Dark's DBP Mystery Machine

[Darkout]

Most active's know me fairly well as I am a new member (for the most part) yet fairly active. I didn't think I'd ever start a build thread but here it goess...!!!!!

Car was bought new April 4th 2015 with 12 miles on it and has been a blast ever since. Broke the car in first 500 miles easy then began hitting VTAK YO! As most try to do, I held off on mods till about 3k and started with the good 'ol CDV delete. Has been downhill ever since and can't get enough lol. I'll try to keep this first post updated as possible but fell free to follow or ignore me! Lol end goal is a 300+ hp SC daily but I'm sure that will change by the time I get there lol. None the less, so far I have....

Engine/Trans
-HR Shifter Cable Bushings
-CDV delete
-TB Coolant Bypass
-Intake Res Delete
-Running 0w20 Royal Purple (bash away but I like it and have samples for blackstone labs to test, 5k maxx)
-10k MTF Fluid Change (Honda MTF, recommend to anyone driving spirited on a daily, probably 5-6k changes for POM...peace of mind)
Suspension/Brakes
-SPC Rear Camber Arms
-SPC Front Camber Bolts
-Dot 4 Brake/clutch fluid exchange
Exterior
-OEM Mudguards
-De-badged civic
-De-decal iVtec
-Dipped Front Chrome Black
-Dipped Si Emblems Grey
-Dipped Rear Bumper Reflectors Black
-Dipped Stock Rims Black
Interior
-Custom Shift Knob (home made changes weekly) currently the "Finger Nail"
-Relocated Civic Emblem To Lower Center Stack
-Weathertech Front Mats

First day I brought it home to it's doom!!....

Currently sitting...and loving it!

The back side

Civic badge relocate, been a thing on my past few cars to relocate the rear badge to the interior.

BTW! My car only needs 3 jack stands. YOLO!

There's much much more planned, and I'm sure some not planned but looking forward to see where this adventure leads us! Starting off slow but shooting for that MOFO'IN MOON!

 

[Darkout]

Reserved...

 

[Darkout]

Reserved...

 

[webby]

Nice to see you making a build. Looking good so far

 

[Darkout]

Nice to see you making a build. Looking good so far

Thanks buddy, appreciate it a lot!

 

[Darkout]

Here's an align sheet for a stock 15' with camber arms/bolts, front/rear. My right rear was being temperamental and touchy so I left it as is (even though it was better before the print out) to see if the whole suspension may settle before I put new treads on and tweak it to "perfection". Followed the street aggressive specs I found.
10k miles and 3-4/32 tread.....ooops?

 

[ron v]

My hatch sits on 3 jacks too. Freaked me out when I bumped it on on accident and it flew out. Good ol civics. Lol.

Nice ride man. Trying so hard to wait for my warranty to be up but can't stand my clutch slipping. CDV delete is calling me.

Good luck with the build.

 

[Darkout]

Thanks man! I say do the CDV delete asap, worth it!

 

[Darkout]

Here's a write up with very poor pics on how I installed my SPC rear camber arms and front bolts. I'll try to describe what I can and ask questions if your curious about anything. This wont be the first self expressed write up but all that will be done are mainly just for me to express my experience(s) as I mod my machine in hopes to maybe pass some info/get insight myself on other peoples experience.

I had the luxury of doing this at my work/shop on a lift but can be done almost as easy at the house. If done at the house though an alignment will be needed to make sure your tires don't wear bad or your steering sucks. "Matching" things by eye at home wont get you as far as you think with alignments even if it doesn't pull. As my previous post showed my rear camber was around -2.0+ on both sides after just part swapping which is way more than I want and that's from eye balling. The front on the other hand (since I put in camber bolts) was "under" spec from the spec I was going for and again was "eye bald". I only replaced 1 out of 2 bolts (top one) and never loosened the bottom bolt before my alignment. I'm no expert but just a reiteration how important alignment can be, especially for performance driving.

