Ginger EF build
Hey everyone,
So I figured I would make a build thread as it usually keeps me motivated to work on my car and its fun to share my work with others.
Ill start with my background, my name is Kevan and Im going to school for mechanical engineering at UBC so funds on my build are quite tight at the moment and it forces me to make a lot of stuff myself. Ive been building my car for about 2 years now and autocrossing it for about a year of that. Its also my daily driver and has been holding up pretty well for the most part!
History on the car:
Picked it up for $250 from abbotsford with the engine in the back seat. Spent the first few weeks putting the engine back into the car and getting it drivable. Some early pictures:



sandblasted the valvecover, otherwise its a little messey

The worst part was the green interior! so I changed that out pretty quickly.
before:

after:

If you are wondering about the shift knob, I started turning it on my lathe but my motor burnt out so I was waiting on a new motor for quite a while. Its normal size now though, will grab a pic when I have a chance.
Also made myself a new horn button in the sandblaster

As I was poking around the body I checked the usual rust spots on efs and low and behold my finger went through

I cut back quite a ways and welded a new piece in and painted it back up. Its not perfect but hard to see from a ways back.
Always good to have someone to help you as well!

small accent to the valve cover

One of the things I really didnt like about the ef exhaust was the two 90s in the back to run the muffler under the bumper. I decided to use a short muffler that came in the car when I bought it and move over the cutout piece in the bumper to the passenger side. I had never done body work before this but Id done quite a bit of drywalling so I picked up some plastic epoxy and special filler and gave it a shot. It doesnt look bad from a ways away but its noticeable up close. again a learning experience for me!

I soon got the car through aircare and started driving it around a lot. A while went by so I grabbed some pictures while it was clean.





I wanted to play with the ecu a bit so I converted to obd1 and picked up one of these

its a constantly going process tuning on the street to make me happy but I enjoy the work.
I managed to find a beat up integra for $250 to take the engine and swap components from, its now waiting for a rebuild and the it will go in.

Also fixed up my ripped and torn drivers seat with some passenger side upholstery

This is about when I started racing autocross and got hooked instantly.
Had to pick up some new tires as the ones that came on the momos are very cheap tires. Grabbed some of Sheridans old slicks and they make a world of difference

Test fit is a bit wide :P

Finally I tried throwing on some ITBs I had laying around just for fun. got it to idle but couldnt tune properly as I dont have the full version of crome and freelog doesnt allow me to log tps. These will come back in the future though, promised
before

comparison

installed, mostly...

More updates to come as they happen!
So I figured I would make a build thread as it usually keeps me motivated to work on my car and its fun to share my work with others.
Ill start with my background, my name is Kevan and Im going to school for mechanical engineering at UBC so funds on my build are quite tight at the moment and it forces me to make a lot of stuff myself. Ive been building my car for about 2 years now and autocrossing it for about a year of that. Its also my daily driver and has been holding up pretty well for the most part!
History on the car:
Picked it up for $250 from abbotsford with the engine in the back seat. Spent the first few weeks putting the engine back into the car and getting it drivable. Some early pictures:



sandblasted the valvecover, otherwise its a little messey

The worst part was the green interior! so I changed that out pretty quickly.
before:

after:

If you are wondering about the shift knob, I started turning it on my lathe but my motor burnt out so I was waiting on a new motor for quite a while. Its normal size now though, will grab a pic when I have a chance.
Also made myself a new horn button in the sandblaster

As I was poking around the body I checked the usual rust spots on efs and low and behold my finger went through

I cut back quite a ways and welded a new piece in and painted it back up. Its not perfect but hard to see from a ways back.
Always good to have someone to help you as well!

small accent to the valve cover

One of the things I really didnt like about the ef exhaust was the two 90s in the back to run the muffler under the bumper. I decided to use a short muffler that came in the car when I bought it and move over the cutout piece in the bumper to the passenger side. I had never done body work before this but Id done quite a bit of drywalling so I picked up some plastic epoxy and special filler and gave it a shot. It doesnt look bad from a ways away but its noticeable up close. again a learning experience for me!

I soon got the car through aircare and started driving it around a lot. A while went by so I grabbed some pictures while it was clean.





I wanted to play with the ecu a bit so I converted to obd1 and picked up one of these

its a constantly going process tuning on the street to make me happy but I enjoy the work.
I managed to find a beat up integra for $250 to take the engine and swap components from, its now waiting for a rebuild and the it will go in.

Also fixed up my ripped and torn drivers seat with some passenger side upholstery

This is about when I started racing autocross and got hooked instantly.
Had to pick up some new tires as the ones that came on the momos are very cheap tires. Grabbed some of Sheridans old slicks and they make a world of difference

Test fit is a bit wide :P

Finally I tried throwing on some ITBs I had laying around just for fun. got it to idle but couldnt tune properly as I dont have the full version of crome and freelog doesnt allow me to log tps. These will come back in the future though, promised
before

comparison

installed, mostly...

