The v6 6 speed sedan Traccord

Figured I’d start a build thread here instead of clogging up Seth’s Traccord thread.  

I have an ‘06 6 speed sedan, I bought it in February ‘18, 1 owner car bone stock and in great shape aesthetically with 91k miles on it.  Currently I’m at 125,000.  So needless to say, this car has seen a lot of my rear end in the driver’s seat. 

As a DD I haven’t done anything crazy yet, and all the mods I’ve done I’ve had to justify to mrs Gaza as being for reliability purposes.  So a big brake upgrade is for stopping the car better, new slave cylinder with check valve delete is to make the clutch last longer, RV6 precat deletes are so that the cats don’t desinegrate into the engine... 

So a recent promotion at work has netted me a ‘19 F150 as a work vehicle and DD.  So now I can turn the Accord into a fun car.  I’ve never gotten into motor sports but a few of my buddies autocross so that’s likely what I’d get into, for starters at any rate.   

The Traccord thread has been very inspiring and Seth is a true pioneer.  The Accord forums are mostly dead and though very informative there’s a whole lot of ricers cluttering the pages.  Lot of bad info to sift through, as usual.  

So today, before leaving for work (truck probably won’t show up for another couple weeks) I did a full clean out of the Accord and also pulled the spare tire and jack.  I drive with at least 80lbs of junk in my car all the time, and i wanted to feel what the car would drive like without all the junk.  Also, I’ve never pulled the spare tire and accessories which is at least 40lbs.  

Holy crap what a difference.   The car is always quick for what it is but I was really ripping today.  The acceleration and handling were both markedly improved.  

This definitely means that I need to seriously look at cutting weight.  Trying to do this without spending a ton of money - no expensive lightweight rims, for instance - so the lowhanging fruit like the 4 OEM weights that are some kind of vibration reducers need to go.  

If I didn't need a wagon right now, I'd have bought one of these! Looking forward to this build. Have fun!

Number1Gaza said:

So today, before leaving for work (truck probably won’t show up for another couple weeks) I did a full clean out of the Accord and also pulled the spare tire and jack.  I drive with at least 80lbs of junk in my car all the time, and i wanted to feel what the car would drive like without all the junk.  Also, I’ve never pulled the spare tire and accessories which is at least 40lbs.  

Holy crap what a difference.   The car is always quick for what it is but I was really ripping today.  The acceleration and handling were both markedly improved.  

This definitely means that I need to seriously look at cutting weight.  Trying to do this without spending a ton of money - no expensive lightweight rims, for instance - so the lowhanging fruit like the 4 OEM weights that are some kind of vibration reducers need to go.  

You can get cheap wheels that are lighter than your stock ones.. 

You are literally doing what Seth wanted to see happen.. Inspire people to enjoy the cars cause the chassis is super solid. 

You'll have a bunch of fun. 

Welcome to the rabbithole 

I do think it's a good chassis and a super accessible car that's very good at the day to day job of being a car. Looking forward to following along. 

Personally I think it’s one of the best daily drivers ever made.  Roomy, comfortable seats, good build quality, logical controls and plenty of creature comforts, and the 6 speed transmission coupled with the smooth v6 has got to be one of the best powertrains in a family sedan ever.  Plus Honda reliability, good gas mileage, and it’ll run on regular fuel.  

The great thing is that just a few mods turn this thing from a family cruiser into a real drivers car.  The chassis has good bones but is set up for grandma and grandpa, not a driving enthusiast.  Massive understeer due to the microscopic 13mm rear sway bar, very soft suspension, and the brakes are crap.  Also the engine is muffled to death from the massive stock intake resonator, and the stock exhaust flows like absolute dog poo.    

Most of these problems are fixed by OEM bolt-ons though.  I’m running 11.8 inch accord coupe rotors (sedan came with 11.1” rotors) combined with accord coupe brackets and 1995 Acura legend GS dual piston calipers.  Boom, crap brakes fixed.  I have a 19mm rear sway bar from an ‘03 Acura TL-s, and that $28 junkyard part fixes the understeer basically by itself.  Yanking the intake resonator was free, now I can hear the engine.  The only thing that was decent money was replacing the precats with straight pipes, but that was legitimately a reliability mod; the engine expels heat much more efficiently without cats attached directly to the block, and straight pipes won’t fall apart and shoot ceramic in my cylinders.  

Next I need to figure out stiffer springs; thinking of trying to grab some TL springs and cut them a bit.  Should be the cheap way to go until I figure out if I want to spring for full coil overs or not.  Seth thanks for that idea!

So here’s the real question.  I just read through the $2000 challenge rules.  Sounds super awesome.  

