[kingofmyworld]

It all started way back in Feb 2018 when I had sold my pampered CIVIC and was looking at upgrading to either a Superb or Jetta. 6 months down the line, I was still on the lookout in the used car market but could not find a good option. The hunt was still on.

Some picture sof my ‘07 Civic









On one of the weekends, nostalgia kicked in YO! the urge to own an OHC VTEC which was the apple of my eye during my growing up days had gotten into my head. The bug bit me. and this time around it bit me really really hard! Superb, Jetta everything went down the drain and my eyes were on a VTEC! the hunt kept going on and on. the moto was to restore and upgrade the car to a healthy and reliable 140-150 bhp while staying NA.

One of my close friends Prashant (referred to as P going forward) already has a VTEC and he has been in touch with a bunch of other OHC owners groups has been summoned and he obliged my very humble request to hunt a VTEC for me.

A couple of months flew by and all we could find were junk cars. They were either in very bad shape or fiddled with the odo, mechanicals or dint have any history to them. Most of them were not even on the owners name and the current owners had no idea who the previous owner on the RC was or where to track him. It was scary. I was prepared to see some scary things in the process considering the fact that I was hunting for a 15+ years old car but what I ended up seeing was terrifying.

On one of the boring days at work, I was hunting through one of the used car websites and my attention was dragged to a listing that was posted 5 mins ago! A 2002 H.Mist VTEC. The car looked good in pictures, in decent shape, claimed low mileage, has stanley interiors, listed by an apprently well educated individual (going by the choice of words in the description). This was it! I had a strong feeling about it and Rangup P and asked his opinion on it. He said the asking price was quite a notch over the market price and its not worth spending so much on it. I was still adamant about working on this deal. I had reachout to the owner and she had responded back that there are a lot of requests coming in and she is attending them in the order she received them. With a big Sigh, I moved on. a day later, I get a message from the indivudual asking if I am still interested, I responded back with a big fat YES and arranged for a meet to check the car and take things forward.

I wake up P on a friday morning at 6 AM, drag him out of his house and take him along for the initial impressions on the VTEC. 7 AM, we reach the place and we see the car parked outside the house after a neat wash. I had butterflies in my stomach. I made my mind that moment to pay for the car upfront and take it home! P had pulled me back to reality and asked for a testdrive. We had them taken the car for testdrive and OH MY GOD! the car is making all sorts of sounds from the front, No play in the brake pedal at all, drive shafts were gone, engine kept jerking majorly when you paste the accelerator. My heart skipped a beat. But having spent a lot of time on cars, I knew all of these can be fixed and are the usual wear and tear parts except the engine knocking issue. We go back to the owner, negotiate and agree upon a decent price. A notch over the market price but hey! it was genuine mileage car, has showroom track till date and it has never been in a crash. The car still had stock paint on it (Though faded).

Some pictures from day 1 of this vtec coming into my life.









The car did come with all original parts from 2002.

1. OEM first aid kid from 2002.
2. OEM Manual and the Leather bag it came in.
3. Both Original Keys.
4. OEM safety triangle in its bag
5. OEM Tool kit.
6. OEM Mats (5 Piece Kit).
7. OEM car cover.
8. OEM Alpine Player with component speakers, Amp and a 12 CD changer.

We then had a discussion with the owner of the car about the car and the things attached to it and their time with the car and WOW! That was one of the best conversations I had with a seller ever! A very humble family who took good care of the car considering the fact that they do not know anything about cars and the mechanics involved in them. They relied on Honda SVC to keep the car in shape and honda failed them big time (More on this later).

The family is so nice that they valued my commitment and did the NOC formalities, Registration documents and organised everything in a folder and in order and handed it over to me. All this without even me paying a penny as advance. Beat that! When was the last time you came across anybody so humble?

Mom had given a go ahead on the "auspicious" day. With the butterflies still in my stomach, P and I had gone to their place early in the morning and picked up the VTEC and drove it back home. I felt the body roll was funny! infact very funny! The knocking had settled a little but was still huge. This was priority 1 on the FIX list.

