]

Wow, sweet work. Enjoying the progression of it all. Keep up the hard work!!!

Hey thx, been a long hard journeys be stress on this build. Hopefully this one will give me less stress.