So have a chance to buy a 1991 Toyota MR2 non-turbo for somewhere in the neighborhood of $1500.   It runs and drives but it’s mostly in pieces, just a project that one of my best friends has had for 12 year and never finished.  Interior is completely stripped in pieces, it needs paint, and who knows what shape everything is in.  The car has been in storage for 12 years.  

However, a ton of parts will come with this car.  Full custom turbo kit, rebuilt engine internals, body kit with custom mounts and supports so it actually has an aero benefit, full 4” dual exhaust, adjustable rear spoiler, short shifter, 2 sets of rims, probably some other goodies.  

If I went ahead and bought this car, I’d likely have to sell the Accord.  But this MR2 has a really special place in my heart.   12 years ago my best friend bought the car off eBay, had it shipped from California to New Jersey.  We used to ride in it all the time.  Young and stupid.  Running anyone and everyone at stoplights.  Then the head gasket blew and it’s been in storage ever since.  I’d love to bring it back to life.

the question is: is it worth selling the accord for?  I should be able to get at least 5k for the accord, plenty of cash to build a really competitive $2000 challenge mr2.  But I love the accord.  So idk.  Both would be ideal but my budget can only support 1 project at a time.  

What do you want to OWN? what will you walk outside to and think to yourself, "hell yes! I am one arrived motherberkeleyer!" In Samuel l. Jacksons voice? 

And do you have a reasonable daily to allow a large scope mr2 project?

Personally I'm weird and would rather have the Accord. It checks more boxes in my mind and I've learned to love cars that can multitask. But I'm not you. I don't know your needs and I don't know your heart. I know I'm terrible about getting rid of cars so if I buy a car for a Challenge project I definitely want to have another use for it long term.

I have a brand new Ford F-150 that is supposed to be delivered to my door in 2 weeks.  My employer is providing it to me as part of a promotion.  unlimited personal use, gas card, insurance, full service for the life of the vehicle, all paid for by work. 

So quite suddenly I’m going from a 13 year old 125k mile DD to having a completely free DD and being able to afford a fun vehicle.  So either I build the Accord as an autocrosser, or I sell the accord, buy the MR2 and build it as an $2k car for 2020.  I really think I could be competitive.  

I agree that the Accord is a far better multi-purpose vehicle.  But the Mr2 is a far better track car.  Plus it still has a sentimental spot in my heart.  So idk.  

One of the best things about an Accord is that you can always buy another one. There are currently 7 manual Accords on my local Craigslist. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

Idk about that, v6 6 speeds aren’t impossible to find but 6 speed sedan’s are pretty rare.  Bunch of guys on v6p did the math and figured that between 4000 and 6000 were made total, between ‘06 and 07.  

At any rate, if it ever happens the Mr2 won’t be an option for a little while.  In the meantime I’m not gonna quit modding the accord.  I just bought an 850lb/square in. Mountain bike shock.  Gonna turn it into an engine torque damper.  I’m aware that’s quite ghetto but for $14 it was cheaper and likely better than the crap $28 generic torque dampers on fleabay.  Once it comes in I gotta fab up some brackets to make it all work.  

Work has been crazy so I haven’t gotten much time to work on the car lately.  Finally got an hour today to do a couple small things.

 I removed the subframe damper and damper bracket.  6lbs or so gone.  

I checked for the weight inside the front bumper frame that Seth noted on his 4 cylinder coupe but interestingly my ‘06 sedan does not have one. 

Then I decided to hollow out my giant Honda emblem to provide more airflow to the radiator.  I used a drill and a razor blade to remove the plastic surrounding the H.  There is also a fairly decent sized plastic shield in front of the horn connections and hood latch, blocking the radiator behind the emblem.  So i removed that.  End result:  

Now will that actually have any effect?  Eh, doubtful, but it can’t hurt... and it’s free!

I helped the Accord with some more weight loss this afternoon.  I pulled the trunk lid liner and found a small damper weight on the very back of the trunk lid, so I unbolted that.  It only weighs 1 lb or so but hey every bit helps.  

Then I pulled the actual trunk liner.  Found a bunch of sound deadening that sort of felt like spray-on truck bedliner coating the spare tire well.  I chipped some of that out... didn’t have any dry ice handy to get all of it but some of it was already peeling.  Then I found some heavy foam sound deadening lining the sides of the trunk behind the liner.  I pulled all that out.  When i put everything back together, I inspected the trunk floor mat and found that it’s actually 2 pieces of wood with carpet on one side and foam on the other.  It’s probably 8ish lbs.  so I pulled that out and stuck it in a storage closet.  

I weighed the sound deadening and came up with 5 lbs, plus 1 lb for the damper weight and 8lbs for the truck floor piece.  13 lbs lost, 18 with the subframe damper weight I pulled off yesterday.  I think I’m running out of free lowhanging fruit... I guess the floor mats can go but I’ll have to hunt around for anything else.  Wonder how much sound deadening is under the cabin carpets, and how much of a tin can the car will become if I remove it?