Some pics from the day we got the vtec home.









The following day, P and I had taken the car to a FNG to get it diagnosed. A quick test drive by the mechanic and below were the issued that needed attention.

1. Lower arms
2. Bush Kit
3. Drive shaft
4. Spark Plugs
5. Brakes
6. Broken boot cardboard
7. Burnt tail light bulbs



We wanted to attend to the engine issue first. We replaced the spark plugs with NGK iridium ones and the engine came back to life immediately! A major sigh of relief! the knocking issue was gone, Engine was smooth as butter. Next up was the suspension noise and drive shaft. Lower arms and the bush kit was replaced and the drive shafts were sent for repair. A day later, everything was out back and the suspension noise was taken care of to a major extent. However, there was still a lot of rattle noise coming from the suspension on uneven roads. This was bothering me a lot! I like my cars and bikes to be rattle free. so the root cause diagnosis started. My mechanic said it could be from the strut mounts so pulled the unit out and examined it. The struts are dead! There was no damping effect at all. Replaced the struts with TRW and still, the rattling dint go. The handling on the other side felt much much better though. The rattling issue was parked for later.



I had gotten the service record from the honda svc and it was very detailed. I see multiple trips to the service by the previous pwner with braking and knocking issues being reported frequently but all that honda has done was bill them for inspection and no action taken. This confirms thats their attitude towards the older cars is careless. For them, its all about making money. These old cars need a lot of attention to diagnose and fix the issues for which they do not have time for.

I then wanted to do something about the paint. Due to the age, there was some rust that I found near the rear right wheel arch and the door edge. This needed to be fixed on priority. The car also had a deep scar on the right fender, a dent above the left tail lamp, left wheel arch had a scratch, a running hair line scratch from the front door till the rear quarter panel, tiny ding on the roof towards the rear end, faded paint on the side mirrors, paint chip on one of the mirrors, few scratches here and there and little misalligned bumpers. Since I am adamant about bringing this car back to its former glory, went ahead and summoned a friend who runs a paint shop and is proficient in his job and pointed out the 47 defects I could find on the body. He took up the job and started working on it immediately.

In the meanwhile, I was looking around for a wheel and tire upgrade to 15". Explored the major players in Hyderabad but dint find anything that I liked. P had then told me about his city being due for service and some work to be done on it by Jamel so this called for a road trip! a couple more friends with JDM cars joined in and all 4 of us left to Bangalore. Dropped their cars the following day at the garage and we went car shopping. We spent the entire day going to countless shops nitpicking on what we want to buy. End of the day, we found everything that we wanted. I finally found an alloy that I liked. With 9 boxed full of parts for 4 cars, we had gotten back home with a big smile on our face. This was the best shopping day ever! We had also sourced body skirts from Bangalore.















More to follow

[kingofmyworld]

2 weeks down the line, body work was done and my car was ready to go to paint. I went to the workshop, inspected the work and gave them a go ahead to paint. This was the point when the itch to explore different color options started. I spent the next couple of deciding if I should change the color or not. eventually I did decide and chose to paint the car in the grey that Mercedes uses. I went bonkers looking at that shade on an SL55 AMG when I was in Dubai. It was called Indium Grey. Picked up the paint from Dupont. They have a ready mix chart for this particular shade so this made my life easy in matching the shade.





In the meanwhile, a stainless full system exhaust has been ordered from automech. A 4-2-1 system with a twin tip. I wanted a mild subtle setup.





4 days later, the car was taken apart and painted since it was a color change. I was skeptical about the fit later but the mechanic had done a phenomenal job at putting the car back together! He had fixed the broken bumper clips too! I was mighty impressed! I do not think anybody can feel that things have been taken apart and put back in this car. It was indeed a phenomenal job! The paint job had come out really really well! I was impressed. I'll do the pictures do the talking. I drove the car straight to my friend's garage and got the exhaust installed. The sound was just the way I like. Not too loud, Not too silent. Its very subtle till 2000 RPM. Beyond that, It starts getting louder as the revs climb. I had also ordered LED tail lamp bulbs earlier which I changed too.


































