Wondering if anyone wanted to buy a db2 shell?

I have a 92 db2, Aztec green leather interior.
So, its bard for a 94 gsr, doesn’t have the original b17. Thing is, it owes alottt in past due registration from previous owner. I’m still deciding if I should just let the DMV kick me in the balls , or pull the swap and sell the shell.
Car isn’t mint, interior has cracked ripped seats. Previous owner changed the passenger door and didn’t align it right and it dented the fender.
Just wondering what someone would pay for the shell? It owes 800+ in tags. Clean title. Ca .

Post up some more info like mileage and pics of the damage and engine bay. Without more details it’s impossible to get an accurate valuation. Value will be most dependent on paint/body condition followed closely by how stock it is vs how much it’s been modified, hacked up, or stripped of its original parts.

Pics

All the pics it let’s me upload.

Thanks for posting those pics. I see some good and some bad. Overall the shell looks pretty clean - always hard to tell, but is there any fading or dings/dents/scratches that aren’t visible in the pics? So far all I see for the exterior is that it needs a new fender and front lip then the bumpers need paint. Oh, and needs headlights. So that’s good.

What looks really fishy is the engine compartment. Looks as if the radiator support has been cut - possibly to fit an intercooler or turbo or something. That’s a big red flag. First because if you’re picky (and thus willing to pay top dollar for a DB2) then you’re going to want to replace the radiator support. Second because if someone cut that, what other mods did they do which can’t be seen? What holes have been drilled, what has been removed…etc. Wiring looks a little hacked up and there are some extra holes drilled in the firewall. Also looks like A/C and PS have been removed.

If the interior was in good condition then I’d think this shell would be worth $750-$1250 depending on the severity of some of the issues I pointed out. Most of that can’t be seen except in person or with higher quality photos. Without seeing pics of the interior damage (and any modifications) it’s hard to say for sure but if seats are cracked then I’d expect $500-$750 for the value. I think as a shell you’d be lucky to give it away for next to nothing with all those back registration fees. No one is going to want to pay $1000 for the shell and another $800+ for reg. I’d think the most people would want to pay would be a couple hundred bucks + reg + towing, and even that seems like that might be a stretch. If you put the engine in it then it’ll probably be easier to sell simply because it’ll be moving under it’s own power and won’t need to be towed. With an engine, headlights, and if it passes smog you could probably get around $1250-1750 depending on the overall condition of the interior and exterior, what transmission it has…etc all that little stuff. If I were you I’d basically try to decide whether you want the car or not. If you want it, then pay the tags and fix it up. If you don’t want it, then I’d be prepared to basically break even when selling it. Shell + selling the b18c separate is probably about the same compared to selling it as a running car.

I wish you were local as I’m currently casually looking for a DB2 shell. But the distance, some red flags and those back fees make it seem like maybe this one wouldn’t work for me.

Here are a couple examples of other shells out there:
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sgv/cto/5012758058.html
This one looks like a good buy but I contacted the seller and the engine bay was tucked/shaved - which basically ruins the value of the car. If it was done well then it might not be a huge problem but the pics he sent me look terrible. Engine bay needs to be completely stripped and redone and since it was shaved it’ll never be what it could have been. I think the car is worth more in parts than it is as a whole since it would be so expensive to put back together.

http://forums.g2ic.com/showthread.php?218446-FLORIDA-Miami-1992-DB-ROLLER-no-motor-tranny
This car has been for sale for probably close to a year now. Restoring the interior and exterior is going to be thousands and thousands - likely more than it would be worth when it’s done. I think this thing is really only worth the value of the new Koni shocks he’s including with the sale.

Colin has made some very valid points, also please let me know if you decide to part it out as I’ll buy both side view mirrors for my wifes AGP DB2 and possibly the wing.

Thanks for the input. I thought because its bard for the very popular b18c1 it would be worth something. And clean title. At least here in ca. I do have the headlights and an extra fender( black) the wiring was hacked by me Lol I quickly ghetto rigged some peak and hold injectors to see if it would fire up. I didn’t noticethe radiator support tho, this was my first integra buy so I didn’t pay attention to it. So hard to decide to keep or part. How much am I looking to get ( average pricing) if part out?
I want the car mainly for the color Lol. Here where I live there is soo many DA, DC, eg, ek, EF. For one to really break my neck it would have to be like the Tahitian green EF, super clean DA with one piece and hood bra. Or the Aztec green gsr DA. I’veseen one here about a yr ago, it was pretty much the only da I’ve seen that almost made me crash Lol.