Jack the car up and put it on jack stands so the wheels hang. Started off by pulling my rear upper arm's off first which are what you replace to get that stance yo! No disrespect to anyone but it's not me, I'd rather run the street/track spec. The pic is from underneath looking up from the rear knuckle to where the upper control arm bolts to the unibody. Circled as seen in the pic is the passenger side, driver side is similar. I started with these 2 vs the single bolt on the rear knuckle (shown later) out of shear "why the f not". No matter what side you decide to loosen and remove first (and this goes for any makes/models) be aware of some spring tension that may cause you harm when releasing the first side of a control arm. Will all setups (including) our rear setup do this, no but just be aware. I actually had little movement from the suspension when I took out the control arms.

I then took my factory control arm and matched as close as I could by eye my SPC's with the stock arms. Was "I" worried about being "perfect"? No, even though there is better ways to match up the length of the arms than just by eye. BUT since I can align my car myself before it even rolls 200 feet I wasn't worried. If you have to wait for a few days on home DD project for an alignment then you may wanna "try" to get a closer match on the control arms with bolts/brackets. Can't forget the RP

Then bolted the control arm onto the unibody, again a "why the f not" starting point. Pics are drivers side from 2 angles. First one shows the mounting points on the unibody and the 2nd is just an above shot.

I then used a "dead man" post or whatever you wanna call the screw jack to lift and support the rear knuckle slightly. I did it slightly at first to help get the other end of the camber arm into the rear knuckle. (Shown below)

Lining up the arm and knuckle

I then tightened down the unibody bolts first since it's the least "pivoting" portion of the arm and that can be subjective. I then used the dead man to lift the corner of the car I was working on off that corner of the lift.
But why? This represents the "preload" or settling of the suspension as if were on the "ground". To properly not wear out bushings on new suspension components you "should" tighten everything with the car on the ground. Now as most that work on cars know this can be difficult reaching up into lowered civic insidea wheel from the ground to tighten a bolt/nut and my opinion impossible on most cars... even with a drive on lift. So what other solution is there other than just slapping it on? Well as I mentioned, jacking the car up off the stands its on. This can sound kinda off for some people but the car will balance. They key (and this is my OWN assumption/opinion) is to lift the corner(lets say RIGHT REAR for the example) you want to tighten down off the stands FROM the the lower control arm AND the opposite corner (LEFT REAR) just BARELY off the stand it's on. Why? Well when the LEFT REAR starts to lift of it's jack stand point there is no more added weight I can put on the suspension to preload it anymore. Basically the rear of the car is held up by that rear control arm your "preloading". This is variable depending on weight of the car but for the most part works IMHO.

The pic below shows how much I "jacked" the car up till I was coming up off the other side as well, lighter care less "jacking" effort..hehehe. For those at home with a floor jack and car stands, this is really the only difference to do this job other than an alignment; an alignment misspelled with no spaces...analignment...yea. The difference being using a floor jack instead of the dead man to lift the car. This also shows (kind of) that your lift point to preload is at the outer end of your lower control arm.

After everything's tightened down you can throw the wheels on and get an alignment done. WAIT! Unless your at a shop like me you better tighten down your jam nut and bolt so it doesn't wear out your newly installed goodies in less than 10 miles(exaggeration). Imagine a wheel with loose lug nuts and how long that will ride before shearing threads, same thing really.
Last are a few pics from under the car during it's alignment, the specs are in the previous post(s). Just to show how it looks, I like the Al...Allooo....Alloomini...uhhm??? YEA!

This second shows how much toe I had to dial in for the added camber. The blue and white lines on the eccentric "used" to match lol. Can't imagine a stance nation champ, couldn't rock it...

All in all a final review on adding a proper alignment to a stock suspension in my eyes is well worth it even more so over a rear sway bar. Now i just stepped over the edge...lol but seriously i only say that since i got my front/rear arms and bolts for 120 shipped from amazon that was a quality product. I honestly don't have the RSB upgrade (planned for sure) so I honestly don't know how the rotation difference effects driving feel but what I can say for this setup is nothing but GO FOR IT! I've increased turn speed by 3-5 mph on 3/32 all seasons vs brand new on practically any corner. It also seems to combat the highway "drifting" back and forth in your lane that I and I know others have felt. Overall feels more stable but I'm curious to find out myself how bad inner tire wear is with the added camber.
The 2 combined with eibach lower springs is only a dream to me but will happen so I hope it turns out as well in the end. Other than the wheel gap the stock suspension rides very well IMO.

Hope my little DIY was helpful and feel free to ask questions.