The following day, I was desperate to put the new wheels on. I was planning on sticking to 195/55 R15 size since this is the correct upsize for the OHC. I was surprised to see just Yoko S drive, Michelin XM2 and Bridgestone B290 were the only options available. Michelin was 2017 manufactured! the only relatively fresh tire I could find was the S drive. So with no choice left, I picked the S drives. The stance has improved drastically after the wheels upgrade. my VTEC just gave me more smiles!








The following day was for working on the interiors of the car. It needed a much deserved detailing, anti bacterial treatment, few accessories and an ICE upgrade. Got the following done.

1. Hella Projector Lamps
2. Hella horn
3. Syka Damping Mats
4. Leather seats and upholstery cleaning and conditioning
5. Full matting
6. Pioneer SPH C19BT Headunit
7. JBL club series components
8. Blaupunkt Oval speakers
9. LED cabin lights and number plate lights
10. Xenos Flip key remote locking system

[kingofmyworld]

Next up was the brake pedal not having enough play in it. I also noticed that the brakes were not letting go of the rotors after I take my foot off the pedal. They were creating a lot of resistance and this was an on and off problem. brake pads and rotors were fine. No fluid lead near the booser/Master cylinder, fluid looked good in the reservoir. we then bled the lines and saw brown fluid come out along with some dirt. This was a clear case of rust mixing with the fluid. once the lines were bled, the brakes felt really good. I drove back home with everything sorted except the noise from the front. The very next day, the brakes were holding on again! this time its more frequent and quite troublesome! It created so much resistance that the car would just stay on a slop without engaging the brake pedal or the handbrake. Went back to the mechanic, bled the lines again and more brown fluid came out. The problem seems to have sorted but to my misery, it started misbehaving in just 40 kms. I was tired of this and opened up the master cylinder from the booster unit to examine the issue and BOOM! rust everywhere, master-cylinder seal was torn and fluid kept leaking. Basically the fluid was coming out of the booster, mixing with the rust on the booster and pushing it into the lines and the master cylinder piston and clogging the internals which is why the fluid wasn’t returning back from the lines. Booster was reconditioned and the booster was replaced. Everything went perfect after this swap.



The only pending mechanical thing was to get the front rattle sorted. A closer inspection later, we figured out that the rattle is from the steering rack. There wasn’t much play from the ball joints but play had developed inside the rack. The rack was sent for reconditioning and fingers were kept crossed! 2 days later, the Rack comes back and the mechanic puts it back. I get a call from my friend who owns the garage and tell me the rack cannot be fixed and the rattle is still there. With a huge disappointment, I go to the garage to pickup the car and my friend asks me to go for a test drive. With least interest and a lot of disappointment, I drive it on the usual bad road to see if there is any improvement. Guess what! the sound is gone! IT was as good as new! My face lit up! MY friend was pulling a prank on me because I was getting frustrated with the constant hiccups with the brakes issue. One big fat prank was pulled on me. I drove back to the garage and all of the them including the mechanic there were laughing at me! It was a good prank! With everything sorted, I drove back home that night and slept peacefully after a month!

Some more bits and pieces that I sourced from the Bangalore trip and other places:

1. Momo dashboard anti slip mat
2. Sparco Gear knob
3. Sparco Mats
4. Momo steering wheel
5. loads of stickers
6. keychains

More to follow. Worked on an interesting solution for the broken trunk cardboard. Watch this space for more.

Some more random pictures.

[kingofmyworld]

Remember the broken trunk cardboard? That was bothering me big time! Wanted a better solution to it rather than the usual boring cardboard. So reachedout to a friend who does custom fabrication for literally anything and discussed with him about the possibilities and gave him a picture of ehat I wanted. He then gave the download to his master fabricator and we got straight to work. End result? This!