Oh and compared to the red gsr from Miami cl. My interior is basically the same. Except Idk why his carpet is white? Maybe its just my phone. My carpet is dark gray. And my paint is shinier. Just washing the car makes the paint shine. If I waxed it it’d look a lot better. Mine is fading paint on the spoiler( clear coat) and I think on the roof near the sunroof. That red gsr paint looks like plastic dip to me.
What would you do? Pull the swap, maybe spoiler and hatch, and buy a DA clean shell? Swap everything over? Re bar it? I figure a really clean tags up to date, rolling DA shell won’t be cheap, I’m thinking 800$. Which is what I’d pay for registration on mine, cept of course the agp color.
1 option- sell my EF, to pay for db2 project.
2 option- sell my EFand db2 and gsr swap, plus 2 cable trannys and misc stuff, and just play around with my ek and maybe buy a truck as a daily.

That’s really hard to tell what you’d be able to get for a part out because I’m not sure what parts you have. But sounds like there aren’t many things that you have which you can sell which aren’t any different from any other DA, so it’s not like you’d be getting premium prices. The BAR sticker is nice, but in my experience people don’t really pay much extra for cars with that and really with a DB2 it doesn’t matter that much because everyone wants to keep them original and have a b17a.

Your problem really is the back fees and the only way to get around that is to scrap it. You could get a few hundred bucks parting out stuff like the doors, spoiler, bumpers, and lights but that’d really be a shame to scrap it just to make a couple hundred bucks. And who knows, maybe you could find a buyer willing to give you a few hundred for it anyway and then it’d be out of your hands. Might be worth just posting it for sale and see what happens. If you were local I’d definitely come take a look at it. I think you need to decide what you want, I don’t think there’s a lot of money to be made off of any of this so you should make your decision on what you WANT and what is practical for you (money, time, storage space…etc).

  1. Do you want money? If you want money, then part it out, sell your other “fun” cars and buy something boring to daily. Modifying cars is always throwing away money.
  2. Do you want an AGP DB2? If so, then just pay the tags and put this one back together. What you have there is definitely worth $800 - maybe not any more than that but it’s definitely worth the back reg fees. If you told me I could have it and all I had to do was pay the tags I’d be all over it (assuming I were closer and wouldn’t have to pay $500-1000 on travel/transport). If you look at paying the $800 in fees as just buying an $800 DB2 shell then that seems like a good buy.
  3. Do you want to build an EF or EK? Then sell or part out the DB2.

Personally I think it’d be a shame to see this car parted out. They are becoming more and more rare but unfortunately market value doesn’t seem to be changing much so I suspect ones like this will continue to be scrapped when it doesn’t yet make sense to fix them. If it was me I’d pay the tags immediately so they don’t keep adding up and then I’d fix it up and try to rebuild it to a nice weekend driver - something that I babied, kept garaged…etc. II’d sell the EF to fund the DB2 rebuild and then keep the EK stock for daily purposes.

How much are you asking? let me know greazemunkey73@yahoo thanks

Hmm yeah. Well i payed 1k for the gsr, but it got impounded becauseI had it parked in the street without tags, had to pay 450 to get out. It did come with tokicos blues (3) DC ones, 1 stock and 3 eibach sport lines. Skunk2 intake, unusued flowmaster cat, random exhaust piping. Yeah Iam ddefinitely leaning towards keeping it, touching up the areas that need paint.
I have 4 cars, one ls tranny, the tranny in the gsr (unknown ) b16 LSD tranny, b16a2 swap, and random things. My plan was to sell the EF, pay the db2, put new syncs in the b16 and put ls 5th. Put that with the b18c1 in the gsr, have that ready to drive, and then put the b16a2 in my ek because its sorta legal. My main problem is committing tho.

i would be VERY interested in that shell.

The guy I bought my rear visor has an agp shell not as shiny as yours plus the bumper in different color intact interior with an armrest he was asking 500 for it and no back fees actually he has two a red gsr shell but the ago looked better than the red. I think darussianeone already saw the pictures back then.

I saw an agp at pick n pull like 2 months ago. Made me sad to see it there. Like 4000 of these. Were released in america 23 years ago right? I figure at least 50 ( 1 per state) get scrapped/ totaled a year. 50 x 23 yrs equals 1000 less db2s in total, hypothetically speaking. Probably right now 2.5k- 3k left . another 10 years from now probably less than 2k db2s would be left.
They’dbe worth something in the long run. I saw a crx si Tahitian green go for 6k on an eBay auction. I don’t think its long before the db2s go for around that price.

Do you know if that guy still has one or more of those shells? I might be interested.

