Alinton's 4G jdm

[alinton]

Here's mine I got hold of in March, identical in spec and colour (well, it was) to one I had a few years ago and regretted selling ever since!

A '96 BB4, 2.2 VTEC Auto. It's had a full respray - it was black, and very dull and shabby - incl repairs to rust in front of the rear wheels, sills and roof; repaired ECU; fitted double-DIN head unit and new Focal door speakers, plus Clarion sub-bass in the boot; Rocker cover refurb; timing belt; water pump; drive shaft gator; and a few other cosmetics.

A new Spoon-copy chip is being installed this weekend too.

A few more things to do (aren't there always?) like refub some of the window trims which have greyed, and I'd like to replace the rims.

The car goes really well now though, handles great, and looks good I think. There aren't many 4th gens around in Ireland, and even less in good nick.



















Andy
Kilkenny
Ireland.

[wurlycorner]

Looks good - shiny shiny! front mud guards could do with a jet wash though!

[vanzep]

looks good
nice find

[alinton]

@Wurly jeez I know. Its cow jobby. I live in farming country!

[ddoubledanny]

Looks nice and in the best colour

[bb1boy]

Lovely job on the paint! You'll have it looking like new in no time now

[alinton]

I've been reading a few posts on here in which guys have done lots of work on their cars with interest, it's always great to see what others have done and what results they've got!

So I have a few thoughts...

Wheels/rims - my car has the standard 15" rims with 205-15/55 tyres, which I don't like much, but what size is the best to use? When I got the car it had some old crap 225-60s, and they fouled the wheel arch covers on full lock and when cornering hard, and the speedo read too low with the rolling radius, so I'd be concerned about increasing the radius too much.

I'd also be concerned that the ride might get too hard if I went with larger rims and less profile. I saw a pic of someone's car with 17" 40 profile on, and it looked like nowhere near enough rubber.

Maybe 16 inch rims, 215/50 size tyres?

Intake: I know there's a lot of discussion about them and I understand that it's important to reduce the intake resistance as much as poss, but I wonder what the real gain is with an aftermarket intake? The stock air filter is quite big, bigger than some cones I've seen; obviously method to get the air to the filter is important, so one might be tempted to remove the resonator and maybe relocate the air filter into the void vacated by it.

My concern then however would be that water would be sucked in if driving on very wet roads or during rain, with a lot of spray around. I can see how the resonator will prevent this, and I doubt it adds much restriction.

Headlights: do aftermarket HIDs work ok in the stock headlights?

ECU chip: I replaced mine with one of Rob's and it's working great! The VTEC comes in a little earlier, you actually get the acceleration when you need it now, not a couple of seconds later. Highly recommended.

Engine bay: I really can't make the head shield look good. High temp black paint isn't black enough, and high temp silver just looks like grey primer. I've seen people with no heat shield, but it wonder where that heat all goes then, surely it'll affect the AC pipe that runs close by?

One more thing springs to mind: The trims around the rear side windows and beneath the rear scren are tired and get looking on mine. How best to restore them?

All comments welcome!

Andy

[wurlycorner]

Rear quarter window surrounds can be recovered by polishing with autosol metal polish. The strip under the rear screen either needs to be repainted or replaced with a new one.

There's a thread somewhere on here that covers the advantages/disadvantages of the various different wheel and tyre sizes. Hopefully someone knows where it is so they can post up the link (actually it ought to be a sticky? )

[alinton]

Here's the Spoon chip (from Rob) installed:



And today I fitted rear parking sensors. You can't really see them in the photo - which is a good thing I guess!



A

[alinton]

Today, I also fitted the reversing camera that came with the cheapo, but surprising goodo, Eonon head unit:





BTW: My other half has announced that she's starting a new Facebook group, entitled, Prelude Widows. Think she'll get many followers?

A.