[vigneshram]

Just read the complete thread.
The transformation looks fantastic. I feel like buying a VTEC now.

Excellent choice of colour. A welcome change from the recent VTEC paint jobs with bright yellow , green etc.

I think you have a good team (FNG) to get all your things sorted.

[alpha1]

This thread brings a smile to my face ... because ...

I still have a VTEC and can see myself on this path few years down the line.


How much was the total monetary damage for the work that you did on the car?
And perhaps I missed it, but is there no dyno test reports pre and post the treatment?

[BlackPearl]

Wonderful thread with a lot of details! The choice of colour is fantastic. I think it is one of the best colours for the legendary Honda City vtec.

[Sophomore]

These are from those evergreen cars from the present era. Restoration is very impressive especially the paint job, a very neatly executed paint job. Your effort and passion is another thing which should be highly appreciated. Such a nice thread with adequate details and it has enough stuff to inspire others as well. Great!

[avinash_m]

Originally Posted by kingofmyworld

Some pics from the day we got the vtec home.

Heartiest Congrats @king!!

Its not often that one comes across a VTEC thread these days, kudos on listening to your heart and getting one!! She definitely looks to be in good nick, and with the restoration done, am sure she'll serve you niggle free many years down the line.

Excellent choice of color and the overall finish; you should probably do a proper photo shoot! That SS Automech free flow is drool worthy, please do share a video of the exhaust whenever possible.

A word of advice, do stock up on some of the wear and tear, and accident repair parts as they may be hard to come by now for such an old car.

CHEERS

PS: Which side of Hyd are you in, hope to see you and your baby around sometime!

[KaandBaaz]

Congrats on your acquisition of the VTEC. Restoration work looks top notch.



If you dont mind could you list down the expenses, would be helpful for someone like me, who plans to get a VTEC / OHC soon. (Sold the one I had )

[Altocumulus]

Just today I was going through OLX scouting for OHC Vtecs, which I embarrassingly do quite often. It's one of those repressed desires. And coincidentally I own a Civic too !

I would have bought one by now I guess if I didn't shift from Bangalore to Delhi. Had to let go of my Laura Tsi as well sadly. However I am still contemplating of buying a Vtec and keeping it in Kolkata. But the prices are too high for buying a car which will be used for maybe a week every 3-4 months and may need to be taken off the road anytime. Let's see.

Congratulations and a fantastic job on renovating the car.

[Swapnil_Alto]

Wait. Let me pick up my jaw. It just fell down after looking at your VTEC.

That's a brilliant colour you've chosen. It's been a dream to own a VTEC since I was 9. And looking at someone who has built a VTEC just like I've always wanted to do gave me goosebumps. Coincidentally, this colour is my favourite. Since the day I've seen GTO's VTEC, I've gone gaga over this particular colour.
Wish you happy miles with your ride. And hope someday even I can start a thread like this!

[kingofmyworld]

Originally Posted by vigneshram

Just read the complete thread.
The transformation looks fantastic. I feel like buying a VTEC now.

Excellent choice of colour. A welcome change from the recent VTEC paint jobs with bright yellow , green etc.

I think you have a good team (FNG) to get all your things sorted.

Thank you. Things are a little more convenient for me since I have a couple of friends who run garages. I'm covered from anything from a maruti 800 to say an Aventador!

Originally Posted by alpha1

This thread brings a smile to my face ... because ...

I still have a VTEC and can see myself on this path few years down the line.


How much was the total monetary damage for the work that you did on the car?
And perhaps I missed it, but is there no dyno test reports pre and post the treatment?

Here in hyderabad, Dyno is not available so could not do any runs on it. I will be heading to bangalore after I do the next set of mods on it to do a dyno run to see realtime gains. I will post them here at a later point in time.

Coming to how light my pocket are now, I would say VERY! spent well over the price I paid for the car.

Originally Posted by BlackPearl

Wonderful thread with a lot of details! The choice of colour is fantastic. I think it is one of the best colours for the legendary Honda City vtec.

