Hi, my name is Fernando… or Fern for short 
anyway, to start this off…
I literally put blood, sweat, and tears into this thing, and chose to gave up plenty of times.
I bought the car back early 07 in February. I was still a noob and didnt really know much about cars, jus only the fact if it to looked cool, i wanted it. if it had mad jdm tyte parts, i wanted it. If it was fast, I wanted it. Only to find out, thats where my problems would start.
Looking thru craigslist, I came upon this baby… first thought, I LOVED the body line, I wanted it. I went on ahead to check it out. The seller, was where all the bs began. I cant blame him tho, he picked a weak target and I fell thru with it. Remember, I was only a noob and didnt know shit.
He begins by saying, it has a fully built ls vtec and its ready for turbo… do you not know how badass that sounded to me? then he moved on to the wheels… he said they were Spoon sw388’s… again, sounded pretty mad jdm tyte, I wanted it. He was making such a big deal about the car… and he convinced me to buy it, he sold it to me for 3k. I know i know… what a dumbass yada yada yada, heard it all. My mistake. My hell begins.
The two pics above were taken the first week of having the car in my hands, I was in love with her. Problem was, in that whole week, I encountered all the problems im sure the previous owner had, but didnt wanna tell me. She was smoking… and bad. I didnt know it was that big of a deal and simply thought a catalytic converter would fix the problem, of course it didnt. The head started leaking. Then it started to misfire. I was like, ok, this is crazy… the first week, and all these problems already? So i had my pos mechanic (he really is a pos, which will be mentioned later) take a look at it… only to find, the plugs waay outta date, thermostat housing and water pump leaking, annnd the oil pump cracked and leaking. WTF, I call the seller about these problems, and of course no answer. Never heard from him again.
Only a week into the car, and ALL these problems.
About seven months later, while running with all the leaks, My rod bearings decide to go out. Of course, how was I supposed to know whether a pinging sound which gradually got louder thru every gear, was bad. The noise got sooo loud i decided to get my pos mechanic to take a look… of course he said it needed bearings. Of course I was sad.
My mechanic charged me a total of 800 dollars to rebuild my motor. Of course i was gonna fork it up, I loved the car. During the time, I thought you needed to be a mad scientist to take that shit apart, heeeeello ls vtec?!?! shits was tyte yo!
He rebuilds the motor with fel-pro everything, head studs, seals, etc etc. Replaced the water and oil pump, timing belt, with pepboys brand… yeah bad ass. Of course, with the knowledge i have now, the mechanic did not know what he was doing. I remember him stating that the motor setup was weird, and I didnt know much about it. I thought he knew what he was doing.
During the week of the rebuild, I decide to get my homies to help me prime the car. We finish the task the same day. During the process tho, we sat down and I started thinking of the struggles im already having with the car. I looked at the wheels and told myself, at least those havent broke on me… they’re spoons. Then my boy stated those arent spoons, those are ROTAs… oook buddy, you dont know shit. Waaaait… are they?? I went online and tried to figure out whether they were spoons or not. I took the wheels off and… yup, ROTA.
At this point I was more mad at myself for even falling for the sellers trick. I was mad, sad, disappointed, you name it. I didnt know what to do, I started realizing how much of a mistake i made. My motor was fucked, my car looked like shit, and my wheels were reps.
That same day I ended up spraying the wheels…
The rebuild was finished, and it sounded nice! no smoke, no noise, no problems! sweet. I drive it for about another month, and there were zero problems. Soo i decide to get it painted. The painter lagged it on the job and never finished… it needed clear coat.
All I ended up doing was paint the moldings.
After a month from the rebuild, problems began again…
First problem encountered, while driving home, back from work… cruising about 45mph, I started to feel my wheel sorta wobble… then snap and grind!! my whole right side jus dropped and the whole car shook, scary!! the car came to a halt on its own… I got outta the car and looked… my passenger wheel was almost laying parallel to the street… what now? My lower ball joint didnt snap, the control arm jus slipped off. I didnt know whether or not to blame the mechanic. I ended up jus putting in another nut and cotter pin. Then… same week, The same noise i heard from my previous motor problem came back to haunt me. Another spun rod bearing, and i also noticed another small leak from the head again. WOW, my mechanic too huh? I was running short on money and my patience was done. I knew what i had to do so i jus left it parked.
Exactly a year after buying the car. I go on craigslist again, and instead of replacing my bearings, I bought a ls vtec longblock with CTR pistons for 300 bucks. The guy said, it was freshly built. Of course my stupidity takes over again, and buys it. The next available day i had off, I decide to start doing my own work… So i pulled my motor and swapped in the “freshly built” longblock. To my surprise, it was easy and fun! It even fired right up with no CEL. I was a happy man.
Next day, I drove it around the block and i noticed it was running kinda rough, it was even smoking… a lot! I even noticed, antifreeze was spurting out the exhaust and started hearing a mean ass, super loud, clashing sound coming from the motor. Alright here we go… I got fed up. 07 was my bad year and now 08 is beginning to look the same way. So i take the motor out again and said to myself, you know what? imma take my shit apart myself. I gathered up a lot of info, books, internet, g2ic. Again, easy and fun!
this is what i found.
Ok, so now im depressed.
I tried to make a better car and failed.
Looking thru the build threads on various sites… building a motor was the last thing on my mind, but it seemed like something fun to do. So i took the task, of course i knew my car would be parked for a loooong time but hey, im sure its worth it. Plus i was already thousands of dollars into the car already. After a lot of studying… Dec came around, and I bought my first b18b1 bare block.
During 09, and mid 2010… parts piled up and every chance i had to touch my motor, was taken.
:jerkoff::ohyeah:
:drool::whisper: uhhh, more pics of its current status please…
