After moving to LA and selling my E34, I needed something reliable, quite, comfortable and decent on gas to sit in traffic with. My search began..narrowing down anything from another E30, to a new BMW, to leasing a prius to the very obscure. Actually, this isn't new, I've had for like 4 months now 
No idea why but I have always really liked the first gen Honda CRV's and the more I kept thing about it, the more it made sense. Practical with a big hatch and folding seats, decent on gas, they hold their value, cheap to insure, cheap to maintain and I think they're cool looking little cars. Started to find the price of these was higher than I anticipated but I kept looking. I ended up finding a 1 owner, all cali 99 EX 4WD with just a tick over 200K on it. Immaculate interior, exterior was a solid 6/10, mechanically was flawless. The small lot I bought it from has done all the maintainence since it's warranty expired years ago and had the records to prove. Brand new tune up, brand new header back OE exhaust. They offered to get it smogged and registered for me for a small extra fee so I pulled the trigger.
Here it is in all it's silver, late 90's boringness.
Clean as can be
No plans for anything wild but I can't leave things alone so I started with some little tweaks. It's slower than molasses and can barely get out of it's own way but it's a fun car to tool around the coast in. The automatic transmission is one of the worst I've driven and I HATE column shift but being a daily that spends most of it's time sitting in traffic, I didn't want a clutch.
First up was all red tails. Subtle but looks sooooo much better IMO.
Few coats of red night shades later....
Followed by some clear.
Also please note the table I'm working on. If you didn't know, these things came with their own fold out picnic table in the back it. I've used it countless times and it basically stays on my patio now. It rules.
After that I did a quick cleaning of the trim and sprayed the grill all black as well as the shadow line trim, nothing special.
I then turned my attention to the stereo, it was awful sounding. Plans were for a decent 12" sub molded out of the black plastic liner in the photo above ^, nice components up front and good speakers to fill the rear in. I also bought a Pioneer headunit for the jams.
I've had this monster pair of 6.75 Polk/Momo components around forever. I bought them for my VW passat in like 2003 and had them in my SVT Focus for 8 years before shelving them since they won't fit anywhere in my E30 or E34. I bought some Q-logic kick panels thinking I'd make installation a breeze. Nope. Only the 5.25 panels come pre-cut with grills, so what I got were some blank ass panels that needed cut. Wasn't too stoked on these at first.
Cut out very poorly which is no ones fault but mine.
Speakers all mounted up!
I forgot how much these weighed and how huge the magnets are. These panels fit like absolute GARBAGE. They basically give you a 3" self taping screw to run into the floor, and another for the side and use the factory clips which didn't line up for shit. Eventually after much swearing, some violence with a drill and a swift punch or two, they were in.
Having now lost the use of my dead pedal and foot space for some mad tyte jams, I figured I'd install the radio. ripped most of the dash off, ran some wires and swore some more. These cars interior's are 95% cheap plastic with the other 5% being annoying clips. Good christ.
Having that squared away, running my Alpine V-power amp under my seat I turned to the rears which are also a Polk/Momo speaker but a two way with external crossover. They dropped right in thankfully.
wowwww
That done I turned my attention to the box. Having a handful of mildly successful fiberglass projects under my belt, figured I'd go that route again with the mold being of the easyily removed black plastic container under the picnic table...oddly I believe this is an option which is sold as a "container for caught fish"...seemed like a good beer cooler to me
Few layers of cloth and some resin applied
Some dead brain cells and more cloth and resin later I had this.
I decided to forgo use of my picnic table for added thumps in my trunk and cut some MDF the exact size of the picnic table.
Test fits
I wanted the speaker to sit lower as to not interfere at all with usable space. Again with the test fits
Better
Got that in. Sounded decent so I covered it all up and then I realized just how much every damn panel in this car rattles. Holy hell. I had to turn down the gain on the sub it's so obnoxious. And that carpet covering the sub makes a god awful vibration so I put a thin layer of ply over the sub and cured that. Now months later, the lack of foot room and lack of loud volumn playing made me realize how much I dislike the foot well speakers so they're gone and the rear polks are now back in the E30...so that was alot of work for seemingly nothing. Aren't you glad you read all this?
Here's how it's been sitting for awhile. Oh yea and I got the windows tinted.
Fast forward a month or two and a few thousand miles. The suspension has been blown since I bought it. Possibly the only OE parts remaining so I was going to replace it sooner than later. I wanted coilovers to drop it a bit but couldn't justify the price. Around christmas a company called Yonaka had theirs on sale for like $525 shipped down from $900 so I pulled the trigger. Guys on hondatech rave about these for being inexpensive but decent. They offer 1-4 inches of drop but considering the front control arms can get stuck on these and the rears suffer from bad camber if dropped too low, I settle on a 2.5in drop.
Nice looking pieces. Height adjustable without messing with compression or anything.
These are seriously the easiest shocks I've ever replaced. 3 bolts per corner and about 2 hours later I went from this...
To this
Rides so much better. Doesn't feel like a top heavy, wobbling SOB anymore. Springs rates aren't too stiff for daily use and it feels more like a small car than a small SUV. This is where it currently sits. I'm on the hunt for some RSX-S 17's or some OE Honda wheels in a 16" or 17" to get rid of the 15's with balloon tires. Thanks for reading my boring thread about my honda.