[QUOTE=db2gsr92;2327475]I saw an agp at pick n pull like 2 months ago. Made me sad to see it there. Like 4000 of these. Were released in america 23 years ago right? I figure at least 50 ( 1 per state) get scrapped/ totaled a year. 50 x 23 yrs equals 1000 less db2s in total, hypothetically speaking. Probably right now 2.5k- 3k left . another 10 years from now probably less than 2k db2s would be left.
They’dbe worth something in the long run. I saw a crx si Tahitian green go for 6k on an eBay auction. I don’t think its long before the db2s go for around that price.[/QUOTE]
$6k for a CRX is cheap. 2nd Gen CRX Si’s in A+ condition can go for $10k+ on ebay currently. And A+ condition DB2’s are already worth about $6k as well. There was a REALLY clean AGP one that just sold for $6k: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Acura-Integra-GS-R-/171747359430?forcerrptr=true&hash=item27fcf0bac6&item=171747359430 But there are very few left in that good of condition and people are reluctant to pay top dollar for anything that is in less than perfect condition because so many OEM parts are discontinued and getting a car painted is extremely expensive if you want it done to OEM quality standards. That’s why most people can’t justify spending $3500 on a DB2 that doesn’t have the original B17a and needs a $3000-4000 paint job - the car simply wouldn’t be worth the money they put into it. But I do think that you’re right, at some point these will have a much higher value. As time passes and more and more deteriorate and are scrapped the price for the high quality ones will go up and people will be more willing to fork over the $$ to refinish/rebuild ones that are in less than ideal condition. Unfortunately with the lack of OEM parts it’s going to be impossible to restore most of those to “like new” unless someone starts making aftermarket replacement parts (window trim, moldings, engine bay grommets/clips…etc).

True. The b17 isn’t all that hard to find really. On cl right now there’s the short block for 400… And I think the head is just a pr3 head? I might pick it up just in case I ever want to fully restore the db2.

They’re hard to find when you need one and seem to be all over the place when you don’t. I blew mine a couple years ago but replaced it with an ITR engine. Then a couple months ago found a dismantled b17a drivetrain for a good price and bought it. I don’t have any use for it, but figure it might be good to have a spare engine or maybe I can find a DB2 shell to drop it in. I’ve also seen that b17a block you’re talking about in Ventura. If it was closer to me I’d consider buying that too, lol. And yes, the b17a head is the same as a b16a head which is pretty abundant. You do have to be really careful buying engines though, often people don’t know the full history or won’t tell you. And personally I never like to buy a block which has been rebuilt (or at least has never been bored). Personally I don’t put very high value on any used engine unless it was just imported and not swapped stateside or you know the car it came from and the history. Anything that’s been swapped, rebuilt…etc likely has a lot of little issues and sometimes big issues (last b18c block I bought turned out to have a cracked sleeve).

I know what you mean, buying an engine that you personally can’t hear running or test drive is always a huge risk. My best buy was a crack head deal of a b16a2 long block, p30 obd1 intake manifold, DCheader, b16 cableLsd … Pretty much complete… For 200$ Lol. But the guy didn’t know what he had. His words " Idk what type of motor it is, all I know is its a dohc vtec"

Yeah that’s a killer deal!

[QUOTE=Colin;2327491]Do you know if that guy still has one or more of those shells? I might be interested.

$6k for a CRX is cheap. 2nd Gen CRX Si’s in A+ condition can go for $10k+ on ebay currently. And A+ condition DB2’s are already worth about $6k as well. There was a REALLY clean AGP one that just sold for $6k: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Acura-Integra-GS-R-/171747359430?forcerrptr=true&hash=item27fcf0bac6&item=171747359430 But there are very few left in that good of condition and people are reluctant to pay top dollar for anything that is in less than perfect condition because so many OEM parts are discontinued and getting a car painted is extremely expensive if you want it done to OEM quality standards. That’s why most people can’t justify spending $3500 on a DB2 that doesn’t have the original B17a and needs a $3000-4000 paint job - the car simply wouldn’t be worth the money they put into it. But I do think that you’re right, at some point these will have a much higher value. As time passes and more and more deteriorate and are scrapped the price for the high quality ones will go up and people will be more willing to fork over the $$ to refinish/rebuild ones that are in less than ideal condition. Unfortunately with the lack of OEM parts it’s going to be impossible to restore most of those to “like new” unless someone starts making aftermarket replacement parts (window trim, moldings, engine bay grommets/clips…etc).[/QUOTE]

I think he still has them both Collin he is in San Jose area though he asked me if someone might be looking for those shell.