Thank you.

Originally Posted by Sophomore

These are from those evergreen cars from the present era. Restoration is very impressive especially the paint job, a very neatly executed paint job. Your effort and passion is another thing which should be highly appreciated. Such a nice thread with adequate details and it has enough stuff to inspire others as well. Great!

thank you.

Originally Posted by avinash_m

Heartiest Congrats @king!!

Its not often that one comes across a VTEC thread these days, kudos on listening to your heart and getting one!! She definitely looks to be in good nick, and with the restoration done, am sure she'll serve you niggle free many years down the line.

Excellent choice of color and the overall finish; you should probably do a proper photo shoot! That SS Automech free flow is drool worthy, please do share a video of the exhaust whenever possible.

A word of advice, do stock up on some of the wear and tear, and accident repair parts as they may be hard to come by now for such an old car.

CHEERS

PS: Which side of Hyd are you in, hope to see you and your baby around sometime!

Thank you. I did order a pair of struts, belts, tensioner, pads and a set of rotors too since these wear out. I did change the clutch cable already. Timing belt, alternator belt and the tensioner are on the way. will be replacing them considering the age of the car.

I am from Kondapur. I stay near harsha toyota. PM me and we can catchup buddy.

Originally Posted by KaandBaaz

Congrats on your acquisition of the VTEC. Restoration work looks top notch.

If you dont mind could you list down the expenses, would be helpful for someone like me, who plans to get a VTEC / OHC soon. (Sold the one I had )

thank you. I will have to scout for the breakup of expenses. Overall, I spent around 1.6L to get it to this shape.

Originally Posted by Altocumulus

Just today I was going through OLX scouting for OHC Vtecs, which I embarrassingly do quite often. It's one of those repressed desires. And coincidentally I own a Civic too !

Congratulations and a fantastic job on renovating the car.

I would recommend you to pick one up ASAP before the good ones go extinct or land in bad hands.

Originally Posted by Swapnil_Alto

Wait. Let me pick up my jaw. It just fell down after looking at your VTEC.

That's a brilliant colour you've chosen. It's been a dream to own a VTEC since I was 9. And looking at someone who has built a VTEC just like I've always wanted to do gave me goosebumps. Coincidentally, this colour is my favourite. Since the day I've seen GTO's VTEC, I've gone gaga over this particular colour.
Wish you happy miles with your ride. And hope someday even I can start a thread like this!

All in good time buddy! I'm sure you'll start a similar thread soon. But like I said, grab them before they are gone!

[GTO]

Absolutely love the way you've done your Vtec up . Congratulations. You did the exact opposite of what I did in moving from a Civic <-> City. Indisputably one of the most iconic cars to be sold in India. A mad, mad engine + a beautiful steering that's dripping with purity. Just a word of caution = she is amazingly fun <100 kmph, but very poor over that.

Would recommend you Mobil 1. I've seen what it did to an already revv-happy engine. My Vtec used to revv like crazy - check it out here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdsCul-rtmE

Can't resist sharing some pictures. Of all the cars I've owned & sold, this is the only one I miss:

[kingofmyworld]

Originally Posted by GTO

Absolutely love the way you've done your Vtec up . Congratulations. You did the exact opposite of what I did in moving from a Civic <-> City. Indisputably one of the most iconic cars to be sold in India. A mad, mad engine + a beautiful steering that's dripping with purity. Just a word of caution = she is amazingly fun <100 kmph, but very poor over that.

Would recommend you Mobil 1. I've seen what it did to an already revv-happy engine. My Vtec used to revv like crazy - check it out here:

Can't resist sharing some pictures. Of all the cars I've owned & sold, this is the only one I miss:

I knew you would comment on this build for sure knowing the inclination you have for the vtec. I did follow your VTEC thread, read your Automech review and also read some other vtec ownership reviews on tbhp. I did take some tips from all these threads for this build too. I am currently running on amsoil. Would try mobil1 for the next oil change.