My god, what have I done?

Apparently it's likely an OBX oil pan, which is a copy of the Moroso oil pan. That explains why it almost overflowed my drain pan. 

In reply to Pete Gossett :

Any shinnies in the oil? 

I've had worse on the wife's truck drain bolt. A fresh rebuild will always have more metal than normal just because all them new sharp edges gotta find their happy spot with one another.

In reply to Stampie :

Not that I saw, but it was a very white frothy mess. I'll cut the filter open & report back.

So what are your thoughts after seeing the drain plug residue?

Cut the filter apart. Only way to really tell.

But so far not worried much. 

I'm with the two above. Plus I like seeing oil filters cut open.

I'm not worried. Fix that HG and go!

I drained the coolant tonight. It looked ok,  though there was some rust on the drain plug so I'll flush it after I get it running again.

While waiting for it to finish draining I started cleaning the underside of the hood. I berkeleying hate cleaning, so I figure I might as well get started & do a little bit at a time as the whole car is gross.

The o-ring on the radiator drain plug was cracked. And had clear silicone sealant on it...fortunately I picked up a box of o-rings last year & had one that fit. Calling me a "hack mechanic" would be giving me far more credit than I'm due, but damn this car has sure had a lot of berkeleyery done to it.

I also discovered this. I'm guessing this is the stock Laser driving/fog light, and the front bumper is from a different DSM?

I deemed screenshotting and reposting easier than copy and pasting with my phone...

I'm going to drop this link to my other thread about the engine's condition here, so I'll be able to find it in the future easier. 

Daylan C said:

I deemed screenshotting and reposting easier than copy and pasting with my phone...

Every time I see a dsm I can't help but think of this:

So while in theory I could potentially get the head gasket replaced this weekend - realistically I'll probably have other projects/interruptions - what I really need to do is take 6-months to dissect this car & try to figure out what's actually been done to it, and how much of it I need to correct.

So while I do plan to start disassembly for HG replacement this weekend, I'm also trying to use my spare 5-10 minutes here & there to continue cleaning underhood. I find it really focuses my attention to the specific area I'm working on, and allows me to see things I may want to question or investigate further. It's a good thing I have a white-board in the garage to start a list on. Oh wait - it's behind the DSM & isn't easy to reach...

Just use a sharpie on the underside of the hood. Instant concour presentation.

In reply to Robbie :

Hmm...

I've been spending a few minutes here & there on the car, but today it struck me that I'm really approaching this differently than I have other cars. Typically my focus is on getting the car to a point I can drive it as quickly as possible, but I'm finding that's not true with the DSM. 
 

Part of that might be the pandemic - with no events in the near future there's not any real deadline prior to the Challenge(though I'm hoping to have it ready early enough for plenty of pre-event testing), but I don't feel like that's the main factor. Just tonight I went out to work on getting the valve cover pulled, but after pulling off the top timing belt cover I realized I didn't really want to be working in a dirty engine bay. So I continued cleaning the underside of the hood & will pull the VC when I get that far with my cleaning. Also, did I mention I hate cleaning? Yet I'm feeling compelled to do that first... 

In reply to Pete Gossett :

Are you sure you're not sick?  Or it could be nesting instinct.  

In reply to Stampie :

Oh I'm obviously sick, I bought a $500 DSM.

I forgot to post earlier, but work on the rear toe elimination parts has begun.

Pete Gossett said:

I finally had some free time today. First things first, in the week since I picked up the car it turned green from all the pollen. 
 

 

Though that pic doesn't really show the true hue, this one at least gives some contrast.

 

The paint job is definitely good enough for racecar/Challenge use, though all the black surfaces will need repainted and/or re-cleared.

 

 

I took a closer look at the damage on the passenger side rocker. The way this is tied into the unibody I don't think there's any way I can straighten it, so eventually I'll work on reattaching the body cladding.

 

Lastly: 10lbs of cars in a 5lb garage.

 

There's juuust enough room to squeeze around the Frinkin' Laser & Miata.

 

 

 

 

The Laser is too heavy for me to really roll it around on the dollies. I ended up wedging a 2x4 under the front dollies to work it an inch or 2 at a time back into place. I'll likely need to use the lawnmower whenever I need to move it back out. 

Nice Honda Fit!  My current daily driver is a '15 Fit EX with the 6-speed manual.  Great little "having fun going fast in a slow car" grin-producing machine!!!

In reply to mikedd969 :

Thanks! It's our 3rd one in the family(1 of each gen). We don't drive as much as we used to so we're still below 3000-miles on it, but the other 2 have over 200k each. This one is my wife's so it's a CVT, but it's pretty transparent when driving. 

More progress on the toe eliminators from last night. The bushings that locate the heim joints into the subframe are done.

Soeaking of, where should I look for quality heim joints at reasonable prices & how do I tell the good ones from junk?

FK or Aurora if you want serious quality

Midwest Control Products has a wide selection in various quality levels and prices

I just spotted the tag number on the Fit. This car begs for a pink pig wrap job!

In reply to TurnerX19 :

Ha! The first 2 letters represent the county here - though not completely alphabetically - so there are a whole lot of HAMs around!

In reply to gumby :

Thanks! Considering they'll be receiving most of the rear thrust load during acceleration, plus some lateral & braking loads, I don't think it's a part I want to skimp on. 

I got a reply from the original builder today! Good news, it sounds like it was assembled way less sketchy than I'd been beginning to believe. He also provided some details:

• He owned the car for 14-years 
• It's a 6-bolt engine, the rebuild included .020 Ross pistons, eagle rods, a brand new crank & balance-shaft delete. 
• He bought the Turbonetics turbo that's on it unused, but second-hand. He contacted the company to try & get the specs for it, but they said it's too old. It's likely a ball-bearing turbo though.
• The cams are stock non-turbo cams. I'd actually noticed reading through the FSM that the non-turbo exhaust cam has slightly higher lift, but didn't realize that swapping them was something people did. 
• It's a stock shifter, but has some aftermarket bushings. Not sure if that's related to the difficulty finding reverse or not. He also had brass bushings for the clutch pedal custom turned. 
   

I made a bit of progress today too. I finished cleaning the underside of the hood. 
 

Then I cleaned off the valve cover as best as I could in situ & got it pulled. I also cleaned each bolt as I pulled them since they were pretty skanky. 
 

I wiped off the cam lobes & didn't see any damage, nor did I find any debris in the lifter valley.