Giving Thanks.....a Holiday if you will.

Yeah, I know, its not Turkey-Day yet, but while I'm posting, I'd just like to give thanks anyways.

So in now particular order, here it is. Thanks. If your reading this blog and it has influenced you in any way positively; thanks. To all the other Legend owners out there.....thanks. Thanks for inspiring me, teaching me, and in some cases, showing me what NOT to do when it comes to building a car. Thank you.

Thanks goes out to Shaun Falkner, the close friend of mine who worked ever so hard on my cars aging/rusting body and got it to where it is now. (see prior post)

Thanks Shaun. You've helped make some major power-moves and helped me so very much and on so many levels.

Thanks to my brothers, who don't get too angry with me when I go about purchasing items (usually Japanese) for my car when I owe them money and should probably have spent it paying them back.

Thanks to my parent's too for that! Especially over the years. Thanks to my Automotive Technician Instructors who have let me use the schools facilities to work on and improve my car as well as expand my knowledge in the automotive world itself.

Thanks to Collin Leavitt for inspiring me to finish my goals and work hard at and on what your passionate about. Also, for showing me and alot of other people what a four door sedan is capable of.

Thanks to eBay and the acura-legend.com forums and especially an eBay seller by the name of JDMISME who I get a lot of my stuff from and who is very helpful and informative in his listings. Honest sellers are few and far between these days.

Finally, thanks to Honda Tuning for putting out a quality magazine almost every month dedicated to (usually) quality, well built, original, Honda's.

Ok, i'm gonna get off my soap box now. Sorry if I forgot anyone. Project Legend continues......

Happy Thanksgiving.

Let Me Explain This.......Thoroughly

Project Legend continues with new additions to my/its arsenal. But before I mention them, let me first explain some differences and similarities between my (now two) project builds.

As mentioned before in my previous blog’s beginning, my introduction to the KA7 Legend sedan began many years ago with my initial purchase of my 3rd owned car and first Legend; a 1993 Sherwood Green “Type L” 4dr sedan. As the months and years increased during my possession of the vehicle, so did my affinity towards it. Not only did I search for parts and other modifications for my sedan, but also longed to know more about in general.

In doing so, I learned that in the U.S., between the years of 1994 and 1995, Acura released in limited quantities complete with the updated “Type II” engine making 30 more horsepower than the original C32A1. This was, to say the least, the car for me. Smooth, powerful, luxurious, fun to drive, and most importantly; a Honda. Upon further research, I also found that this particular combination came in a Black on Black package. Black leather interior, with black plastic trim, black carpet, and Honda’s very own “Grenada Black Pearl” paint for the exterior! Visions of my driving the car around, slamming it into gear, and revving the 230+ horsepower engine danced around in my head endlessly to say the least.

As my resolve grew for attaining my interpretation of the vehicular holy grail of my dreams, so did my fascination with my Sherwood Green Type L diminish. It had been in an accident before I bought it and whoever had fixed it, didn’t do a good job of it. The left (driver’s side) A frame was already rusting due to misuse of a caulk near and under the trim above the windshield. The left splash guard was torn in half, exposing to lower part of the engine via the wheel well. The driver side window regulator was broken, and the cars body itself was beginning to rust profusely on and around the rear wheel fenders.

All of that plus so much more….just didn’t seem worth my time to fix. I mean after all, why sink so much money into a dilapidated type L, when the GS 6-speed was what I could be investing in? I could always just sell the type L or give it to one of my siblings. With that as my mindset, I began to accumulate my numerous JDM parts and additions to what would eventually be the culmination of my dream car. I operated under the assumption that once school was paid off; then I would buy the GS and implement my JDM component arsenal.

Then reality set in. Early this year at just under 200,000 miles on the odometer, my car fell victim to the infamous BHG (blown head gasket) that is the bane of the cars C32A engines’ existence. Head work was more expensive than a new engine altogether, so I bought an imported low mileage Type I engine from Japan and had a trusted auto tech put it in for around $1,600.00 altogether. A significant chunk of change to say the least. As well as a monetary investment into the future of my daily driver.

Even before the head gasket went, the rust from the accumulated exposure to the body via the top of the A frame and towards the top of the windshield had allowed outside elements to begin to seep into the interior of the car itself. Basically, when it rained, I got the car washed, or it snowed; I got wet. A minor inconvenience, yes, but throughout the years, it had gotten progressively worse to the point that I would dread driving it in any poor weather condition. I had taken the car to body shops to have this problem remedied previously, and they had all quoted me astronomical prices to fix it because of the mere fact that they would have to take out the windshield to even get at the rust. Then, as luck would have it, during a talk with a close friend of mine who just happened to be in his second year of a two year collision repair/auto body program at the local tech school, we began to talk about him fixing it. He talked to his instructor and got the o.k. to fix the rust around the A-frame. Stoked as I was, I also wanted the rust fixed around the wheel wells. Well this friend of mine, being the great friend that he is, fang-dangled it somehow with his instructor and went ahead and did that too….along with even MORE body work! All in all, he and his team completed upward of three thousand dollars on my rusty dilapidated old 1993 Legend type L for cost (about $700).

