Your interior is looking lush now Merlin, with the new mats and the leather.

Nitin's right about the walnut though, some CF bezels would finish it off a treat.

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I have been thinking about the CF group buy, the only thing that has put me off is that im planning to hopefully get new suspension at the end of the month and wanted to save money for that. I will probally end up gettting both anyway

Are you getting coilovers or lowering springs?

Im going to plump for a set of coilovers. Considering a set of decent springs is going to cost almost £200, coilovers for £550 - £600 doesnt look that bad IMO. I had originally planned to leave the suspension for a while, Im now sick of looking at my stock ride hight.

Nitin - the leather seats may look nice but with the hot weather they get really hot! I have been having to start the car and let the AC cool it down before I get in, otherwise it almost burns my back

I was hoping to get a big bonus at work from which i was planning to get some lowering springs + get my wheels alligned.. But turned out the bonus wasnt great and was only £100 and i spent that already in a day..

havin seen the car in flesh on sunday i can say how good it is, (cheers for your old wind deflectors )

the mats really do set it off the inside nicely, regretting not getting in on that group buy

It has been a while since anything new has been put on the car, I have been stockpiling parts though.

My headlights were quite scratched, who knows how they got like that in the first place? They came from the previous owner like that. I was going to attempt to refurb them, but when EFFX's car was being broken I got the angel eye projector headlights.


Scratches




I couldn’t get out the bolts that held the bumper at the bottom of the front wheel arch, but managed to slide the bumper forward enough to get the lights in and out. At first I wasn’t sure about the lights as the housing is dark/black, but once my new bumper is on my colour scheme will become clear


New lights installed








My mate who is a mechanic kindly agreed to give up his Sunday to help install all the new bits I have been gathering.



Tein basic coilovers – Height adjustable
EBC blank front & rear brake discs
Nippon Autoparts front & rear brake pads
GoodRidge braided brake hoses – Stainless steel connectors


I planned to fit the suspension and brake stuff in one go, so earlier in the week I removed all the brake calipers to clean them up and give them a paint. When I had the car up on the jack I turned each wheel and they weren’t rotating freely, in fact the fronts were really hard to turn by hand. That may explain the 220 mile to a tank of fuel I have been getting Upon removal of the caliper I found the brake pads had rusted into the carriers (the reason for the crappy brake performance). Once the calipers were off they were in a bad looking way, heavily rusted, and covered in what seemed to be under seal. After scraping all the muck off, attacking them with a wire brush tool on a drill, and getting in there with the sand paper, I sprayed them with VHT black spray paint and clear coat. Despite the horrible surface they came out looking good after being painted. I also sprayed the guards for all the discs as they had similarly rusted heavily.


Caliper before painting


Caliper after some paint and clearcoat


Instead of spending lots of extra money on up rated discs and pads I plumped for EBC blank discs and Nippon pads, and spent the extra/saved money on some braided brake hoses. The installation of these was easy going, other than the soft crappy metal screws Honda use to hold the disc in place. The heads mashed up easily, luckily my mate came armed with a box of tricks that sorted those pesky screws out








Old front disc


The installation of the coilovers was “quite” easy, the fronts being the easiest IMO. There is quite a difference in the size of the aftermarket and stock components, the Teins are far chunkier than the stock bits. The only problem we encountered was that we forgot to put a washer in place during the construction of the front right suspension, when we realised what had happened we had to take that side to bits again, Doh! The installation instruction said to set the suspension at 25mm (we assumed that this was the stock ride height), when we got the car off the axle stands the car looked a lot lower than stock, although that was about the height I wanted it at anyway.


Giggity!


Tein rear Vs stock rear


Complete Tein rear with stock upper mount


Complete Tein front with stock upper mount


Completed rear


Completed front


Flash!!


The old bits


Finished












The dog who keeps getting in the way

We're still to put in the new brake fluid and bleed the system, and do a quick service, so I havent had it out on the road to try it out yet.

I have it booked in on Friday to get the wheel alignment/geometry sorted. I serched the internet and this one place kept coming up with good reviews, so I chatted to the owner on the phone explaing it was 4WS and that I had the 4WS locking pin (cheers Mart ).

Last week I bought Ratty's replica Mugen rear spats. Those combined with the bumper I have here, a set of replica sides I need to get, and it will be getting sent off to the bodyshop. I found the first dredded bit of rust yesterday, so while it in the body shop the rust can get sorted too

Looks awesome Merlin!!

Some money spent there I see! You must've been chuffed to finally get that little hoard unboxed and onto the car.

How are you finding the headlights? I fitted mine a couple of weeks. No probs with installation or connection but getting the beam level right for Uk roads is a bit hectic as they kick up to the right instead of the left! I think I've got it sorted now though. MOT passable? who knows

I'm going to do my calipers in VHT at some point. I've had one of my calipers off before to replace a piston, as it was rusted and snagging on the rusted area when it should've been sliding back in. You may want to check the pistons for rust if you didn't remove them for caliper painting. All it takes is for the brake fluid to not have been changed for a few years, and as the fluid is hydroscopic, the water content gets too high and starts rusting parts in the system. As soon as I sorted mine, although at a cost of £82 for a new piston and seal kit from Honda, the difference was instantly obvious.

When I had the caliper off I just clamped the brake line and fluid loss was minimal. When you changed the brake lines I guess you have to just drain the whole system right?

(Loving the dog, he looks wickedl!)

Fantastic stuff, good job on getting it all done Looks well with the headlights and lowering


One thing i'll mention is entire replacement calipers are about £50+vat at motor factors with the return of the old unit

One thing we can't do now we've upgraded to braided lines is clamp them when working on the caliper, most annoying


It doesn't look like you're going to, but just don't drive it until you've bled the system through, changing the brake lines like that as well as having the calipers off will leave tons of air in the system. Besides, it'll do it the world of good to all be bled through as Sal said.

nice work the car is looking stunning now bud

Wow, she is looking fantastic mate. I love the look of those headlights and the rotas work really well. That is one of my favourite colours on a 5th gen too. Nice work indeed

Awesome job there Merlin, nice list of things sorted.
Great photos too!

Amazing progress Merlin.. I kid you not i was just wondering the other day that wheres Merling gone coz you mentioned that you got teins... and now everything is installed..

Looks greattt now..

That looks great dude, seriously good.
Its incredible, what difference lowering the ride height on a car makes. Im guessing you've dropped it around 40, maybe 50mm?

It looks good! Glad to see a nice amount of other parts going on there too