More updates to come as they happen!
Kevan Cote - black 1991 Civic si SMF
Comments
those EF's are fast and easy to drive. I set FTD in one once.
2014 Mustang GT in F Street
1999 BMW 323i for Rallycross
2011 FSP Canadian National Champion
2017 FS Canadian National Champion
Before:
After:
Thanks! yah Im hoping to get more peoples car builds on here so we all have something extra to waste time reading
washed my girls this weekend
Sorry for the blurry pic, it was getting a bit dark
Also picked this up, B20Z, 2L CRV motor. Should get me around the track a bit quicker once I rebuild it
They are 15x7 et 27. Quite like the fitment without spacers or anything.
So made a new toy tonight, now I can fine tune my maps a bit more
1994 Mazda Miata 1.8T - Green - SSM
2008 BMW 535xi - Blue - Stock
2004 Mini Cooper S - Lemon Grey (sold)
1994 Mazda Miata 1.8NA - Blue - Doryfish (sold)
2007 Ford Ranger - Race Truck/ family support vehicle
2000 Audi A4 2.8 Supercharged (sold)
definitely makes it harder to start. cleaned up the plugs and gapped them all and starts up and runs much better now, still think I may have a small headgasket leak though...
while I was at home I decided to test fit some flairs I bought a while back, would be nice to have a fender over my 13x8's for racing so I can lower my car a bit and I dont risk digging in my fenders under hard braking. Not sure about them but Ill cut them to fit a bit better and see then
Finally picked up some wheels as they came with pretty much brand new direzza z1's. rims dont look bad and they are quite light at 13lbs a rim but they are 4x114.3 so Id need an adapter, well see. For the mean time tires are going on my momo's for the slush series. Anyone have a good tire shop that can help me swap the tires over?
Picture from my alignment
Car has had a leaking head gasket for a while and I havent had the time to take my head off as I needed the car for commuting daily, now Im back in school and I have no time to work on the car so I did the cheap thing that may blow my engine and put some liquid aluminum stuff in the coolent to stop the leak. It was working pretty well for a while, even through some auto-x events until another executive...... forgot some cars have a switch to control the cooling fan and overheated it, blew a rad hose and in the end looks like the gasket is leaking again. At least I only drive it to, from and at events now so hopefully holds until january when the new engine will go in!
New engine = 13b? Who needs a gasket when you can vroom without
Just the shoe poking out of her winter blanket. January will bring a new heart and possibly more power after driving adams 323 and finding out how much fun much more power is
1994 Mazda Miata 1.8T - Green - SSM
2008 BMW 535xi - Blue - Stock
2004 Mini Cooper S - Lemon Grey (sold)
1994 Mazda Miata 1.8NA - Blue - Doryfish (sold)
2007 Ford Ranger - Race Truck/ family support vehicle
2000 Audi A4 2.8 Supercharged (sold)
Also grabbed a momo steering wheel, wink mirror and test pipe for a new exhaust, its so hard to say no to parts...
Thanks Jay!
Should be able to fit the whole head into there
Also pulled the b18 out from under the porch to get off the stand and start stealing parts from. Coming in the mail are new bearings for the bottom end, rings, arp rod bolts, some cheapo motor mounts to take dimensions from so I can machine some billet parts and an exedy stage 1 clutch
The mounts are the cheapo yonaka mounts from ebay but if they put the motor where it is suppose to be in my engine bay I will copy the dimensions and machine some billet mounts for the future.
Oil pan off, main caps off
Rod caps off, the crank looks really nice, no scoring or scratching I can see of. Also passes the fingernail test.
Pushed out the pistons and they look pretty decent, discolouration but otherwise came out clean, no hangups. You can also see my ziplocks in the background, everything is labelled to go back in the right place
Bare crank, the pain of taking off the auto flywheel started here, one of the bolts was super stuck and with little head it took some work to get it off but a bloody knuckle later I got it off
WOO! Bare block, this was my goal for the night and its always nice to hit your goals
and finally the pistons and crank
I hope this will go fairly quickly and hopefully this weekend I can get a good chunk of the work done
Another thing to mention is that don't be too quick to hack off the front mount on your factory front cross-member, a friend of mine is having issues with the engine torquing and cracking the rear cross-member. A front mount will fix this. I am planning on designing up a front mount option this spring (if I can find the time).
I hear what you mean but for me its less about the time and money and more about the experience of doing it myself and learning, also I got the aluminum and machines available to me for free
Thanks for the advice on the front mount, Ill refrain from cutting it off. If your interested Im always happy to help design stuff
Do a test fit, it will be close and with the Yonaka mounts the tranny may touch the front. Thanks for the offer, may take you up on that and we could make a handful of them.