During the body work, they noticed that the lower brackets of my USDM headlights were broken as a result of my ramming into a deer a couple of years back and told me that they needed replacement. I took this news as an opportunity to go ahead and order up a set of JDM one piece headlights as well as an OEM fog light switch so as to not have to wire up my fog lights to my headlights (more on that in another post) as well as have him install my JDM Alpha Touring “H” badged grill after painting the trim to match.


Well, I got the car back a couple weeks ago and there is no rust by the wheel wells…


….or by the A frame….


….and my front end is now a Honda.


Great right? Well kind of. What about the rest of my JDM goodies? Should I install them on my daily driver? What about Project Legend? Has my Project Daily Driver become my Project Legend?

At this point…I don’t really know. I’m still set on a 94-95 Blk on Blk 6-speed KA7. It is still what I imagine the end result of what Project Legend will be. For now though. I have to deal with what I have and go from there. Conscious of the present, looking towards the future, while having learned from the past.

Project Legend is a journey.

Slackin' on my bloggin'? Turn it up!

Dang...

Been pretty busy, but I'm done with school now, so theres gonna be more blogs posted definitely sooner than later. I've been soo busy with my daily driver (henceforth dubbed "Project Daily Driver") that I haven't been able to totally focus on Project Legend.

More on that later.

This is now.....

I was watching these on eBay....


But didn't win them.

So I just won these...



But don't exactly have the funds to pay for them....

Crap. More on this on my next blog.
THE PROJECT CONTINUES!

No to the visors, yes to the JDM 1-Piece Headlights

So I didn't win the visors as I had hoped....but I could of. The reason I didn't was because I decided to spend the money on a pair of JDM 1-Piece headlights.



More on this later....

STAY TUNED!

Honda Accesories Window Visors.....

Project Legend Continues with a recent bid on a complete set of Honda's "Accessories" optional KA7 window visors, complete with all mounting tabs!


I've seen these go every now and then on eBay but they are usually in poor condtion and/or are missing mounting tabs. These aren't and the price is decent, so I'm gonna get 'em as long as the price stays reasonable.

Here's a pic....




More coming soon......

Aero-Parts vs Body Kits

While working on a build outline for Project Legend (more on that later...) I was doing my best to carefully explain the differences between Aero-parts and Body kits and was having some problems. I've been busy with school, work, gf, and family stuff as of late but recently came across an article that does an excellent job of explaining what I could not. So I thought I'd post it. The article is written by BEN SCHAFFER for Modified Magazine and can be seen if you click on this link....

http://www.therealjdm.com/archives/TheRealJDM03.pdf

Or you can just read it below, as I've taken the liberty of copy-pasting it to this blog.....

"AMERICANS are well known for their innovation and style. Our penchant for launching new trends can be quite apparent in what Japanese refer to as “spo-com”. Americans took Japanese tuning parts and techniques and transformed them into our own unique style. Without a doubt, the power of our persuasive trendsetting can be attributed to Hollywood which successfully exported the blockbuster, The Fast and The Furious to Japan using a new JDM title, Wild Speed. We effectively took Japanese culture, Americanized it and sold it back to them. Spo-com is a rapidly growing trend in Japan. Many youthful Japanese embrace American spo-com style just as passionately as we emulate Japanese tuning styles. In Japan, spo-com has had a minimal overlap in the performance tuning market.

Currently in Japan performance tuners and spo-com tuners are still considerably segregated. During my last visit to Japan, I was intrigued by a recurring theme in my discussions with various aero parts company executives. They were all surprised by the American market’s desire to mix and match aero parts while in Japan enthusiasts who buy high-end aero parts typically buy the complete kit as a functional system. I’ve been reflecting on why the two markets have such different uses for the same parts. One of the driving factors is that Americans want a unique look for their cars and in doing so they don’t want to be limited to a particular brand. Yet, aero parts from brands like C-West, Ings+1, and J’s Racing are designed as a complete system with maximum performance in mind. Real data is used to fine-tune each component so that they work in unison. When using only a fraction of a complete aero system, as spo-com tuners often do, a car’s aerodynamics will not function as the engineers intended and performance gains may be diminished. Is the difference between spo-com and Japanese style tuning due to different philosophies; perhaps that spo-com is based on image before performance and Japanese tuning based on performance before image? Evaluating terminology may offer insight on the difference of the car cultures: Americans often refer to these products as body kits while Japanese refer to them as aero parts. Or the difference in thought is simply because the average American enthusiast is uninformed on the background of Japanese performance aero products and the functional benefits.

