"VeeKaChu" (VeeKaChu)
08/04/2014 at 12:11 • Filed to: VK's Garage
2
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"VeeKaChu" (VeeKaChu)
08/04/2014 at 12:11 • Filed to: VK's Garage | 2
| 2 |
It was a busy, up-and-down weekend in !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ; there was bad news, and good news and fun stuff all around! Got a lot done, and I'm still scraping grease and gunk out from under muh nails...
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Weekend kicked off with bad news; I'd finally decided to do a full wash and wax, and on Friday morning after work I got stuck in. Washed the car, and then startd to wax the hood, when what did I spy on my Nighthawk Black Pearl hood? $#!#%$# CROW's FEET ( a known, 'bulletined' condition whereby certain Honda paints turn to shit...!)
The waxing stopped- I was too pissed-off to continue... I mentioned this fact to my wife a while later, though, and not only did she indicate that we were specifically covered for the possibility through our (used car) extended warranty, but she also insisted that she'd put those papers directly into my hands with the admonition that I should put them "somewhere safe".
As if- that transaction occurred nine days after I'd lost my first Si to some chemically impaired douche-nozzle (and that just 13 days before a show I'd entered the car in, after doing about 100 hours and many dollars worth of custom powder coating in the engine bay), and I was still somewhat in a state of shock.
But, methinks, covered is covered. Still, a hassle I don't need.
Saturday, then, and I was going to put some time in on the wheels that I'm powder coating, but since the wife had to work, I !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Totally off the cuff! It was a beautiful day for a cruise...
On the way home, I got to thinking that I should maybe go ahead and install that short ram intake I powder coated LAST YEAR... (oy, don't even get me started on "last year"- I was sick, with a cellulitis infection in my left shoulder that pretty much ate up the entire modding year).
Now this is a pretty straight-forward mod, and since the car came with an intake already installed- meaning I wouldn't have to dick around with the stock airbox- it should be a dawdle.
BUT- and there's always a ''but"- in order to get the most out of the effort, I really needed to change my oil, as it had really been neglected.
Again, not a big deal for the most part, except for the fact that on the K20 motor the oil filter is barely accessible. Now, on my first Si I was always able to snake my arm up and in past the shock from beneath, with the car on ramps. But the first time I'd tried that method last year, I ended up tearing my rotator cuff in a three hour bid to turn the filter out by hand. Yes, the same shoulder that was medically impaired earlier in the year... I actually spent about 8 months total in 2013, without the full use of my left arm.
I tried the same method this time, still to no avail; I had my son try, and he couldn't budge it... turns out, if you jack the car up and remove the left front wheel, there's an access panel specifically for that filter (and I swear in the '07, one had to remove the whole interior wheel panel.) EFF ME! Still took another hour, and a Harbor Freight strap wrench to budge the bitch.
Upside? I get to bring out the compressor and the impact wrench, and make PIT NOISES in my driveway! "VIIIIIRRRRR! VIIIR-WIRRRR, neighbors, CAR GUY here!"
That done, it's onto the install. But wait, one more thing...
When I bought the car, it looked like this under the hood;
Yes, I bucked conventional wisdom and bought a modded car. How modded you ask? Well, I got yelled at on a JDM forum for referring to it as "heavily modded", because "those are all just bolt-ons, dude!", but here's a list- K&N intake, Megan header, Magnaflow catback exhaust, Skunk2 camber arms, front H-brace, beefy rear stabilizer bar, rear strut brace, Optima red-top battery, and a Weathertech trunk liner.
So while Joe Sixpack would likely run away from a car like that, for me it was a godsend, as I'd just lost a car with about 3500$ worth of mostly the same shit, and the icing on the cake was this car- with all that work already done- had less than 12K miles on it!
Oh, and topping it all of, that ?lovely? fuel-rail cover. At the time, I thought it was painted, but someone informed me that it was hydro-dipped. Surprisingly, the wife liked it, but I was just "meh". And it's especially "meh" if I'm going to pair it with a red-chromish intake.
Luckily, the hydro-dip failed, cracking and separating from the plastic, and I just happened to have the one from my first Si still in a bucket of OEM parts that didn't go with the salvage... Time to get my paint on!
I"ve always sucked with the rattle-cans, but as I'm going to blend powder and paint on my wheels, I'm alway down for some practice. I started with an automotive plastic specific primer, since the part is essentially made of the same shit bumpers are cut from.
Washed it thoroughly with soap and water, then dried and masked... this primer is a bit different in that it recommends ONE thin coat-
And then I finished it with three coats of gloss red engine paint.
There are a couple of "nicks" around the masked area, but nothing too egregious. Otherwise, it seems to have come out all right!
Not much else to see after that, except the finished install.
Oh, and on top of that, I also changed the oil in the wife's TL, and washed that motor too. Hell, I even had the Mid-Ohio Honda 200 Indycar race streaming in the garage! I was TOTALLY a car-guy this weekend.
I even added a new sticker (the patriotic air filter) to the toolchest!
Thanks for letting me ramble some! And don't forget, MOD ALL THE THINGS!
RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> VeeKaChu
08/04/2014 at 14:18 |
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THINK GEEK DOESN'T SELL CAR PARTS WHAT THE HELL IS TIMMY DOING HERE.
I kid, if you've got stickers, use 'em I say.
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VeeKaChu
> RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
08/04/2014 at 23:05 |
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Stickers rule- unfortunately, I'm domestically enjoined from applying them in visible places on the car... probably a good thing!