There isn't really a "full rundown." It's everything from an EP3. The only parts that won't be from an EP3 are the rear disc conversion bracket, a spacer, if you find one necessary, to center the rotor, and your brake lines, of course. Everything else on the back of the car is from an EP3.

 

My front grille and lower bumper grille had both seen better days. I don't have a photo of the lower bumper grille after dyeing it, but I did take a 50/50 shot of the front grille before finishing the project.

Here's the front grille before/after photo; definitely a big improvement.



Front grille completely dyed and re-installed. The difference is night and day. I do plan on changing out the front grille, but at least the stock one looks much nicer in the meantime.



I also went ahead and sprayed my muffler black for a cleaner look with the bumper cut. I took this photo during the process of painting the muffler.

 

Ahh gotcha ok, is your ebrake cable setup also from the EP3 ?

 

I don't really know how else to say "it's everything from an EP3."

 

With a fresh set of staggered Kumho V730s on the car, I was able to find a shop that was able to get me in for a same-day alignment, luckily. This is the first alignment post-TCS plates and I'm very excited to experience the difference on the track. Few more things to do before she's all ready for the next one in October.



Results from alignment:



I was recommended to not go heavy on the negative camber since the added caster provides dynamic camber while allowing me to maintain a modest amount of static camber since this car is also daily driven. All the more reason to install the TCS plates. Also, post-purchase product support from TCS is excellent, so that's also nice to have.

 

I've been making progress on re-looming Phoebe's wiring after thinning out the harnesses. I still have a ways to go, but it looks a lot better than the spaghetti it was before. The six-point harnesses should be in the car soon, so I'll remove the stock seat belt which will remove a little more weight and provide a cleaner look as well.

 

Last year, I replaced my front wheel hubs and bearings with new OEM units as preventative maintenance for upcoming track duties. I left the rear hubs and bearings alone and replaced only the wheel studs in the rear. I picked up some Timken wheel bearing and hub assemblies for the rear and swapped out the OEM studs for ARP extended wheel studs. These will be on standby for when the existing bearing and hub assemblies need replacing. I will also, eventually, replace the fronts and install ARP extended wheel studs, but the fronts are pretty fresh since they were swapped out last year.



In other news, I am waiting on my Hardrace torsion beam bushings to arrive before I refresh the suspension components. This will include: inner and outer tie rod ends with fresh hardware, front lower control arm front/rear bushings, and new ball joints (likely J's RCA since I am contemplating going a bit lower). After that, pretty much everything should be refreshed suspension-wise and I'll have new wheel bearings/hubs with extended studs all around. From there, I want to continue to focus on organizing my wiring harnesses and stripping away unnecessary wires and cleaning up the remainder of the sound deadening residue.

 

Made some good progress on the car today and she's finally ready for her upcoming track days in October and November. I swapped out my front brake rotors since they had a pretty big lip on them from running aggressive brake pads and changed the engine oil as well for some fresh Motul 8100 0W-20. Besides that, I polished and coated my headlights—something that the car had been needing for months. Visibility is, obviously, significantly improved and the headlights look WAY better as well. The oxidized headlights gave the car a really, really bad look, in my opinion.

Here's a photo of the headlights prior to being polished:



50/50 while the headlights were being polished.



Headlights polished and coated with Gyeon Trim—a huge difference.



My friend, Nick, and I also worked on my battery relocation which was something I had been wanting to do for a while now. It's 99% complete with the exception of mounting the circuit breaker.

Here's a photo of how I ran my power cable from the engine bay to the back of the car:



Here's where we decided to install the battery:

 

Looking good, my friend. Headlights look fantastic and battery relocation sweetens up your weight distribution.

What did you use to polish the headlights?

 

Thank you. Honestly, I'm not so sure it makes that big of a difference in the distribution any longer considering this battery weighs in at <4 lb. I actually wanted to move it to the back so that I have more room in the engine bay for a K24 (not that the battery relocation is needed, but it gives me more room for a custom intake setup).

I used one of my polishers with a cutting compound followed by a polish and then coated with Gyeon Trim ceramic coating.

 

Indeed. I noticed that you were using one of those super-light batteries. Power-to-weight and weight distribution are the keys in my mind, and you're addressing both. A K24 swap is out of my league.

 

Yeah, I prefer lighter cars/more nimble cars and try to do what I can to achieve that. I'm in no rush myself to do the swap; I'm still shaving down lots of time at the track, so there's no reason to go about swapping the engine without improving my driving skills first.

 

A sub-2,000-lb. Fit with 106-ft. lb. of torque and 117 hp would be competitive with a sports car of the '50s and '60s.

 

I think I might've had a chance at sub-2,000 before the addition of the passenger seat and the roll bar. No clue on current weight, but I'll find out when the car gets corner balanced.