Regardless of reason, the aforementioned executives have a valid perspective. The brands mentioned above, as well as many others, are well known in Japan for their functionality. The functionality of their designs is a result of extensive
development in a Japanese race series titled Super Taikyu. Simply put, Super Taikyu is essentially a street car version of the JGTC. Like most race series, Super Taikyu has a significant number of rules and regulations. Cars are classed in a method that keeps them very similar in power and weight, meaning that aerodynamics plays a key role in the success of each entrant. Super Taikyu is fun to watch because the aero parts and wheels on the cars are often the exact same as cars you see on the street. For example, the Asano Racing DC5 Integra competing in Class 4 uses a N-Spec Ings+1 aero kit which is available to the public. There are also three Honda S2000s with J’s Racing Type S aero parts that are also available for use on street cars. C-West aero parts find their way onto multiple Super Taikyu cars as well. It could be argued that the reason Japanese made aero parts are superior to American made aero parts for Japanese cars is because many Japanese companies use Super Taikyu as a test bed for development. Companies in America are capable of producing the same products with the same technology, but without a popular race series like Super Taikyu to give incentive, it’s rare that a US brand will create innovative aero parts for your Japanese sports car.

Rather than speaking subjectively on the matter, factual test data has been collected by News Publishing in Japan. The publications HyperRev and RevSpeed offer hard facts to convey the effectiveness of various Japanese aero parts. For example, C-West’s FD3S RX-7 is well-documented in HyperRev volume 91. The book provides detailed documentation of wind tunnel testing on the C-West N1 spec aero parts. They discovered that the C-West aero parts offered a 13.62 percent increase in downforce, and a 131.17 percent decrease in lift compared to a stock bodied car. Outside of the wind tunnel on the Tsukuba circuit, they tested the same car with astonishing results. The RX-7 posted a 1:07.39-second lap using stock body panels, compared to 1:05.45 with C-West aero parts installed.

In September 2003, RevSpeed Magazine
performed comprehensive testing on the Ings+1 DC5 Integra. In one test they data logged the car on the MINE Circuit and did a comparison of speed with and without the Ings+1 Z-Power GT wing installed. In every sector of the circuit the wing-equipped car carried faster speeds with a maximum increase of 7 mph during one particular section.

A second test was also done comparing engine bay temperatures with and without the Ings+1 aero hood. The results showed that temperatures averaged out to be 16.2°F cooler with the aero hood installed. Cooler engine bay temperatures can add more horsepower, thus reinforcing the point that aero parts can indeed offer horsepower gains.

Even in the case of simply installing a set of front canards, performance gains can be quite significant. Garage Defend produces a set of twin carbon canards they call Stingray. When tested on the Central Circuit in the wet with
a mildly tuned Honda S2000, installation of the Stingray canards alone resulted in a lap time reduction from 1:51.74 to 1:50.40. This can be directly attributed to the increased downforce over the front wheels, which in turn reduced understeer while improving turn in grip into corners.

Naturally not every driver using functional aero parts will see equivalent lap time reductions. The final result depends on how well the car is driven. Additional downforce is only important if you drive your car fast enough to actually utilize and benefit from the extra traction it provides. Aerodynamic upgrades are not beneficial for everyone, but those who push their cars to the limit should seriously consider functional aerodynamics. For enthusiasts who are less concerned with maximum performance and prefer a highly personalized image for their car, the spo-com style of mix and match customizing cultivates creativity that surpasses the inherent limitations of performance tuning. Members of both tuning religions have one significant common bond, they are all equally proud that the cars they build are a real life representation of their dreams."

JDM This, JDM that, Blah Blah Blah....

A recent search on eBay with the query heading of "JDM Legend" resulted in two Alpha Touring Edition grills, a set of window visors, brushed aluminum door sills, and about 3-4 sets of one-piece headlight popped up. Two uber-rare Mugen wings have been listed in the last two months alone........and thats for a a 12-17 year old car thats not (even to this day) a very popular model.

Allow me to explain from my perspective at least. When I first stardted reading about JDM or at least people who were into it, was a couple of years ago in a Honda Tuning magazine and I believe the hightlights of the article, were that the guys civic had an amber displaying digital clock in it instead of whatever color the the USDM was and up until that point, most people equated JDM with RHD conversions and little fire extinguishers with jpanaese writing on it.

Now the NORM is JDM.

More on this later....