Nick
No idea why but I have always really liked the first gen Honda CRV's and the more I kept thing about it, the more it made sense. Practical with a big hatch and folding seats, decent on gas, they hold their value, cheap to insure, cheap to maintain and I think they're cool looking little cars. Started to find the price of these was higher than I anticipated but I kept looking. I ended up finding a 1 owner, all cali 99 EX 4WD with just a tick over 200K on it. Immaculate interior, exterior was a solid 6/10, mechanically was flawless. The small lot I bought it from has done all the maintainence since it's warranty expired years ago and had the records to prove. Brand new tune up, brand new header back OE exhaust. They offered to get it smogged and registered for me for a small extra fee so I pulled the trigger.
Here it is in all it's silver, late 90's boringness.
Clean as can be
No plans for anything wild but I can't leave things alone so I started with some little tweaks. It's slower than molasses and can barely get out of it's own way but it's a fun car to tool around the coast in. The automatic transmission is one of the worst I've driven and I HATE column shift but being a daily that spends most of it's time sitting in traffic, I didn't want a clutch.
First up was all red tails. Subtle but looks sooooo much better IMO.
Few coats of red night shades later....
Followed by some clear.
Also please note the table I'm working on. If you didn't know, these things came with their own fold out picnic table in the back it. I've used it countless times and it basically stays on my patio now. It rules.
After that I did a quick cleaning of the trim and sprayed the grill all black as well as the shadow line trim, nothing special.
I then turned my attention to the stereo, it was awful sounding. Plans were for a decent 12" sub molded out of the black plastic liner in the photo above ^, nice components up front and good speakers to fill the rear in. I also bought a Pioneer headunit for the jams.
I've had this monster pair of 6.75 Polk/Momo components around forever. I bought them for my VW passat in like 2003 and had them in my SVT Focus for 8 years before shelving them since they won't fit anywhere in my E30 or E34. I bought some Q-logic kick panels thinking I'd make installation a breeze. Nope. Only the 5.25 panels come pre-cut with grills, so what I got were some blank ass panels that needed cut. Wasn't too stoked on these at first.
Cut out very poorly which is no ones fault but mine.
Speakers all mounted up!
I forgot how much these weighed and how huge the magnets are. These panels fit like absolute GARBAGE. They basically give you a 3" self taping screw to run into the floor, and another for the side and use the factory clips which didn't line up for shit. Eventually after much swearing, some violence with a drill and a swift punch or two, they were in.
Having now lost the use of my dead pedal and foot space for some mad tyte jams, I figured I'd install the radio. ripped most of the dash off, ran some wires and swore some more. These cars interior's are 95% cheap plastic with the other 5% being annoying clips. Good christ.
Having that squared away, running my Alpine V-power amp under my seat I turned to the rears which are also a Polk/Momo speaker but a two way with external crossover. They dropped right in thankfully.
wowwww
That done I turned my attention to the box. Having a handful of mildly successful fiberglass projects under my belt, figured I'd go that route again with the mold being of the easyily removed black plastic container under the picnic table...oddly I believe this is an option which is sold as a "container for caught fish"...seemed like a good beer cooler to me
Few layers of cloth and some resin applied
Some dead brain cells and more cloth and resin later I had this.
I decided to forgo use of my picnic table for added thumps in my trunk and cut some MDF the exact size of the picnic table.
Test fits
I wanted the speaker to sit lower as to not interfere at all with usable space. Again with the test fits
Better
Got that in. Sounded decent so I covered it all up and then I realized just how much every damn panel in this car rattles. Holy hell. I had to turn down the gain on the sub it's so obnoxious. And that carpet covering the sub makes a god awful vibration so I put a thin layer of ply over the sub and cured that. Now months later, the lack of foot room and lack of loud volumn playing made me realize how much I dislike the foot well speakers so they're gone and the rear polks are now back in the E30...so that was alot of work for seemingly nothing. Aren't you glad you read all this?
Here's how it's been sitting for awhile. Oh yea and I got the windows tinted.
Fast forward a month or two and a few thousand miles. The suspension has been blown since I bought it. Possibly the only OE parts remaining so I was going to replace it sooner than later. I wanted coilovers to drop it a bit but couldn't justify the price. Around christmas a company called Yonaka had theirs on sale for like $525 shipped down from $900 so I pulled the trigger. Guys on hondatech rave about these for being inexpensive but decent. They offer 1-4 inches of drop but considering the front control arms can get stuck on these and the rears suffer from bad camber if dropped too low, I settle on a 2.5in drop.
Nice looking pieces. Height adjustable without messing with compression or anything.
These are seriously the easiest shocks I've ever replaced. 3 bolts per corner and about 2 hours later I went from this...
To this
Rides so much better. Doesn't feel like a top heavy, wobbling SOB anymore. Springs rates aren't too stiff for daily use and it feels more like a small car than a small SUV. This is where it currently sits. I'm on the hunt for some RSX-S 17's or some OE Honda wheels in a 16" or 17" to get rid of the 15's with balloon tires. Thanks for reading my boring thread about my honda.
Nick
Comment