This evening I did a full clean out of all storage compartments in the car, cleaned under the seats, and pulled the floor mats, which are about 6 lbs combined.  I think that’s about it for the really lowhanging fruit.  

Then I took the car for a drive.  It’s stunning how much a small weight loss affects the car’s responsiveness.  Truly incredible.  

Truck finally came in, so today the Accord was parked in the back corner of a warehouse at work.  It is now officially my fun project car.  

I also realized that I have a full aluminum safety ladder and cage that was damaged at work, and has been sitting around waiting to go to the scrap yard.  It occurred to me that I could probably make good use of that aluminum.  There are all kinds of sizes and shapes and thicknesses of aluminum with this thing.   I am going to try and fabricate some front and rear bumper crash beams to start, since scoring an accord hybrid at a junkyard like Seth did seems unlikely and I don’t want to delete the crash beams entirely.

When this might happen is all up in the air.  Gaza kid #4 is scheduled to be born Monday, assuming Mrs Gaza doesn’t go into labor before then.  I won’t be working on the car for a while.  

Babies slow stuff down, and that's fine. Babies are cool and grow up into people that you can take out driving. Best of luck. 

So I got the snip snip today, 4 Gaza kids is plenty.  Probably pushing my luck scheduling it so close to the due date but o well.. 

Sitting on ice packs watching tv isn’t my idea of fun.  So I brought the Accord intake manifold and throttle body home, with the idea of sitting on an ice pack and porting them.  Got the throttle body done so far.   I eliminated the lip on the back half of the throttle body, enlarged the opening all the way around, and created a sort of trumpet shape at the opening by just about knife-edging the outer lip where the intake clamps on.  Took me about 2 hrs.   I’m pretty happy with how it came out.  

 I get mine done next week. Thanks for the idea of spending the time sitting on an ice pack porting and polishing aluminum. The fantastic idea.

I’ve been back at work the last couple days, after a week off for the birth of Gaza kid #4.  Of course the Accord is there, calling me, so I’ve been working on it the last few days.  

I’ve thought for a while that I have bent valves, and there’s definitely an oil leak behind the timing belt.  After pulling off the valve covers with the initial thought of doing a valve adjustment and seeing if that helps the loud ticking, I said heck with it and began removing the timing components so I can pull the heads.  I’ve never removed the heads from an engine so this is new territory for me.  

My thought is to check the pistons and cylinders and determine the bottom end health, as well as replace any bent valves, and also take care of the oil leak. If everything is healthy I’ll probably do a slight port on the heads as well, nothing crazy but at least gasket match the runner side and clean up the casting marks.

 I also picked up what looks like a brand new power steering pump from the junkyard Monday, it was just hanging out on a car that just came in and has zero corrosion or grime or anything.  Total score.  OEM unit too not a reman.  So we’ll see if that helps the unusually stiff steering - the power steering pump that came with the car is a crappy reman unit. 

So far the timing belt is off... and I managed to strip one of the side motor mount bolts.  Crap.  Hopefully I won’t snap off the tap in the bolt hole, like I did when I stripped one of the bolts that goes from the oil pan to the transmission...

Ok fellas I could use some help.  I got one of the heads off today.  Cylinders 4 and 6 look wonderful but cylinder 5, the one that had a spark plug blowout occur 30k miles ago, has scoring all around the entire cylinder and the top of the piston.    Here’s a couple pics:  

the question is: is this fixable/salvageable?  Or do I need a new block?  I’m sure i could pull the piston and resurface the cylinder but that’s a bunch of work when I could just go grab one of the j32a3 blocks hangin around every junkyard in america.  The other question is:  are the rings toast?  My guess is they are... pretty sure I’m burning oil in that cylinder.  

The valves actually look pretty good, so that’s something.  

did the pre cat deletes require a tune?

No, they make good gains without a tune.  Something like 8-10 hp and torque throughout the power band.  The biggest difference i noticed was that the engine doesn’t run out of breath at 6k rpm’s like it did before.  It pulls strongly to redline.  And that’s on an otherwise stock car, I’m sure the gains would be even better with some intake mods.

Number1Gaza said:

No, they make good gains without a tune.  Something like 8-10 hp and torque throughout the power band.  The biggest difference i noticed was that the engine doesn’t run out of breath at 6k rpm’s like it did before.  It pulls strongly to redline.  And that’s on an otherwise stock car, I’m sure the gains would be even better with some intake mods.

I was thinking more about the check engine light coming on with cat codes.

No the rv6 precat deletes come with o2 sensor defoulers.  I’ve never had a check engine with them.  And from what I’ve heard, as long as the engine is warm guys have passed monitor-in-the-tailpipe emissions tests with just the 3rd cat.