 

I bought these replacement moldings, trims, and vinyl pieces well over a year ago and I finally got around to installing some of them. I've finished almost everything on the passenger side, so far. I only have the little boomerang-shaped piece to replace (frontmost trim piece) on the passenger side and it'll be completely finished. I haven't done the driver's side yet, so that'll be next.

 

Since my last update, my Hardrace rear beam bushings arrived which means I have all-new bushings waiting to go on the car. I'll probably end up purchasing some MOOG control arms because they will come with fresh ball joints and allow me to press in my new bushings and install the control arms on the car without any downtime, once I complete the appropriate modifications to the rear position front lower control arm bushing.

I also ran two more track days at Streets of Willow, both in the clockwise configuration, and brought my lap time down to a 1:31.372. I also did a track day at Big Willow where I ran a 1:48.371. Being that this was my first time driving Big Willow, I erred on the side of caution. I killed off my front tires after my first session and used my roommate's wheels on the back of my car (so as to not wear his tires out excessively) and swapped my rears to the front of the car, meaning I was running a 15x7 wheel up front and a 15x8 wheel in the rear with mismatched tire compounds and a square tire size. I am definitely looking forward to driving Big Willow again with a proper wheel setup.

Aside from the bushings, the car will be getting a starter replacement soon as the original one has been making noises when starting up for some time now. Since I am going to be dropping the transmission to inspect and replace a culprit bearing (hopefully, it's just one), this will be the perfect time to also do the starter.

 

I don't have very many photos to accompany this update, but I've been accumulating a bunch of parts to refresh a lot of the components on the Fit. I replaced the coil packs and spark plugs, but the car is still misfiring, mostly when the car is warm. Next on the list of attempted solutions will be a valve lash adjustment. I did one last year, but the car sees track usage, so that might shorten the intervals between adjustments. The grommet on the IAT sensor was disintegrated, so I replaced the grommet along with the sensor since the car was throwing a P0113 code. I also replaced the breather pipe grommet and throttle rubber joint which connects the intake to the throttle body since both of those rubber pieces were also very worn. I also swapped in a new air filter and cabin air filter.

When I initially did my front hubs and bearings, I opted for OEM studs instead of ARP extended-length wheel studs for whatever reason, so I finally got around to replacing the front hubs, wheel bearings, and installed ARP extended wheel studs this time around. The car had aftermarket tie rod ends when I bought it, so those were replaced with OEM units along with new, OEM hardware. The ball joints on the control arms have seen better days—this is something I was aware of but had forgotten about. I recently purchased MOOG control arms along with SuperPro polyurethane bushings to install onto the MOOG control arms, so I'll have fresh ball joints by default. An oversight on my end was not ordering new inner tie rods since I'm practically refreshing all other suspension components, so those will also be getting replaced.

In the transmission department, I ordered a new Exedy HCK1006 clutch kit, OEM flywheel, and basically all the typical bearings one would replace when refreshing a transmission to get this thing ready for some track days and trouble-free miles.

Rundown of parts that were, or will be, replaced (all parts are brand new):
- OEM air filter
- OEM cabin air filter
- Denso starter
- OEM transmission bearings
- OEM flywheel
- Exedy clutch disc and pressure plate
- MOOG control arms with SuperPro polyurethane bushings (rear bushings needs to be modified to fit GD arms since they are meant for GE chassis)
- OEM front wheel hubs
- OEM front wheel bearings
- ARP front extended-length wheel studs
- OEM tie rod ends with new hardware
- OEM inner tie rods
- OEM idler pulley
- OEM serpentine belt
- OEM IAT sensor & grommet
- OEM breather pipe grommet & throttle rubber joint

 

It's been awhile Kevin, but I still appreciate you updating us despite the lack of activity on this forum lol. I just caught up on everything for your car.

For myself, I had plans for mines as well, but ran into a few hiccups so now there will be a delay...

 

Whoa. Hope the car drives and runs right now, that’s a lot of work.

 

Honestly, keeping this thread updated doubles as a reference for me. It's nice to be able to look back and see the who, what, when, where, and why of changes made to the car.

Oh, I'm sure it will. Some of this stuff has been on the back-burner for some time now (such as having torn ball joint boots). I kind of forgot about those until I had to interact with them to remove my knuckles to get my new hubs and bearings pressed in when I did my extended-length wheel studs. The majority of the components that were, or are being, changed out kind of go hand in hand, so I opted to do all of them. For example, my starter has been grinding for the last two years, so I bought a new one. The grinding has created visible wear on my existing flywheel and I didn't want to simply resurface it and call it a day, so I bought a new flywheel so the car can have entirely new components all around.

Basically, once this list is done, literally everything will have been refreshed and the car will be good to go for a long time minus oil changes, brakes, and tires. I basically did all of the auxiliary/supporting stuff you'd want to do when doing a K24 swap first before the actual engine swap itself. After the swap, the car should really only need revised coilovers to accommodate for the extra weight from the K24 and I'll also likely be swapping the front brakes to the Honed/986 Boxster setup. Aside from that, everything else is done on the car.