This has been a long time coming and many have been asking recently and I have finally gotten this all finished and documented.
So as some of you might have seen in November 2010 my long standing continuous project, my Acura TSX met a terrible fate, I hit a dear at 70mph on the interstate. You can see the carnage from it below.
If you haven’t seen it or read about it you can read more and see pictures of what happened in this link.
http://www.tsxclub.com/forums/tsx-build-threads/48592-amazing-sunday-afternoon-pictures-updated-9-27-a.html
After the accident it was about a month and a half till I had time to move the car from NC to PA so I could begin tearing it down to see the extent of the damage and what parts would be needed for the repair. It also took a while to get things coordinated with the insurance company since I was working in NC and they wanted me in PA when they had the adjuster look at the car so I could explain things about all the parts and what not to them. Below are some pictures from the tear down process.
I am always planning to do new things to the car and one thing I had wanted to do for a while was either RHD conversion or a 6MT swap along with increased boost with the supercharger setup. In this case I thought the 6MT swap was the more cost effective route. Since I wanted to do an 6MT swap I began looking for a wrecked 6MT specifically with NAV from 2004 or 2005 as I didn’t like the changes to the gauges in 2006+. Now if any of you know a lot of details about the TSX there were not a lot of 6MT sold to begin with and were even fewer sold with NAV and 6MT. So with all that being said I was not up for an easy task of finding a semi local (or even continental US) wrecked car with little to no front end damage.
After a few months with no success finding a donor car I decided to at least order the replacement parts that would be needed in March 2011 as they would take a while to arrive. It had taken a while for me to get around to ordering the parts after still being bummed about the whole incident in the first place so I was already getting a late start on things.
I continued searching for donor cars while also finalizing the plan for other upgrades I was planning to do during the rebuild. I didn’t really just want to buy parts to do the 6MT swap as I am a bit OCD and wanted everything about the swap to look factory perfect so a donor car was the only way to not have to buy any little missing piece constantly from the dealer.
After having looking for a car for about 9 months I was really beginning to get irritated. I had found a few but lost the insurance auctions for the cars cause of either loosing internet connection at work at the last second or just feeling that the cars were bid higher than they were actually worth. About this time my dad also mentioned he was looking for a good commuter car that got good mileage, comfortable to drive, and pretty cheap to maintain. I told him that the TSX would fit all those need and I had torn mine apart so many times I could do most of the service on it for him. He wasn’t opposed to the idea so I started searching for a good condition 6MT with NAV that I could have torn apart. After finding a few higher priced ones we found a few good candidates and went to test drive them. We ended up purchasing one in October so I finally had the donor car for the swap. The other car would be converted to an AT using the parts from my car. Below are pictures of the donor car.
Just after this I began receiving my various shipments of parts from Japan in November I was finally able to start to get everything together for the rebuild to start. At this point I began coordinating with the shops I had chosen for a rough timeline of how things would go from one shop to the next.
At this time I unfortunately got busy with things on a personal level with the holidays and also with work so unfortunately things didn’t get underway then until March 2012. Below are some pictures of the new parts that came in. I made sure to replace parts that were damaged or destroyed even if I was not going to replace them right away. I also picked up some parts I was not sure I was going to use right away as they flowed with the theme of the car of mostly J’s Racing parts.
J's Racing Temperature Switch
J's Racing Fan Switch
J's Racing Radiator Cap & Oil Cap
J's Racing Samco Blue Radiator Hoses (Discontinued)
J's Racing Upper Control Arms
J's Racing Rear Upper Camber Arms
J's Racing Rear Lower Camber Arms
J's Racing Header
So as some of you might have seen in November 2010 my long standing continuous project, my Acura TSX met a terrible fate, I hit a dear at 70mph on the interstate. You can see the carnage from it below.
If you haven’t seen it or read about it you can read more and see pictures of what happened in this link.
http://www.tsxclub.com/forums/tsx-build-threads/48592-amazing-sunday-afternoon-pictures-updated-9-27-a.html
After the accident it was about a month and a half till I had time to move the car from NC to PA so I could begin tearing it down to see the extent of the damage and what parts would be needed for the repair. It also took a while to get things coordinated with the insurance company since I was working in NC and they wanted me in PA when they had the adjuster look at the car so I could explain things about all the parts and what not to them. Below are some pictures from the tear down process.
I am always planning to do new things to the car and one thing I had wanted to do for a while was either RHD conversion or a 6MT swap along with increased boost with the supercharger setup. In this case I thought the 6MT swap was the more cost effective route. Since I wanted to do an 6MT swap I began looking for a wrecked 6MT specifically with NAV from 2004 or 2005 as I didn’t like the changes to the gauges in 2006+. Now if any of you know a lot of details about the TSX there were not a lot of 6MT sold to begin with and were even fewer sold with NAV and 6MT. So with all that being said I was not up for an easy task of finding a semi local (or even continental US) wrecked car with little to no front end damage.
After a few months with no success finding a donor car I decided to at least order the replacement parts that would be needed in March 2011 as they would take a while to arrive. It had taken a while for me to get around to ordering the parts after still being bummed about the whole incident in the first place so I was already getting a late start on things.
I continued searching for donor cars while also finalizing the plan for other upgrades I was planning to do during the rebuild. I didn’t really just want to buy parts to do the 6MT swap as I am a bit OCD and wanted everything about the swap to look factory perfect so a donor car was the only way to not have to buy any little missing piece constantly from the dealer.
After having looking for a car for about 9 months I was really beginning to get irritated. I had found a few but lost the insurance auctions for the cars cause of either loosing internet connection at work at the last second or just feeling that the cars were bid higher than they were actually worth. About this time my dad also mentioned he was looking for a good commuter car that got good mileage, comfortable to drive, and pretty cheap to maintain. I told him that the TSX would fit all those need and I had torn mine apart so many times I could do most of the service on it for him. He wasn’t opposed to the idea so I started searching for a good condition 6MT with NAV that I could have torn apart. After finding a few higher priced ones we found a few good candidates and went to test drive them. We ended up purchasing one in October so I finally had the donor car for the swap. The other car would be converted to an AT using the parts from my car. Below are pictures of the donor car.
Just after this I began receiving my various shipments of parts from Japan in November I was finally able to start to get everything together for the rebuild to start. At this point I began coordinating with the shops I had chosen for a rough timeline of how things would go from one shop to the next.
At this time I unfortunately got busy with things on a personal level with the holidays and also with work so unfortunately things didn’t get underway then until March 2012. Below are some pictures of the new parts that came in. I made sure to replace parts that were damaged or destroyed even if I was not going to replace them right away. I also picked up some parts I was not sure I was going to use right away as they flowed with the theme of the car of mostly J’s Racing parts.
J's Racing Temperature Switch
J's Racing Fan Switch
J's Racing Radiator Cap & Oil Cap
J's Racing Samco Blue Radiator Hoses (Discontinued)
J's Racing Upper Control Arms
J's Racing Rear Upper Camber Arms
J's Racing Rear Lower Camber Arms
J's Racing Header